Fort quotes a story in Comptes Rendus, 23-832, about a tremendous red rain in France, Oct. 16 and 17, 1846. The explanation was that the rain was colored by matter swept up from the earth’s surface and then precipitated. But a later issue of the journal, 24-625, described the rain as “so vividly red and so blood-like that many persons in France were terrified.” A chemist who analyzed the matter noted “a great quantity of corpuscles–whether blood-like corpuscles or not,” while another set down organic matter at 35%.
–Charles Fort, The Book of the Damned, p251 (The Complete Books of Charles Fort, Dover, c1974).