The tagline for the 1958 movie, “The Blob” reads as follows: “an alien lifeform consumes everything in its path as it grows and grows.” This movie, which starred Steve McQueen as the main character, had many working titles, including The Glob, The Meteorite Monster, as well as The Molten Meteorite. Remakes of the movie followed in 1988 and 2005. Did the basis of these movies stem from real-life occurrences?
Before people clung to the thought of UFO spacecrafts and aliens, there was a prevalent theory that the unexplainable could be attributed to “space animals,” which were described as being life forms that resided within the upper atmosphere. This thought became accepted because many questioned Earth as being the only planet to exhibit living creatures. Some even went as far as to suspect that these creatures were responsible for some missing person cases, as well as eating humans. This belief was grasped whole-heartedly by a Pennsylvania man, who referred to reports of skin and blood falling from the sky.
This sort of theory also dates back to a 1913 issue of The Strand, which published a science fiction story by the same author who penned Sherlock Holmes. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle told tales of “atmospheric monsters” that assaulted and slaughtered pilots. Others who believed in the existence of “space animals” include occultist, Trevor James Constable and biologist, Ivan T. Sanderson.
When looking for evidence of such a creature, there are no conclusive examples to speak of. The only thing that can be used to back up such claims are a handful of reports dealing with the sighting of a jelly-like substance falling from the sky. Many are skeptical with these reports because it could easily be attributed to odd weather occurrences.
In September 26, 1950, two Philadelphia police officers reported to have seen a UFO land in a field. As four officers examined the area, they came across a 6-foot long gelatinous mass. They claimed that it evaporated within a half an hour. Another incident occurred in Frisco, Texas, where a woman spotted a bright light hovering over her neighbor’s home. The next morning, the neighbor located three purple blobs. As soon as the sunlight hit the first specimen, it evaporated, but the other two survived long enough to be analyzed. To the dismay of the witnesses, it was concluded that the substance was industrial waste, even though it differed in form and texture between the two substances.
Some believe that these creatures travel from other entities within the Solar System that have been thought to contain life forms. There have been accounts of several moons having large bodies of liquid underneath their surface, where some form of life is suspected of living within. Mars has been thought to harbor life forms with a liquid form of water believed to be located beneath the surface. Titan is the only known moon to exhibit a noteworthy atmosphere where the prospect of seasonal liquid hydrocarbon lakes. Astronomers suspect that Europa may have a salt ocean underneath it thick icy crust.
Until concrete evidence is found on the matter, all we can do is attribute these sort of odd happenings to theories that our imaginations create.