A group of villagers in Gurugram were pleasantly surprised on discovering a rare material fallen from the sky. But it soon turned into a strange sequence of events for them. In Gurugram’s Fazilpur Badli, a farmer named Rajbir Yadav was surprised to see a large rock fall off from the sky. It hit the ground and made a sound which startled him and he ran towards it. A confused Yadav, not sure about what it was went to another villager, Sukhbir Singh and within minutes the news spread in the village, gathering everyone around the rock. Well, later it was found out, the piece of rock was ‘blue ice’ a term used for toilet waste from aeroplanes.

A rock fell from the sky was quickly assumed to be a meteor. The stone had a white texture, ice cold with a transparent surface so it could also be some rare mineral. Some of the villagers thinking it to be a geological treasure took it home and stored it in their fridge! A few more curious people then approached the district administration. Officials from the Meteorological Department and the National Disaster Management Authority. The only word of mouth spread was of an ice-like ball crashing into the wheat field.

For the villagers to witness something like this, was no less than a spectacle. Some children related it to a gift from aliens, but all the villager’s curiosity and excitement just melted down when they realized it was human poop! So all the high assumptions about a meteor falling or having their hands on a rare mineral were actually down the drain (the exact words).

Blue ice is frozen sewage material that has leaked from aeroplanes’ lavatory systems. The mixture of biowaste and liquid disinfectant gets solidified in the air at high altitude. Airlines, however, cannot dump the waste while the flight is mid-air but sometimes leaks do occur. The villagers in Fazilpur Badli are not at all pleased and are probably cleaning their fridges after throwing away the ‘rare mineral.’

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jan 22, 2018 05:47 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).