Angel hair
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 📖 Term
Contents 3
| Type | Term |
|---|---|
| Also known as | angel's hair |
Angel hair is a fine, sticky, cobweb-like substance said to fall from the sky, sometimes during UFO sightings or reported appearances of the Virgin Mary. It is said to vanish or dissolve soon after it lands. In many cases it has been identified as the silk of migrating spiders.[1][2]
Reports
Angel hair was reported at Fátima, Portugal, during the apparitions of 13 September and 13 October 1917.[1] Other well-known reports include: - Oloron, France, 17 October 1952: Mr Prigent, a school supervisor, saw a long white cigar and dozens of balls in the sky with his family, followed by a fall of filaments.[1][2] - Venice and Florence, Italy, 27 October 1954: two men reported shining objects leaving a trail of threads over St Mark's Square in Venice, and a large crowd at a football match in Florence reported similar objects the same day.[1] - Évora, Portugal, 2 November 1959: material was collected and examined by a school director, military technicians and scientists of the University of Lisbon.[1] Newspapers in Australia and New Zealand have reported many falls since the 1950s.[1]
Explanations
Some spiders travel through the air on silk threads, a behaviour called ballooning, and sometimes in large numbers. Many samples of angel hair have proved to be such threads, and in one case small spiders were found on the material.[1] A local doctor at Oloron explained that case as an autumn migration of spiders. He wrote that a later display, with the same shining colours caused by sunlight on the threads, confirmed his view.[2] The University of Lisbon scientists who studied the Évora material concluded that it was probably produced by a small insect or a single-celled organism.[1] A sample from Florence analysed soon after collection was found to contain boron, silicon, calcium and magnesium and was not radioactive.[1] Samples from Fátima were found to be of vegetable origin.[1] Another proposed natural cause is atmospheric electricity making dust particles join into filaments.[1]
Some ufologists have argued that angel hair is ionised air or excess energy shed by a UFO's propulsion field, but these ideas have no scientific basis.[1] The substance plays a part in the beliefs of the UFO religion Raëlism.[1]
A related report, sometimes called "angel grass", involves short metallic threads falling from the sky. These are usually chaff, strips released by military aircraft, rockets or balloons to confuse or test radar.[1]
References
- Angel hair (folklore) — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- "Oloron, 17 October 1952", Patrick Gross, UFOs at close sight (archive page) · ufologie.patrickgross.org · archived copy
This page was last edited on 31 October 2026. Articles are written in our own words from the sources listed under References; disputed claims are attributed to the people who made them.
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