Panspermia and Star Jelly

I've heard very little, if nothing at all, about these topics on ATS, so I thought I'd bring it up and see what others think.

en.wikipedia.org... - Article on Panspermia.

Alright. In summary, Panspermia is a hypothesis that life on Earth and throughout the universe has been travelling through space and "fertilizing" favorable, uninhabited planets. The type of life can be of any sort; plant, animal, fungi, single celled... As long as life is traveling from one point to another. A perfect example of how this could occur is the Mars meteors that some believe contain fossilized evidence of bacteria. Certain species of bacteria can remain dormant for countless years in the most extremely harsh conditions. If a bacteria infested meteor from Mars (or any other part of the universe) landed on Earth millions of years ago, it could very well have spread life throughout Earth.

Terrence McKenna had a bunch of theories about mushrooms. One interesting theory was on fungal space travel. He listed a number of reasons why it would be possible for fungus to travel through space... Two examples that I can remember are 1) the light weight of fungal spores allowing the mushrooms to escape the gravitational pull of a planet, and 2) the purple color of certain mushrooms providing a natural shielding against ultra-violet light.

And, something I just recently heard of: star jelly. I looked all over ATS and I couldn't find anything about it. But if you look it up on Wikipedia, you'll find this:

en.wikipedia.org... - Article on Star Jelly. The literary excerts at the bottom of the article are quite interesting.

It's strange stuff that I haven't really found much written about. Supposedly, star jelly samples are globs of goop that fall from space and land on the Earth's surface. Apparently whenever someone finds star jelly, it's after they've seen a meteor fall and land. Upon going to the metoer's landing spot, that's what they find. Check out that article and tell me what you think.

That Panspermia and star jelly isn't a two course meal at the Little A'Le'Inn in nevada?

Sorry about that. Strange idea you would think things like that would burn up in entering our atmosphere.

Sorry I find this impossible to believe for several reasons...

1. So This protolife is just out there traveling around the universe hitching rides on coments, metors and asteroids eh?? And this would explain the vast diversity of life on earth??

2.Mushrooms.. yes there light enough in weight and all but how do you explain the fact that they would survive atmosphear entry? You would think they would burn up in no time what so ever. Not too mention the various radiation they would encounter along the way.

3. I have actually heard of this jelly a couple different times. They had a case back in the late 80's somewere in the midwest were this jelly substance fell on a town on several different occasions. The result no new life but several people died and others fell extremely ill with respitory problems.

Originally posted by Whompa1
3. I have actually heard of this jelly a couple different times. They had a case back in the late 80's somewere in the midwest were this jelly substance fell on a town on several different occasions. The result no new life but several people died and others fell extremely ill with respitory problems.

Well, that's interesting. Are you sure the deaths and illnesses were a direct result of the jelly? Supposedly the Massachusetts Department of Environment Quality Engineering examined some of this type of jelly and the results were that it was "non-toxic." So says the Wikipedia article. That's interesting though. If the illnesses actually were a result of the jelly, don't you think it's possible it could have been due to infection by an alien bacteria?

Just because it's alien doesn't mean it would wipe out the entire Earth's population, if that's what someone might be thinking. We could have actually become immune to it within a very short time.

If I recall correctly, the alleged Mars meteriote turned out to not be evidence of Martian life, but was reported as such in haste. It seems they love building up our hopes just to dash them!
Due to extremesz in temperatures and radiation concerns, I can't see how this could happen, to be honest. Not by accident, anyway.

According to the information they determined that the jelly was the direct result of at least one death and on several occasions people who came in direct contact with the material later came down with a flu like illness that made them very tired, achy, had breathing trouble, etc, etc. Whats interesting is that two of the victims were local police officers. So its well documented. It could be the results of some sort of alien bacteria that wreaks havoc on the human body...but then again it could be several different things. Its hard to say. I would think that if something alien say a spore or virus came to earth we would be in deep trouble. I for one would not want to be around then.

I mean look at our own history. How many times have natives been decimated because explorers brought a virus over which to them was more or less harmless but too the native population was devastating.

Mod edit: Please don't circumvent the censors.

[edit on 29-10-2005 by sanctum]

Originally posted by Thomas Crowne
If I recall correctly, the alleged Mars meteriote turned out to not be evidence of Martian life, but was reported as such in haste. It seems they love building up our hopes just to dash them!
Due to extremesz in temperatures and radiation concerns, I can't see how this could happen, to be honest. Not by accident, anyway.

Well, no one said it had to be an accident.

Panspermia could be as simple as humans going to Mars... Aside from the obvious life forms (humans) that would then inhabit Mars, there are others. Within each of us are entire ecosystems of micro-organisms that could get lose and go their own direction.

Bacteria could also survive in a dormant state inside of meteors, but that doesn't mean they went out looking for meteors to hitch rides on. An asteroid could have knocked a chunk of their planet into space and sent them careening to other planets.

Couldn't it also be possible that planets were intentionally seeded by higher intelligences?


[edit on 29-10-2005 by CloudlessKnight]

Things like spores which are essentially weightless are not going to attain velocities upon hitting an atmosphere to acutally burn up. I think they would gently float through space not on a commet but on there own, and upon atmospheric entry, they would be feather like and float at low speeds. -just a theory. I only believe the dust-like spores could escape the earths atmosphere because, well dust from south africa is found in florida. Reletive escape velocity physics for near weightless objects, I would think would be different. Very interesting thread, and props to the late Terence McKenna for all of his work, notably the mushroom evolution talks.

I have read allot and seen compelling documentaries on Panspermia. What allot of people don't realize is that there are active cultures of bacteria that survive in the vacuum of space. Here on Earth we have organisms and even small aquatic life that thrive in highly toxic or otherwise inhospitable environments.

The only thing I have yet to see demonstrated is a computer model that illustrates how life aboard a meteor or comet survives the heat of an atmospheric reentry. I imagine its based on a high quantity of spores or bacterial samples deep in the core of a projectile that are dispersed on impact.

Great subject. Glad to see someone post on this.

Originally posted by tha stillz
Things like spores which are essentially weightless are not going to attain velocities upon hitting an atmosphere to acutally burn up. I think they would gently float through space not on a commet but on there own, and upon atmospheric entry, they would be feather like and float at low speeds. -just a theory. I only believe the dust-like spores could escape the earths atmosphere because, well dust from south africa is found in florida. Reletive escape velocity physics for near weightless objects, I would think would be different. Very interesting thread, and props to the late Terence McKenna for all of his work, notably the mushroom evolution talks.

Right. People tend to forget that everything does not fall at the same rate. Things that are more wind resistant and/or have lower gravitational pulls (which the pull of microscopic bacterial and fungal spores may be too small to measure conventionally) will descend much slower than say... a space shuttle.

Anthrax, for an example, can survive at very high and low temperatures. It'll live around 294 degrees, I think. 300 degrees Fahrenheit is the temperature at which Anthrax will actually catch on fire. A shuttle entering the Earth's atmosphere can reach up to 3,000 degrees. A single spore or bacterium is much, much smaller than a space shuttle... I think it'd experience a little temperature rise, but probably not enough to kill it.

Just a thought.

I think the discovery of PANH's throughout the Universe makes the idea of Panspermia much more feasible than we previously thought.

It shows that oganic materials can and do survive the harsh environments of space i.e. the radiation heat/cold ect. ect.

NASA Discovers Life's Building Blocks Are Common In Space

The star jelly reminds me of 'Angel hair' which people report finding after UFO sightings. But its more like spider web than a jelly, but it is interesting that both substances are said to evaporate in a short amount of time.
Perhaps this explains some UFO encounters as meteors, or maybe the aliens are up to something.