The Toxic Blobs That Rained Down On Washington • Mystery Files

A mysterious blob-like substance falls on an entire town. The problem is- No! What are you- Welcome to Mystery Files, where we take a deep dive into cases that span from the creepy to the truly bizarre and everything in between. I'm Ryan, and today I'll be forcing my colleague Shane to hear all about the unnerving Oakville blobs. And in the end, you'll have to decide whether the case is solved, Or if it's simply a mystery. Oakville Blobs, you ever heard about these bad boys? I'm gonna make a blob noises. Is that what you were doing? That's a pretty good impression of a dog licking water out of a bowl. Wait, do you wanna hear that? Yeah. I think I can do that. Your other impression. Well, that's too much, yeah. Your other impression sounded better, and frankly, it didn't look like what that looked like, and also what that sounded like. All right, let's go take a look at this video. You got a little video for us? Wanna check out my video? I wanna check out your video. Hello, I'm Professor Morris Ashley, and after a much needed hiatus during which I absconded to Italy and enjoyed a serene life of anonymity as a blonde hot air balloon pilot, I'm back, thanks to today's sponsor, Incogni. I can finally return to the spotlight. After the success of my hit show, Extreme Science, the fandom got out of hand. My inbox was full of junk, obsessive fan mail was clogging up my mailbox, and my phone was ringing off the hook. I became a virtual shut-in. I tore up my social security card, melted my fingerprints off on one of those men in black machines, and I left my old life behind. You know, every day, without our knowledge, our personal information is in danger. It's packaged and sold on an open market by hundreds of data brokers. It's really difficult and tedious to unsubscribe from everything ourselves, so the logical solution was to sign up for Incogni. I signed up for an account. I gave them my permission to reach out to data brokers on my behalf and asked them to have my personal data removed. My yearly subscription monitors it for me, protecting my data privacy, keeping my information offline, and making me feel safe. Rap break! I was lonely and adrift because Grifters got my information. Incogni came along at last and proved to be salvation. No more calls, no more data brokers, no more spam! An automated second lease on life, and I'm like, damn! Yes, thanks to Incogni, I can finally be myself again. I'm moving back to Tinseltown. I've had a lovely time in Italy, and I will miss my Italian wife, Bianca Sofia. Use the code WATCHER to get an exclusive 60% off an annual Incogni plan at incogni.com slash watcher. Now, back to your regular program. Wow, that was a great video, huh? I have nothing else to say about that. Well then, in that case, let's begin. The tiny Pacific Northwest town of Oakville, Washington lies squarely in the middle of nowhere, surrounded on all sides by forest. In 1994, the town had a population of just 665 residents, which is fewer people than there were in my high school graduating class. Oh, cool. And those 665 people became the victims of a mysterious incident in which tiny, translucent, gelatinous blobs fell from the sky, possibly resulting in severe illness throughout the town. Oakville averages over 50 inches of rain a year, but on August 7th, 1994, a different sort of rain fell. Chubby rain. I knew it, I knew it. The rain was different that day. Chubby rain. That's from Bowfinger. Tell them the title. Chubby rain. What? Chubby rain. Stop watching this episode and go watch Bowfinger. Should we just take a quick 90 minute break here? Yeah. And allow them to watch the film? We'll be here when you get back. We'll be in the basement. 90 minutes, starting now. Around 3 a.m., residents reported that see-through blobs, about half the size of a grain of rice, were falling from the sky. In a 1997 Unsolved Mysteries episode covering the case, local Oakville officer David Lacey described his experience with the blobs by saying, quote, it looked like hail laying on top of the wood box and everywhere else. So I just went over and I touched it and it wasn't hail, it was a gelatinous-like material. Now, I do want to caution that that is not the blobs. We can see that, that is way bigger than a grain of rice. That's big, big, big. But what, in fact, would a blob actually feel like? Are you allowed to go over there? I'm pontificating here. Did you bring blobs? I did bring blobs. Yes! And I did bring them right here. I don't care for that. Where did you get, where, come on, man. Yeah! What did it feel like? It feels like goo. Are these just those crystals that absorb water? No, I harvested those from Oakville and I brought them. Over the next three weeks, six different incidents of the falling blobs were reported over a 20-square-mile area, accompanied by a reported spike in hospital visits. I see you widening up. No, no, no, I'm actually just squeezing. No! No, no, no, I'm not gonna do anything crazy. What do you think, I'm gonna go over there and pull your finger? No, just, I want you to feel the joy of the blobs. I'm not doing anything funny! I can feel the joy of the blobs from here. Trust me! No, no, no, come here. Yeah, nothing makes me want to trust you more than you saying trust me. I'm staying right here. Well, then I'll come to you. No! Why are you so afraid? All right, now you're gonna sit down there. Now, bless you, okay. Well, I didn't want to do anything nasty, but now I do. We're gonna continue the lesson. This is the part where you sit down. That's what's gonna happen now. I'm not paying attention to these creatures. You're gonna have to listen. I'm not paying attention to these creatures. All right, it's time for you to listen. Now, bless you, okay. You know what? I'm not even scared, because I don't think you could hit me from there. I don't think you have the skill. No, okay. Over the next three weeks, six different incidents of the falling blobs were reported over a 20-square-mile area, accompanied by a reported spike in hospital visits. The town at large experienced flu-like symptoms, as well- Fuck! The town at large experienced flu-like symptoms, as well as inner ear and respiratory issues. One resident said, quote, "'Everybody that lived here got sick,' end quote. While another explained, "'Everybody in the whole town came down like a flu, "'only it was a really hard flu. "'It didn't last like seven days. "'It lasted like seven weeks, "'or two or three months,' end quote." Officer Lacey recalled being violently sick with respiratory issues. Dottie Hearn, who'd touched the blobs, was another one of those who fell ill. Dottie collapsed the same day those first blobs fell, and was even hospitalized for three days with difficulty breathing, an ear infection, dizziness, and nausea. She said, I started feeling dizzy, and everything started moving around and around. That's what she said. Her daughter, Sunny Barclift, who also experienced nausea and fatigue, shared of her mom's experience. Quote, "'She was cold, drenched with perspiration.' Dottie was drenched. "'My mom had been vomiting. "'She had extreme vertigo. "'Vision was blurry. "'For some reason, as we were going out the door, "'I remembered the substance and wondered "'if perhaps it might have had "'some sort of effect on her.'" End quote. However, Dr. David Little, the physician who treated Dottie, stated that he did not believe her symptoms were linked to the mysterious blobs, believing they were due to an inner ear issue. I hate to say this, doctor sounds like a quack. Mysterious blob-like substance falls on an entire town, the entire town gets sick. This guy tells this old lady, I think it's an ear infection. I don't think Dottie would lie. What, did Dottie touch the blobs? She did, she was- Dottie touched the blobs? Yeah, she did touch the blobs. Then she got drenched and mommy vom-y. But it wasn't only people who seemed to be affected by these mysterious blobs. In fact, it was the animals who were hit the hardest. Many allegedly died as a result. Possums? Yeah, sure. Possums died? Well, it's hard to tell which ones died and which ones were just playing possum. They probably died, though. I like possums a lot. Well, they're all dead. Many allegedly died as a result with those who ingested the blobs reportedly having a green film spilling out of their mouths. Dottie Hearns recently adopted Kitten, who lived outside on her 12 acre farm, died. Another resident, Beverly Roberts, claimed that 12 of her friend's animals died soon after the blobs fell. And when she grabbed samples of the blobs herself, she said both a raven and a frog were lying dead nearby. The next day, Roberts herself became sick with vertigo and spent nearly a week in the hospital. You ever have frog legs? They're really good. They're like little chicken. Only when they're fried. I'm getting hungry just looking at that. Not a lot of meat on them, but God, they're so good. I mean, he is just lying there, spread eagle, waiting for you to come chew his ass up. But you probably would not wanna eat him because he ate blobs. Blob kill him. You eat him. Blob kill you. Well, I think it probably kills small animal because animal's small. So it might kill me, but it may not kill you. I don't think it would kill you. You're big enough. You're a big guy. Dark Knight Rises. Go ahead and check that one out. And then when you come. What is that, two hours, 10 minutes? That's about two and a half hours, I think. So come back here and then you'll get that reference and you'll be like, dude, chubby rain, and you're a big guy. Donnie's daughter, Sunny, had also taken samples of the blobs. And because of her mother's ongoing illness, the hospital's lab agreed to test them. And they reportedly contained some human white blood cells. Though, they were unable to do further chemical analysis. The blobs? The blobs contained human white blood cells. Interesting. Very interesting. What is your initial thought? I mean, my initial thought is that maybe some sort of weather cell picked up. Blobs of human white blood? Well, I was gonna say waste material somewhere. Are you suggesting there's a pile of human shit somewhere? I mean, I don't know. I'm sure there are plenty of places in this world that irresponsibly recycle things. The appearance, though. I can't imagine that it would be consistently this small, clear, translucent, and blobby. That, I would have to guess, is some sort of effect of once it gets up there and it's in the atmosphere, it's being carried, almost like you put something in a blender. You know, it sort of all comes out in some similar consistency. Well, I have seen shit in a blender. Fat Bastard did that. And that was in Austin Powers 2. And it looked very, very- The Spy Who Shagged Me, which is- So go ahead and watch Austin Powers. About 90 minutes. Sonny then sent the samples off to the Washington State Department of Ecology Hazardous Material Unit, which found a number of cells of various sizes from creatures unknown, though they confirmed the cells lacked a nuclei and thus were not white blood cells. The Hazardous Material Unit was unequipped to identify biological cells, so they passed the case onto their colleagues at Washington State Department of Health for further analysis. The Department of Health's findings also didn't discover the presence of white blood cells, but they did find two different types of bacteria, reportedly pseudanomous fluorescence and enterobacter cloacae. Pseudanomous fluorescence is fairly common and isn't typically harmful to humans, although at least one 2021 study linked it to pneumonia. E. cloacae, though also commonly found in nature, can cause infections in humans, including pneumonia as well. Additionally, both bacteria thrive in moist environments, which the Pacific Northwest definitely is. Health Department microbiologist Mike McDowell described his observations of the blobs. Quote, it was very uniformed. There was no structure we could see visibly or with a microscope, end quote. About a year later, the blob samples were tested a fourth time by AmTest Laboratories. Tim Davis, the microbiologist who tested the samples there, said, quote, I saw what I think was a eukaryotic cell, which is basically a cell that has a definable nucleus and is found present in most animals, end quote. This opposes the nuclei finding from the Washington State Department of Health. The town just like, did they clean them up? Did they get washed away? I'm sure they did. Probably got their hose out and like, all right, let's fucking hose away the blobs. Yeah. Because we don't want Dottie to get sick again. Well, that makes me concerned for the, like the ground soil and all that, but I guess everybody's fine now, right? Well, maybe. Such a small town, aliens were like, let's test out our new blob weapon on this small land. You're getting ahead of yourself. Maybe. But they wouldn't say it like that. They'd say, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Then you'd go, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Is that them shooting blobs out of there? Yeah, that's exactly. Well, that's them saying that we should do the blob weapon. Oh, I see. That's not what it would actually sound like. That would sound like this. Pweak, pweak, pweak. Yeah. Different. Put them back to back. Very good. Now that we have all the information, it's cork board time. Let's get into the theories. Cork board time. Theory one, the blobs are actually jellyfish shredded up by the US Air Force. The first theory is one that was widely believed at the time of the incidents, that the blobs were actually jellyfish somehow sucked up into the air from the nearby Pacific Ocean and shredded into tiny bits by US Air Force jets during a bombing practice. The Air Force confirmed that such a bombing practice had taken place 50 miles away in the Pacific, both the week of the first blob incident and the week before. Master Sergeant Thaddeus Hossley, spokesman at McCord Air Force Base in nearby Tacoma, said the 354th Fighter Squadron had dropped bombs about 10 to 20 miles west of ocean shores the previous week. I was about to ask any confirmation on those bombings. So yeah, that makes sense. He said, quote, they were conducting bombing runs using live ordinance, end quote. But when Oakville Chief of Police, Gary Groib, said somebody suggested a school of jellyfish might have been blown literally sky high by the bomb test, McCord's spokesman tried and failed to stifle his laughter, saying he couldn't comment on the theory. I guess they sort of operate with that sort of impunity. They can just be like, well, we don't have to tell you anything. Well, I think it was more just like, that's ridiculous. Is it? Yeah, I think it is ridiculous. I actually- You'd also be able to tell it was a jellyfish by the labs that it was sent to. I guess, though, I don't know. Yeah, you would. Yeah, it's a fucking jellyfish. Like, if I blew you up- Yeah. And I had little bits of Shane. Yeah, they'd see little pieces of me. Pieces. Even if it was just like a nipple, I could send that to the lab. They'd be like, hey, whose nipple is this? And they'd be like, Shane Bidet. That's Shane's nipple. That's Shane's nipple, his left one, in fact. Yeah. Because it's bigger than his right. My nipples are identical. Well, good for you. Not all of us are that lucky. Oh, sorry, man. One on the right's three times bigger. Three. Theory two. The blobs are airplane toilet waste. Ooh. Kind of an alarming theory, no? Look at this. It's alarming. I feel like- Snuck a picture of Candy Crush in here. I know, I like that. I assume it's illegal for them to dump waste. It should be. We can't all be out there being like the Dave Matthews Band. That's true. I was just thinking about that incident. Why don't you tell the folks at home what happened? Well, in my fair city of Chicago, Illinois, the Dave Matthews Band was leaving town on their tour bus and traveling over one of their city's many bridges, and they dumped all the toilet waste from their tour bus out on the bridge, which happened to be over the river, and all the shit poured from their bus through the grates of the bridge onto a boat full of tourists who were on an architecture tour, covering them in the shit of one of America's great beloved songsters. Mr. Dave Matthews. It was a bowel boat. It was, it sure was. Sign reads in part, no one died that day, but many wish they had. Another early theory was that the blobs were airplane toilet waste dumped out of a commercial airplane. Gross. Reportedly, Sonny Barclift got in contact with the FAA and convinced them to investigate. A Federal Aviation Administration spokesman said of the blob phenomenon, quote, we don't know what it is or where it came from. It's a puzzle, end quote, and pointed out that if the blobs had been airplane waste, they would have been blue, not translucent, so. Yeah, it's always blue. They must use some sort of chemicals in there. Yeah. Oh, I guess you're on a plane, so you don't want it to stink, so maybe the blue sort of pacifies that stank. Or they're secretly liquefying members of the Blue Man Group on airplanes. Next week on Mystery Files, theory number three. The blobs are actually star jelly. Yeah. What, now what? Star jelly. Come on now, you can't just say that. Tell me more. Ask me about more. Tell you more? I'll tell you more. Please tell me more about star jelly. Another theory ties the Oakville blobs back to a long and noble history of blobbage. Star jelly is a term that dates back to the 17th century and a phenomenon that was first observed in the 14th century. It has also been referenced in both poetry and scientific writings throughout that time. One long-running theory about star jelly is that it rains down during meteor showers, earning it its starry name, as well as the terms astral jelly and astromasin. Star jelly has been used in reference to a multitude of substances over the years. Slime, molds, amphibians, algae, and even sodium polyacrylate, an absorbent polymer that's used in agriculture, cosmetics, and even diapers. There was a case in Bournemouth, England, in 2012, where sodium polyacrylate was used to absorb storm water and gelatinous blobs formed as a result. Is that what we used today for the fun? What did we use for the fun? That was chunky slime. That was chunky slime produced by our very own Carter Leonard. He produced that? Yes. He secreted it? Well, I don't know if he secreted it. I just know he produced it. He produced it. How he did it, I have no idea. Carter produces slime. Theory number four. The blobs are a result of other undisclosed military activity. It's hard, it's far. No, I can't. Nailed it. Though there's no concrete evidence to support this theory, some residents of Oakville believed there might have been even more classified military weapons testing going on that the military did not admit to. Sonny Barcliff said, quote, we had a significant amount of military aircraft flying over the home prior to this happening, end quote. While her mother, Dottie Hearn, added, quote, every day almost, low-flying bombers, helicopters, all black in color, and we kind of thought maybe it came from them, end quote. Beverly Roberts speculated to Unsolved Mysteries that, quote, maybe we were a biological experiment of some kind, a small one maybe, just to get people a little sick to find out. Say an enemy did come over here with a biological bomb and dropped it, maybe just a test run to see what would happen, end quote. The government was keeping them sick. They, exactly. They don't tell you nothing, so it's highly possible it is them and they're up to no good. Would they hurt their own people? Would they make people sick? Well, they regularly kill people all the way around, you know, all around the world. That's true. So, sure. Ever heard of a drone? Drone strikes. Press a button. Mr. Obama, he sure loved those. Just out there fucking deleting villages? Bad, shame. We say no, no, a wag of the finger to drone strikes. I would get rid of drones. Theory five, the blobs are unfertilized amphibian spawn. I like the sound of that. It's fucking gross. Another recent incident happened in 2013 in Somerset, England, which is right there. Hmm. Doesn't it look pretty? Stunning. Doesn't it look pretty? That's about two hours away from the previously mentioned 2012 occurrence at a bird sanctuary nature preserve. Look at that bird. Tweet, tweet. Tweeted not. Yeah. You know, whatever. Whatever fucking birds say. The slime was much bigger than Oakville's blobs, about four inches in diameter. Oh, I'd love to get my hands on that. I'm sure you would. I would. You wouldn't like to get your- You want to get your hands in a nice chody blob? A nice four inch blob? Four inch diameter? Well, I just, I find- A fucking cheese wheel. You know, I understand the slime craze because slime feels very nice. I hate slime. I hate things that are gross in my hands. What about a stress ball? I just don't like gross things in my hands. Early theories were that the substance was no stock. That's why you didn't want to put the slime in your hand at the beginning of the episode. Wasn't even that you didn't trust me. You're just a baby. Guilty. Oh, you nasty little boy. Early theories were that the substance was no stock, a form of cyanobacteria. However, Star Jelly fans pointed out that there was a meteor sighting the week before. Upon further investigation, it was agreed that the slime was actually unfertilized amphibian spawn, which contains a glycoprotein that creates a gelatinous substance when it comes in contact with water. Could this have also been the case with the Oakville blobs? Which brings us to our sixth theory. Well, no, I'm not done. I find frog eggs and tadpoles to be really disgusting. Thank God. What do you think about tadpoles? Thought you were gonna say something else? You thought I was gonna say sexy, arousing? No, no, no. That's out of character? Tadpoles, the way that they start out as like little fishy-like things and then slowly just grow legs. I mean, we kind of look like tadpoles when we're sperm. This should be illegal. Anyways, let's go on to theory number, oh, they didn't put the theory. Well, theory number six is, of course. Aliens. It was aliens. What do you think it was, though, out of these? I guess I'll go with, I'll go with number four. Number four. Because number four is just like, the theory is it's basically a mystery. That's right. It's like the military will never tell us what they were up to. I think it's like that or something out of my earlier hypothesis, which was maybe some sort of biological waste that got picked up by a storm cell of some kind. So number one, then. Similar to one, but maybe not necessarily jellyfish yet. Gotcha. 30 years have passed and all samples of the Oakville blobs are unfortunately long gone with nothing left to test with today's scientific advancements. Reportedly, even the Washington State Department of Health no longer has any record of receiving the blobs. So, unless the blobs strike again, the curious case of the Oakville blobs and the illnesses they reportedly caused will remain a mystery. It's a mystery. Well, I love a mystery and I love not knowing. Isn't it nice that there's some things in this world that we'll never know? Yeah, it is nice. And don't we have to be at peace with that? We've had such a good time in the basement. We watched so many movies. Yeah. We poured blobs on each other. Yeah, we did. And then we looked at pictures of blobs. I mean. That's great. Doesn't get much better than this. I'm having a great time so far this season down here in the basement. We're having a lot of fun. Me too. You know, we have three episodes left. Let's just make the most of the time that we can. That's all you can do. So my wife's gonna kick us out of this basement sooner rather than later. So we'll see you guys next time on Mystery Files. Why don't you just stick to the science? How about that? Why don't you just stick that little pointer up your ass? Oh, I might. All right, why don't I do it right now? Why?