It's a bird! It's a plane! It's strangers' feces!

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s strangers’ feces!

Air travel: bad for the environment, bad for your pool. At least if you’re Emma Gilfillan-Giannakos, an Ontario woman who heard loud “bomb”-like splashes when frozen shit from an airplane torpedoed into her swimming pool. How did she know it was shit?

Your support powers solutions-focused climate reporting — keeping it free for everyone. All donations DOUBLED for a limited time. Give now in under 45 seconds.
Secure · Tax deductible · Takes 45 Seconds

Stories like this don’t tell themselves.

Make others like it possible. Your support powers solutions-focused climate reporting — keeping it free for everyone. Give now in under 45 seconds.
Secure · Tax deductible · Takes 45 Seconds

I stuck my finger in it and I smelt it and … it smells like poo!

So basically, science.

Grist thanks its sponsors. Become one.

The flying turds also pelted her dog and landed in her garden. In a surprising twist, her insurance isn’t covering the damage.

Transport Canada hasn’t admitted it was frozen shit, but they WILL admit to a thing called “blue ice” falling from airplanes on occasion — which is basically a euphemism for “doo-doo popsicle from the lavatory.” (This one actually has been tested by science, or at least by the Mythbusters.)

‘Blue ice’ forms when there’s a leak from the tanks which store lavatory waste. The waste sometimes freezes and sticks to the aircraft.

When the plane descends and begins to warm up, the ice falls off.

Grist thanks its sponsors. Become one.

Screen shot 2013-06-24 at (Jun 24) 6

Yum. Blue means raspberry-flavored, right?