Those that follow I F#&%ing Love Science on FB may have seen this already, but for others that haven't...
http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and...ve-gone-viral/
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So what happened here? Well, we finally have an explanation. After a lot of teasing, the Oregon State Police gave an explanation on their website about the incident, in a post titled "Slime Eel Crash on Highway 101".
They explain that the Mitsubishi truck (seen some distance from the slime-covered cars in the photos) was transferring 7,500 pounds of hagfish, known as "slime eels", despite not actually being eels, up the highway. When the vehicle was flagged to stop by a traffic cop, the driver, Salvatore Tragale, attempted to stop. Unfortunately, the transfer of weight caused one of the containers to come loose, and slide onto the road and tip over. The other containers soon followed suit, and separated from the bed of the truck, spilling onto the highway.
When one of the loose containers struck the Nissan car (covered in hagfish in the photographs above) it caused a pileup of cars behind it. The cars were covered in eels, with the Nissan at the front, driven by Kim Randall, 64, the unlucky recipient of the most fish.
Unfortunately for all involved, when hagfish become stressed they secrete mucus, which is the slime that can be seen in the photos and this video, captured by a witness.
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"The cars were covered in eels..."
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...that were actually hagfish understandably freaking out and doing what hagfish do.
I'm curious how many drivers of those cars died, or at least half died on the inside, in this incident. Not from the accident, but from sheer horror. Not to mention a probably dumbfounded cop who decided to pull over the truck and watched it take place as a result.