Star jelly

Star jelly(also calledastromyxin,astral jelly) is agelatinoussubstance sometimes found on grass and less commonly on the branches of trees.According tofolklore, it is deposited on the Earth duringmeteor showers. It is described as atranslucentor grayish-whitegelatinthat tends to evaporate shortly after having "fallen".
Explanations have ranged from it being the remains offrogs,toads, or worms, to thebyproductsofcyanobacteria, to being the fruiting bodies ofjelly fungior masses ofamoebacalledslime molds.Nonbiological origins proposed for instances of star jelly have included byproducts from industrial production or waste management. Reports of the substance date back to the 14th century and have continued to the present.
There have been reports of 'star-jelly' for centuries.John of Gaddesden(1280–1361)mentionsstella terrae(Latinfor 'star of the earth' or 'earth-star') in his medical writings, describing it as "a certain mucilaginous substance lying upon the earth" and suggesting that it might be used to treatabscesses.A fourteenth-century Latin medical glossary has an entry foruligo, described as "a certain fatty substance emitted from the earth, that is commonly called 'a star which has fallen'".Similarly, an English-Latin dictionary from around 1440 has an entry forsterre slymewith the Latin equivalent given asassub(a rendering of Arabicash-shuhub, also used in medieval Latin as a term for a "falling" or "shooting" star).In Welsh it has been referred to aspwdre sermeaning "rot from the stars".
In 1910, T. M. Hughes ruminated inNatureas to why poets and ancient writers associated meteors with star jelly, and observed that the jelly seemed to "grow out from among the roots of grass".
TheOxford English Dictionarylists a large number of other names for the substance, with references dating back to the circa-1440 English-Latin dictionary entry mentioned above:star-fallen,star-falling,star-jelly,star-shot,star-slime,star-slough,star-slubber,star-spurt, andstar-slutch.
The slime moldEnteridium lycoperdonis calledcaca de luna("moon's feces") by the locals in the state ofVeracruzin Mexico.
SirJohn Suckling, in 1641, wrote a poem which contained the following lines:
Henry More, in 1656 wrote:
John Dryden, in 1679, wrote:
William Somervile, in 1740, wrote inThe Talisman:
SirWalter Scott, in his novelThe Talisman, wrote:
An unidentifiable substance that falls to earth during a meteor-type event forms the background to "The Colour Out of Space", a 1927 short story by the American horror and science fiction authorH. P. Lovecraft.
Some observers have made a connection between star jelly and theParamountmovieThe Blob, in which a gelatinous monster slime falls from space.The Blob, which was released in 1958, was supposedly based on the Philadelphia reportsfrom 1950 and specifically a report inThe Philadelphia Inquirercalled "Flying 'Saucer' Just Dissolves" where four police officers encountered a UFO debris that was described as evaporating with a purple glow leaving nothing. Paramount Pictures was also sued for this movie by the authorJoseph Payne Brennan, who had written a short story published inWeird Tales Magazinein 1953 called "Slime" about a similar creature.
In a 2019 episode ofThe Twilight Zoneentitled "Not All Men", a virulent star jelly causes the male residents of a town to become psychotic.