He didn't want to get stuck somewhere, wind up in a gulio's gullet, gassed by an atmosphere that turned from oxygen-nitrogen into pure methane without warning or reason, and against all known chemical laws, or whiffed out in the lash of a dead star suddenly gone nova.
"Eight Keys to Eden"
Mark Irvin Clifton
I realized that here was the real will-o'-the-wisp surrounded by so many thousands of legends and explained so simply by chemistry as merely a flash of methane or swamp gas generated by the putrefying of vegetable matter in the warm damp earth.
"Beasts, Men and Gods"
Ferdinand Ossendowski
Out there, near Saturn, clusters of particles of frozen methane gas are floating free like tiny meteors.
"The Planet Strappers"
Raymond Zinke Gallun