The British X-Files: Natural History Museum sets up unit to investigate bizarre phenomenon such as Somerset's 'space slime'
- Strange substance found in nature reserve thought to be linked to meteor
- Jelly investigated at museum's Angela Marmont Centre for UK Biodiversity
- Experts tasked with identifying unexplained items including 'dragon skulls'
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The secrets of the universe, including the origins of a mysterious 'space slime' are slowly being unravelled by a unit of museum experts dubbed the 'British X-Files'.
Carrying out work which would leave even the cult television show's Fox Mulder and Dana Scully baffled, the team at the Natural History Museum have been tasked with identifying a host of bizarre items discovered by the British public.
Among the finds examined by the museum's Identification and Advisory Service was a mysterious slime discovered in a peaceful nature reserve in Somerset.
Mysterious: The 'space slime', discovered at a nature reserve in Somerset has left scientists baffled
Secrets of the universe: The strange gloop, found at the Ham Wall nature reserve, mysteriously appeared around the same time as a meteor crashed to earth in Chelyabinsk, Russia
The strange gloop, found at the Ham Wall nature reserve, mysteriously appeared around the same time as a meteor crashed to earth in Chelyabinsk, Russia, and an amateur photographer claimed he had captured a mysterious object whizzing through the sky above the park on camera.
The object appeared to be a meteor, although this was not confirmed by astronomers.
Nature buffs claimed the slime was merely frogspawn, while others said it was 'star jelly', a strange substance said to appear when meteors fall to earth, which has continued to stump scientists.
The London museum's Angela Marmont Centre for UK Biodiversity, which houses the Identification and Advisory Service, was tasked with investigating the mysterious slime, with the aim of establishing whether it had fallen from space, or if its origins were rather more terrestrial.
Laboratory tests have so far failed to find just what it could be - and where it had come from.
Discovery: The Natural History Museum's Angela Marmont Centre for UK Biodiversity is tasked with identifying unknown objects, such as this rock which a member of the public mistook for a dinosaur skull
Agent Skull-y: The pelvis bones of sea birds, such as auks and puffins, were thought by their imaginative discoverers to be dragon skulls
The tooth is out there: A deer skull was mistaken for that on an ice-age sabre tooth cat because of its long tusks
Scientists from the unit extracted DNA from the jelly and tried to match it against that of birds and frogs, without success.
DNA traces of worms and bacteria were found in the substance, but these were not thought to have been the source of the slim, and had more likely come from organisms which colonised the matter.
Chesca Rogers, from the AMC, has been working on the mysterious substance since it was sent to
the unit by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, which runs the nature reserve where it was found in February.
the unit by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, which runs the nature reserve where it was found in February.
'The slime is still a genuine mystery,' Ms Rogers told The Daily Telegraph.
'There are stories in folklore that link it with meteor sightings. Some people think it might be unfertilised frog spawn, others think it is a fungus, or a slime mould or that it is plant related.
'None of the tests we have done so far have told us anything conclusive, but the samples we got were not in the best condition and highly contaminated.'
'There are stories in folklore that link it with meteor sightings. Some people think it might be unfertilised frog spawn, others think it is a fungus, or a slime mould or that it is plant related.
'None of the tests we have done so far have told us anything conclusive, but the samples we got were not in the best condition and highly contaminated.'
Ms Rogers is set to open up her very own X-Files this Friday at a museum talk where she will explain how she has been unravelling the mystery, as well as other examples of the AMC's most intriguing and puzzling cases.
Revealing: The secrets of the AMC will be revealed at a talk at the Natural History Museum this week
Mystery: The origins of the 'space slime' might even have left Mulder and Scully from cult television programme The X-Files stumped
However, some of the mysteries of finds brought to the AMC by eagle-eyed members of the public have proved easier to solve.
The haul has included stones they believe to be the remains of a dinosaur and 'meteorites' that are in fact discarded aluminium foil.
A skull believed to have belonged to an ice-age sabre tooth cat, its fur still intact, was instead found to be that of a Chinese Water Deer, thought to have been mistaken for the ancient predator because of its long tusks which could have been mistaken for powerful teeth.
Other animal remains have been mistaken for something even more incredible, such as the pelvis bones of sea birds, such as auks and puffins, which were thought by their imaginative discoverers to be dragon skulls.
In one case, which initially appeared to be one for agents Mulder and Scully, an 'alien' in a jar of liquid was brought in, only to be revealed as a science fiction toy.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2470015/The-British-X-Files-Natural-History-Museum-sets-unit-investigate-bizarre-phenomenon-Somersets-space-slime.html#ixzz2iM8GPtDy
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