Newspaper Clipping of the Day

via Newspapers.com

All right, kids, let's talk about Killer Blobs From Outer Space. No, this isn't the title of a cheesy 1950s sci-fi movie, but a news item in the "Casper Star-Tribune," August 20, 1994:

Oakville, Wash. Blobs Fall From the Sky. Kitten Dies.

"We don't know what it is or where it came from," said Dick Meyer, spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration in Seattle. "It's a puzzle."

It's a puzzle Sunny Barclift wants solved. "This stuff came out of the sky," Barclift said. "I want to know what it is."

Twice in the past two weeks when it has rained, small blobs of clear, gelatinous goo have fallen on and around the home Barclift shares with her mother, Dotty Hearn, on a 29-acre farm. The blobs, about half the size of rice grains, might have gone unnoticed had it not been for a number of circumstances, beginning with a small shed covered with black asphalt roofing.

Barclift, who moved here last year from Phoenix after working for six years as director of occupational safety and health for the Arizona branch of the National Safety Council, noticed the clear, jelly-like particles on the shed roof after the rain stopped. After the first blob shower on Aug. 7, Hearn went to the hospital suffering from dizziness and nausea. Barclift and a friend also had minor bouts of nausea and fatigue after collecting and touching the mysterious goop. A newly adopted kitten, which lived outside, died days later after a struggle with severe intestinal problems.

The blobs came again in the rain on Tuesday, but this time no one in the household fell ill.

There have been no other confirmed reports of mysterious blobs, officials with several agencies said. But a National Weather Service employee in the area received a call from an unidentified man in early August describing hot, metallic particles from the sky that burned holes in his children's trampoline.

Dr. David Little, who treated Barclift's mother, said he doubted that Hearn's illness was connected to the strange blobs. Little said her dizziness and nausea appeared to be caused by an inner ear problem. But he agreed to have the lab take a look at the stuff anyway.

"The lab tech put the substance under a microscope," Little said. "He found some human white cells in it." The hospital didn't do a chemical analysis, Barclift noted, perhaps because the lab staff seemed reluctant to test the blobs in the first place.

Little suggested the blobs might be concentrated fluid waste from an airplane toilet, since this could contain anti-freeze that would explain the presence of human cells as well as the illnesses. The kitten, he said, could have been hurt by ingesting anti-freeze.

But Little said there was no clear evidence of a health hazard.

Barclift called the FAA and eventually persuaded it to investigate the mystery blobs.

Meyer said all commercial plane toilet fluids are dyed blue, so it seemed unlikely that was the explanation. He said the FAA investigator asked the military if there had been any flights over the area or any exercises that might explain the blobs.

"This is where the jellyfish theory came in," Meyer said.

It's not clear who should get credit for proposing this theory, but it's based on the fact that the blobs appeared around the time the Air Force was dropping bombs in the Pacific Ocean off the Washington coast.

"They were conducting bombing runs using live ordnance," said Master Sgt. Thaddeus Hosley, spokesman at McChord Air Force Base.

Hosley said the 354th Fighter Squadron was flying last week and this week, dropping bombs about 10 to 20 miles west of Ocean Shores.

Despite the 40 to 50 miles separating the bombing runs and the blob fallout, Oakville Chief of Police Gary Greub said somebody suggested a school of jellyfish might have been blown literally sky-high.

McChord's Hosley, trying but failing to stifle a laugh, said he could not comment on the jellyfish theory.

"That's ridiculous," said Barclift. Besides, she said, this wouldn't explain why the blobs came twice or why they come only when it rains.

After more than a week's worth of phone calls to state and federal agencies, Barclift has persuaded the state Department of Ecology to conduct tests of the blobs.

"We'll take a look at it," said Mike Osweiler of the agency's hazardous-material spill response unit for Southwest Washington. Osweiler has heard all the theories, including the flying jellyfish one.

"That's a long way for jellyfish to travel ... unless they're shooting them in from the coast," he said.

There was a follow-up in the "Palm Beach Post" on August 21:

Seattle.--The blobs of Oakville, Wash., are alive or at least they were once alive, or part of some living creature, according to a preliminary analysis by Washington State Department of Ecology scientists.

"There's a number of cells of various sizes," said Mike Osweiler, with the agency's hazardous-material unit for southwest Washington. But what kind of creature the cells came from is still uncertain, he said.

Osweiler said he will ask the State Department of Health to take a look since his unit is not equipped to identify biological cells.

The mystery blobs, half the size of rice grains, have appeared twice during rainfall at the home of Sunny Barclift near the town of Oakville. Since word got out about the blobs, a number of theories have been launched such as the flying jellyfish theory. It's not a theory Barclift favors, but many in Oakville seem to like it.

"Some people want to start an annual jellyfish festival now where they shoot jellyfish into town with a cannon," she said, laughing. Barcilift noted that the town's tavern is also concocting a new drink, "The "Jellyfish," made of vodka, gelatin and juice.

Barclift has been trying to get to the bottom of the blob mystery since their first appearance on Aug. 7 was followed by her kitten's death and bouts of nausea afflicting her mother, herself and a friend who handled the blobs.
While she acknowledged the illnesses might just have been coincidence, Barclift's interest intensified when a hospital lab technician looked at the goop under a microscope and said it contained human white blood cells.

But Osweiler said his laboratory staff found the cells had no nuclei, something human white cells do have. He said he had no idea what jellyfish cells look like.

The jellyfish theory began when townsfolk learned the Air Force was dropping live bombs into the Pacific Ocean about 10 to 20 miles off the coast of Washington. The idea was that jellyfish remains might have been blown up into the clouds where they were later dispersed in rainfall.

"I don't think so," Barclift said.

Reps. Jolene Unsoeld and Norm Dicks, both D-Wash., last week asked the military to stop bombing near the coast, although Bill Dunbar, spokesman for Unsoeld, said the request was prompted by concern for salmon runs. Dunbar said it had nothing to do with the blobs.

What interested Dunbar more than the blobs was the experience reported by Jim and Kathy Belanger, about dead crabs they found on the Washington coast. While camping last week, they heard explosions at sea and found hundreds of dead crabs and globs of jellyfish or clear gel dotting the shoreline.

"These were big crabs, hundreds of them," said Jim Belanger. He said there was a dead crab on the shoreline every 2 or 3 feet.

Merritt Tuttle of the National Marine Fisheries Service in Portland, Ore., said that was the first report of any harm to sea life that may have resulted from the bombing.

Dunbar, who said the military dropped cluster bombs, promised Unsoeld's office will investigate. The search for an explanation of the mystery blobs, he noted, appears to have raised other concerns.

"But I still want to know what those blobs are," Dunbar said.

The Federal Aviation Administration has ruled out airplane toilet waste since all such waste is dyed blue. And the Belangers didn't keep samples of the globs they saw on the beach to compare with Barclift's samples.

"I thought at first it was jellyfish, but they didn't look like jellyfish up close," Kathy Belanger said. She noted that she handled the blobs and that their dog ran on the beach that day. The next day, she said, both she and the dog became ill. The couple didn't think the blobs and crab deaths were connected until they read about the blobs of Oakville.

"Makes you wonder," said Jim Belanger.

Apparently, the toxic rainfall has remained a mystery. But if tiny clear blobs should ever fall on your property, I advise not handling them.

And for God's sake, don't let your cat anywhere near them.