Star Jelly, or Pwdre Ser, is a compound supposedly deposited on the earth during meteor showers. It is described as a foul-smelling, gelatinous substance, which tends to evaporate shortly after having fallen.
There have been descriptions of the so-called pwdre ser (Welsh for rot of the stars) for centuries. A long article in the paranormal FATE magazine declared Star Jelly to be of extraterrestrial origin, calling it "cellular organic matter" which exists as "prestellar molecular clouds" which float through space.
There have been connections made between the so-called Star Jelly and unidentified flying objects -- some UFO watchers believe that UFOs are not alien constructs, but living beings, and that the Star Jelly is their remains once they fall to earth.
Skeptics declare that the material is probably naturally-occurring material such as slime molds, Nostoc or lichen, and that the extraterrestrial connection occurs when people see meteor showers, rush to where they think the meteors fell, and find the already-existing mold on the ground.
Recent documented cases
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." [1], [2]
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 followup investigation by reporters and an assistant director of the Forth 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. The result was a pile of purplish compounds. The report was greeted with some skepticism, 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.
In December, 1983, grayish-white, oily gelatin fill on North Reading, Massachusetts. Mr. Thomas Grinley reported finding it on his lawn, on the streets and sidewalks, and dripping from gas station pumps.
On the evening of November 3, 1996, a meteor was reported flashing across the sky of Kempton, Tasmania, just outside of Hobart. The next morning, white transulcent slime was discovered on the lawns and sidewalks of the town.
Scientific analysis
Little scientific analysis has been done on Star Jelly, largely because the material dissolves so rapidly. The Guardian Unlimited reported in January of 2005 that Welsh naturalist Thomas Pennant, writing in the 18th century, believed the material to be "something" vomited up by birds or animals. More recent scientific speculation has pointed towards frog spawn which has been vomited up by amphibian eating creatures, though no frog spawn has ever approached the size of some reported cases of Star Jelly.
The Massachusetts Department of Environment Quality Engineering examined the "star fall" which dropped on North Reading, but the only results were that the material was "non-toxic"
Star Jelly in literature and fiction
Sir John Suckling, in 1641, wrote a poem which contained the following lines:
- 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
Henry More, in 1656 ,wrote:
- 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.
John Dryden, in 1679, wrote:
- When I had taken up what I supposed a fallen star I found I had been cozened with a jelly.
William Somerville, in 1740, wrote:
- 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.
Sir Walter Scott, in his novel The Talisman, wrote:
- "Seek a fallen star," said the hermit, "and thou shalt only light on some foul jelly, which, in shooting through the horizon, has assumed for a moment an appearance of splendour.
Some observers have made a connection between Star Jelly and the movie The Blob, in which a gelatinous monster falls from space. The Blob was supposedly based on the Philadelphia reports.
See also
References
- Adams, E.M. and Schlesinger, F., "Pwdre Ser", Nature, 84, 105-106 (1910).
- Nieves-Rivera, Angel M. 2003. The Fellowship of the Rings - UFO rings versus fairy rings. Skeptical Inquirer. Vol. 27, No. 6, 50-54.