The Philadelphia
Blob
By Cole Herrold
I'm a huge fan of horror, and to me, one
of the most both terrifying and interesting are those based on true stories.
The infamous Psycho, Silence of the Lambs, and Texas Chainsaw
Massacre, for example, is based on Multiple Murderer Ed Gein and The
Girl Next Door, which was based on the horrendous torture of Sylvia Likens
by Gertrude
Baniszewski in 1965. While these horror flicks are based more on true crime,
there is a subset of films based on ostensibly true paranormal cases, which
includes films such as The Exorcist, The Conjuring, The
Haunting in Connecticut, Amityville Horror, The Rite, The
Possession, and Fire in the Sky yet most of these cases are
relatively new. One of the first films to allegedly be based on a true case is
one that does not feature ghosts, greys, or serial killers but an amorphous
entity that appeared for the first time in Steve McQueen's stone-cold 1958
classic The Blob.
This account which occurred on September
26, 1950, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and was covered in the September 27th
issue of the Philadelphia Inquirer, started in true 50s fashion when a
pair of police officers Joe Keenan and John Collins, were cruising around in on
patrol in their red car. The pair had just hit Vare Blvd near 26th
street when they noticed something that began to descend from the sky. The
object was descending near treetop level, and at first, they thought it was a
bizarre parachute. The pair, unsure as to why a parachute would descend
assumedly without the aid of a plane, proceeded to think of the worst. It was
only three months since America had plunged headfirst into the Korean War, and
the papers were running countless articles about the skirmish overseas that it
was always on every person's mind. The officers, both due to this mindset and
the overall bizarreness of what they had seen, proceeded in calling out for
help. They ultimately were able to get ahold of Sgt. Joseph Cook and his driver
patrolman James Casper who were out patrolling as well only a street away, and
so the pair of cars worked their ways to the assumed landing area of the
peculiar parachute.
The group made their way to an empty field
on 26th Street, where they had felt that the object had landed, and
proceeded to park their cars and head out onto the green field with several
flashlights. The group began to walk the area when they began to notice that a
bizarre mist had hung along the ground, which appeared to come out of nowhere
as the weather was not ideal for such a condition. The group proceeded in
through this fog, their flashlight beams cutting through the atmospheric
curtain ever so slightly; this continued for some time, and the group was
almost certainly ready to turn back until one of the group's flashlights hit
something low to the ground. As soon as the artificial luminescence hit the
object, it began to glow a vibrant purple and seemed to have a sensation that
one could only describe as jiggling.
The group seeing this began to come
closer, and now with their beams, all guided towards the purplish haze in the
fog, noticed an object that appeared as "a domed disk of quivering jelly,
6 feet in diameter, one foot thick at the center and an inch or two near the
edge”. As they looked at this object, they noticed that the mist they were
surrounded by seemed to come from the object. As the group tried to focus and
pick out more details of the object, they noticed that while the form was what
could only be described as gelatinous, it did appear as though inside its mass
was some form of concentrated, crystallized kernels. Collins, out of curiosity
and certainly following the same mindset as the ill-fated old man in the film
this account is based on, proceeded to approach the illuminated mass and slowly
knelt down and stretched out his hand.
Collins reached out and began to attempt
to lift the strange object from the ground, where he noticed that even though
the object was large, the grass and weeds were not bent from the weight of the
object. Yet as he held the sticky, slimy object in his hands, an equally
incredible incident occurred. The strange quivering mass slowly began to
evaporate. Collins let go of what he had left in his hands and watched in awe
as slowly from where he touched the entity slowly began to dissipate into the
atmosphere, leaving nothing but "a slight, odorless sticky residue."
The other officers stood by, and the four watched the amorphous entity for some
25 minutes as the figure began to get smaller and smaller before ultimately
disappearing completely.
The group, unsure of what to do with this
encounter, simply began to go home that night. On the next day, however, word
broke out about their encounter to the local papers, and the police officers
while on duty had actually attempted to get a hold of the FBI to investigate
the matter. While we cannot speculate if some 1950s Mulder and Scully came to
Philadelphia to investigate the sticky specter as there is no true follow up to
the case outside of what appeared to the Philadelphia Inquirer, in fact,
there is no even confirmation that the FBI did come, yet Cook who got ahold of
the Bureau did state he was sheepish in reporting the account due to the fact
that the entity did dissipate and therefore there would be nothing to
investigate except "a magic circle on the ground where something purple,
and quite evanescent once had been." With no follow up this account,
therefore, ended with more questions than answers.
Eight years later, local filmmakers Jack
Harris and Irvine H. Millgate would unveil to the world a sci-fi horror flick
that would shake the world; this film would become known as The Blob.
For those unfamiliar with the film, the film tells the tale of an
extraterrestrial slimeball that crash-lands to earth in a meteor and goes
around attacking and dissolving members of the town while growing with every
life it takes, only to be stopped by eventually being frozen. The film has
since been spoofed several times, had a 1972 early Meta-sequel called Beware!
The Blob and then the franchise was ultimately remade into the Sci-Fi /Body
Horror masterpiece in 1988. The amorphous monster has since been included in
countless lists of the world’s greatest monsters and has even spawned a
festival that takes place in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania (where they shot the
film) that includes recreations of the infamous theatre scene and also some of
the ooze used in the film on display.
While the Philadelphia Blob is a
particularly interesting case from the original newspaper article, it is
important to note that there are alternative sources that offer variations to
the account. One of the most prominent which appears in Frank Edward's Strange
World is that the object was originally investigated by Keenan and Collins
alone before deciding to call back up later on. Another detail he cements is that
the entity was a living entity that seemed to move or creep along the ground.
This seems to be completely different from the initial report in the papers.
This biological appearance has appeared on several other sites and books, and
some, even though I have been unable to find the original source that claimed
this, says the object seemed to slither along the ground with noticeable
pseudopods that seemed to be clinging or feeling the nearby objects one which
was said to be a streetlight.
Another variation was on the description
of the object in the July 1954 edition of FATE Magazine; a recounting of
this encounter described the object as less blob-like and more like a purple
craft. The article in FATE would describe the object as looking like a
purple glowing six-foot globe as opposed to a parachute-like non-self-glowing
blob. Perhaps this was due to a misunderstanding or because of some other
alternative source that the object described in FATE was more UFO-like
than what actually was seen.
A final piece of this account that does
also need to be mentioned is the chance that the Philadelphia Blob might not
have inspired the film. All the sources that mention this connection reference
the Strange World account. Strange World was written several
years after the release of the film, so there is always the possibility that
the account had no direct inspiration or connection to the film. Yet I am of
the mind that it just might of seeing as both the account and the plot of the
film are eerily similar.
While there are variations to this
account, it still does not mean it did not happen. There's no denying that
these trained men had encountered something bizarre on that night; the question
is what. There is a natural phenomenon that has occurred from time to time
known as Star Jelly; this blob-like structure has been reported to of been
found in trees, and the grass reports state that this phenomenon is dropped on
earth during meteor showers, and its description is often said to of been a
grayish-white in color and appearing as a gelatin in shape and consistency.
What this jelly is exactly is still debated as to when testing the anomalous
slime; scientists have found that it carries no DNA. Yet, some scientists do
theorize that it is a kind of fungus, algae, or slime mold. This, however, is
simply speculation, and it is a mystery science accepts, but its identity is
something still debated to this day.
Now the problem with the Star Jelly
hypothesis and the Philadelphia Blob is two things specifically one typically
Star Jelly specimens are grayish-white in color and do not give off the purple
glow reported in the Philadelphia case, as well as the possibility that the
object was six feet in diameter Star Jelly tends to drop down as small pellets
like a kind of slime rain or hail. This means that the Philadelphia case would
be something entirely unique and revolutionary if it is a true case of Star
Jelly as none have ever been reported to be that large. This also seems to be a
moot point if the blob was alive, as some sources state, or as what was implied
in the initial sighting since Star Jelly is an essentially nonliving object.
Another possibility to what the
Philadelphia Blob could be is that the blob could be a Sky Critter. Sky
Critters are a phenomenon originally described by Trevor James Constable in his
book The Cosmic Pulse of Life and later expanded on in Sky Creatures.
Constable's theory was that our atmosphere was home to countless flying
organisms that appeared to be very similar to unicellular or invertebrate life.
One particular kind he would describe is like an amoeba which would have a very
similar design to the Philadelphia Blob. One theory about these entities is
that they remain elusive by being almost transparent and that when they die,
they fall to the ground, and because their forms are similar to bacteria or
protists, they simply evaporate. This is very similar to what occurred with the
Philadelphia Blob, so perhaps this could be what was occurring here and could
explain why the creature was relatively larger than typical Star Jelly
clusters.
This case is extremely interesting
partially because there was potentially a movie based on the encounter but also
because there are very few slime cryptids or slime anomalies that seem to come
from the sky. This entity or object defies rational explanation when one looks
at the full case as it does not fit nicely into any known category and instead
seems to even defy classic skeptical answers for sky phenomenon. Parachutes,
weather balloons, balloons, blimps, frisbees, none of these objects evaporate
when being touched, which is the main important feature to this account that
makes this object something unexplained. Yet while we can ascertain that this
object is a mystery, we have no true answers as to what it truly is until on
some meteor-filled night, another one crashes into the ground to confuse and
bewilder a whole new generation.
Quick Facts:
Species/Potential Species: Invertebrate,
Fungi, Protist
Location: 26th Street, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania
Sighted: September 26, 1950
Works Cited:
Mysterious Fires and Lights By Vincent H.
Gaddis
Strange World By Frank Edwards
The Philadelphia Inquirer September 27,
1950
FATE Magazine, #52, vol. 7, no.
7, July 1954. Pgs.78-79
Rossen, Jake “The Real-Life Creepy Blob
That Inspired The Blob” Mental Floss. May 5, 2021. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/639625/the-blob-horror-movie-true-story.
Accessed September 25, 2021.
Pauley, Patti “The Weird, True Life
Incident that Inspired the “Blob”” Rue Morgue. August 7, 2018. https://rue-morgue.com/the-weird-true-life-incident-that-inspired-the-blob/.
Accessed September 27, 2021.
“1950, September 26: The Purple Mass” Anomalies.
http://anomalyinfo.com/Stories/1950-september-26-purple-mass. Accessed
September 27, 2021.
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