Hard rain's-a-fallin

[brownie]

From AFP:

Police investigate faeces-from-sky mystery in French village

MAUGUIO, France (AFP) - Police in a small village in southeast France are probing a mystery that is as puzzling as it is insalubrious: a rain of faeces that has dirtied houses and cars for years.

The main lead being followed up is the hypotheses that the excrement is being dumped by some of the many aircraft that use a flight path above the village of Mauguio on their way to the nearby Montpellier airport.

But according to one officer attached to the investigation, the discharge could not come from modern passenger planes, which have waste tanks to collect human waste.

"This excrement could come from other types of aircraft. In that case, it would be a thoughtless act similar to the bilge-flushing that ships sometimes do at sea," he said.

A local car-dealer raised the stink over the matter after becoming frustrated at having to constantly clean brown spots off the vehicles in his lot.

He had samples analysed by a laboratory which confirmed the residue came from mammals -- though it could not specify it came from humans -- and he lodged a formal police complaint last Friday.