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Original Message
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I know this subject has been posted on GLP before, but I’d like to explore some other avenues.
If you dont know it, Star Jelly is this clear jelly like substance that is found, often in odd places, but generally out and about in fields etc.
It is usually clear, and has very little in the way of explainations.
[link to www.google.com.au]
Recently, people have been posting youtube vids of the stuff.
What surprised me about ‘star jelly’ is that it isn’t new, and in fact has references dating back hundreds of years.
Here are a couple of poems, hundreds of years old –
Sir John Suckling, in 1641
As he whose quicker eye doth trace
A false star shot to a mark'd place
Do's run apace,
And, thinking it to catch,
A jelly up do snatch
William Somervile, in 1740
Swift as the shooting star, that gilds the night
With rapid transient Blaze, she runs, she flies;
Sudden she stops nor longer can endure
The painful course, but drooping sinks away,
And like that falling Meteor, there she lyes
A jelly cold on earth
Henry More, in 1656
That the Starres eat...that those falling Starres,
as some call them, which are found on the Earth
in the form of a trembling gelly,
are their excrement.
Thomas Pennant, a scientist in the 18th century believed the material to be "something vomited up by birds
or animals", possibly frog spawn or amphibian oviducts.
In 1950, four Philadelphia, Pennsylvania policemen reported the discovery of "a domed disk of quivering jelly,
6 feet in diameter, one foot thick at the center and an inch or two near the edge." When they tried to pick it up,
it dissolved into an "odorless, sticky scum.". This incident apparently inspired the movie The Blob.
On August 11, 1979, Mrs. Sybil Christian of Frisco, Texas reported the discovery of several purple blobs
of goo on her front yard following a Perseid meteor shower. A follow up investigation by reporters
and an assistant director of the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History discovered a battery reprocessing
plant outside of town where caustic soda was used to clean impurities from the lead in the batteries, resulting
in a purplish compound as a byproduct. The report was greeted with some scepticism, however,
as the compounds at the reprocessing plant were solid, whereas the blobs on Mrs. Christian's lawn were
gelatinous. Others, however, have pointed out that Mrs. Christian had tried to clear them off her lawn with
a garden hose.
[There are also claims it is inside meteors, and somehow survives the firey crash through our atmosphere.]
In December, 1983, grayish-white, oily gelatin fell on North Reading, Massachusetts. Thomas Grinley reported
finding it on his lawn, on the streets and sidewalks, and dripping from gas station pumps.
Star jelly was found on various Scottish hills in the autumn of 2009.
Star jelly was found on the fells around Ullswater in the Lake District in October 2011
That incident in October last year prompted an article requesting speculation from both the public and the
scientific community to answer the question as to what it is, and some fascinating answers ensued.
Most focused on naturally occurring substances, fauna based, such as frog spawn, decayed embryos,
even congealed semen dropping out cow’s whatuzis. Yuck! Others focused on the slime aspect,
and mold variations, mega cultures/colonies of cyanobacterias. Some even mentioned actual jellyfish
being lifted in the air during storms and being deposited inland.
Nostoc, a type of fresh water blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) forms spherical colonies made of filaments
of cells in a gelatinous sheath. When on the ground, it is ordinarily not seen; but after rainfall it swells up
into a conspicuous jellylike mass which is sometimes called star-jelly.
Scientists commissioned by the National Geographic Society have carried out tests on samples
found in the United States, but have failed to find any DNA in the material.
Slime moulds are possible causes, appearing suddenly, exhibiting a very gelatinous appearance at first
and later changing to a dust-like form which is dispersed by rain and wind. The colours range from a striking
pure white as in Enteridium lycoperdon, to pink as in Lycogala epidendrum, to purple, bright yellow, orange,
and brown.
Then there are some more odd mentions of things like ‘ectoplasm’ – the gooey stuff Carol-Ann
and her Mum were covered in Poltergeist, when they came back over from the ‘other side’.
The word plasma and plasmic-discharge popped up too, which caught my eye. Recent threads on GLP about cold plasmas
being found in a layer in our atmosphere was an interesting tie in to the subject.
Back in 2000, the Canadian’s launched a probe in to the ionosphere, specifically a belt at 990km to study
plasmas. The belt is approximately the point where the magnetosphere and ionosphere overlap.
Scientists from the Indian Space Research Organisation discovered (3) new types of bacteria
which they collected from the stratosphere in (2009). If bacteria can exist, w
hy not larger forms of life in a zero G habitat?
And NASA’s giant jellyfish - According to Eugene Wescott and Davis Sentman, both of NASA, the ‘lights’
were estimated as being 25 miles tall and 6 miles wide. "They appear brightest where they top out, typically
about 40 miles high," said Wescott, adding, “Also you have the jellyfish body at the top with tentacles trailing down."
(was a descriptor, but still….)
A low-light-level camera in a NASA DC-8, operated by a team from the Geophysical Institute of the University
of Alaska, recorded 19 brief flashes.
Amateurs have been reporting the phenomena since 1886, but scientists have not until recently taken these
accounts seriously.
The present photographs, taken at 1/30 of a second, have proved the anomaly. Wescott noted that airborne team
members missed it when aloft, but spotted it when studying their video footage. The intensity of the flashes is
similar to an aurora. Now the scientists are trying to figure out its chemical effects on the upper atmosphere,
including possible dangers to the ozone layer from electricity which is dimmer, more diffuse and broader than
normal lightning.
A public contributor stated –“ Once upon a time, if someone had claimed without irrefutable evidence that
bioluminescent unicellular and multicellular organisms existed at 1000 meters below the surface of the ocean
and deeper, that person would have been ridiculed and despised by every facet of the scientific community.
The same is happening now to theorists on the right track concerning atmospheric lifeforms which have only
evaded our attention due to our arrogant ignorance. This is the beginning of what is going to be the most
profound discovery in the history of biology! Life is abundant and comes in shapes, sizes and forms both
conceivable and inconceivable. Just because we cannot see it does not mean it is not there and absence of
evidence is not evidence of absence.”
Jason McClellan, Open Minds photographer for DiscloseTV captured a space jelly above Mexico City.
"My initial thought was, this might be a weather balloon, but after only a couple of seconds, I was convinced
otherwise," says McClellan in the video.
"I can best describe the characteristics and movements of the object as jellyfish-like," he adds.
"The object was semi-see through, and it billowed and undulated as it moved."
"The translucent object was swimming through the blue sky, changing both shape and color as it moved."
[link to www.disclose.tv]
My favourite answer was that in the upper atmosphere, there are living creatures, some in the form
of ‘space’ jellyfish, and that during meteor showers, some get injured, die and fall to Earth.
So, there’s a few different perspectives, from amateur to scientific to religious!
I usually hang on the BEZERK thread, which is not everyone’s cup of tea, but it has brought up some really
interesting ideas. I cant help but think this subject is way more complex and wonderful than regurgitated frog spawn.
Any ideas GLP? Especially keen to see if there are any space jelly fish living in the cold plasma belt that anyone knows about, LOL.
Resources:
[link to www.strangemag.com]
[link to www.disclose.tv]
[link to en.wikipedia.org]
[link to www.bbc.co.uk]
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