Whose Line Is It Anyway?

Throughout the 1970s, in three separate American cities, mysterious "lines" similar to monofilament fishing line were spotted stretched tautly across the sky, seemingly attached to nothing.

In one location, the line remained taut for more than a month before it must have "snapped" and fallen in a coil to the yard of a home below. Another incident involved several boys who claimed to have spent an hour reeling in such a line before it snapped and, again, fell to the ground in a neat coil.

Retrieved filaments were taken to DuPont for analysis.  While they couldn't pin it down exactly, it was chemically similar to Nylon. Rhode Island University conducted tests under a Dr. Vargas. Vargas first believed the lines to be hollow, but upon closer examination found an odd substance at the center.

In Georgia, a man pulled in many yards of another suspended string that was comprised of a "fluffy, shiny, white substance," and still another that was a "hard-finished green material".  An Ohio man had to get neighbors to help reel in a 1000 feet of a line that was, as the others, much like a monofilament fishing line.  They group filled eight spools of the stuff before it snapped and the tendril floated away on the wind.

What were these mysterious lines? Did they tether invisible alien craft? Were they the product of elusive and extremely large spiders? Are these the tentacles of Cthulhu? Is someone fishing for US?

Maybe it is simply another of these inexplicable memes that erupt from time to time, like "the Mad Gasser" or "Springheel Jack".