Another curious physical phenomenon occurred on August 30th, 1969,
at Grafton which directly involved him. He describes it this way:
Mid afternoon found me relaxing on a surfboard in the middle of
the Clarence River. I noticed streams of fine white filament coming
down (out of the sky) over the river. I was immediately fascinated as
this was a great opportunity to directly sample what I took to be a
good example of a natural phenomenon. I took the streams to be the
floating web of migratory balloon spiders. I also knew that in UFO
lore material of a similar appearance was occassionally linked to UFOs
- namely "angel hair" - thought by some researchers to be a by product
of whatever strange processes powered flying saucers.
So that afternoon I paddled over to the riverbank where large
amounts of this "spider web" were coming down. I felt that getting a
good look at this stuff and keeping samples would be a handy resource
or a calibration for the unlikely prospect of coming across alleged
UFO related "angel hair" - an exotic item of UFO physical evidence.
What I was not prepared for was the improbable. There in my hands was
material that did not quite fit into the migratory spider web
category. There were no tell tale baby spiders. As the baby spiders
can quickly detach themselves from the web, the absence of spiders did
not in itself intrigue me. What followed did. I began rolling up a
copious amount of the material in my hands. The filaments diminished
in size (not too unusual given the viscous changes that can occur in
those conditions, particularly with the possible addition of water
from my hands), and then the material eventually dissipated into
nothing visible and leaving no trace. It gave the impression of rapid
sublimation from solid to gas, but no vapours or odour were noticed.
The properties of spiders web are well known, and apparently
disappearing to touch is not one of them! With the realisation that
that I may be dealing with something exotic I raced to a nearby
residence to get some sample jars. The fall of filaments had been
quite profuse and much of it had come down along the riverbank. When
I returned a few minutes later there was none in evidence. While only
a very light breeze was apparent, the topography was such that spiders
web should have been still in great profusion. I even entered the
water and investigated the riverbank for a considerable distance in
the direction of apparent travel. There was no trace of the filament
fall. The material did not seem to be spiders web. So called "angel
hair" had the reported characteristic of quickly disappearing. Was
this the apocryphal "angel hair" - the "manna" of the saucers!
Imagine my chagrin when I subsequently found out that at the same
time, a number of Grafton people, including my own parents, had seen a
UFO, described by some as an elongated white mass", travelling in a
trajectory that would have passed over my river position but in a
direction at right angles to the aerial flow of material I had
witnessed.
Perhaps the "UFO" may have been a more compacted mass of the
filaments I had seen travelling in a different direction? While
tantalising the experience was ultimately frustrating. I had it right
there in my own hands."
