Thick spheres fell like rain on the city of Oakville in the summer of 1994, causing scientists to spend time analyzing but not reaching a final conclusion.
On August 7, 1994, slime rain appeared for the first time in Oakville, according to IFL Science. They fall from the sky as mucus particles smaller than a grain of rice, but with heavy rainfall, they become visible all over the ground and rooftops, including the house of local resident Sunny Barclift. On August 19 of the same year, The Lewiston Tribune reported that mucus rain continued to fall for the second time within half a month.
A hospital observed the mucus under a microscope and concluded it contained human white blood cells, sparking speculation this was waste from airplane toilets, but a spokesman for the US Federal Aviation Administration denied accept this hypothesis because waste from toilets is often dyed blue, so it is nicknamed “blue ice”.
The second, more interesting theory explains the mucus as exploding jellyfish. The 354th Fighter Squadron dropped many bombs into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Washington at that time. The bomb landed on a school of jellyfish that may have been the source of the Oakville slime rain.
Paul Johnson, professor emeritus of biology at the University of North Georgia, said it’s possible that part of the jellyfish’s body was shot into the atmosphere and accumulated during the storm. Animal rain is not a new thing, but a total of 6 times mucus rain fell on the city, so it is difficult to imagine jellyfish debris could float in the air for so long.
On August 20, 1994, the Washington State Department of Ecology conducted a mucus analysis. Their scientist Mike Osweiler examined Oakville mucus beads and found a number of cells of varying sizes. This result seems to refute the previous hypothesis about platelets, because the cells do not have a nucleus. As a multicellular organism belonging to the phylum Jellyfish, jellyfish are made of eukaryotic cells like many other animals, including a nucleus along with organelles covered by a membrane.
Life forms without a nucleus constitute prokaryotic cells, commonly found in bacteria and archaea. Microbiologist Mike McDowell of the Washington State Public Health Department (WSPHD), said he and his colleagues could not see any structures through microscopic observations. They placed the mucus in a variety of microbiology substrates and sought to isolate the bacteria. The WSPHD report notes the presence of two types of bacteria, Pseudomonas fluorescens and Enterobacter cloacae, both of which live in the digestive tract of humans or other mammals. They are also present in the environment where waste is collected, and can travel in water and aerosols.
Several Oakville residents became ill with flu-like symptoms when exposed to the mucus, including Barclift’s mother. However, researchers do not know whether it is a direct effect of mucus rain or not. Barclift and a friend also experienced vomiting and fatigue after collecting and touching the mysterious mucus. At the time, she thought the symptoms might just be a coincidence. However, Barclift believes that the Oakville slime rain is an unusual phenomenon.