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Star Jelly (Pwdre Ser)

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Mighty_Emperor

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Not sure if there is a better place (couldn't find one) but here is Mark Pilkington's most recent piece in the Garudian:

The blobs

Mark Pilkington
Thursday January 13, 2005
The Guardian

"It appeared larger than the sun, illumined the hemisphere nearly as light as day. [And when it fell] a large company of the citizens immediately repaired to the spot and found a body of fetid jelly, four feet in diameter," Scientific American, 1846.

This description of a spectacular meteorite fall is a fine example of the phenomenon named by Welsh shepherds, pwdre (sometimes powdre) ser or "the rot of the stars" and also known as star slough, star shot, star spawn or star jelly. These gelatinous blobs, usually whitish, translucent and foul smelling, have been associated with meteorite falls for centuries. In 1656 the metaphysical poet Henry More observed that "the Starres eat those falling Starres, as some call them, which are found on the earth in the form of a trembling gelly, are their excrement". Often found in early mornings, the jellies usually dry up quickly, disappearing to almost nothing as the day warms up.

Most meteors, composed of rock and ore, burn up instantly on hitting the Earth's atmosphere, so gelatinous material wouldn't stand a chance - this is certainly not space gunk. 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 - holds the properties necessary to identify it as pwdre ser.

But that doesn't mean that jellies never fall from within the atmosphere, as frogs, fish and other critters are occasionally wont to do. In 1995 a translucent jelly-like substance - "enough to fill a kettle" according to the finder - was discovered in a garden in Horley, Oxfordshire; while in 1983, Reading, Massachusetts was pelted with a greyish-white jelly which, when analysed, proved not to be waste from an aircraft, as was first assumed. Clearly better lab analysis is what's required, though we'd prefer that you didn't send your goo samples to Life.
Click to expand...

Source
 
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Hello,
I'm sure this is a common phenomena, but it's got me stumped! Whilst walking near Bakewell in the Peaks, I came across two 'jelly' like balls, about 7cm across, very organic looking & transparent. There were lots of sheep around and a pond nearby.

A friend and I have a (small) wager on their origin, and I must say none of our theories are anything other than revolting. Luckily, I had my camera with me and got quite a few pictures. If any kind fortean would care to take a look at the image (also at http://www.stephengray.net/balls01.jpg) maybe they would find the things familiar and could help clear the matter up.

balls01.jpg
 
Thanks for the reply, probably not slime mold though... each ball was transparent (not opaque) and seemed separate and 'complete', that is; not made up of smaller bodies, which rules out common frogspawn too.

It doesn’t show on the photograph but dark (red?) lines perhaps veins were also present. There was an overall impression that these things were some kind of organ. I may be wrong though. No fluids were apparent.
 
Are there any fish in the pond in particular Tench. I regularly fish for tench and when caught and released the slime they use to protect their bodies can coat the line. and your hands. This slime is hard to remove and often when i have taken it off it resembles the little organic balls in your photo. Probably not the answere but they do look similar.
 
Hmmm...not sure, had no fish experience myself. Would have to guess that there were no fish in the pond though as it resembled a flooded field more than anything else. Wouldn't rule out frogs and toads though...

This could be the answer of course, but I suspect they had something to do with the inside of the nearby sheep. Anyone know any farmers?
 
Looks very much like so-called 'pwdre ser' (a slime mould) to me - more info here:

http://www.ontarioprofessionals.com/weird.htm#ps
Link is dead. Here's the relevant text from the MIA webpage.

Pwdre Ser - Space Blobs
As he whose quicker eye both trace
A false star shot to a mark't place
Do's run apace
And, thinking it to catch,
A jelly up do snatch.
- Sir I. Suckling,
Poems Farewell to Love - 1541.​
According to old legends and poetry, luminous bodies that fall from the sky can leave behind a fetid jelly lying upon the ground. These 'jellies' have come to be known by the Welsh term pwdre ser, which is to say 'rot of the stars' (Hughes 1910). Reports of 'blobs', which were sometimes attributed to extraterrestrial sources, continued to occur throughout the twentieth century. Newspaper articles referred to them as 'blobs', and did not always offer rational explanations.

Several different types of organism can produce visible blobs on the ground. Bacterial, plasmodial, and cellular slime moulds can all produce distinct gelatinous blobs on grass, leaf duff or organic soil. Slime moulds are peculiar in that separate cells migrate together to form a plasmodium, this jelly-like mass transforms into a spore bearing body. The largest slime-moulds are those in the Myxomycota 'Kingdom'. One Myxomycota fungoid, Fuligo septica, can form an aethalium (spongy plasmodium) up to 20 cm wide and 3 cm thick. At first the plasmodium is somewhat translucent, eventually it turns opaque the as spores develop. These can occur on lawns, in meadows or on forest duff (Scagel et al1982).

myxo.jpg

Swarm cells fuse into a plasmodial phase, and then mature into an aethalial sporocarp.​

It is widely suspected that the association between pwdre ser and outer space was caused by the following type of scenario: A person sees a bright meteor at night. In the morning that person looks for the meteorite in the field or forest where it appeared to land. Instead, they find a weird blob of fetid jelly. The 'jelly' having already been there (Corliss 1983). People are notoriously poor at judging how far away meteors are. Almost invariably a meteorite that appears to have landed nearby was actually much further away. Professional meteorite hunters have long learned to take this factor into account when interviewing witnesses of a meteorite fall.

There are actually several mundane explanations for pwdre ser, these include:

(1) Myxomycete slime moulds are the largest most colourful of the ‘blob’ makers. Some, like Fuligo can be yellow, or even reddish. Some species of Physarium slimes can have a brilliant yellow plasmodia. Other physaria are pale blue, like the classic ‘star jelly’ of legend.
(2) Nostoc, a cyanobacterium, can form pale green jelly masses near the roots of grass. Conditions must be very moist for these bacterial blobs to form in open air.
(3) Tremella concrescens is a ‘jelly fungus’ that often forms in the axes of grass tufts. It forms irregular pale translucent globs, just as star jelly does.
(4) Female frogs excrete a gelatinous substance which they use to encase their eggs. This is the ‘frog-jelly’ which surrounds frog's eggs. This jelly swells-up greatly in volume by absorbing water. If a heron, or other bird, swallows a gravid frog, it must vomit up this frog-jelly. The jelly must be expelled, otherwise it would overflow the bird’s stomach! This vomit is a clear gelatine, it seldom contains frog's eggs or other items.

References
Nieves-Rivera, Angel M. 2003. The Fellowship of the Rings - UFO rings versus fairy rings. Skeptical Inquirer. Vol. 27, No. 6, 50-54.
Click to expand...

SALVAGED FROM THE WAYBACK MACHINE:
https://web.archive.org/web/20060208160221/http://www.ontarioprofessionals.com/weird.htm
 
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May well be. The site was very interesting, and the images show the branching 'viens' (the redness of these is just visible on the lower part of the right 'blob' in the photo) though there doesn't seem to be any specific reference to them. Best guess so far, I'd say! Mystery solved?
 
I assume that the 'veins' are still there as the mould hasn't grown into it's final stage. Your photo looks very much like pwdre ser (I've seen some myself on a few occasions).
 
...or the thing that is inside babies' diapers? wasn't there some "breaking news" item some days ago, about people finding weird stuff in front of their house, having it analyzed and finding out it came from (the neighbours' baby's) diapers? (am i dreaming? if i am, that's a really weird thing to dream of)
 
Some incontinence pads or diapers have a core of organic material that when it becomes extremely sodden looks just like tapioca (in fact I think that is what the manufacturers use). It wouldn't be transparent like the OP's photo though.
 
Also, these things were miles away from any other man made rubbish and pretty far from anywhere you would want to take a baby.

That aside, I had no idea they used tapioca to make incontinence pads, it will never taste the same...
 
The answer

You'll be happy to know I have the answer to your mystery.
It's yeti snot. :heh:
 
Jerry_B said:
Looks very much like so-called 'pwdre ser' (a slime mould) to me - more info here:

http://www.ontarioprofessionals.com/weird.htm#ps
Click to expand...
That link also uses the name nostoc, which has only appeared on this board once before
(and then when a poster was quoting someone else...).

It cropped up today in the World Wide Words newsletter:

Weird Words: Nostoc
-------------------------------------------------------------------
A gelatinous mass.

Neither the name nor the definition sound at all romantic, but if I
mention that nostoc's other names include star jelly, star-shot and
the Welsh pwdre sêr ("rot of the stars"), you will appreciate that
there's more to the matter.

There are many legends about it. In a translation in 1640 of van
Helmont's Ternary of Paradoxes it is suggested that nostoc may be
the "nocturnal Pollution of some plethorical and wanton Star, or
rather excrement blown from the nostrils of some rheumatic planet".
For centuries it was assumed to have fallen to the earth during
meteor showers. In modern times it has been linked with organic
detritus from unidentified flying objects or corpses of fictional
atmospheric beasts. It has also been claimed to be extraterrestrial
cellular matter that exists in molecular clouds in space.

Whatever you decide to call it, nostoc appears on the ground as a
foul-smelling jelly-like mass. The geologist Bill Baird encountered
some in Scotland in 2004. He said the lumps were about the size of
a half-brick, had "the consistency of a firm blancmange" and looked
like bits of a "settled fragmented snow bank".

The real cause is very much more mundane than the stories. Several
types of slime moulds can produce jelly-like masses when millions
of individual cells clump together preparatory to producing spores.
In particular, a cyanobacterium, Nostoc commune, sometimes forms
filamentous colonies at the roots of grass when it is very wet.

In the eighteenth century the cyanobacterium was given the genus
name of Nostoc because of this behaviour. The term "nostoc" had by
then been around for at least two centuries in the sense of this
mysterious star jelly. Despite its mundane nature, there remains
one mystery about nostoc - we've no idea where the word comes from,
not even whether it was coined in Latin or English.
 
It's obviously Haggis spawn....

(I'd have said slime mould myself)
 
Timble2 said:
It's obviously Haggis spawn....

(I'd have said slime mould myself)
Click to expand...

Aye, the Haggis hunting season closed on 31 October so its so ah ken its spawning season noo.
 
Star-snot indeed! Rabbie Burns knew what it was:

"O Jenny's a' weet, poor body,
Jenny's seldom dry:
She draigl't a' her petticoatie,
Comin thro' the rye!" :splat:
 
I remember seeing these things in Snowdonia, North Wales about 5 years ago presumed they were some kind of fungus.
 
Are you sure it isn't a space blancmange?

Instigating a plan to win Wimbeldon?
 
about 10 years ago, i had something almost identical appear in some planters a few days after i'd put fresh compost in them.

always assumed it was some sort of reaction with the rain and something in the compost... i wonder if the ground there had been treated recently?
 
There was a programme about the 'Star Jelly', on BBC Radio4, last weekend.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00hl8n6

The Star Jelly Mystery

BBC Radio 4. 08 Feb 2009

Euan McIlwraith investigates the identity of 'star jelly', a mystery jelly found across the British countryside and beyond - which has scientists and outdoor enthusiasts stumped. Could it be alien excrement, seagull vomit or remnants of a meteorite shower? Euan joins in the debate on the origins of this curious substance and subjects it to a DNA test.
Click to expand...

It's available on 'Listen Again', until the 15th.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/radio4_aod.shtml?radio4/starjellymystery
 
From that august and factually rigorous journal The Daily Mail...

The real-life Blob: Is mysterious translucent jelly found in Cumbrian Fells from outer space?

The Lake District fells have been invaded by 'The Blob', a translucent jelly which is said in folklore to be from outer space.

Within the past week the mysterious translucent jelly has materialised in and around the fells of Patterdale, Cumbria.

While some put the mysterious goo down to meteor showers, others say the strange substance appears during rutting season.

A similar incident inspired the film 'The Blob' when in 1950 four policemen in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, came across a huge disk of quivering jelly which measured six feet in diameter.

But unlike the hit 1958 horror film starring Steve McQueen these blobs don't terrorise the community and there have been no reports of any other supernatural behaviour.
Click to expand...


etc....


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... space.html

Eagle eyes will notice the word 'Cambrian' in the address there.

Anyway, my favourite theory is that these blobs are the remains of dead atmospheric beasts - you know - those things that can drift around like clouds or shapechange into flying creatures or condense to form UFOs.
 
jimv1 said:
From that august and factually rigorous journal The Daily Mail...

The real-life Blob: Is mysterious translucent jelly found in Cumbrian Fells from outer space?

The Lake District fells have been invaded by 'The Blob', a translucent jelly which is said in folklore to be from outer space.

Within the past week the mysterious translucent jelly has materialised in and around the fells of Patterdale, Cumbria.

While some put the mysterious goo down to meteor showers, others say the strange substance appears during rutting season.

A similar incident inspired the film 'The Blob' when in 1950 four policemen in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, came across a huge disk of quivering jelly which measured six feet in diameter.

But unlike the hit 1958 horror film starring Steve McQueen these blobs don't terrorise the community and there have been no reports of any other supernatural behaviour.
Click to expand...


etc....


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... space.html

Eagle eyes will notice the word 'Cambrian' in the address there.

Anyway, my favourite theory is that these blobs are the remains of dead atmospheric beasts - you know - those things that can drift around like clouds or shapechange into flying creatures or condense to form UFOs.
Click to expand...

Interesting. I live near there! Could be a fungus perhaps. Some tree fungus is translucent but rarely is it uncoloured. You do see small blobs of jelly at a beach not far from where I live but I always thought it was immature jellyfish.
 
Bournemouth resident mystified by 'blue sphere shower'

The blue spheres are jelly-like but have no smell and are not sticky

A man in Dorset has been left mystified after tiny blue spheres fell from the sky into his garden.

Steve Hornsby from Bournemouth said the 3cm diameter balls came raining down late on Thursday afternoon during a hail storm.

He found about a dozen of the balls in his garden. He said: "[They're] difficult to pick up, I had to get a spoon and flick them into a jam jar."

The Met Office said the jelly-like substance was "not meteorological".

Mr Hornsby, a former aircraft engineer, said: "The sky went a really dark yellow colour.

"As I walked outside to go to the garage there was an instant hail storm for a few seconds and I thought, 'what's that in the grass'?"

'No smell'

Mr Hornsby said he was keeping the balls in his fridge while he tried to find out what they were
Walking around his garden he found many more blue spheres were scattered across the grass.

He said: "The have an exterior shell with a softer inner but have no smell, aren't sticky and do not melt."

Mr Hornsby said he was keeping the balls in his fridge while he tried to find out what they were.

Josie Pegg, an applied science research assistant at Bournemouth University, speculated that the apparently strange phenomena might be "marine invertebrate eggs".

"These have been implicated in previous 'strange goo' incidents," she said. "I'd have thought it's a little early for spawning but I suppose we've had a very mild winter.

"The transmission of eggs on birds' feet is well documented and I guess if a bird was caught out in a storm this could be the cause."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-16754531
 
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