Star jelly

Star jelly (also called astromyxin, astral jelly) is a gelatinous substance sometimes found on grass and less commonly on the branches of trees.[1] According to folklore, it is deposited on the Earth during meteor showers. It is described as a translucent or grayish-white gelatin that tends to evaporate shortly after having "fallen". Explanations have ranged from it being the remains of frogs, toads, or worms, to the byproducts of cyanobacteria, to being the fruiting bodies of jelly fungi or masses of amoeba called slime molds.[2][3][4][5] Nonbiological origins proposed for instances of "star jelly" have included byproducts from industrial production or waste management. Reports of the substance date back to the 14th century and have continued to the present.[5][6]

image of white translucent jelly sitting on a small clump of moss
An instance of unidentified star jelly on Grimmia pulvinata, a species of moss.

History

There have been reports of 'star-jelly' for centuries.[7] John of Gaddesden (1280–1361)[8] mentions stella terrae (Latin for 'star of the earth' or 'earth-star') in his medical writings, describing it as "a certain mucilaginous substance lying upon the earth" and suggesting that it might be used to treat abscesses.[6] A fourteenth-century Latin medical glossary has an entry for uligo, described as "a certain fatty substance emitted from the earth, that is commonly called 'a star which has fallen'".[9] Similarly, an English-Latin dictionary from around 1440 has an entry for "sterre slyme" with the Latin equivalent given as assub (a rendering of Arabic ash-shuhub, also used in medieval Latin as a term for a "falling" or "shooting" star).[10] In Welsh it has been referred to as "pwdre ser" meaning "rot from the stars".[11]

The Oxford English Dictionary lists a large number of other names for the substance, with references dating back to the circa-1440 English-Latin dictionary entry mentioned above: star-fallen, star-falling, star-jelly, star-shot, star-slime, star-slough, star-slubber, star-spurt, and star-slutch.[12]

The slime mold Enteridium lycoperdon is called caca de luna ("moon's feces") by the locals in the state of Veracruz in Mexico.[13]

Another theory states that star jelly is most likely formed from the glands in the oviducts of frogs and toads.[14] Birds and mammals eat the animals but not the oviducts which, when they come into contact with moisture, swell and distort, leaving a vast pile of jellylike substance sometimes also referred to as otter jelly.[14]

In 1910, T. M. Hughes ruminated in Nature as to why poets and ancient writers associated meteors with star jelly, and observed that the jelly seemed to "grow out from among the roots of grass".[2]

Scientific analysis and theories
Oviducts of amphibians regurgitated by predators. (The black object in lower left corner is a cluster of eggs.)
Fructification of a slime mold
The false puffball slime mold in its aethalioid jelly phase
  • Myxarium nucleatum, a clear, gelatinous fungus that grows on decaying wood.
  • Observations made of star jelly in Scotland support the theory that one origin of star jelly is spawn jelly from frogs or toads, which has been vomited up by amphibian-eating creatures.[15] The German terms Sternenrotz (star snot) and Meteorgallerte (meteorite jelly) are known to refer to more or less digested frog spawn vomited by predators (Schlüpmann 2007).
  • 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.[5]
  • Thomas Pennant in the 18th century believed the material to be "something vomited up by birds or animals".[4]
  • 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.[16]
  • Slime molds 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.

Examples
  • On 11 November 1846, a luminous object estimated at 4 feet (1.2 m) in diameter fell at Lowville, New York, leaving behind a heap of foul-smelling luminous jelly that disappeared quickly, according to Scientific American[17]
  • In 1950, four Philadelphia policemen reported the discovery of "a domed disk of quivering jelly, 6 feet (1.8 m) in diameter, 1 foot (30 cm) thick at the center and an inch (25 mm) or two (50) near the edge". When they tried to pick it up, it dissolved into an "odorless, sticky scum".[18][19] The site was located (near 26th Street and Vare Avenue) within a-half mile (800 m) of the Philadelphia Gas Works, leading to the possibility that it was some type of industrial discharge. This incident inspired the 1958 movie The Blob.[20]
  • On 11 August 1979, 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 skepticism, however, as the compounds at the reprocessing plant were solid, whereas the blobs on Christian's lawn were gelatinous. Others, however, have pointed out that Christian had tried to clear them off her lawn with a garden hose.[21]
  • 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.[4]
  • On several dates in 1994, "gelatinous rain" fell on Oakville, Washington.[22]
  • On the evening of 3 November 1996, a meteor was reported flashing across the sky of Kempton, Tasmania, just outside Hobart. The next morning, white translucent slime was reportedly discovered on the lawns and sidewalks of the town.[23]
  • In 1997, a similar substance fell in the Everett, Washington, area.
  • Star jelly was found on various Scottish hills in the autumn of 2009.[5]
  • Blue balls of jelly rained down on a man's garden in Dorset in January 2012.[24][25] Upon further analysis these proved to be sodium polyacrylate granules, a kind of superabsorbent polymer with a variety of common (including agricultural) uses. They were most likely already present on the ground in their dehydrated state, and had gone un-noticed until they soaked up water from the hail shower and consequently grew in size.[26]
  • Several deposits were discovered at the Ham Wall nature reserve in England in February 2013.[27] It has been suggested that these are unfertilised frog spawn, regurgitated frog innards, or a form of cyanobacteria.[28]
  • In the BBC programme Nature's Weirdest Events, Series 4, episode 3, (14 January 2015) Chris Packham showed a specimen of "star jelly" and had it sent to the Natural History Museum, London, for a DNA analysis by David Bass who confirmed it was from a frog. He also found some traces of magpie DNA on the jelly which may point to the demise of the frog.[29]

In fiction

Sir John Suckling, in 1641, wrote a poem which contained the following lines:[2]

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:[2][4]

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:[30]

When I had taken up what I supposed a fallen star I found I had been cozened with a jelly.

William Somervile, in 1740, wrote in The Talisman:[2]

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:[2]

"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."

An unidentifiable substance that falls to earth during a meteor-type event forms the background to "The Colour Out of Space", a 1927 short story by the American horror and science fiction author H. P. Lovecraft.

Some observers have made a connection between star jelly and the Paramount movie The Blob, in which a gelatinous monster slime falls from space. The Blob, which was released in 1958, was supposedly based on the Philadelphia reports[20] from 1950 and specifically a report in The Philadelphia Inquirer called "Flying 'Saucer' Just Dissolves" where four police officers encountered a UFO debris that was described as evaporating with a purple glow leaving nothing. Paramount Pictures was also sued for this movie by the author Joseph Payne Brennan, who had written a short story published in Weird Tales Magazine in 1953 called "Slime" about a similar creature.

References
  1. Samuel Griswold Goodrich (1848). Tales about the sun, moon, and stars. p. 259. A gelatinous substance is occasionally found on the grass, dirt, and even sometimes on the branches of trees, the origin of which the modern learned do not ascribe either to stars or to meteors; but which they are divided as to regarding either as an animal or vegetable production. The botanists name it tremella nostoch and say that it is a fungous plant, quick of growth, and of short duration, but of which even the seed has been discovered ; but the animalists, though differing from each other in subordinate respects, agree in affirming it to be the altered remains of dead frogs. "The quantity of jelly," says one of these, "produced from one single frog, is almost beyond belief; even to five or six times its bulk when in a natural state;" that is, when the frog is in a living state ...
  2. Hughes, Thomas McKenny (1910). "Pwdre Ser". Nature. 83 (2121): 105–106. Bibcode:1910Natur..83..492H. doi:10.1038/083492a0. S2CID 3945564. Retrieved 17 February 2010.
  3. "Natural History of the Toad". Philosophical Magazine. 64: 90. 1824. doi:10.1080/14786442408644561. Retrieved 17 February 2010. The substance known by the name of star-jelly or star-shot (Tremella Nostoc), found on marshy ground, is the decomposed bodies of toads or frogs, but more particularly the latter, the writer having frequently found the exuviae of the reptile connected with it, and he has also seen the lacerated body of a frog lying on the margin of a lake one day, and the next seen it converted into this substance, the atmosphere at the time being very humid and the weather wet, which appear to be necessary adjuncts to the formation of star-jelly. It may be objected that this substance is sometimes found in places inaccessible to frogs and toads, as the tops of thatched barns, hay-ricks. This is easily accounted for; these reptiles are the food of various birds of prey, and by them carried to those situations to be devoured at their leisure; and if scared in the act, the lacerated 'toad ,frog or laini has left behind, and if the state of the weather and air is favourable to this mode of decomposition, star-jelly is formed. If the weather is hot and dry, they are converted into a hard leathery substance. Frogs in particular are rarely decomposed by the usual process of animal putrefaction.
  4. Pilkington, Mark (13 January 2005). "The blobs". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 17 February 2010. Since at least the early 18th century, the most common earthbound explanation for the mystery goo has been that it is something vomited up by birds or animals; the Welsh naturalist Thomas Pennant, writing later that century, considered this the answer. Currently popular is the idea that the grey gloop is frog spawn barfed up by amphibian-eating creatures, though no frogs' eggs have ever actually been identified within it, and most finds are a good deal larger than your average frog. A recent refinement of the concept is that if a frog is swallowed prior to ovulation, its regurgitated egg duct – which swells dramatically when wet ...
  5. Reid, Melanie (18 September 2009). "Nature 1, Science 0 as finest minds fail to explain star jelly". Times Online. London. Retrieved 19 September 2009. Alternative theories for the origins of "star jelly", a strange mucous substance found on the Scottish hills in the autumn abound. Could it be the remnants of a meteor shower, regurgitated frogspawn, fungus – or, less romantically, the gel from disposable nappies? Is it evidence of extraterrestrial life, or perhaps the fallout from top-secret attempts by scientists to manipulate the weather? ...
  6. John of Gaddesden (1502). Rosa Medicinae/Rosa Anglica (in Latin). Venice. Folio 28. stella terre, que est quedam mucillago jacens super terram, prohibet apostemata calida in principio There is another reference to stella terrae, as a component in a medical recipe, on folio 49 of the same work.
  7. Fort 1919, pp. 41–50.
  8. Gordon 1959, p. 467.
  9. Mowat, J. L. G., ed. (1882). Sinonoma Bartholomei (in Latin). Vol. 1. Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 43. Retrieved 25 December 2022. Uligo, i. grassities quædam quæ scatet a terra quæ vulgariter dicitur stella quæ cecidit
  10. Mayhew, A. L. (ed.). The Promptorium Parvulorum: The First English-Latin Dictionary. Early English Text Society. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Company. p. 435. OCLC 2642049.
  11. Clark, Jerome (1993). "Pwdre Ser". Encyclopedia of strange and unexplained physical phenomena. Gale Research Inc. pp. 267–269. ISBN 0-8103-8843-X.
  12. See the Oxford English Dictionary, under the words nostoc, star, and star-shot.
  13. Nieves-Rivera, Ángel M. "About the So-Called 'UFO Rings' and Fungi". Sociedad de Escépticos de P.R. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 9 May 2010.
  14. Smith, Malcolm (1973). The British amphibians & reptiles. Collins. p. 138. ISBN 0-00-213029-7. OCLC 611949401.
  15. O'Reilly, Miles; Ross, Nicholas; Longrigg, Sarah. "Recent observations of "mystery star jelly" in Scotland appear to confirm one origin as spawn jelly from frogs or toads" (PDF). Glasgow Naturalist. 26 (1): 89–92. Retrieved 6 August 2018.
  16. Marshall, Richard (1983). Mysteries of the unexplained. ISBN 0-89577-146-2. The two main contenders for the leading role in the star jelly mystery are Nostoc and plasmodium. Nostoc is one of the blue-green algae and grows in ...
  17. Scientific American 2:79, 28 November 1846, see "Star Jelly". Subversiveelement. Archived from the original on 27 September 2011.
  18. "Star Jelly". Subversiveelement. Archived from the original on 27 September 2011.
  19. Edwards, Frank (1964). Strange World. Citadel Press. p. 344. ISBN 0-8065-0978-3.
  20. "UFO Round Up". The San Francisco Chronicle. Archived from the original on 26 September 2009. Retrieved 23 February 2010. Gelatinous meteors, also known as the Pwdre Ser phenomenon, are rare but not unknown. On September 26, 1950, Patrolmen John Collins and Joseph Keenan saw one of these things land at the corner of Vare Boulevard and 26th Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The light-emitting blob was also observed by Sgt. Joseph Cook and Patrolman James Cooper and was seen oozing its way up a telephone pole. This incident became the basis for Steve McQueen's 1958 horror movie, The Blob.
  21. "Did Mrs. Sybil Christian of Frisco, Texas, find blobs from space on her lawn?". The Straight Dope. 31 May 1985. Retrieved 18 February 2010.
  22. Spanner, Holly. "What were the 'Oakville blobs'?". BBC Science Focus Magazine. Retrieved 10 July 2023.
  23. Clark, Jerome (2013). "Pwdre Ser". Unexplained! : strange sightings, incredible occurrences, and puzzling physical phenomena (3rd ed.). Canton, MI: Visible Ink Press. pp. 338–345. ISBN 978-1-57859-427-6. OCLC 809537768.
  24. Nelson, Sara C. (20 January 2012). "Mystery Blue Balls of Jelly Rain From Dorset Skies into Steve Hornsby's Garden". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 4 March 2012.
  25. "Blue balls theories rage after Dorset storm mystery". BBC News. 30 January 2012. Retrieved 4 March 2012.
  26. Morris, Steven (3 February 2012). "Blue balls mystery solved by scientists | Science". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 20 February 2013.
  27. "RSPB Ham Wall 'slime' baffles experts". BBC News. 18 February 2013.
  28. "BBC News – RSPB Ham Wall slime may be frog spawn, vet suggests". BBC News. 19 February 2013. Retrieved 20 February 2013.
  29. "Nature's Weirdest Events". iPlayer. Series 4. Episode 3. 14 January 2015. Event occurs at 20.00–21.00 hours (17:25 minutes in). BBC 1.
  30. "§ 5. His Historic Tragedies; 'Bussy DAmbois; The Revenge'. II. Chapman, Marston, Dekker. Vol. 6. The Drama to 1642, Part Two. The Cambridge History of English and American Literature: An Encyclopedia in Eighteen Volumes. 1907–21". Bartleby.com. Retrieved 20 February 2013.

Bibliography
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