Debunked: Chemwebs / Mysterious Fibers fall from sky (ballooning spiders)

[Mick West]

There are several videos online, as well as some first hand accounts, that describe a strange white fibrous substance falling out of the sky. Those of a conspiratorial bent will often ascribe this to fallout from deliberate high level spraying - which they call "chemtrails" (thinking that the contrails behind planes are actually being deliberately sprayed). Sometimes, they say it's to do with "Morgellons Disease", a condition coined to describe a long list of symptoms, the most notable being finding fibers on your skin.

Examples of claimed "chem-webs"





These "chemwebs" have a very simple explanation - they are spider silk that is used by spiders to fly though the air. This is something that has been observed for centuries. Here's what it looks like for a single spider:



Of course a single spider is not going to make much noticeable . But there are approximately one million of spiders per acre^, (nearly a billion spiders in a square mile) and occasionally a large number of spiders will take to the air ar the same time (probably due to hatching at the same time based on weather conditions). The masses of silk will coat fields, get caught in trees, and sometimes get tangled up and blown into the air.

Here's an example of what this looks like, probably the result of thousands of tiny spiders.

http://museumvictoria.com.au/discoverycentre/discovery-centre-news/2011-archive/spider-ballooning/ (http://archive.today/O3ik0)

https://www4.uwm.edu/fieldstation/naturalhistory/bugoftheweek/spider_flight.cfm

https://littlesundog.wordpress.com/2013/10/19/my-first-gossamer-season/

This has always happened, and it's always been confusing people. It was only relatively recently (the 1700s) that people realized the "gossamer" that sometimes coats fields actually came from spider, and was thought to come from evaporated dew. Folk tales and superstitions persist, and now it seems a new folk tale is born, with "chem-webs".

Some great first hand accounts of spider ballooning, and the resultant fibrous fallout, is found in the 1890 book American Spiders and their Spinning Work,^ by Henry Christopher Mc Cook, Chapter 9, pages 256-282

And the book quotes an even older source, from 1741:

Which seems to match modern observations quite well.

This silk is not particularly sticky (spiders can spin both sticky and non-sticky silk). But is very light and thin, and when rolled in your fingers it will collapse upon itself, resulting in just a few specks. This can be mis-interpreted as "dissolving", but really it just that the silk occupies very little space to start out with. The silk used for flying is known as "gossamer" silk, and is one the lightest and thinnest of all types of spider silk. The thinness of the silk maximizes the surface area to weight ratio, and so creates more lift from the wind.

Great example of the webs in the air:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOtw8oMLf8A

 

[marcel]

I blame the recent past's mollycoddled society. When they were children, they were not allowed to explare their backyards and local woods etc. so they would not find and play with spiders caterpillars worms etc. Now, they find webs and do not know what it is.

PS. Gerry needs to stop biting the skin on his fingertips.

 

[Mick West]

Well, people were confused about it hundreds of years ago as well, so that's not entirely the problem.

[Side note, marcel - guest posts don't show up until I have a chance to approve them. If you register as a member than your posts will show up immediately]

 

[Jay Reynolds]

I have a page on this:
http://goodsky.homestead.com/files/silk.html

It's fairly easy to identify chemically by the combination of amino acids present.

And this is an occurrance I witnessed and photographed. These webs were very sticky but persisted for over a month.
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/118-Web-Fall-Arkansas-2006

 

[firepilot]

Roxy Lopez and what is obviously Spider Web

aircrap.org/chem-webs-usa-coming-planes/332903/

 

[Jay Reynolds]

Interesting that most of these reports, mine, and even from hundreds of years past, all lie in the fall season.
The first connection made with this and 'chemtrails' was back in 1999 by a fellow named Tommy Farmer.
The report said he saw contrails and then saw webs falling. This prompted me to do an experiment to see both the
horizontal and vertical rates of fall of a similar material which easily showed no possible connection.

 

[scombrid]

Morning fog clinging to spider webs. Something I always find pretty. People that have been duped by Carnicom see spider webs glistening with morning dew and panic. Carnicom and his colaborators seem to be selling these people supplements.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nnLbvQrncc&feature=plcp

Published on Nov 4, 2012
VERMILION PARISH IN COASTAL S/W LOUISIANA. DURING 3 DAYS OF THICK MORNING FOG, MY WHOLE AREA, EVERY MORNING, WAS COVERED WITH FIBERS, FILAMENTS, WEBS & BLOBS. THEY WERE EVERYWHERE! THESE HAVE BEEN LINKED TO MORGELLONS DISEASE! RESEARCH-- http://www.carnicominstitute.org
THIS IS EVIL NANO-TECHNOLOGY OF MODIFIED FUNGUS WHICH CAUSES MANY DISEASES. STOP THIS INSANITY NOW!


Do a search on Carnicominstitute dotorg for the red wine filament test. The best price for the supplement is from vitacost dotcom & the best brand, recommeded by Carnicom is by Source Naturals. Also, a YouTube channel has full instructions on taking the test correctly.
youtube.com/user/AngelMiracles­22?feature=mhee
(Capsule is easier to swallow than the pills.) Hope that this helps. God Bless, Cajun

 

[scombrid]

​

 

[FreiZeitGeist]

Just to complete this...

Interesting that most of these reports, mine, and even from hundreds of years past, all lie in the fall season.

in Central Europe there a not so much ballooning spiders. Chemweb-Videos and Pictures from our Area mostly shows webs from caterpilars like the "Oak Processionary" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak_Processionary ) - a moth wich caterpillars are most active in May an June.

 

[Jay Reynolds]

I spent the last week traveling between Lafourche parish and Lafayette Parish in south Louisiana. I traveled through the area where cajunmiracle lives several times and observed the sky at least once/hour. There were very few contrails, and few which were persistent. There was heavy fog in the mornings, normal here for the time of year. Yes, spiders made webs, and you can plainly see that the webs she photographed were made by spiders, not something that fell from the sky.

 

[Belfrey]

Just to complete this...



in Central Europe there a not so much ballooning spiders. Chemweb-Videos and Pictures from our Area mostly shows webs from caterpilars like the "Oak Processionary" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak_Processionary ) - a moth wich caterpillars are most active in May an June.

We have numerous silk-spinning caterpillars here, too (my field is forest pests & disease). Some of them - including the notorious gypsy moth caterpillar - disperse by "ballooning". Others build silk nests or just cover everything with silk webbing as they wander. Periodically there are outbreaks that really alarm people, such as this outbreak of oak leafrollers and leaftiers last year in Pinellas Co., FL:

Close-up:

 

[scombrid]

Yes I have seen webworms, tent caterpillars, wolf spiders, funnel web spiders, spiny backed orb weaver, ballooning baby spiders, ballooning baby caterpillars, etc... all show up in "chemweb" videos. As a kid I always looked forward to foggy late summer and fall mornings and the glistening webs. I marvel that people didn't notice them before a Roxy Lopez or Cliff Carnicom pointed them out as "unnatural" and "dangerous" products of chemtrails. I further marvel that people accept the word of people like Carnicom and Lopez but dismiss as a "shill" or "troll" anybody that offers natural explanations.

 

[Jay Reynolds]

Guys the key to debunking these is to ask the readers why a guy like Carnicom or the others don't do an actual lab analysis of them. The amino acids are pretty clear for many of these. When these claimants fail to get a proper analysis, it's over for them if you point out that fact clearly enough, and if the fail to do so for over a decade as Carnicom has.
http://goodsky.homestead.com/files/silk.html (http://archive.is/jMKFZ)

There is probably much more available now than when I wrote that web page.

first key to debunking is show the claim:
http://www.carnicom.com/labstop.htm (http://archive.is/zJoUK)
http://www.carnicom.com/labtest.htm (http://archive.is/egIya)

Then show how the claim could have been documented, and how it never has been.

Game over.

 

[BrassTacks]

ps. Gerry needs to stop biting the skin on his fingertips.

lol!

 

[solrey]

Here's another youtuber, superdeltabravo1, who has numerous videos of spider silk and gossamer he thinks are chemwebs/chemfibers. He claims to have had some of it analyzed yet I'm not aware of any videos he's made that actually show the reports. I've asked him to send me a personal message with copies of those reports.

"A beautiful day: but the wind has been steadily against us.— In the evening all the ropes were coated & fringed with Gossamer web.— I caught some of the Aeronaut spiders which must have come at least 60 miles. How inexplicable is the cause which induces these small insects, as it now appears in both hemispheres, to undertake their aerial excursions."
Charles Darwin

http://beagleproject.wordpress.com/2012/11/01/ballooning-with-spiders/ (http://archive.is/taHMe)

Darwin established that spiders could balloon at least 60 miles, but observations of spiders on oceanic islands, and particularly islands recently established by volcanism, indicate that spiders can balloon hundreds of miles. Nets towed by hot air balloons and planes have caught spiders thousands of feet above the ground.

http://artsandsciences.colorado.edu/magazine/2010/12/spiders-disperse-on-strands-of-silk/ (http://archive.is/lzlC1)

 

[scombrid]

Carnicom is leading superdeltabravo1 and cajunmiracle around by the nose.

 

[Jay Reynolds]

I ran across this article describing an observation of adult spiders ballooning:

 

[Leifer]

I came across a Wikipedia entry for something called "Aeroplankton".
I believe this is just a descriptive term for any microorganism that has become airborne......as in the study of Aerobiology.
(open a virgin prtri dish, see what lands on it, and grows)

However the images on the wiki page are quite deceiving, as these are just bugs photographed around a light, at a slow camera shutter speed. Although the caption does describe this, it seems an easy image to get misused (along with a funky name like "aeroplankton")

 

[Mick West]

The description of the photo seems reasonable, if a little wordy:

Effect of ecological fragmentation of nighttime environment caused by light pollution, which attracts and trap aeroplankton (easily trapped by bats and spiders) here in one of the 6 lamps illuminating the bridge Meun-sur-Loire (August 2010). The break allows to distinguish the path and speed of insects (and the number of beats of wings for the largest of them)

They also show the same light, illuminate by flash.

I suspect someone just likes the word, and use it where "insects" will do.

 

[Barnacle]

This article is doing the rounds now, chemtrail and morgellons believers have jumped to their own conclusions of course..

This is the original article in a French English speaking news source.
http://connexionfrance.com/Mysterious-fibres-chemtrails-conspiracy-15201-view-article.html


This is the chem believers preferred source to share..
http://beforeitsnews.com/beyond-sci...t=awesmsharetools-fbshare-small&utm_campaign=


This is what it more than likely is... Migrating spiders.

 

[Mick West]

Another story on the french fibers reported on Twitter with just the headline:


The actual story
http://www.ledauphine.com/drome/201...ents-fils-d-araignees-ou-retombees-d-incendie

Après la mystérieuse pluie de filaments qui s'est abattue jeudi sur la Drôme et l'Ardèche, deux scientifiques évoquent une hypothèse pour l'expliquer, même s'il n'y a pas de certitude absolue. Selon Alice Michaud, aranéologue (spécialiste des araignées) à Lyon, il s'agirait de fils de dispersion émis, à l'automne, par une variété d'araignée qui se servent de ces fils comme d'une voile qui, prise dans le vent, leur permet de se déplacer. « En s'agrégeant dans l'air, ces fils, plus fins qu'un cheveux, peuvent former des fils plus épais. », précise la jeune femme. Ce qu'elle s'explique moins en revanche, c'est l'ampleur du phénomène qui s'est étendu sur deux départements.

Un point qui ne surprend pas Vincent Penel du laboratoire des pollens et du micro-environnement de Portes-Lès-Valence. « La nature est parfois explosive. Le phénomène des fils de dispersion des araignées est très connu des jardiniers. Il est très fréquent. On l'appelle aussi « fil de la vierge » car jadis, les gens pensaient que la vierge envoyait ces fils sur terre. L'ampleur de ce qui s'est passé jeudi peut s'expliquer par le fait que la nature peut, dans certaines circonstances météo par exemple, être explosive. »
L'autre hypothèse avancée par certains est celle de retombées d'un incendie. Mardi soir, des milliers de pneus ont brûlés dans un incendie au sud de Valence. Cette combustion et l'extinction réalisée par les pompiers auraient pu provoquer ces filaments blancs que des témoins auraient vu à proximité du sinistre. Ces filaments extrêmement légers seraient monté avant de retomber avec la chute du vent. Telles sont les seules explications plausibles à ce phénomène, même si un petit doute subsiste.

Google translate:

After the mysterious filaments rain that hit Thursday on the Drôme and Ardèche, two scientists suggest a hypothesis to explain it, even if there is no absolute certainty. According to Alice Michaud, aranéologue (specialist in spiders) in Lyon, this would be the threads of dispersion issued in the fall by a variety of spider who use these threads as a sail, taken in the wind, allows them to move. "By aggregating in the air, the thread, finer than a hair, can form thicker thread. " Says the young woman. It is explained less by contrast, is the magnitude of the phenomenon that has spread in two departments.

A point which does not surprise Vincent Penel laboratory pollen and microenvironment Portes-lès-Valence. "Nature is sometimes explosive. The phenomenon of dispersion thread of spiders is very well known to gardeners. It is very common. It is also called "virgin thread" because in the past, people thought that the virgin sent the son on earth. The magnitude of what happened Thursday can be explained by the fact that nature can, in certain circumstances eg weather, be explosive. "

The other hypothesis is advanced by some of the effects of fire. Tuesday night, thousands of tires have burned in a fire south of Valencia. This combustion and extinction performed by firefighters could cause the white filaments that witnesses have seen near the accident. These extremely thin filaments are mounted before falling with the fall of the wind. Those are the only plausible explanations for this phenomenon, although a small doubt remains.

 

[Jay Reynolds]

The analysis of spider silk is pretty straightforward. If such silk is analyzed properly using high performance liquid chromatography
(HPLC), and the constituent amino acids known to comprise ordinary spider silk are found, you have identified the material.

Over a decade ago, I did some research on this after chemtrails related claims began to be made:
http://goodsky.homestead.com/files/silk.html

At that time I had some personal communication with Dr. Merri Lynn Casem who told me:

"As you correctly state, alanine and glycine are the major amino
acid components in spider silk making up 20 to 40% of the total mole
percent. The ratios can vary depending on what type of silk it is (spiders
can produce up to 8 different silks) My research and that of others have
shown that the levels of serine become elevated (from 4% to 25%) in the egg
casing silks of some spiders. I am not aware if the protein composition is
known specifically for the ballooning silk, but I would guess that it would
be the same as dragline or major ampullate silk. One characteristic of most
known silks is the lack of the amino acids cysteine or methionine."

However, there seems to be some large variability between spider species, individual spiders, and even the same spider from one time to another:
http://www.americanarachnology.org/joa_free/joa_v15_n1/joa_v15_p65.pdf

Amino acid compositions are given for forcibly secured major ampullate silk (n = 59 from 4
subfamilies, 8 genera, 11 species) and minor ampullate silk (n = 11, 3 subfamilies, 6 genera, 8 species)
of mature, female, orb-web-building, spiders . The compositions of major ampullate silk samples are
neither uniform within species nor when taken from an individual spider, or even when taken from an
individual spider during a single forcible silking . Chemical compositions of the two types of silk are
correlated to a limited degree with their physico-chemical properties and with the taxonomic positio n
of the spiders.

Additionally, an analysis of sticky spider silk needs to take into account that it will likely pick up contamination from the environment, whatever it touches becomes part of your sample, be it smoke from a fire, exhaust from a passing truck, blowing leaves, pollen, and dust from the air.

It might be helpful to obtain such an environmental atmospheric sample separate from the silk which might help sort out the different sorts of environmental contaminants present from the actual silk itself.

 

[Critical Thinker]

Not precisely about chemwebs, but with spiders raining down and all that, I just thought I'd throw this out there for arachnophobes to shudder at.


http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/forecast-calls-spiders

Sociality among spiders has independently evolved many times and is a highly conserved trait among some genera. So what does this mean? It means that with a bunch of spiders all working together, they can create much larger webs and can work together to take down much larger prey. One particular species in South America, Anelosimus eximius, can form colonies up to 50,000 strong, capable of making massive sheet webs that start near the ground and stretch up about 20 m (65 ft) high.

While leaving the engagement party of a friend, a man in Brazil found a large group of spiders dangling overhead. This likely resulted from gusts of wind which destroyed the web in the trees and caused the spiders to temporarily take flight on the wind. The power lines were just a good place to stop and re-group.


Read more at http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/forecast-calls-spiders#EyhkXyuziUE6U9bO.99

 

[Svartbjørn]

Have these people never read or seen Charlotte's Web?

 

[Wayne Fowler]

Hi Gents, Thanks for the excellent resource. It is ridiculous to ask you to debunk every one of these loony claims but I'll ask if you've heard of this one. Another purported claim of an analysis of "chemwebs." http://www.rense.com/general79/chemm.htm

The alleged analysis numbers are after the references. There's obviously a lot wrong with the claims in the paper to start with but you guys have a talent for spotting issues with how numbers are presented and what they more likely mean.

 

[Mick West]

Hi Gents, Thanks for the excellent resource. It is ridiculous to ask you to debunk every one of these loony claims but I'll ask if you've heard of this one. Another purported claim of an analysis of "chemwebs." http://www.rense.com/general79/chemm.htm

The alleged analysis numbers are after the references. There's obviously a lot wrong with the claims in the paper to start with but you guys have a talent for spotting issues with how numbers are presented and what they more likely mean.

What do they say it means? I don't get anything from that other than they have some fibers that resemble each other.

 

[Wayne Fowler]

The fellow who brought this up quoted this section as being meaningful,

"The EDS data from the Chemtrail sample Texas (three fiber samples) show the presence of six elements: sodium, aluminum, phosphorus, calcium, sulfur, and chlorine, which could be due to natural mineral fibers, but further testing using Raman Technology in Phase III confirmed they were nanotechnology (man-made nano composite materials).
Two of these samples contained silicon, Si. Silicon is second only to oxygen in abundance in Earth's crust, it never occurs free but is found in almost all rocks and in sand, clay, and soils, combined with oxygen as silica (silicon dioxide, SiO2 or with oxygen and metals as silicate minerals (feldspars, amphiboles, pyroxenes, micas, olivines, feldspathoids, and zeolites). Pure silicon is hard, dark gray solid with a metallic luster and the same crystal structure as a diamond. It is an extremely important semiconductor; doped with boron, phosphorous, or arsenic, it is sued in various electronic circuits and switching devices, including computer chips, transistors, and diodes. Silicon is also used in metallurgy as a reducing agent and in steel, brass, and bronze. Its usual valence in compounds is 4. Silica is used in the form of sand and clay for many purposes; as quartz, it may be heated to form special glasses. Silicates are used in making glass, enamels, and ceramics; sodium silicates (water glass) are used in soaps, wood treatment, cements, and dyeing.5

The difference between silicon and the term silicones is the same as from nature vs. man made.

Silicones (more accurately called polymerized siloxanes or polysiloxanes) are mixed inorganic-organic polymers with the chemical formula [R2SiO]n, where R = organic groups such as methyl, ethyl, and phenyl. These materials consist of an inorganic silicon-oxygen backbone (Si-O-Si-O-Si-O-) with organic side groups attached to the silicon atoms, which are four-coordinate. In some cases organic side groups can be used to link tow or more of these Si-O backbones together. By varying the Si-O- chain lengths, side groups and crosslinking, silicones can be synthesized with a wide variety of properties and compositions. They can vary in consistency from liquid to gel to rubber to hard plastic. The most common siloxane is linear polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), silicone oil. The second largest group of silicone materials is made from silicone resins, which are formed by branched and caged-like oligosiloxanes.6 A true silicone group with a double bond between oxygen and silicon does not exist in nature; chemists find that the silicon atom forms a single bond with each of the two oxygen atoms, rather than a double bond to a single atom. Polysiloxanes are called "silicone" due to early mistaken assumptions about their structure."
This may well be just similar structures as you say. I'm a neophyte on the subject. A teacher who has run into a few former students who believe this sort of thing and trying to educate myself to try and help them learn to think critically. Something school obviously never managed. Knowing students in our community are talking about this sort of thing (and other conspiracy theories) I have now made a point of paying more attention to assessing information by using conspiracy theory as a theme of study.

 

[cloudspotter]

The fellow who brought this up quoted this section as being meaningful,

"The EDS data from the Chemtrail sample Texas (three fiber samples) show the presence of six elements: sodium, aluminum, phosphorus, calcium, sulfur, and chlorine, which could be due to natural mineral fibers,

Nothing suspicious so far then.

but further testing using Raman Technology in Phase III confirmed they were nanotechnology (man-made nano composite materials).

I'm no expert but Raman appears to be spectroscopy so I'm not sure how that could confirm nanotechnology. I could easily be wrong though.

http://www.ahurascientific.com/product-technologies/raman/

Two of these samples contained silicon, Si. Silicon is second only to oxygen in abundance in Earth's crust, it never occurs free but is found in almost all rocks and in sand, clay, and soils, combined with oxygen as silica (silicon dioxide, SiO2 or with oxygen and metals as silicate minerals (feldspars, amphiboles, pyroxenes, micas, olivines, feldspathoids, and zeolites). Pure silicon is hard, dark gray solid with a metallic luster and the same crystal structure as a diamond. It is an extremely important semiconductor; doped with boron, phosphorous, or arsenic, it is sued in various electronic circuits and switching devices, including computer chips, transistors, and diodes. Silicon is also used in metallurgy as a reducing agent and in steel, brass, and bronze. Its usual valence in compounds is 4. Silica is used in the form of sand and clay for many purposes; as quartz, it may be heated to form special glasses. Silicates are used in making glass, enamels, and ceramics; sodium silicates (water glass) are used in soaps, wood treatment, cements, and dyeing.5

This appears to be just a direct copy and paste from definitions found on the internet. Padding I would call it.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/concise/silicon

The difference between silicon and the term silicones is the same as from nature vs. man made.

Silicones (more accurately called polymerized siloxanes or polysiloxanes) are mixed inorganic-organic polymers with the chemical formula [R2SiO]n, where R = organic groups such as methyl, ethyl, and phenyl. These materials consist of an inorganic silicon-oxygen backbone (Si-O-Si-O-Si-O-) with organic side groups attached to the silicon atoms, which are four-coordinate. In some cases organic side groups can be used to link tow or more of these Si-O backbones together. By varying the Si-O- chain lengths, side groups and crosslinking, silicones can be synthesized with a wide variety of properties and compositions. They can vary in consistency from liquid to gel to rubber to hard plastic. The most common siloxane is linear polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), silicone oil. The second largest group of silicone materials is made from silicone resins, which are formed by branched and caged-like oligosiloxanes.6 A true silicone group with a double bond between oxygen and silicon does not exist in nature; chemists find that the silicon atom forms a single bond with each of the two oxygen atoms, rather than a double bond to a single atom. Polysiloxanes are called "silicone" due to early mistaken assumptions about their structure."

No idea why they've included this or what relevance it has. More padding?

 

[Mick West]

They did not seems to detect free silicon, so the above is all irrelevant. Most spider webs are going to have some airborne dust on them, and any amature environmental sample of anything is prone to a variety of contamination.

The article is hardly worth addressing, it says almost nothing in a lot of words.

 

[Belfrey]

Agreed, the analysis by the author is mostly a meaningless jumble. Looking at the lab results showing elemental composition, the samples were mostly carbon and oxygen - which is what one would expect if the fibers were spider silk or another natural fiber. All three samples were less than 1% silicon (including one "none detected"), which makes the focus on that element rather nonsensical.

The author, "Dr. Hildegarde Staninger RIET-1," appears to be a good candidate for a "people debunked" post. An initial search shows that her educational background is not revealed in any of her bios.

 

[Wayne Fowler]

The author, "Dr. Hildegarde Staninger RIET-1," appears to be a good candidate for a "people debunked" post.

It looks like someone already has. http://curezone.org/forums/am.asp?i=1669899
Funny, I searched her name and only came up with the article (an alert) but when I added the RIET-1 I got more.

Thanks for the input gents.

 

[Critical Thinker]

Courtesy of the National Geographic website

Millions of Spiders Rain Down on Australia—Why?
In what's called a mass ballooning, the tiny arachnids used silk strands to catch air currents on their way to a new home.

Spiderwebs coat the countryside near Wagga Wagga, Australia, in March 2012. Last week, the tiny spiders again descended in the millions on the same region of Australia.


PHOTOGRAPH BY LUKAS COCH, EPA
By Christine Dell'Amore, National Geographic
PUBLISHED MAY 18, 2015



Millions of spiders dropped from the sky in the Southern Tablelands region (map), blanketing the countryside with their webs. "They fly through the sky and then we see these falls of spiderwebs that look almost as if it's snowing," local resident Keith Basterfield told the Goulburn Post. (See "7 Bug and Spider Myths Squashed.")

Though many news reports have called them babies, the spiders are actually just "very, very small" adults called sheet-web weavers or money spiders, according to Robb Bennett, a research associate in entomology at the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria.

It's unclear what spurs these spiders take to the skies in what are called mass ballooning events, Bennett notes.

But once they do, millions crawl to the highest points of their habitat—say a fence pole, or a tall plant—and send out silk strands that allow them to be lifted on air currents. (Also see "Photos: World's Biggest, Strongest Spider Webs Found.")

"It's a reverse-parachute effect—they're going from the ground into the air," Bennett said. "It's awe-inspiring."

The vast majority of these "aerial plankton" will die during the journey, eaten by predators or killed by harsh weather conditions. But only a small fraction need to survive to set up shop in their new home.

Thanks to this impressive feat, spiders tend to be the first creatures to recolonize an area—say, an agricultural field—that has been completely destroyed.

Such ballooning events aren't unique to Australia. They also occur in the Northern Hemisphere—ballooning spiders have been spotted in the United States and Britain, for instance—but are still "relatively rare and random," Bennett says.

The spiders pose "no danger to people. It's a spectacular natural history occurrence."

Wonders of Silk

In 2012, record rains in the same Australian region spurred a mass ballooning event.

In that case, ballooning allowed the spiders "to move out of places where they'd surely be drowned," Robert Matthews, a professor emeritus of entomology at the University of Georgia, said of that event.

Producing large quantities of silk creates a sort of "vast trampoline" that supports the spiders as they're fleeing the water, he said. (Also see "Pictures: Trees Cocooned in Webs After Flood.")

Although acres of spiderwebs may gross out some arachnophobes, the impressive feat shows "the versatility of things [spiders] can do with silk," Matthews noted.

Silk has been a "huge evolutionary breakthrough," he said, and "this is one more example of why spiders have been a successful group."

 

[M Bornong]

The first week of November, my wife and I were in Kansas visiting her family. On the 6th we drove down to her son's place near Parker KS. We arrived at about 5:00 pm. I noticed the single strand spider webs glistening in the grass from the late afternoon sun. I didn't see any floating in the air, the spiders must have finished their migration before our arrival.

I checked the skies for contrails, not a single one.

My step son said the B-2's are a frequent sight, Whiteman AFB is only 75 miles away.

 

[Svartbjørn]

Courtesy of the National Geographic website

Millions of Spiders Rain Down on Australia—Why?
In what's called a mass ballooning, the tiny arachnids used silk strands to catch air currents on their way to a new home.



View attachment 16258
Spiderwebs coat the countryside near Wagga Wagga, Australia, in March 2012. Last week, the tiny spiders again descended in the millions on the same region of Australia.


PHOTOGRAPH BY LUKAS COCH, EPA
By Christine Dell'Amore, National Geographic
PUBLISHED MAY 18, 2015



Millions of spiders dropped from the sky in the Southern Tablelands region (map), blanketing the countryside with their webs. "They fly through the sky and then we see these falls of spiderwebs that look almost as if it's snowing," local resident Keith Basterfield told the Goulburn Post. (See "7 Bug and Spider Myths Squashed.")

Though many news reports have called them babies, the spiders are actually just "very, very small" adults called sheet-web weavers or money spiders, according to Robb Bennett, a research associate in entomology at the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria.

It's unclear what spurs these spiders take to the skies in what are called mass ballooning events, Bennett notes.

But once they do, millions crawl to the highest points of their habitat—say a fence pole, or a tall plant—and send out silk strands that allow them to be lifted on air currents. (Also see "Photos: World's Biggest, Strongest Spider Webs Found.")

"It's a reverse-parachute effect—they're going from the ground into the air," Bennett said. "It's awe-inspiring."

The vast majority of these "aerial plankton" will die during the journey, eaten by predators or killed by harsh weather conditions. But only a small fraction need to survive to set up shop in their new home.

Thanks to this impressive feat, spiders tend to be the first creatures to recolonize an area—say, an agricultural field—that has been completely destroyed.

Such ballooning events aren't unique to Australia. They also occur in the Northern Hemisphere—ballooning spiders have been spotted in the United States and Britain, for instance—but are still "relatively rare and random," Bennett says.

The spiders pose "no danger to people. It's a spectacular natural history occurrence."

Wonders of Silk

In 2012, record rains in the same Australian region spurred a mass ballooning event.

In that case, ballooning allowed the spiders "to move out of places where they'd surely be drowned," Robert Matthews, a professor emeritus of entomology at the University of Georgia, said of that event.

Producing large quantities of silk creates a sort of "vast trampoline" that supports the spiders as they're fleeing the water, he said. (Also see "Pictures: Trees Cocooned in Webs After Flood.")

Although acres of spiderwebs may gross out some arachnophobes, the impressive feat shows "the versatility of things [spiders] can do with silk," Matthews noted.

Silk has been a "huge evolutionary breakthrough," he said, and "this is one more example of why spiders have been a successful group."

Reminds me of Kingdom of the Spiders:

Pretty cool that an animal that small could create something that big.

 

[TEEJ]

November 2015

Millions Of Spiders Infest Mid-South Neighborhood

A VAST spider web, stretching nearly half-a-mile, blanketed grass on Friday near several residential houses in Memphis, Tennessee, NBC reported. Local residents said the area looked like a scene from a horror movie, filled with thousands of spiders. "When I got up this morning, it was like spiders all on my door, they were coming in my house," said local resident, Frances Ward. Residents on May Street said they are worried that the spiders could be dangerous, and urge the city authorities to help get rid of them, local media said. Local resident Deborah Ward said: ""You can't even sit in her house because they're all on the wall, on the door. We been killing spiders for about an hour now."

 

[Leifer]

Every month or-so, I check YouTube for recent "chem webs" claims.
Despite it's ultimate simplicity (it's spiders), the idea seems to continually latch-on to virgin or hard-core believers.

I found a group of studies which attempt to use spider webs as environmental heavy-metal indicators.

Spider Webs as Indicators of Heavy Metal Pollution in Air

Accumulation of Major and Trace Elements in Spider Webs (open access)

Pilot study on road traffic emissions (PAHs, heavy metals) measured by using mosses in a tunnel experiment in Vienna, Austria.



Even though these studies focus on heavy urban areas, mainly testing the webs for automobile soot, it is another example that webs (and silk) can attract dust from the world around them.

My point being......that silk can attract dust, or visa-versa.......and that simple tests for aluminum, essentially mean nothing, given the ambient dust in the air.

 

[Leifer]

....as in this recent video...
He says his neighbors had webs tested for Al, Ba, Sr

 

[Mick West]

Despite people having the actual explanation for the webs, some people continue to prefer to think it's something sprayed out of a plane.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/globalskywatch/permalink/10156273611600302/

Even when they know exactly what it is, they still find it incredibly suspicious, it's chem-webs, but being made by genetically modified spiders.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/globalskywatch/permalink/10156281009980302/

 

[sharpnfuzzy]

Lots of pictures of enormous webs indoors in this paper. Not sure how something supposedly sprayed from an aircraft high overhead could end up in the rafters of a roof and hanging between light fixtures and walls

An Immense Concentration of Orb-Weaving Spiders With Communal Webbing in a Man-Made Structural Habitat

 

[Jay Reynolds]

In the article mentioned by sharpnfuzzy I read about a spider aggregation in Texas. Imagine what sort of hatchling production such a mass of spiders might produce, and how many of these go unnoticed at remote sites.