You've heard about it raining cats and dogs.
But what about blobs?
Our next story is probably the weirdest weather
report you've ever seen.
August 7, 1994, a storm unlike any other
descends upon the small city of Oakville, Washington.
But hold up, this is no conventional rainstorm.
Instead of pouring down raindrops,
something else falls from the sky.
Oakville resident Sunny Barclift takes these photos of what can
only be described as blob rain.
It's not water.
The blobs appear to be comprised of a translucent,
gelatinous substance.
And in some photos--
wait for it-- they're accompanied by dead frogs.
Can it get any stranger?
Yes, it can.
Just after the blob rain, Sunny's mother
falls ill, prompting Sunny to send a sample of the blobs
to Dr. Dave Little.
And the lab findings only add to the mystery.
DAVE LITTLE: The specimen was like fresh gelatin.
It was handed over to our laboratory
and viewed under a microscope.
But my laboratory was not equipped to ascertain
the exact chemical nature.
TONY HARRIS: This rain of blobs blankets a 20-square-mile area
and falls a total of six times over three weeks.
It falls on trees, grass, cars and, of course, people.
AMY TEITEL: Within days, people were
reporting vomiting, nausea, disorientation,
trouble thinking.
It was almost like they had the flu,
but symptoms persisted for two to three months.
And animals like cats and dogs that
came into contact with the goo ended up
getting sick and dying.
TONY HARRIS: But further lab tests of the blobs
do reveal a clue.
AMY TEITEL: They found that the blobs contained cells
with nuclei, saying that they were biological material
and found two very harmful types of bacteria.
One is a food spoiler and the other
is found in the human gut.
TONY HARRIS: So what could have caused
such an inexplicable form of precipitation?
AMY TEITEL: The Bible talks a lot about rains and storms.
Sometimes, it's a prophecy bringing
something deeply negative.
One Bible verse in particular, Ezekiel 38:22,
talks about a plague of blood by torrents of rain and hail.
TONY HARRIS: Another theory goes that this may have been the
doing of a more earthly power.
AMY TEITEL: Some thought that weather over the ocean
had somehow stirred up enough living beings, like jellyfish,
that were shot out of the water and sucked up
into clouds where they were able to rain back down on residents.
But no one's been able to figure out exactly
what happened in Oakville.
Prior to the blob storm, Oakville residents
noticed that there were military aircraft in their skies
almost daily.
Many began to wonder if the US government had anything
to do with what happened.
The Air Force denied knowledge of the incident,
so the townspeople had to explore other explanations.
Our experts are here to help.
First, we turn to physicist Matthew Szydagis.
Is it possible these are jellyfish brought
to land by some freak event?
MATTHEW SZYDAGIS: Oakville is not that far from the ocean.
Maybe a waterspout could have picked up
some material from the ocean and deposited it as precipitation.
TONY HARRIS: Waterspouts are tornado-like vortices that
occur over bodies of water.
In theory, they can bring sea life like jellyfish ashore,
but the evidence doesn't harmonize with that theory.
MATTHEW SZYDAGIS: I don't believe anyone found any pieces
of jellyfish, and that wouldn't explain
why the particular cells and bacteria
were found in the blobs.
TONY HARRIS: OK.
Now, for a grosser theory, and it
may explain the human gut bacteria
that was found in the blobs.
Could it be from an airplane restroom?
Don't think it hasn't happened.
As recently as 2021, a man standing
in his garden in Windsor, England,
was accidentally splattered in human waste
as an airplane approached Heathrow Airport.
But in Oakville, the evidence doesn't
line up with that theory.
MATTHEW SZYDAGIS: The FAA has strenuously
denied that we had human waste that had
been dropped from airplanes.
Furthermore, airlines will have the bluish tint to the fluid
used in the waste system.
TONY HARRIS: Blue dye is routinely added to airplane
toilets as a disinfectant, but no blue
was seen in the Oakville blobs.
MATTHEW SZYDAGIS: You saw white in the photos.
So not only would it have been unethical, illegal,
it's the wrong color.
TONY HARRIS: So could this be a weather phenomenon?
Not exactly, according to meteorologist Juan Hernandez,
but he thinks it's related.
JUAN HERNANDEZ: Before there was any research
done on this substance, this was actually called star jelly.
When any animal eats spawn of a toad or a frog,
there are always some sort of jelly
that is attached to those eggs.
TONY HARRIS: The next part of the puzzle is moisture.
When enough rainfall combines with the jelly attached
to the eggs, it expands.
JUAN HERNANDEZ: There was about a quarter of an inch of rain
in this specific location.
A quarter of an inch of rain should be enough to allow
for the jelly to expand.
TONY HARRIS: So the theory is that animals
ate frog eggs, vomited them up, and then
the rain expanded them.
Though that would explain the frogs, Szydagis isn't sold.
MATTHEW SZYDAGIS: We have numerous witnesses, including
credible witnesses like police officers from Oakville,
saying that this rained down from the sky,
hitting their windshields.
And Szydagis is also notes that frogs
don't explain the human connection
found in the samples.
MATTHEW SZYDAGIS: I would also like to know how animals manage
to swallow human gut bacteria.
And if that was the case, how do you
get so many animals sick at the same time, multiple times
in the same area?
Our verdict-- unidentified living substance.
We explored theories like jellyfish, star jelly,
and airplane waste, but that doesn't
explain what eyewitnesses saw coming directly out of the sky.