By Hayden Sadler
On one fateful day in 1994, gelatinous blobs launched an assault over a 20-square-mile area, including the town of Oakville, Washington. Soon after, inhabitants of the area began getting sick with symptoms such as vertigo, nausea and fevers. There was no sure explanation to such a strange series of events, but many people have their own theories as to what could have happened. Let’s first take a look at how these events unfolded, and then talk about what possibly could have sent the mysterious slime chunks into the town of Oakville.
The Story
It was August 7th, 1994 – an otherwise normal day – and Officer David Lacey was on patrol near the town of Oakville. At first it looked like rain, only it wasn’t. The windshield wipers didn’t clear the droplets, but rather smeared them like jelly. There is no clear path forward when experiencing something so enigmatic, and Lacey did what anyone else would do: he observed.
Parking his car at a gas station, he noticed more of these odd blobs surrounding him outside like gelatinous droplets of rain.
Shortly after these strange events, the Lewiston Tribune, a local newspaper, published a story featuring accounts on the mysterious goo-storm. Two such accounts were those of Dotty Hearn and Sunny Barclift, Hearn’s daughter. Both lived on a 29-acre farm near Oakville, which experienced the gelatinous assault twice during a span of two weeks.
According to the Tribune, both Barclift and an unnamed friend experienced nausea and fatigue following their encounter with the forbidden Jell-O. Hearn however, was hospitalized due to these same symptoms. Even a newly adopted kitten was affected by this weather pattern, as it quickly fell ill and died with intestinal problems.
Dr. David Little treated Dotty Hearn during her time in the hospital. He chalked up the fatigue and illness to an inner ear problem rather than the blobs themselves. If this was the case then what caused a kitten to fall ill? What caused Barclift and her friend to experience similar symptoms? Here’s where the story continues to get interesting – the lab test. On the topic of examining the blob under a microscope, why did the Tribune quote Little in saying ”He [The lab tech] found some human white blood cells in it”?
Little attributed the blobs to an airplane dumping human waste, but how much weight does such a theory hold?
Blob Theory: At least they flushed
One theory about the origin of the blobs was that they were human waste from a passing plane. If this were indeed human waste, then it would contain antifreeze that planes use in their toilet systems. Would the amounts of antifreeze in these small blobs truly be enough to get multiple people sick and kill a cat? Additionally, Dick Meyer, spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration, didn’t seem to have any reasoning for the blobs being airplane waste. In fact, commercial toilets dyed their waste blue, according to the Tribune’s interview with Meyer. These droplets were described as colorless, not blue.
Blob Theory: Flying viscera
Another theory centers around the idea that as the U.S. Air Force was testing bombs in the Pacific Ocean, jellyfish viscera was being launched into the heavens only to rain down on the town of Oakville. Similarly, these blobs could have been the remains of any sea creatures caught in the fallout of these tests. How the viscera traveled 50 miles inland is unknown, but it would certainly be impressive given that it happened multiple times.
Blob Theory: Biological Experiments
Unlike the other theories, this one is malicious if true. Hearn and Barclift reported seeing aircraft flying over their home prior to the appearance of the blobs. Although this theory assumes the blob incident was a test of biological manipulation to perhaps get people sick, there is little proof other than the accounts in the Lewiston Tribune and other outlets such as “Unsolved Mysteries.”
What really happened?
This is an interesting rabbit hole to delve into not only because of how strange the circumstances were, but also because of how little information about the blobs was available on record. Each theory has its own supporters, but it seems the world will never understand for sure what truly occurred in August of 1994 in Oakville, Washington.
apnmag.com 