A mysterious substance called angel hair has been seen falling from the sky around the world and is often associated with UFO or apparition sightings. We previously took a closer look at the folklore and how the strands of disappearing material seemed to evaporate when touched along with some conspiracy theories and explanations for what angel hair could be.
Although the substance remains a mystery, one case in Evora Portugal in 1959 is notable because it is a rare case when a sample of the ephemeral hair may have been tested and investigated in a lab.
The information available in the following video is in Portuguese, but we have provided a transcript of the main points in English for your consideration. We approach the subject with an open mind but remain skeptical.
Is angel hair real? Have you seen it or someone you know? As always, we leave the final determination up to you. Whatever the case it is certainly interesting. See the video at the end of the article.
Évora, November 2nd, 1959. About noon.
Two strange objects are seen flying over the city.
According to testimony from many witnesses, after their flyover, a bunch of white filaments were found everywhere, which the people from the city then called “angel hairs.”
Professor Joaquim Guedes Gomeral, a data director of the commercial and industrial school of Évora, witnessed this strange occurrence and wrote it down. The contents remained hidden for about twenty years.
According to Gomeral, that day was clear, with not a single cloud in the sky. Someone told him a strange object was flying over the city. He then went outside the school to witness a strange round, blue object and went back inside to get his telescope.
UFOs in a simulation
A second object was seen orbiting the bigger one, emulating several species from the depths of the ocean.
After a while, both objects gained altitude and disappeared. That’s when witnesses saw the filaments falling from the sky.
It wasn’t the first time or the only place where the filaments were seen falling from the sky. Hours before, hundreds of kilometers away, over a military base, Conceiçao e Silva, a pilot, was getting ready for a flight training session.
He said it was a clear, pretty day, but cold. It was, and they were ready to take off when they saw the filaments falling down from the sky.
Although it only lasted a few minutes at the military base, it lasted almost four hours at Évora, covering parts of the school and some houses all over the city. In fact, the filament ‘precipitation’ allowed for people to be able to gather it, even though it was as fine as spider silk.
Professor Amaral gathered some of these filaments to do a closer examination. Upon observing these filaments under a microscope, he discovered that, in fact, to his amazement, there was a microscopic living creature with ten tentacles wrapped by a clear, gelatinous substance.
Simulation of the angel hair under a microscope
Dr. María José Escaria Santos, a Biologist, concluded that the closest thing they resembled were ‘Coelenterata,’ the species which include sea anemones and other coral animals, but concluded that nothing she knew about biology allowed her to classify it.
Professor Amaral turned in the sample to the Lisboa Faculty of Science, thinking it would have a better chance at classification. However, in 1978, there was a fire at that Faculty, which destroyed the sample, halting any possibility of further analysis.
Twenty years later, this case reached the CTEC (Centro Transdisciplinar de Estudios de Consciencia) via an article from 1960, published in the newspaper from the city of Évora, with the title, “A Large Flying Saucer over Évora, Unknown Microscopic Beings.”
They started an investigation in 1979, which took them to the school where the flying object was seen. CTEC investigators talked to people who had witnessed the incident. One of the professors saw clearly that there was a relation of cause and effect since right after the sighting of the flying saucers, the filaments fell from the sky.
In the end, however, the CTEC found all accounts and testimony inconclusive, although they formulated some theories. According to Raul Berenguel, an analyst at CTEC, we shouldn’t discard the possible existence of microscopic species that could survive in high altitudes that have not been discovered, likening the recent discovery of bacteria that survive in the most inhospitable places.
A patient fleeing a medical hold fatally beat a hospital security guard at M Health Fairview Lakes Medical Center, leading to a second-degree murder charge and renewed concerns about workplace violence
Celebrate the New Year with the “Champagne Cluster,” a galaxy cluster seen in this new image from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and optical telescopes.
In this Oct. 20, 2025, photo, tiny ball bearings surround a larger central bearing during the Fluid Particles experiment, conducted inside the Microgravity Science Glovebox (MSG) aboard the International Space Station’s Destiny laboratory module.
The man allegedly shot multiple people in different locations before fleeing from Oklahoma City police; officers fatally shot him after he repeatedly pointed a gun at passing cars
Since the interstellar object (ISO) 3I/ATLAS was first discovered on July 1, 2025, it has garnered much attention, including speculation, hopes and fears that it may somehow contain evidence of technologically advanced civilizations outside of our solar system.
Mid-infrared observations from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, shown in white, gray, and red, are combined here with X-ray data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, highlighted in blue. Together, these different wavelengths reveal a detailed and layered view of a pair of colliding spiral galaxies, captured in an image released on Dec. 1, 2025.
Using the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), an international team of astronomers has discovered a spectacular bipolar outflow from the disk of a nearby galaxy known as ESO 130-G012. The finding was reported in a paper published December 17 on the pre-print server arXiv.
Axions are hypothetical light particles that could solve two different physics problems, as they could explain why some nuclear interactions don’t violate time symmetry and are also promising dark matter candidates. Dark matter is a type of matter that does not emit, reflect or absorb light, and has never been directly observed before.
Researchers at the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have developed a new way to significantly enhance upconversion luminescence in oxide perovskites, a class of materials known for their thermal and chemical stability but limited optical efficiency.
Every time you take a sip of fine wine, you may very well be drinking the same wine that Roman emperors drank in ancient times. At least that’s what a new analysis of grape DNA reveals.
While wine has become more diverse in modern times, there are still several ancient varieties, particularly from France, that have a long lineage going back to a single vine from which cuttings have been taken and spread to other regions.
In order to discover the genetic secrets of the wine we drink today, Dr. Nathan Wales of the University of York and his team gathered grape seeds from nine ancient sites in France, 28 seeds in all, and compared them to modern grapes.
The results were surprising, and in some cases, alarming.
Sixteen of the grapes were within one or two generations of our modern grapes. One is a match to the rare Savagnin blanc in France, which has been around for 900 years.
Others were even as old as ancient Rome itself.
“When we imagined people 1,000 years ago drinking wine, the question was, how different was the stuff in that bottle?” Wales explained. “Now we’ve got the answer. It’s incredibly likely that someone 1,000 years ago was drinking something that’s pretty much genetically identical to what we drink today.”
Marble statue of Dionysos. The god Dionysos is the god of wine & divine intoxication. Early roman empire, 27 BC – 68 AD, Metropolitan Museum pic.twitter.com/zHo4J6MoBy
“From our sample of grape seeds we found 18 distinct genetic signatures, including one set of genetically identical seeds from two Roman sites separated by more than 600km, and dating back 2,000 years ago,” he continued. “These genetic links, which included a ‘sister’ relationship with varieties grown in the Alpine regions today, demonstrate winemakers’ proficiencies across history in managing their vineyards with modern techniques, such as asexual reproduction through taking plant cuttings.”
University of Copenhagen researcher Dr. Jazmín Ramos-Madrigal, a member of the team, described the makeup of the grapes.
“We suspect the majority of these archaeological seeds come from domesticated berries that were potentially used for winemaking based on their strong genetic links to wine grapevines,” Ramos-Madrigal said. “Berries from varieties used for wine are small, thick-skinned, full of seeds, and packed with sugar and other compounds such as acids, phenols, and aromas – great for making wine but not quite as good for eating straight from the vine. These ancient seeds did not have a strong genetic link to modern table grapes. Based on writings by the Roman author and naturalist, Pliny the Elder, and others, we know the Romans had advanced knowledge of winemaking and designated specific names to different grape varieties, but it has so far been impossible to link their Latin names to modern varieties. Now we have the opportunity to use genetics to know exactly what the Romans were growing in their vineyards.”
However, it should be pointed out that the study did not seek to discover if there’s a difference in taste of the wines over the centuries.
A University of Colorado professor is brewing ancient beers such as those drank by the Vikings and other cultures from around the world, so we can experience what beer may have tasted like at the time compared to our modern beers.
However, since many of these grapes have very similar DNA and are used to make the same wines, it’s reasonable to say that the taste is relatively the same, depending on factors such as climate that have minor to major effects on grapes at any given time.
“It is rather unconventional to trace an uninterrupted genetic lineage for hundreds of years into the past,” Wales added. “Large databases of genetic data from modern crops and optimized palaeogenomic methods have vastly improved our ability to analyze the history of this and other important fruits.”
“For the wine industry today, these results could shed new light on the value of some grape varieties; even if we don’t see them in popular use in wines today, they were once highly valued by past wine lovers and so are perhaps worth a closer look,” he concluded.
Canadian researcher Zoë Migicovsky of Dalhousie University observed that while these grapes and the wines derived from them have remained largely the same, “everything around them has continued to change.”
Climate change is resulting in erratic temperatures that these grapes may not be able to tolerate for much longer, nor would they be able to survive the evolving pests and diseases. In our changing world, winemakers are going to have to change, which means breeding cross varieties and perhaps even abandoning the ancient ones for more resistant grapes that can better handle new stresses and threats.
That’s likely not what wine lovers want to hear. After all, as a wine drinker myself, I’d hate to think I have to give up one of my favorites for a different one. But the reality is that grapes are not immune to climate change and we will have to adapt if we still want to imbibe from time to time in the future.
It’s cool to learn that we may have been drinking the same wine as Julius Caesar, but just like the Roman Empire, their wine will also pass into history. So we’d best enjoy it while we still can.
More on what ancient wine may have tasted like due to additives like tree resins, herbs, and spices, from Seeker below
