Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

I suppose that in the Fortean scheme of things, there are weirder things than having a flaming lump of plastic fall into your yard, but I'd say it's still a notable event.  The "Ottawa Journal," June 19, 1979:

MISSISSAUGA, Ont.--Traven Matchett isn't buying the Ontario environment ministry's conclusion that a mysterious fiery, green blob that plopped down in his backyard Saturday is nothing more than a lump of common plastic.

"I know what I saw and my family knows what they saw and it's definitely not a burned-out frisbee or somebody's idea of a joke," Matchett said Monday. 

Ministry scientists who analyzed the tough, plastic-like blob said it was polypropylene, used for household items and toys. But how it landed in a fiery lump on Matchett's picnic table is still a mystery. 

Matchett said he doesn't believe he is getting the full story from officials because since the story became known, two other persons have told him of a similar experience in recent weeks. 

Ministry spokesman Jim Hornick said Monday scientists will not conjecture about the origin of the material or how it got into Matchett's backyard. 

"But it's not from outer space, did not fall off an airplane and is not a industrial pollutant," Hornick said. 

So, what was the thing?  Officials eventually "solved" the mystery by announcing that the lump was a frisbee that, presumably, somehow spontaneously combusted in mid-air.  Matchett wasn't having it.  He told reporters that he did his own tests with incinerating frisbees, and they looked nothing like what landed in his yard.  In the last articles I could find about the mystery, Matchett was muttering about UFOs, secret government experiments and cover-ups.

And to be honest, in this world, who can say for certain he was wrong?