On Saturday, the residents of the Fazilpur Badli village in the state of Haryana, northern India, were startled by the fall of a strange “ice ball”, which the Indian officials believe to be a frozen piece of human waste that leaked from an airplane.
The piece of ice weighed around 10 to 12 kilograms and created a stir among the locals of Fazilpur Badli, after landing with a resounding thud and leading the villagers to believe either that the object was “extraterrestrial”, or that it was some sort of celestial rock, some people even taking pieces of it at home and storing them in their refrigerator.
After analyzing a sample of the object, an official from the Indian Meteorological Department declared that the “ice ball” was not the result of a natural phenomenon. Authorities further clarified the issue by stating that they are almost certain that the object is actually frozen airline waste.
In airplanes, human waste is stored in special containers, which are disposed of upon landing. However, it is a fact know at official levels that there is a possibility of leaks occurring, which end up landing on earth, as is the case of the Fazilpur Badli event. The liquid resulting from the airplane leaks will freeze instantly and fall with a very high speed, even causing occasional injuries, as was the case of a resident from the Madhya Pradesh state, who in 2016 suffered an injury to the shoulder due to a big piece of ice that fell from the sky.
Releasing human waste from airplanes is against the Indian law since 2016 and airline companies are fined if it is discovered that they use such a practice. However, occasional leakage is impossible to control and can cause such, more or less, unfortunate events. The leaks are also known as “blue ice” due the blue color they are given by the chemical solutions used in the airplane toilets.
