Spherical objects described as flying saucers were observed over the town of Port Hope, east of Oshawa. Observed to accompany them were "spiders' threads." The following statement was made by P.L. Lewis of Port Hope.

Sunday, September 26, 1948. Port Hope, Ontario. This day was warm and the sky cloudless. We had had dinner in the garden and 1 was lying on my back on the lawn, my head just in the shade of the house, when I was startled to see an object resembling a star moving rapidly across the sky. The time was 2 o'clock Eastern Standard Time.

At first it was easy to imagine that recent reports of " Flying Saucers" had not been exaggerated.

More of these objects came sailing into view over the ridge of house, only to disappear when nearly overhead. With field glasses I was able to see that each was approximately spherical, the centre being rather brighter than the edges. The glasses also showed quite a number at such heights that they were invisible to the naked eye.

With only a gull flying in the sky for comparison, I should estimate the elevation of the lower objects to be about 300 ft. and the higher ones 2,000 ft; the size was about one foot in diameter and the speed about 50 m.p.h., in a direction SW to NE.

Also visible every now and then were long threads , apparently from spiders . Some of these were seen to reflect the light over a length of three or four yards, but any one piece may of course have been longer. Each was more or less horizontal, moving at right angles to its length. In one case an elongated tangled mass of these gave the appearance of a frayed silken cord. These threads appeared only in the lower levels.

It is reasonably certain that these objects were balls of spiders' threads, possibly with thistledown entangled in them, but the way in which they caught the rays of the sun and shone so brightly was very striking.

P L. Lewis

P.L. Lewis was a personal friend of R. Bishop whose report, "Cobwebs or Flying Saucers, " appeared in Weather, 4:121-122, 1949. Bishop noted, in reference to the flying saucers "No one else seems to have seen them on this occasion, but perhaps Mr. Lewis was the only one to be taking horizontal, post-prandial repose at the time." The statement is reproduced from Handbook of Unusual Natural Phenomena (1978) compiled by William R. Corliss.

In Fortean literature the phenomenon of spiders' threads" is better known as "angel hair."