Birmingham is the weirdest place in the UK. The city has been rated the capital for spooky phenomena, including showers of frogs, gigantic hailstones, miraculous lightning cures, tornados and, of course, extraterrestrials dropping in for mince pies. The X-Files could never match all that.

A new survey, by Disneyland Paris, reveals that in 1954 Sylvia Mowday was walking through a park when she was showered in a downpour of rain and frogs. “I thought it was hail, but my son suddenly said ‘It isn't hail, Mum, they're frogs, baby frogs',” says Mrs Mowday. “There were thousands of them. When we looked up we could see them. They covered our shoulders and umbrellas.”

Dangerous supernatural forces lurk in the skies above Birmingham. Much of this weird weather comes from ferocious thunderstorms cooked up in Birmingham's own climate - a big, hot urban area far away from cooling sea breezes.

A colossal hailstone weighing 1lb 6oz (0.62kg) fell in December 1980, and the tornado of July 2005 damaged 420 buildings. But then this is the tornado alley of Britain, with 32 tornados recorded since 1931. With all that mayhem, reports of flying saucers calling in for Christmas seem fairly tame.

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