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