Et dire que ce n'est même pas une blague....

An aerial scavenger with a too-hefty burden? Wayward tsunami relief? Or urban terrorists with a new weapon of mass destruction? These are just some of the theories to explain a full-scale mystery for the residents of Fletcher, near Newcastle.

Police admitted yesterday they were dumbfounded by the apparent plunge of a plucked chicken into the roof of a suburban house - the second such incident in five weeks.

The most recent grisly find was made by the Slee family, of Rosewood Crescent, upon returning from holidays last Sunday.

"There was this putrid smell coming out of the house, said Warwick Slee.

"We thought we'd left something in the bin. Eventually, we looked up on the roof. There was some sort of dead animal there with maggots crawling through it and flies buzzing around."

The carcass, while rotted beyond recognition, was roughly the size of a football and looked a bit like a frozen supermarket chicken. "It had splattered [on the roof] and decomposed," Mr Slee said. "It had no feathers, no fur, no head and no claws."


The incident follows a similar attack last month, when a plucked chicken thudded into the roof of the Leung family, in nearby Sandalwood Avenue.

In both cases, the impact of the carcass smashed roof tiles.

Before last Sunday's repeat incident, possible theories were that the chicken had fallen from a light-plane picnic hamper, or was even an errant piece of tsunami food aid from an RAAF aircraft bound for Asia.

Police have no leads and are pleading for information.