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Angel Hair samples (image credit: Brian Boldman)
By Alejandro Rojas
France in the fifties was overwhelmed with UFO reports. One of the lesser known and more mysteries anomalies connected to this wave was the collection of white fibrous material that fell from the heavens. Dubbed Angel Hair because it falls from the sky, it was seen in conjunction with UFO sightings, but more often without. Even the Condon Report, a UFO study done by the University of Colorado in the late sixties at the behest of the U.S. Air Force, examined the issue. They described angel hair as “fibrous material which falls in large quantities, but is unstable and disintegrates and vanishes soon after falling.”
One of the earlier more fantastic reports of angel hair took place in Oloron, France in October of 1952. According to several witnesses they saw a large cylinder in the sky at a 45 degree angle. Below it was a cloud and witnesses could also make out a mass of smaller objects. Using opera glasses they could see that these smaller objects were red spheres surrounded by a yellow ring. Their movements were described as “following a broken path characterized in general by rapid and short zigzags. When two saucers drew away from one another, a whitish streak, like an electric arc, was produced between them.” Witnesses estimated there were about 30 of these objects. Falling from these objects was a white hair-like substance. When picked up and rolled into a ball it turned into gelatin and then disappeared. This entire scenario repeated itself 10 days later in Gaillac, France.
Since these early recollections, angel hair events have been reported sporadically. Brian Boldman wrote an extensive article on the angel hair phenomenon for the International UFO Reporter in their fall 2001 issue. His research demonstrated that during a famous UFO wave in 1973, there was also an increase in angel hair reports. The peak of the UFO wave was on October 18 on which date there were also five angel hair reports. One of the cases was from Hamilton, Illinois. Witnesses reported seeing two a large oval/oblong gray objects. The second one appeared to be covered in cobwebs. 15 minutes after the sighting witnesses found cotton-like material that “became a small ball which melted as it was touched.”
The Condon Report’s analysis of the angel hair covered incidents from 1952 through 1955, and referred to a report which suggested that the majority of the phenomena was caused by spiders. Some spiders create webs that they use to glide through the air. A medical doctor in France made the same assumptions about the French cases, although he acknowledged that he could not explain the UFO sightings. The Condon Report also conceded, “in other cases, the composition or origin of the “angels hair” is uncertain.”
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