Mystery goo may be 'manna from heaven'

In the autumn of 2009, blobs of a jelly-like substance appeared in various parts of Scotland. People reported finding piles or single blobs of the mucus on the ground, on posts, even on a tractor. BBC Radio Scotland sent samples to experts at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh and the Macaulay Institute in Aberdeen, which researches soils and other environmental factors, but the tests were inconclusive.

In fact, the mystery jelly has been known about for centuries. As one account described in 1910, "Among the Welsh peasants there is a belief that when a meteor falls to the earth it becomes reduced to a mass of jelly. This they name pwdre ser."

The name is pronounced "poodra sair" and means star-rot. Reports of it crop up in all sorts of literature, including Sir Walter Scott's novel Talisman. "'Seek a fallen star,' said the hermit, 'and thou shalt only light on some foul jelly, which, in shooting through the horizon, has assumed for a moment an appearance of splendour.'" It sometimes appears after showers of rain, and theories of exactly what the nature of the mystery goo is range from manna from heaven, the remnants of a meteor shower, regurgitated frogspawn, some other animal or bird vomit, a fungus or slime mould, and even extraterrestrial life showering down from space. This may have inspired the Steve McQueen 1958 science fiction movie, The Blob, in which a giant gooey ball terrorised a town.