The Upputhara stone fall

Upputhara sits in the hills of Idukki district, Kerala, in the Western Ghats near the Tamil Nadu border, with the Periyar River to the east. In Ward 1 of the panchayat, two small houses stand on a small plot on a slope. One belonged to Suresh and Thresia, who lived there with four children aged 13, 11, 6 and 18 months. The other belonged to Selvaraj and Mary. The News Minute described them as Thresia's parents. The nearest other house was about 100 metres away.

The family home had three rooms including a kitchen. It had, in the words of The News Minute, "no proper doors or window panes."

2 July 2021. Suresh, a daily-wage worker, heard something hit the roof. "It was on July 2 that we first heard the sound of a stone falling on the roof top," he told IANS. "We rushed out to see who did it but did not find anyone out there."

It did not stop. "Stones, small to medium ones, have started raining down on our roof," Suresh said. "Day and night it happens, there is no particular time." The episodes lasted 15 to 30 minutes. Then came the detail that set the case apart. "We also saw the stones swirling in the air."

The family said the stones rose from the ground, swirled, and fell on the roof. A neighbour said the same. The IANS wire report added that onions and jackfruit seeds fell along with the stones. With no proper doors or window panes, stones scattered into the rooms. The roof was damaged. The six-year-old boy was hit and hurt. "We haven't experienced anything like this before, we were all living there so peacefully," Thresia said.

Suresh first suspected someone was harassing the family on purpose. He went to the police. Here the reports part ways. IANS said police and locals "first failed to believe, but when they saw for themselves, they believed." The News Minute quoted Suresh saying the police "didn't come to investigate even after two weeks."

The panchayat president, named James K. Joseph by IANS and James Jacob by The News Minute, went to the house himself. He described stones "seen going up and coming down," some landing on the roof while "some others hit the side walls. One has to see it to believe it." He moved both families out, saying the site would not be safe. According to The News Minute, they went to a nearby anganwadi, a village childcare centre. Thresia said they walked back at 5 am to cook. Even after the move, Suresh said, the stones continued to fall.

The panchayat notified the Geology Department. By 30 July, officials from Thodupuzha had visited. They "could not find any scientific reason behind this." A landslide warning, they reasoned, would bring some mud or soil with the stones. Stones alone falling was very unlikely.

The family's first thought was a person throwing stones. No culprit was ever named, and no report alleged or established a hoax. The landslide idea was considered and set aside by the geologists. No outlet used the word poltergeist. Still, the pattern matches the old idea of lithobolia: stones in short bursts at one house, nearby houses spared, as at Thornton Road in Birmingham in 1981 and the Guyra Ghost in Australia in 1921.

Coverage ended with the July 2021 news cycle. No report says when the stones stopped, whether the families went home, or whether the Geology Department filed a written finding. In Upputhara, the stones that swirled in the air were never explained.