Many of us have fantasized about diving into a pool filled with Jell-O, but for some residents of a small town in Washington, that dream partially came to life.
However, they would likely describe it as a nightmare rather than a dream, and there certainly wasn’t enough to swim in it.
To understand this, we have to go back to August 1994, when an Oakville resident informed local authorities that translucent, Jell-O-like blobs had fallen overnight, covering the ground.
Each blob was approximately half the size of a grain of rice, and the resident believed that whatever it was had caused her and her mother to develop flu-like symptoms.
The reports continued over the next three weeks, with five more individuals contacting local authorities about the strange blobs on the ground, and many claimed to have fallen ill after touching them.
Conspiracy theorists quickly proposed various explanations, including the suggestion that it was related to classified weapon testing by the US Military, although no evidence supported this theory.
A microbiologist from the Washington State Department of Health analyzed the blobs under a microscope and found they contained two different types of bacteria. However, he did not believe the bacteria were harmful or could cause illness through contact.
Police officer David Lacey encountered the gelatinous substance while on duty, observing it falling on his windshield at 3am.
Speaking on the TV show Unsolved Mysteries, he said: “We turned our windshield wipers on and it just started smearing to the point where we could almost not see.”
Dotty Hearn, another local resident, described the substance as looking ‘like hail laying on top of the wood box and everywhere else’.
So, what was it?
There are theories suggesting that the reports matched the description of ‘star jelly’, a phenomenon reported as early as the 14th century.
Also known as ‘astral jelly’ or ‘astromyxin’, the substance was mythically believed to fall from the sky during meteor showers.
The phenomenon remains unexplained to this day, and with all remaining samples having disappeared, we may never uncover the true nature of the Oakville blobs.