Alien Life Beyond Earth. The Evidence.

“I think the universe must be teeming with sentient life... sooner or later we will make contact with extra-terrestrial intelligence.”
Prof Wickramasinghe

Humans will never be able to detect extra terrestrial life forms as long as they cling to present scientific paradigms and beliefs.
Kaalchakra


I would like to clarify that this is not about advanced ETs civilizations. It’s not about their purported space ships capable of interstellar voyages through ‘worm holes’ or even interdimensional travel and so on. It’s about evidence of fundamental extra terrestrial life forms that have been discovered and studied scientifically. The evidence that life may be universal is being presented here in brief.

But could this be construed as incontrovertible evidence or final proof of the reality of extra terrestrial life? It could be mentioned here in passing that what we construe as the basic requirements of ‘life’ may not be so. Much of such alien ‘life’ may be beyond our scientific templates and knowledge on which we base our deductions.

Let’s take a look at what we’ve found and the results after scientific analyses. The first is, as usual, from the LANL archives.

The Mysterious Red Cells Of Kerala: Aliens Life Forms?


Courtesy: CNN

As bizarre as it may seem, the sample jars containing cloudy, reddish rainwater in Godfrey Louis's laboratory in southern India may hold... aliens!

In 2006, Dr Godfrey Louis, a solid-state physicist at Mahatma Gandhi University, published a paper in the prestigious peer-reviewed journal Astrophysics and Space Science in which he hypothesizes that the samples taken from the mysterious blood-colored showers that fell across the Indian state of Kerala in the summer of 2001 contain microbes from outer space.

Specifically, Louis has isolated strange, thick-walled, red-tinted cell-like structures about 10 microns in size. However, though dozens of his experiments suggest that the particles may lack DNA yet they reproduce plentifully, even in water superheated to nearly 600 deg F. (The known upper limit for life in water is about 250 deg F).

So how does Louis go about explaining this phenomenon? He speculates that the particles could be extraterrestrial bacteria adapted to the harsh conditions of space and that the microbes hitched a ride on a comet or meteorite that later broke apart in the upper atmosphere and mixed with rain clouds above India.

If his theory proves correct, the cells would be the first confirmed evidence of alien life and, as such, could yield new clues to the origins of life on Earth.

Are these cell like particles a kind of alternate life from space? If the red rain particles are biological cells and are of cometary origin, then this phenomena can be a case of cometary panspermia (Hoyle & Wickramasinghe, 1999) were comets can breed microorganisms in their radiogenically heated interiors and can act as vehicles for spreading life in the universe.

Strangely, this episode is being under-reported. A massive investigation into this "red rain" will probably settle the question whether extraterrestrial life exists, but why is this not happening?

Link to the papers of Dr Godfrey Louis which are available in the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) archives, are here…

The Nakhla Meteorite


A microscopic view into a thin slice of the Martian meteorite Nakhla.
A fracture (tan) and tunnels (in boxes) are similar in size and shape to
tunnels associated with DNA in terrestrial rocks.
Credit: Oregon State University


Courtesy: universe-review

According to a study published in Scientific American, the Nakhla meteorite that fell in Egypt nearly 95 years ago may offer clues as to the search for possible extra terrestrial life. Researchers studying the meteorite that originated from Mars found a series of microscopic tunnels within the object that mimic the size, shape and distribution to tracks left on Earth rocks by the feeding frenzy of bacteria.

The discovery of the tiny burrows adds intrigue to the search for life beyond Earth. However, no DNA could be extracted from the meteorite, so it's not known if the tunnels are of biological origin. But the research findings of a team of scientists led by Martin Fisk, a professor of marine geology in the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University), published in the February issue of the bimonthly journal, Astrobiology, insists the lack of DNA does not derail the prospect.

Subsequently, scientists had decided these structures most likely represent contamination from Earth-dwelling biota. But now the BBC is reporting that researchers from the U.K. have cracked open the meteorite from Egypt and found material that resembles the filling left behind by microbes in cracks on the bottoms of the ocean. Solid veins of such “carbonaceous material” were found inside the meteorite, quashing objections that it could represent contamination from contact with earth, the researchers claim.

And according to the BBC, previous scientists who examined the rock found that more than 75 percent of the meteorite's carbon is not one of the most common isotopes of carbon--carbon-14. That means it could be the relic of the action of alien microbes toiling in unimagined seas on ancient Mars.

Meteroite ALH 84001


Courtesy: Spaceref.

Some of the first possible extra terrestrial proofs of life came in 1996 from a meteorite found in Antarctica. Ejected from the surface of Mars it came to rest on Earth, bearing odd, microscopic structures that resemble fossilized remnants of bacteria.

The indication of life hinges on three important pieces of evidence, all discovered within mineralized fractures in the meteorite in close proximity to each other. One is the discovery of abundant polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) on the fracture surfaces. These are a family of complex organic molecules which are commonly found on dust grains and certain types of meteorites in outer space, presumably formed by non-biological chemical reactions.

However, when micro-organisms die they break down into PAHs as well. The mixture of PAHs found on ALH84001 is very different from that found on dust grains and other meteorites, suggesting the possibility of a biological origin. Thousands of different types of PAHs are found all over the Earth, but those in ALH84001 do not appear to be contaminants which have leaked into the meteorite.

Further, high-resolution scanning with electron microscopes had revealed the presence of tiny "ovoids" which may actually be fossil remnants of tiny bacteria that are 100 times smaller than any bacteria microfossils found on Earth!


Courtesy: NASA

Evidence Of Life In Outer Space: Space Bugs.


Courtesy: Spacecom

In 2001, a team of international researchers found what could be the first proof of life beyond our planet, in the form of clumps of extraterrestrial bacteria in the Earth's upper atmosphere! Although the ‘bugs’ from space are similar to bacteria on Earth, the scientists said the living cells found in samples of air from the edge of the planet's atmosphere are too far away to have come from Earth!!

According to Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe, an astronomer at Cardiff University in Wales…

“There is now unambiguous evidence for the presence of clumps of living cells in air samples from as high as 41 kilometers (25 miles), well above the local tropopause, above which no air from lower down would normally be transported.''.

He presented the findings to a meeting of the International Society of Optical Engineering in San Diego, California. Professor David Lloyd, a microbiologist at Cardiff University who examined the space bugs, says, “The most likely possibility is that the bacteria have arrived from another planet. I'd like to think that, at any rate. It's the first pointer that it is possible to get evidence that there is life on other planets.''

"When you look at the detailed nature of life in terms of molecular complexity it seems extremely unreasonable to suppose that on this tiny speck of dust - which is all that the Earth is - the most complex physical system originated.”
Prof Wickramasinghe

Methane in the Martian atmosphere hints at microbial metabolism

In 2004 three groups - using telescopes on Earth and the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiting space probe - independently turned up evidence of methane in the atmosphere. Nearly all methane in our own atmosphere is produced by bacteria and other life. Could this mean that the methane on Mars is being produced by organic life? Most likely. More Here…

Amino Acids And The Murray Meteorite.


The Murray Meteorite.
Courtesy: Internet Encyclopedia of Science.
Pic: David Darling

This meteorite is a Type II carbonaceous chondrite that fell near Murray, Kentucky, in 1950. Its analysis by Melvin Calvin provided early support for the idea that prebiotic molecules can form in space. As many as 70 different kinds of amino acids have been found in the Murray meteorite

With the help of a detection technique known as gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, the researchers identified a number of so-called polyhydroxylated compounds, or polyols�including sugars, sugar alcohols and sugar acids�in extracts from the two meteorites. Reassuringly, the fact that these sugar-related compounds display many of the characteristics of known extraterrestrial compounds speaks against the possibility of terrestrial contamination. Furthermore, the team's findings indicate that extraterrestrial processes can account for the sugars.

These results suggest that these amino acids, are most likely extraterrestrial in origin.

So what do you make of all this? Can life be abundant in the universe? Could we have originated from out there? Are we the aliens?

Cheers!

Refs:

nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov...
en.wikipedia.org...
science-community.sciam.com...
www.spaceref.com...
nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov...
www.space.com...
www.cnn.com...
arxiv.org...:+AND+red+rain/0/1/0/all/0/1
science.msfc.nasa.gov...
space.newscientist.com...
www.sciam.com...

Nice work....as usual. Here is a link to a documentary I saw not long ago on the red rain in India, alien bugs and stuff, thought you might enjoy if you haven't already seen it.

Horizon: We Are The Aliens

Great post Mike. I find this all very fascinating

It really brings forth the possibility that there never was some type of “spark” on earth that created the first known life, but perhaps that it fell from the sky and spread like wildfire. However, that doesn't mean we are aliens. Even if the first piece of the puzzle came from extraterrestrial origins, we have grown and evolved so much here that Earth is still the home planet of Humans.

Very nice post, and as always well researched!

I hadn't heard anything about this so-called "blood rain" in India.
Sounds interesting though, since there are real scientific research about it.

Even if it is only bacterial life, and it has the ability live in space and such, what would become of it when and if it evolves?

And it also increase the chance that there might be intelligent life on other planets, and it might even exist in space.

Another good post, mikesingh, a star and a flag for you.

But unfortunately (for the advance of our knowledge about life) these are still just theories, lets hope they can have some confirmation of at least some of the cases.

The "red rain" is something that has been reported for many, many years (as any fan of Charles Hoy Fort can tell you), but I find those bacteria on air pockets on the upper atmosphere the most interesting (and the only ones I did not knew about), specially after having made a post in another thread about those "bubbles" (for the lack of a better name) that can be seen on the STS-48 video being attracted to Earth, over a thunderstorm, but not entering the Earth's atmosphere.

Could this things be related? Who knows, but I hope we can know, sometime in the future.

Edit: This is not "unequivocal proof", I am still waiting.

[edit on 26/4/2008 by ArMaP]

Great post. Thank you

I'm curious about the red rain. Have any samples been tested by others or were the authors of the studies you linked the only people involved?

Thanks again.

Question, why did they not burn up in our atmosphere?

Also why do we still try and place our current level of understanding on these possible fossils and would it be possible to extract its contents and just clone it to see what it could have been?

I should have known Mike was behind this post when I saw it in that little space above showing threads that have been flagged

Very interesting, interesting indeed
[Star+Flag]

I can't help but agree with that second quote as well to, I wonder though if we did drop those beliefs of such and such has to be used to support life. What then will we be capable of finding in the vast regions of space?

Originally posted by adnil
Here is a link to a documentary I saw not long ago on the red rain in India, alien bugs and stuff, thought you might enjoy if you haven't already seen it.

Horizon: We Are The Aliens

Thanks adnil! That vid was excellent! Good find.

Nice Post mike, i just love it when people compile the evidence of life in the universe. Star+flag.

Originally posted by antar
Question, why did they not burn up in our atmosphere?

Also why do we still try and place our current level of understanding on these possible fossils and would it be possible to extract its contents and just clone it to see what it could have been?

the convection rate in the rock needs to be taken into effect.......how hot did it actualy get in the center of the rock.

if the DNA stand is not complete, we cant clone it. sometimes DNA is fairly hard to find in things like this........

However, though dozens of his experiments suggest that the particles may lack DNA yet they reproduce plentifully, even in water superheated to nearly 600 deg F.

[edit on 27-4-2008 by Infadel]

Very nice post Mike!

However, though dozens of his experiments suggest that the particles may lack DNA yet they reproduce plentifully, even in water superheated to nearly 600 deg F. (The known upper limit for life in water is about 250 deg F).

How interesting!

Star and flag

Very nice, not definitive proof as ArMap said, but give people plenty to think about, a whole buffet for thought!! hopefully this will make people think before saying that we are alone in this universe!! (or even solar system).

flagged.

thanks. EMM

If we are looking at extra stellar information, how do we know that what we are looking for falls under what we see as the signature DNA strand?

Is it possible that there would be an entirely different approach to discovering the life and form of its structure?

Excellent job on your report btw.

Originally posted by antar
If we are looking at extra stellar information, how do we know that what we are looking for falls under what we see as the signature DNA strand?

Is it possible that there would be an entirely different approach to discovering the life and form of its structure?

Hi antar! Well, what is the definition of 'life'? According to David Grier of New York University in New York City, "claiming that something is (or is not) alive is almost pointless because there is no mathematically rigorous definition of life."

Have you heard of plasma crystals?

According to a new simulation, electrically charged dust can organize itself into DNA-like double helices that behave in many ways like living organisms, reproducing and passing on information to one another.

Want more? Here is the very thought provoking article in New Scientist

A must read!

Cheers!

A few more references associated with the Red Rain phenomena if you dont want to have to wade through the internet...

The Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology's analysis of the red rain sample was updated some time ago with the suggestion that there is DNA present in some form within the cells as indicated by DAPI Stain tests (4',6'-diamidino-2-phenylindole hydrochloride) however the current status is listed as unconfirmed and currently under further investigation.

Unfortunately if you take a look at the actual biology research papers that are being performed on the samples you'll probably notice that they're a bit mince since none of the people involved are backgrounded in the appropriate methodologies. (Microbiology, Cellular Histology or Genetics)
E.g. New biology of red rain extremophiles prove cometary panspermia

Its sad to see that they have gone for a smoking gun expecting a big win instead of covering the basics first.

Reporting that they have successfully detected 'CHONS' (Whoopee! We've detected Carbon, Hydrogen etc!) or proteins via staining (but making no effort to determine WHICH proteins) but no DNA realisticaly wont convince many biologists at all.

Whereas the reports on tempertaure related reproduction present a good attempt, even that is flawed in its basic approach since there are no efforts made to determine anything except replication according to temperature.

For example, you can determine replication easily via a simple cell count but what are they using from their environment to replicate? (what are they absorbing and excreting).

All we have is a sweeping statement that the cells absorb 'stuff'.

Personally, I would be much more interested in seeing good results from scanning electron microscopy of the cell wall perferably displaying wall structure and either organnelle substructure or receptor protein complexes.

That and it would be nice if they could actually provide evidence for protein folding or even the presence of enzyme activity via assay none of which have been reported.

Even a basic gell or HP chromatrography run would help tremendously in identifying the organisms make up.

Sadly a lot of the situation simply reminds me of the fact that educational departments never talk to eachother when they could really help eachother out.


Absence.


P.s.
You may also be interested to know that the director of the cardiff department, Chandra Wickramasinghe, has a new paper which may be of interest:
Comet probes reveal evidence of origin of life due to be published shortly in the international journal of Exobiology.

And there is a rather interesting historical analysis of the red rain phenomena by P. McCafferty available here: Bloody rain again! Red rain and meteors in history and myth, which provides some good background material.

reply to post by antar


Yea that sounds good,but I don't think we would know about it if they did clone it.I think the PTB are kinda' just pushing the "ignore"button on all these stories and pieces of evidence.

It seems that we are being "bombarded"with evidence all the time,but are just ignoring it.

[edit on 4/27/2008 by jkrog08]

once again ats is kickin that juicy knowledge great post

reply to post by mikesingh


That is why some people consider computer virus as being "alive", they have some of the behaviours we think show that something is a living organism.

reply to post by Absence of Self


That is the problem with some of the people who back the more "alternative theories", their investigations are made to prove a point instead of being made to learn, and when they fail to prove what they were expecting they forget about it and we may have lost many opportunities of learning new things about old subjects or finding new subjects.

reply to post by mikesingh



Excellent post mate. Good research put into that! Star and Flagged