Amen!
Yeah, it wasn’t really blood, but “It’s rainin’ iron oxide! Hallelujah, it’s rainin’ iron oxide!” just doesn’t have the same ring to it, now does it? Locals in the Russian town of Norilsk in Siberia might have feared they were succumbing to a biblical plague, or a buffet call to all Russian vampires, but the bizarre rusty rainfall came about as the result of a clean-up operation by a company called Nornickel. They had removed large amounts of iron oxide from the floors and roof of their Nadezhdinsky processing plant (Gesundheit!) but neglected to secure the pile of rust against the wind. Who coulda seen that coming? The rust got into the air and mixed with the rain to form the bloody concoction.
This puts me in mind of the bloody rave scene in the first BLADE movie, or the Batman RED RAIN graphic novel. I doubt the rust-rain smelled all that great, but I’m sure it smelled better than it would have had it been real blood. It was probably also less sticky. I’m actually a little jealous of those Siberians. Even knowing it wasn’t a literal rain of blood, it would have still been something cool to see.