So I did some tests myself....

Fast shadows didn't seem to do much...neither did the quality boost.  For this image, boost is at +4.0.  it's gotta be with the clipping.  I clipped it to a range of 0-50.0 and here is the result...

Better...not there yet though....

P.S.  Also, a change of the bump map has no effect on this.

Another note...it's not a shadow being cast either.  I took off shadow casting the the blobs were still there...

-Ryan Spaulding
 VueRealism.Com