A mysterious substance called angel hair has been seen falling from the sky around the world and is often associated with UFO or apparition sightings. We previously took a closer look at the folklore and how the strands of disappearing material seemed to evaporate when touched along with some conspiracy theories and explanations for what angel hair could be.
Although the substance remains a mystery, one case in Evora Portugal in 1959 is notable because it is a rare case when a sample of the ephemeral hair may have been tested and investigated in a lab.
The information available in the following video is in Portuguese, but we have provided a transcript of the main points in English for your consideration. We approach the subject with an open mind but remain skeptical.
Is angel hair real? Have you seen it or someone you know? As always, we leave the final determination up to you. Whatever the case it is certainly interesting. See the video at the end of the article.
Évora, November 2nd, 1959. About noon.
Two strange objects are seen flying over the city.
According to testimony from many witnesses, after their flyover, a bunch of white filaments were found everywhere, which the people from the city then called “angel hairs.”
Professor Joaquim Guedes Gomeral, a data director of the commercial and industrial school of Évora, witnessed this strange occurrence and wrote it down. The contents remained hidden for about twenty years.
According to Gomeral, that day was clear, with not a single cloud in the sky. Someone told him a strange object was flying over the city. He then went outside the school to witness a strange round, blue object and went back inside to get his telescope.
A second object was seen orbiting the bigger one, emulating several species from the depths of the ocean.
After a while, both objects gained altitude and disappeared. That’s when witnesses saw the filaments falling from the sky.
It wasn’t the first time or the only place where the filaments were seen falling from the sky. Hours before, hundreds of kilometers away, over a military base, Conceiçao e Silva, a pilot, was getting ready for a flight training session.
He said it was a clear, pretty day, but cold. It was, and they were ready to take off when they saw the filaments falling down from the sky.
Although it only lasted a few minutes at the military base, it lasted almost four hours at Évora, covering parts of the school and some houses all over the city. In fact, the filament ‘precipitation’ allowed for people to be able to gather it, even though it was as fine as spider silk.
Professor Amaral gathered some of these filaments to do a closer examination. Upon observing these filaments under a microscope, he discovered that, in fact, to his amazement, there was a microscopic living creature with ten tentacles wrapped by a clear, gelatinous substance.
Dr. María José Escaria Santos, a Biologist, concluded that the closest thing they resembled were ‘Coelenterata,’ the species which include sea anemones and other coral animals, but concluded that nothing she knew about biology allowed her to classify it.
Coelenterata derived from Greek "koilos" ("hollow bellied"). Encompass Ctenophora & Cnidaria https://t.co/ypqawjn1gR pic.twitter.com/OtKjh7ke2x
— BHL (@BioDivLibrary) September 13, 2016
Professor Amaral turned in the sample to the Lisboa Faculty of Science, thinking it would have a better chance at classification. However, in 1978, there was a fire at that Faculty, which destroyed the sample, halting any possibility of further analysis.
Twenty years later, this case reached the CTEC (Centro Transdisciplinar de Estudios de Consciencia) via an article from 1960, published in the newspaper from the city of Évora, with the title, “A Large Flying Saucer over Évora, Unknown Microscopic Beings.”
They started an investigation in 1979, which took them to the school where the flying object was seen. CTEC investigators talked to people who had witnessed the incident. One of the professors saw clearly that there was a relation of cause and effect since right after the sighting of the flying saucers, the filaments fell from the sky.
In the end, however, the CTEC found all accounts and testimony inconclusive, although they formulated some theories. According to Raul Berenguel, an analyst at CTEC, we shouldn’t discard the possible existence of microscopic species that could survive in high altitudes that have not been discovered, likening the recent discovery of bacteria that survive in the most inhospitable places.
For more on the subject see our previous article and the video in Portuguese below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwelTeXPLao
Featured image: Screenshot via YouTube
