Mysterious cables (or threads) hanging from the sky

[RLGL]

The GREAT SPIDER hit again

 

[Ichinisan]

We need a theory to reconcile / unify our observations with what we know. Some kind of string theory.

 

[Retroprime]

I just came across this today, and it has really been freaking me out, especially as I look more into it. Is seems that back in 1970, in a town in New Jersey called Caldwell, some type of thread was noticed in the air hanging down over someone's house. No one could see where the thread was coming from. From a newspaper report,

"It looks rigid, as if it were a wire, not a string. It appears silver when the sunlight strikes it. On Monday it hung about 150 feet above the houses on Forest Avenue and Hillside Avenue. By Tuesday, it seemed limper to Mrs Smith and other observers, as if one of its ends — wherever that is — had loosened. It also seemed lower in the sky. The Caldwell police tried to trace it on Monday, found signs of it up Hillside and down towards West Caldwell, but lost it in the clouds before tracking down the origins. They looked again on Tuesday with the same nebulous results."

Neighbors from all over came out to see the thread. It stayed there for about a month (!) just hanging in mid air, through storms and windy days. Finally, some kids used a fishing pole and line to snag the end of it, they pulled on it, and they gathered "buckets" of the thread according to one report I read, "1000 feet of it" before it "snapped" according to another report. The end that was still up in the sky was never found. The part that was pulled down was taken to the DuPont company for testing. I read one report that said DuPont couldn't figure out what it was, and another that said they found it to be "chemically a type 6 Nylon (caprolactam) or possibly a copolymer such as type 6 and type 66, but that it was not of their manufacture." Also, the lines "had a fine hollow tube running through their length. When Dr. Vargas first examined the specimens this was empty, but after a time in a vacuum jar he found to his amazement that this tube was filled with some other solid substance, and this defied analysis as far as we can make out."

Apparently this has also happened in other places, the Caldwell NJ incident took place in August of 1970, then it happened in Elberton, Georgia in June 1972, and in Greensburg, Ohio in September of 1978. Has anyone ever heard of anything like this? Is it some kind of hoax? I would think that if it were real, there would have been some kind of major investigation on it, every report I've been able to find seems fairly blasé about it.

The latest report I found was from 2003, where someone writing for a publication called "Weird New Jersey" found one of the kids (who was around 40 years old at the time of the interview) who had snagged the thread with the fishing pole back in the 1970's. He said, "After the thread was hanging there for about a week, attracting all kinds of crowds, me and my buddies decided to pull it down. I got a fishing rod and just kept casting until we snagged it from mid air over the house. When we got a hold of it we just kept pulling and it just kept on coming down out of nowhere. Then it stopped and we found the end. There wasn't anything holding it from the other end, it was just coming out of nowhere! They took it from us and sent it off to some lab somewhere for testing and that's the last any of us ever heard about it. Jeez, now I wish I had saved some of it for a souvenir!".

Now he's saying he found the end, where other reports say the thread snapped and the end was never found. But, it was over 40 years ago, I'm sure memories are a bit rusty by now. There's not a whole lot of info on this online, and what little there is comes from just a few sources. Anyone know someone who works at DuPont who could look into this?

I physically interacted with something similar circa 1980 in Boothwyn, Pennsylvania. When I was approximately 4-5 years old, while playing in my grandparents garden during the day, I was struck on the head by a dark object that fell out of the clear blue sky. The object was attached to a filament-like line hanging down from the sky with no visible nor audible source. The object dangled at the end of this line just a few inches short of the ground then ascended back up into the sky and disappeared. I ran across the garden and three more objects fell from the sky in succession, appearing to try to bonk me on the head again as I was running. After the latest two lines fell and missed me, they immediately ascended back up into the sky. After the third line missed me, however, I turned around and grabbed ahold of the filament-type line, pulled myself up and placed my feet on top of the dark object at its end. I was suspended in the air just a few inches off the ground as I swung on it. I remember waiting for this thing to pull me up to from wherever this thing had come; I was curious about its source. It didn't ascend while I was on it. I eventually grew tired of playing on it and jumped off; as soon I let go, the object immediately ascended back into the sky.

It was such a strange experience. Until recently, I thought I was the only person to ever see (and touch) these things. I would be very interested in reviewing your sources for the other documented cases as well as any lab analysis that was conducted. To be honest, if I had never experienced this myself, I would dismiss this phenomena as BS. It's real. I've seen it with my eyes, held it in my hands, and had limited interaction with it.

 

[WelshBloke]

I too have experienced the thread from the sky. I was driving a big truck on a dirt road and could see the thread hanging motionless in front of me. As I approached it no change was seen in size. I drove through it and in my mirror I could still see it undisturbed. None of what I saw made sence as it should have been disturbed by my truck and the breeze it produced. This is the only true mystery in my life. This happened in central Saskatchewan.

I like how its the greatest mystery of your life but you weren't actually curious enough to stop the car and get out to look!

 

[Retroprime]

I grew up in Linwood NC and back around 1975 my dad found a string hanging from the sky. My sisters and I came out and began helping our dad pull it from the sky. The best way I can describe the string was it was thinner than kite string but with a shiny nylon look. We pulled on the string for about 30 mins before my dad told us to call the local Sherriff’s department. Of course they took the call as a joke and said "When you pull the little green man from the sky call us back" and then hung up on us. We never found out what this was and when I tell this story, people look at me like we made this up. Does anyone know what this string could have been? I am 49yrs old now with kids of my own and they would also like to know what it was that we pulled from the sky for over an hour. We finally cut the string from the bundle we had gathered on the ground.

Do you have any samples with which you are willing to part/give?

 

[Retroprime]

My poor photoshop attempt at what it could have potentially looked like:

Not what they look like. One wouldn't be able to see them from this vantage point at the same distance. One would literally have to be very close to it to see it. It would be almost invisible to anyone looking on from any significant distance.

 

[Drako]

Lololololoooooons!

 

[Paladin3]

I think I saw this episode of Sponge Bob where he and Patrick were playing on hooks and getting a ride up on them. You just have to remember to jump off before you are pulled all the way out of the water or you die. Or maybe you just have an out-of-water experience if they throw you back. Whatever, just don't go all the way towards the light.

 

[zinfamous]

This is quite the elaborate long game, rando newbie posters.

well-played, internet.

 

[Retroprime]

Lololololoooooons!

78 likes out of 10,000 plus messages, hmmm... Wonder why your ratio is skewed?

 

[Paladin3]

78 likes out of 10,000 plus messages, hmmm... Wonder why your ratio is skewed?

It's better than yours, just saying.

 

[Ichinisan]

78 likes out of 10,000 plus messages, hmmm... Wonder why your ratio is skewed?

"Likes" were only recently implemented on this forum. This forum has been around for a very, VERY long time.

 

[Printer Bandit]

78 likes out of 10,000 plus messages, hmmm... Wonder why your ratio is skewed?

there should be a dislike button too.

 

[Arcadio]

It's almost 2020 and people still believe in supernatural phenomena?

 

[RLGL]

This one back again? Gimmie a break!

 

[Red Squirrel]

I would not really call it supernatural, more like, unknown. Whatever this was probably has some kind of scientific explanation to it. It's rather intriguing tbh.

Some of the stuff that went down in the soviet era - not just the soviets but other countries too, is pretty wild too and there are still some mysteries. My favourite new one that I learned about has to be the Westford Needle project. That's pretty wild especially for it's time.

 

[IBMJunkman]

Eruv?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eruv

 

[BxgJ]

Didn't we figure this out a while back? It was in another thread...

https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/giant-moon-attacks-chinese-city.2486520/

Someone pulled too hard on one of those threads lol.

 

[purbeast0]

"It looks rigid, as if it were a wire, not a string. It appears silver when the sunlight strikes it. On Monday it hung about 150 feet above the houses on Forest Avenue and Hillside Avenue. By Tuesday, it seemed limper to Mrs Smith and other observers, as if one of its ends — wherever that is — had loosened. It also seemed lower in the sky. The Caldwell police tried to trace it on Monday, found signs of it up Hillside and down towards West Caldwell, but lost it in the clouds before tracking down the origins. They looked again on Tuesday with the same nebulous results."

Neighbors from all over came out to see the thread. It stayed there for about a month (!) just hanging in mid air, through storms and windy days. Finally, some kids used a fishing pole and line to snag the end of it, they pulled on it, and they gathered "buckets" of the thread according to one report I read, "1000 feet of it" before it "snapped" according to another report. The end that was still up in the sky was never found. The part that was pulled down was taken to the DuPont company for testing. I read one report that said DuPont couldn't figure out what it was, and another that said they found it to be "chemically a type 6 Nylon (caprolactam) or possibly a copolymer such as type 6 and type 66, but that it was not of their manufacture." Also, the lines "had a fine hollow tube running through their length. When Dr. Vargas first examined the specimens this was empty, but after a time in a vacuum jar he found to his amazement that this tube was filled with some other solid substance, and this defied analysis as far as we can make out."

LOL @ thinking some kids could cast a fishing line up 150 feet into the air and hook this thing. Do you realize how high 150 feet is? Have you ever casted a fishing rod in your life?

NOBODY could even come CLOSE to casting a fishing line 150 feet straight up into the air, not even close.

 

[zinfamous]

Huh, so I guess these mysterious strings finally explain the power behind Conan's hypnotic string dance?

 

[cytg111]

Damn.. if true then all i can say is fat code.. who/whatever the programmer is... fat code.
If you think about it then the universe is just a complex turing complete construct on top of the biggest fastest processor ever.
If we observe abnormalities in reality it is either in the code by purpose or as bugs ..and the processor can have erata as well..