The Mysterious Oakville Blobs

Oakville is a small town that resides on the Western Side of state. The rural area was once known for its booming lumber industry and today residents enjoy the relaxed lifestyle the town provides them. However, on August 7th, 1994, in the early morning hours an event occurred that would change that perspective forever and also affect the lives of many people. 

Officer David Lacey was on patrol at 3:00 am when what appeared to be rain began to fall. Lacey turned on his windshield wipers and unexpectedly they smeared against the windshield instead of washing the liquid off. Since he couldn’t see through the windshield, Lacy was forced to pull into a gas station and try and clean it off manually with latex gloves. He described it as mushy as petroleum jelly. 

Another resident of Oakville, Dotty Hearn went outside after it had stopped. She thought it was hail at first, but then after looking more closely noticed it looked peculiar. Dotty then decided to touch it and noticed it was not hard but more Jello-like. Later that day David Dotty and many other residents of the town would become violently ill with flu like symptoms. Many people were hospitalized, and animals would die as well. 

It was reported that additional blob rainfalls would fall Over the next few weeks, over an area of some twenty square miles.

After the events, media would get ahold of the story and investigations would soon begin to occur. 

In the New York Times on August 20th, 1994, scientist Mike Osweiler, an employee of the Washington State Department said they found “a number of cells of various sizes” and two types of bacteria in the blobs but were unable to identify them. Interestingly however, they noted that the cells did not have nuclei. This was important in that it refuted a previous claim that the blobs contained human white blood cells, which do have nuclei.

Over the years, many theories have been proposed concerning what exactly was the Oakville blobs. The first, and most popular is that the blobs were jellyfish. More specifically, Jellyfish parts which became dispersed into rain clouds. Its been confirmed that bombing from the US Air Force did occur around 50 miles away in the Pacific. Many believe that this was the cause, although this has never been proven. 

Others thought that the testing conducted by the military involved biological weapons and that the blobs were fallout from the experiment. 

Although there has never been a clear explanation of what occurred history has provided countless events similar to the Oakville Blobs. In 1876, over Olympian Springs, Kentucky, meat began falling from the sky. It was a truly puzzling and something that remains unsolved to this day. There’s also been countless stories of frogs and fish being swept up by the rain. 

Still, it doesn’t answer the question why so many people we’re killed and why the blobs we’re lethal to animals. 

To date, it doesn’t appear we will probably ever find what the blobs were as all the evidence has been destroyed. Still, if another similar event occurs, it could provide answers and closure for the town of Oakville.