they are not spider webs. Their exact origin is undetermined.
But they are associated to UFO sightings..But there are no UFOs in
Sg. How come they can be found?
ANGEL HAIR
John Harney
One of the most tantalising types of alleged physical evidence for
the reality of UFOs is the phenomenon which has come to be known as
angel hair . This material is generally described as a white,
fibrous substance, resembling spiders' webs, wool, or nylon. The
filaments float down to earth and sometimes cover quite large areas
of ground. Unfortunately the substance is unstable and appears to
slowly sublime and disappear. It is said to burn like cellophane
when ignited. Falls of angel hair generally coincide with UFO
reports.
Among the earliest reports of this phenomenon were two sightings
which occurred in France, in 1952. (1) At Oloron, on 17 October, at
about 12.50 p.m., the headmaster of the lyc‚e there, together with
his wife and children, witnessed a strange event. To the north they
saw a fleecy cloud, of curious shape, floating along. Above it was
a long, narrow cylinder, tilted at an angle of 45 degrees and
slowly heading south-west, at an estimated altitude of 2,000 to
3,000 metres. The object was whitish in colour and its shape was
quite distinct. Puffs of white smoke were coming from its top side.
Some way ahead of the cylinder about 30 other objects were
travelling on the same course. When viewed with field glasses, each
of these objects was seen to have a red ball at the centre,
surrounded by a yellowish ring. These objects travelled in pairs in
short, swift zigzags. When two of them moved apart they seemed to
be connected by a whitish trail. All of these objects left long
trails which disintegrated and drifted slowly to the ground. For
many hours afterwards trees, telephone wires and roofs were
festooned with streamers of the mysterious substance.
Attempts to preserve the substance for analysis were unsuccessful,
because when handled it became gelatinous, then vaporised. Apart
from the schoolmaster and his family already mentioned, there were
said to have been numerous other witnesses in the area.
On 27 October, at 5 p.m., an almost exact repetition of the
incident occurred at Gaillac. Again there were many
witnesses.
There was some scepticism among ufologists concerning these early
reports, But others were to follow, to confirm this phenomenon as a
genuine one, requiring explanation. Reports from the USA included
two incidents which occurred in the same area, the San Fernando
Valley, California, on 16 November 1953 and 1 February 1954.
(2)
The explainers-away were almost unanimous in attributing such
reports to the activities of spiders, borne aloft by the wind and
thermals on their gossamer threads and deposited many miles away.
Although this theory convincingly explained some of the reports, it
was obviously not possible to fit it to reports such as those from
Oloron and Gaillac, even allowing for possible embellishment and
exaggeration in the published accounts. Nevertheless, the pundits
could think of no better rationalisation, so spiders' webs it had
to be.
The Condon Report is not very enlightening on this topic. After
mentioning the spider explanation it simply says: In other cases,
the composition or origin of the angel's hair" is uncertain.
(3)
However, at the BUFORA Northern Conference at Liverpool, in
November 1967, Anthony Durham gave a lecture in which he discussed
two possible explanations. He later published the text of this
lecture in a privately circulated UFO bulletin. The angel hair
could be a metastable chemical polymer, produced in a tornado
funnel. the supply of dust particles and organic materials sucked
up by the tornado, and the high electron current, high gas velocity
and other conditions would be suitable for the formation of such a
substance, which would be spun into threads by the centrifugal
force of the spinning column of air. The other hypothesis supposes
dust particles exposed to a high electrical field. These charged
particles would tend to aggregate in clumps, but shear forces would
tend to make them form long chains of filaments. On falling to the
ground, the filaments would lose their electrical charge and
gradually disintegrate into fine dust again.
This explanation has been suggested before, but apparently has not
been taken seriously by ufologists. Michel mentions that after
falls of angel hair in eastern New Mexico on 23 and 24 October 1957
. . . one pundit in Albuquerque asserted that the threads were
composed of atmospheric dust" clumped together by a static
electrical charge . (4)
The disadvantages of angel hair as physical evidence for UFOs are
its instability and the likelihood that such material could in
certain circumstances be produced by natural atmospheric
disturbances, or disturbances caused by the passage of conventional
aircraft.
On the other hand, when falls of this substance coincide with
reasonably well-witnessed reports of UFOs in the same area, this
will help to establish that the cause of the UFO reports is
physical rather than psychological.
References
1. Michel, Aim‚. The Truth About Flying Saucers, Corgi Books,
London, 1958
2. Keyhoe, Donald E. The Flying Saucer Conspiracy, Hutchinson,
London, 1957
3. Gillmor, Daniel S. (ed.) Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying
Objects, Bantam Books, New York, 1968
4. Michel, Aim‚. Flying Saucers and the Straight Line Mystery,
Criterion Books, New York, 1958
