What is going on in Dallas?

myself | Today | Le-Roy

[Le-Roy]

   Folks, please excuse the vanity, but I would like to get others to look at this.

   If there is anyone in Dallas with a telescope or a good set of binoculars, get outside and point them SE, towards Kaufman Cty.

   There are currently thousands (literally) of wispy, white 'streamers' of something drifting down through the sky. This stuff is falling all over my yard, all over Forney, and all the way out to Terrell.

   Could this be the same 'harmless' stuff which fell in Trappe, MD. last week? I don't know, but it is truly bizarre.

[Le-Roy]

Small piece. They mentioned over 100 calls to their station, HAZMAT had investigated in at least a couple of places, their verdict was...

...'balloon' spiders.

They did say that it seemed to be abnormally profuse...;^)

[PinkChance]

Channel 5 says balloon spiders - natural phenomena, totally harmless.

[Ordie 1]

Le-roy is there any other info yet I'm tracking this info and right now I'm concerned you never know these days close the doors and windows put wet towels under the doors and window sills and grab a plastic bag one that you can see through and wrap in around your head and breathe deeply for as long as it takes.

[cyberwatcher]

Why?

[hispanarepublicana]

Something just happened to me sitting here at the keyboard and I almost peed in my pants....I'm sitting here looking at photos of the spider web puffs at the link someone posted above, and had just returned to this thread. We've got all of our windows open today, as it is about 75 degrees with a light breeze. It's Chamber of Commerce weather. All of a sudden, a wispy puff of something floated right down on my keyboard!!! I touched it before I knew what I was doing, while my breath simultaneously caught in my throat.

It was a dust bunny that the breeze blew from the corner of the room and over my head onto the keyboard! ROFLOL! This is quite an indictment on my housekeeping skills (actually on the skills of our housekeeper, but I suppose the buck stops with me--even though I want Free Republic to share in the blame for keeping me occupied and not cleaning my house).

[mommya]

I had the same experience here in downstate Illinois last year - I even posted it to a chemtrail type web forum - almost not wanting to believe it could be spiders since I'd never experienced it before. Not long after I posted my story I kinda debunked myself. I found this web page which is a link to a site associated with SIU Carbondale's entemolgy dept. http://www.lib.siu.edu/calendar/oct.html DUH! I felt stupid. I even collected a few samples of the stuff in ziploc bags - when I went back and looked at them later I could see the little tiny spiders in the web stuff. A clue that I missed at the time but recognized as significant later was that many birds were circling high above - riding the winds and having a spider feast no doubt.

Interesting stuff to research a bit though. Notice how this article (http://www.accessexcellence.org/WN/SU/spider.html)mentions cloning a spider gene and inserting it into a bacteria like Escherichia Coli to get the bacteria to produce spider silk. Maybe some of those webs aren't harmless after all.

[Le-Roy]

The stuff in the close-up from the link in #242 really looks like diaphanous goo, but maybe just from a slight out-of-focus. If the stuff in those pictures was all from spiders, I wouldn't want to go walking through that guy's yard...and I have never, even on a dewy spring morning, seen that many webs that obvious from one angle.

The stuff here does seem to be from small spiders, except for the clumps of material that I still don't believe are from any kind of spider I've ever encountered.

[cyberwatcher]

LOL

[Dixielander]

Better arachnids than anthrax.

So relieved that you folks out there in Texas are in no danger.

[Texas Yellow Rose]

I posted the link in #242 because those are the kind of airborne spider/webs I have seen down here in the Houston area before. I can see from the thread that you are seeing something different.

As far as I know the photos at that web site are authentic. They look very similar to what I have seen before.

[MrsTexasChip]

Thanks for the concern Dixie. I'm glad it's spiders, but I have never seen anything like this. Now maybe I can get some work done around here with what's left of the day. LOL

[leilani]

Oh, my goodness. "Spiders usually do this in the Spring ... don't they?(Tx Yellow Rose);"If you are new to Texas, what you might be seeing is cottonwood tree residue. It can literally cover the ground, mess up air conditioners, etc. Whispy white cottony little "sprigs" about the size of a quarter."(TomGUy).

Uh yeah, HELLO!!! How long have the rest of you posting here LIVED IN TEXAS? Cottonwoods, sweetie! They blow all the way down to the coast this time of year. Good god, everyone is paranoid. Whoever posted this must be Osama Bin Laden's cousin.Or girlfriend.

[cyberwatcher]

If you think this is a stupid thread, why are you reading it?

[leilani]

Cyberwatcher said:"If you think this is a stupid thread, why are you reading it?" Oh God, could I have $1.00 for everytime some high-school moron who has run out of a LEGITIMATE ARGUMENT on FR has resorted to this "retort" to anyone whose post he doesn't want to read? YOU GUYS POSTED A TRULY ROTTEN THREAD, CW. Grow a brain & deal with it.

[cyberwatcher]

ROFL At I don't read threads I consider stupid. Who is the real moron in this conversation?

[rwfromkansas]

Weird.....his tests came back inconclusive.

[cyberwatcher]

Who's tests?

[rwfromkansas]

Sir/madam/it, do you not think people know what a cottonwood tree's seed bundles look like?

[rwfromkansas]

the tests done on the stuff from the website that had pics of similar web-like clumps.

[cyberwatcher]

Hmmmmm. "inconclusive" could mean just about anything.