Exclusive: NASA Scientist Claims Evidence of Alien Life on Meteorite

Originally posted by FOXMULDER147
If there is a consensus of agreement it will provide the ground for a historic official announcement. Just bugs, but still... aliens will be real.

So they have had 7 years to look at these bugs under electron microsopes. Just how long does it take to reach a consensus? Either they are real and thus anyone can see them, or they are not real and subject to interpretation...

THAT is what bugs me

Otherwise, this work is garbage. I'm surprised anyone is granting it any credibility at all.

Link for full story:
Did scientists discover bacteria in meteorites?


Seems this "Journal of Cosmology" is a website from a group of academics. Although didnt need anyone to tell me that the site isnt the best source of info, afterall, its ugly as hell, and not well done at all.
PZ Myers does a deep analysis about the whole story.

Originally posted by zorgon

Originally posted by FOXMULDER147
If there is a consensus of agreement it will provide the ground for a historic official announcement. Just bugs, but still... aliens will be real.

So they have had 7 years to look at these bugs under electron microsopes. Just how long does it take to reach a consensus? Either they are real and thus anyone can see them, or they are not real and subject to interpretation...

I don't think it's that simple. There's a lot of complicated chemistry involved. Imagine trying to prove something is non-terrestrial, cross-checking it against all known mirco-lifeforms. Also, he needs to build a case and that takes time. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, after all.

This could be an interesting week.

removed in a fit of sanity...........

Originally posted by eddy_12

Otherwise, this work is garbage. I'm surprised anyone is granting it any credibility at all.

Seems this "Journal of Cosmology" is a website from a group of academics. Although didnt need anyone to tell me that the site isnt the best source of info, afterall, its ugly as hell, and not well done at all.
PZ Myers does a deep analysis about the whole story.

edit on 6-3-2011 by eddy_12 because: (no reason given)

Who said "Otherwise, this work is garbage. I'm surprised anyone is granting it any credibility at all." ? I can't find it back there in the thread.

Anyway the responses from other scientists, called commentaries, are already coming in now. There's 18 of them so far and they're on this page. More will be added until the 10th. Seems to be looking good so far : journalofcosmology.com...

edit : I don't think there's going to be some big announcement shortly, more tests will be needed according to one commentary :

It will be necessary for independent experts in microbiology to determine whether the photomicrographs of microfossils in meteorites published by Hoover (2011) are sufficiently similar in morphology to modern analogs to likely be the remains of extraterrestrial cyanobacteria. Given the importance of this finding, it is essential to continue to seek new criteria more robust than visual similarity to clarify the origin(s) of these remarkable structures.

That's from the 2nd commentary.

Got to add a quote that should bring a smile to the faces of a few skeptics :

According to Dr. Chandra Wickramasinghe, "Dr. Hoover's discoveries, coupled with recent findings by other scientists, provides the world with decisive evidence that we are all aliens. Life is a truly cosmic phenomenon."

From the journal home page, bottom of the entry about this story.

Originally posted by FOXMULDER147
I don't think it's that simple. There's a lot of complicated chemistry involved. Imagine trying to prove something is non-terrestrial, cross-checking it against all known mirco-lifeforms.

Why? Is it not a meteorite? Do meteorites not come from off world? If its life, even fossils, it has to be ET. No need to compare it or cross check it to anything. Only need to prove it WAS a meteorite.

Silly scientists are always making things tough on themselves because they are afraid to say "we found ET"

But if those bugs are like earth bugs, that would mean life 'out there' is the same as life down here and that would mess up a whole lot of people

Hmm, very intresting. I look forward to see what other independent tests will show.

Originally posted by zorgon

Why? Is it not a meteorite? Do meteorites not come from off world? If its life, even fossils, it has to be ET. No need to compare it or cross check it to anything. Only need to prove it WAS a meteorite.

Silly scientists are always making things tough on themselves because they are afraid to say "we found ET"

Either that, or you acually have no idea what your talking about when it comes to Scientific method

This might come as a shock to you, but in the real world, proving alien life, isnt as easy as posting a picture of a weird rock on mars, or refering to a drawing of an "alien" made along time ago.

The first peer-review commentaries have been published:

journalofcosmology.com...

Originally posted by FOXMULDER147
The first peer-review commentaries have been published:

journalofcosmology.com...

Already linked the page a few posts back, Spooky.

Originally posted by Hitoshura

Originally posted by FOXMULDER147
The first peer-review commentaries have been published:

journalofcosmology.com...

Already linked the page a few posts back, Spooky.

Sorry.

On cursory inspection there's quite a broad range of response from the scientific community (only 18 from 100 have been published thus far). Most see Dr Hoover's work in a positive light but some seem understandably hesitant to jump on the bandwagon.

Originally posted by Hitoshura
Who said "Otherwise, this work is garbage. I'm surprised anyone is granting it any credibility at all." ? I can't find it back there in the thread.

That's a quote by PZ Myers, biologist at the University of Minnesota. He rips apart the credibility of the "Journal of Cosmology" is this blog:

scienceblogs.com...

It's important to post this to add a little balance to the debate. Worryingly, he makes some fine points...

Originally posted by ATSZOMBIE
The skeptics are flailing around wildly trying to find a bucket of sand to stuff their heads into..

They already got it in a bucket of sand so why should they have to look for one.

And I think you mean debunkers, not skeptics. Skeptics don't have an agenda.

This article casts some doubt on this claim:
Scientists Dubious Over Claim of Alien Life Evidence in Meteorite

"It isn't a real science journal at all, but is the ginned-up website of a small group of crank academics obsessed with the idea of [Fred] Hoyle and [Chandra] Wickramasinghe that life originated in outer space and simply rained down on Earth," P.Z. Myers, a biologist at the University of Minnesota, Morris, wrote on his popular science blog Pharyngula. "It doesn't exist in print, consists entirely of a crude and ugly website that looks like it was sucked through a wormhole from the 1990s, and publishes lots of empty noise with no substantial editorial restraint."

"The ALH 84001 result was based on photos and chemical evidence, much as the current story," Shostak said. "And I think that's a major part of the reason why many experts in this field are skeptical of Hoover's claim to have found life that cooked up in comets."

Ultimately, this find, like the Allan Hills report, isn't enough to settle the score one way or the other.

"Sometimes scientific results are ambiguous, and are greeted with the common (and rather uninspiring) refrain that 'more research is needed,'" Shostak said. "That's the case here. We need evidence from other approaches and from other researchers."

Will there ever be evidence that's not ambiguous?

After reading that I think I'm going to give it another 5 years before judging it valid and supportive evidence of extraterrestrial life. The article makes a good point that this has happened before.

Next Exclusive please. Thanks.

reply to post by MrDetective


umm, serriosley this is nasa sppon feeding us #e, there basicaly slowely brining the ufo/alein reality to light by releasing it bit by bit, "oh look what we found" =_=...serriosley.i cant wait till they do cause then we can say, theyve known all along, il give them the shovel to dig there own graves and people will see the evidence.

Originally posted by FOXMULDER147
On cursory inspection there's quite a broad range of response from the scientific community (only 18 from 100 have been published thus far). Most see Dr Hoover's work in a positive light but some seem understandably hesitant to jump on the bandwagon.

Yeah, thought it seemed quite split when thinking about it actually. What happens if they're split when it's over? Maybe it's the tests microbiologists should soon make that will swing things one way or the other.

Originally posted by jonnywhite
And I think you mean debunkers, not skeptics. Skeptics don't have an agenda.

That's the thing, neither do many believers, but there's always a few on each side that make things more confusing. Debunkers and believers in anything presented to them being proof of aliens : give us all a break!

Good Ole NASA Never A Straight Answer... we Need Another Space Agency

Nasa Says "No Support" for Claim Of Alien Microbes
www.abovetopsecret.com...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Top NASA scientists said Monday there was no scientific evidence to support a colleague's claim that fossils of alien microbes born in outer space had been found in meteorites on Earth. The US space agency formally distanced itself from the paper by NASA scientist Richard Hoover, whose findings were published Friday in the peer-reviewed Journal of Cosmology, which is available free online. "That is a claim that Mr Hoover has been making for some years," said Carl Pilcher, director of NASA's Astrobiology Institute.

Now how stupid is that ?

The general consensus of the 21 commentaries published so far are in support of Dr. Hoover's hypothesis that the artifacts are bacteria. They are not so sure about the origin of the meteorite and whether these bacteria originated from Earth itself, or from another planet. Both differences and similarities to Earthly material have been noted. Very interesting!

Originally posted by indigo21They are not so sure about the origin of the meteorite and whether these bacteria originated from Earth itself, or from another planet.

THEY ARE FOSSILS... in the rock... not live bacteria

Unless the rock jumped off Earth, drifted around in space a few millenia, then fell back down. Fosils cannot contaminate something.

These scientists...

reply to post by zorgon


Correct. Fossilized bacteria.

Originally posted by zorgon
Unless the rock jumped off Earth, drifted around in space a few millenia, then fell back down.

Yes some of them have suspicion this may have happened during the early formation of life on Earth. Of course, they would have to consider this possibility before declaring it extraterrestrial.

Originally posted by zorgon

Originally posted by indigo21They are not so sure about the origin of the meteorite and whether these bacteria originated from Earth itself, or from another planet.

THEY ARE FOSSILS... in the rock... not live bacteria

Unless the rock jumped off Earth, drifted around in space a few millenia, then fell back down. Fosils cannot contaminate something.

These scientists...

While that is possible (afterall Martian rocks have landed on Earth). This whole NASA distancing themselves sounds a bit to much like "Thou doth protest too much". Like this information was not released on their schedule, so they have muddied the waters by slinging some mud.

Its these kinds of events that really peak my curiosity, not so much the discovery itself (which is exciting) but its watching all the powers at play and what they say/don't say and in this case I smell something fishy.