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Black Blobs Appearing In Camden, NJ

Posted by michael on from the do-not-worry-about-the-industrial-pollutants dept.

Ieshan writes "Strange alien scares or just New Jersey Pollution? Occam's razor points towards the latter, but still, odd black blobs are appearing in a New Jersey city - no joke. CNN has the story - apparently, no one can identify them yet. Investigators say that they're not petrolium based, and that's about all anyone knows. On the plus side, at least they don't have stalks with green eyes?"

10 of 88 comments (clear)

  1. it's fallout... by Galahad · · Score: 3, Funny

    from Bruce Springsteen's latest album.

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    --jdp Maintainer of VisEmacs
  2. How is this possible!? by quantax · · Score: 5, Funny

    As a resident of NJ for the last 20 years, I can say that there is no way this could possibly happen. As my fellow residents can vouch, NJ is the cleanest place of all the places in the world. Where else in the world can you wake up to the the beautiful view of a smoke-stack filled skyline, emitting fluffy plumes of green tinged smoke. Or perhaps the placid lakes and ponds, that maintain their rainbow colored, slick surfaces all year around. No sir, you cannot be more in tune with nature unless you live in NJ.

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    "What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth, given the experience of the past million years? Nothing." -Bokonon
  3. Why isn't it on cars? by Darkstorm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    well, if its something falling from the sky then it should realisticly be on everything, including cars. Actually it should be getting on people also.

    --
    If ignorance is bliss, the world is full of blissful people
  4. It's roofing g tar by netringer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A noticed the black blobs on new sidewalks right here in Chicago. I could see a lot of dots on the sidewalk below when I looked down from the 'L' platform. I figured that they were chewing gum but wondered how there could be so much.

    It makes sense that it's tar that flows off of the roofs in the extreme heat. I saw a temperature of 106 degrees F on concrete a few weeks ago. Black flat roofs probably get a lot hotter.

    --
    Ever dream you could fly? Get up from the Flight Sim. I Fly
    1. Re:It's roofing g tar by Mt._Honkey · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I just (like 10 min ago) did a study over about 4 blocks of sidewalk. It was along a large road going through a very large campus (UIUC). I counted ~1100 black spots ~2-3cm in diameter, just like the ones in the report. There were virtualy none under overhangs, but the highest concentrations were just outside overhangs, and near trash cans. Trees seemed to have no effect, whether the spots were under, near, or far away from them seemed to have no effect on concentration. Far away from buildings, there were fewer spots, but high concentrations still existed ~10m away. The few parts of brick sidewalk (around covered bus stops) had almost no spots. There was not nearly as much in streets, but there was in crosswalks

      The fact that they are concentrated around trash cans and near buildings, not under overhangs but under trees, and were in crosswalks but not streets all lead me to guess that they are placed there by induviduals, so probably chewing gum built up with crud. As for why they were not under overhangs, maybe there is a sub-concious predispositon not to spid out gum indoors, and the overhang might trick their sub-concious into thinking that they are still inside.

      Roofing tar would all be concentrated right up against the buildings.

      I suspect that this is the same phenomena as in NJ

      --

      Don't Bogart the fish sticks
  5. Blobs? Pits? Same old story? by skaffen42 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This reminds me of the Seattle Window Pitting Hysteria (about half way downb the page).

    So these days we blame aliens instead of demons, but that is about the only thing that changes.

    Idiocy is a universal constant...

    --
    People couldn't type. We realized: Death would eventually take care of this.
  6. The black blobs... by Muad'Dave · · Score: 3, Funny

    don't need to "take over" Camden, NJ - they can have it, for all I care.

    --
    Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
  7. Re:The article by JabberWokky · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Actually it is quite possible that the fact the field test didn't work was proof it wasn't tar or oil from cars - as the test may have been reliable for those forms of petroleum products, and while it eliminated those possibilities, it did not totally eliminate other forms of hydrocarbons. The way the article is worded, I can easily see that as a possibility, but given the confused wording, I would not lend any credence to anything "stated" in the article.

    Did a satellite fall to earth in that town recently? If so, even if the town suddenly dies off, I wouldn't worry - it'll probably mutate to a harmless state very quickly.

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    Evan

    --
    "$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
  8. Mystery solved. by Peter+T+Ermit · · Score: 3, Informative

    They're wax.

  9. bubble burst by Tablizer · · Score: 4, Funny

    It is all the falling dots from the dying dot-com's

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    Table-ized A.I.