Spiders are ‘falling’ from the SKY in California: Locals report seeing webs with spiderlings floating in the air

It may be sunny in California, but it is also ‘raining spiders.’

Residents along the Central Coast are reportedly seeing webs with spiderlings falling from the skies.

Several online videos show white structures floating in the air and sticking to the ground and buildings, which one local likened to the ‘fake spider web stuff that you buy at the Halloween store.’

While the incidents are bizarre, a biologist revealed that the ‘webbing’ is silk baby spiders spin to migrate to new habitats.

Several online videos show white structures floating in the air and sticking to the ground and buildings, which one local likened to the ‘fake spider web stuff that you buy at the Halloween store

‘What they are is strands of silk that spiderlings, baby spiders, use to disperse,’ Fred Larabee, an assistant professor of biology at San Jose State University, told the SF Chronicle.

‘To get away from where they’re originally born, they spin these silk strands and they get caught by the wind, which pulls the spiders to a new place to live, to new habitats, so they’re not competing with their siblings.’

The reports are coming from San Francisco, San Jose, Danville and Gilroy.

One California resident shared a video on TikTok asking the public to help unravel the mystery of the falling webs.

Residents in the County of Monterey and the Monterey Peninsula Regional Park District also shared sightings of the mysterious webbing

One local told Kion56 , a local news station, that it smelled of chemicals and, when lit on fire, burst into a fireball and burned like plastic

‘It’s sticky [and] silky and falling from the actual sky,’ she said in the video.

She continued to explain that the webbing was all over the telephone poles.

‘It is the weirdest thing,’ she said. 

Residents in the County of Monterey and the Monterey Peninsula Regional Park District also shared sightings of the mysterious webbing.

One local told Kion56, a local news station, that it smelled of chemicals and, when lit on fire, burst into a fireball and burned like plastic.

California State University, Monterey Bay professor John E. Banks told the outlet that people are witnessing is a process called ballooning.

While the incidents are bizarre, a biologist revealed that the ‘webbing’ is silk baby spiders spin to migrate to new habitats

Banks said spiders will spin silk threads when they become frightened or run out of food, which are then caught in the wind and carried off to a new location.

‘It’s a special term we use for how spiders disperse from habitat to habitat,’ he said. 

‘Most spiders, as you imagine, have trouble walking around the ground and getting across barriers such as Highway 1 or some of the structures we built.’ 

He also said that it could be an evolutionary practice for spiders living in areas where their food supply is uncertain, like farmland.