Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Bring on the flying laundry!  The “London Times,” July 5, 1842 (via Newspapers.com):

Wednesday forenoon a phenomenon of most rare and extraordinary character was observed in the immediate neighbourhood of Cupar. About half-past 12 o'clock, whilst the sky was clear, and the air, as it had been throughout the morning, perfectly calm, a girl employed in tramping clothes in a tub in the piece of ground above the town, called the common, heard a loud and sharp report over her head, succeeded by a gust of wind of most extraordinary vehemence, and of only a few moments’ duration. On looking round she observed the whole of the clothing, sheets, etc., lying within a line of a certain breadth, stretching across the green, driven almost perpendicularly into the air.

Some heavy wet sheets, blankets, and other of like nature, after being carried to a great height, fell, some in the adjoining gardens, and some on the high road, at several hundred yards' distance; another portion of the articles, however, consisting of a quantity of curtains, and a number of smaller articles, were carried upwards to an immense height, so as to be almost lost to the eye, and gradually disappeared altogether from sight in a south-eastern direction, and have not yet been heard of.  At the moment of the report which preceded the wind, the cattle in the neighbouring meadow were observed roaming about in an affrighted state, and for some time after they continued cowering together in evident terror. The violence of the wind was such that a woman, who at the time was holding a blanket, found herself unable to keep hold, and relinquished it in the fear of being carried along with it! 

It is remarkable that, while even the heaviest articles were stripped off a belt, as it were, running across the green, and while the loops of several sheets which were pinned down were snapped, light articles lying loose on both sides of the belt were never moved from their position.