As strange as this sound, I swear this is an absolutely true account:
My sister in rural Indiana was outside talking with my dad two weeks or so ago, when suddenly she began to see stringy things falling from the sky. Also they were hanging everywhere - on telephone cables, in trees, etc… My dad saw them, too, and they decided to call the sherrif, thinking they were the victims of a terrorist attack of some sort.
Let me inject here, that my dad also noticed 2 small planes flying around in a north/south direction not long before this happened, something not all that common in that part of Indiana, though, admittedly, they could have been crop-dusting…
Anyway, the sherrif dept. said they’d gotten quite a few reports of the same, and were investigating. They called back later, and said that they had found spiders on the ends of some of the strings, and therefore concluded that it was a natural phenomenon of some sort. Some even claimed that this happens from time to time, although my dad has lived in Indiana - the same area - for 75 years, and has NEVER seen it before, nor heard of it.
So Dad insists that those planes he saw dropped them, for some unknown, perhaps nefarious, purpose, spiders attached, or not. He also points out that there wasn’t enough wind that day to pick up these spiders from somewhere and blow them that high in the air.
Has anyone out there ever seen or heard of such a phenomenon? I haven’t, and I’ve been to UFO Conferences, etc…
Any info on this?
Presumably the spiders weren’t large enough to be seen actually emerging from the planes?
I think what you have witnessed is just spiders ‘ballooning’, there’s no need for an X-files explanation.
Ballooning by spiders is a perfectly common and normal phenomenon.
Even if there was little wind at ground level they could have been carried to where you were via the upper levels of the atmosphere. Ballooning spiders have been seen at 10,000 ft.
The fact that you have been to UFO conferences would indicate that you prefer supernatural or mystical explanations to straightforward ones, right? But, really, why would terrorists attack rural Indiana? With threads with arachnids hanging off them? Great sci-fi plot.
As Mangetout says, spiders simply do this…
You wrote:
“The fact that you have been to UFO conferences would indicate that you prefer supernatural or mystical explanations to straightforward ones, right?”
No, actually, I went to UFO conferences because I am not closed-minded to the possiblity of other life-forms observing or interacting with us. But that’s a whole other thread!
I actually figured there probably was a scientific explanation to these spiders “falling from the sky”, and the link you provided hits the nail on the head! Thanks! The fact is that my dad is a bit paranoid in these crazy times. But let’s cut him a break - he’s 75 years old and was on the front lines in WWII defending our freedoms! I think this article re spiders “ballooning” will satisfy even him, and he’ll feel better. Thanks again.