Shadow Biosphere’ theory gaining scientific support

Originally posted by Wertdagf
Jumping from desert rock varnish to fairies is a little to much for me.

Yeah, me as well Wert, but I sympathize with the frustration of those who are seeking new answers. I hired a guide to go examine a purported odd Native American desert varnish glyph in 2009. There were those who denied the that the glyph even existed. Since those who denied it (remember you deny data, and dissent on ideas) all were members of certain crowd which has a habit of doing such things, automatically I wanted to go and see it. It took 3 days rafting and camping and then a 9 hour hike and cliff face climb.

The desert varnish glyph was dated to around 900 ad - yet no desert varnish had accrued in the area where the glyph had been excised, in 1100 years. This could make the desert varnish phenomenon a discrete, rather than continuous one. Something which resulted from the activity of ongoing life, even if poorly understood, would bear continuous accretion patterns. So I agree that this link is fanciful, and not parsimonious - and will only result in accusations of "magic believing' from the snicker crowd.

The odd things was, that I took the relevant catalogs from state Encyclopedia of Native American Art with me, which documented the sequence of the glyphs as one continued up the cliff face. The catalog, had registered every glyph up and to that point, then every glyph past that point, but had skipped entirely over the odd glyph. This was the origin of the denial basis, people could cite an errant state reference and act all sciencey.

I will not go into what the glyph was about, but it was clear to me that the state scientist who had constructed that segment of the catalog purposely skipped the glyph because he or she did not like what they saw. And since it was so hard to get to, they presumed they would never get caught.

I petitioned the state for a modification to the catalog. They said essentially "What is done, is done."

When we declare - what is done is done, and deem anything new to be "magic believing" - then science is dead.

reply to post by Guyfriday


I'm all for further research into this, of course. And as I said, I'm open to the possibility of such entities existing. I'm just saying that the leap from detectable, physically tangible, scientifically evaluable microorganisms with novel biochemistry - which has not been proved even in and of itself to my satisfaction, as the research is very controversial and in its infancy - to shadowy, intelligent beings that seem to have an ethereal, non-physical form (or at least the ability to appear that way to us - which I think is an important distinction) is a large one. It is within the realm of conceivability in my opinion, since the feasibility of microorganisms supports - to a degree - the feasibility of more complex life forms.

But I think we must be very cautious and rigorous, remembering always that an amoeba is not a person, and that arsenic isn't magical. We have to explain away questions such as, "Why and how would complex life forms with a similarly novel biochemistry as these postulated microorganisms appear as 'shadow people' to our eyes?" and "If they are not that way but only appear that way, by what mechanism do they appear so?" Etc.

Could these mineral traces in some cases perhaps be the byproduct of something "magical" (i.e. explainable only through ethereal, interdimensional, or other exotic means)? A sort of more scientifically valid "exoplasm" if you will? In my opinion, conceivably. But lots of things are conceivable, and nothing in the postulated model in this research being discussed suggests that or supports that. It would only be an extremely speculative consideration and a long walk from the source material in my opinion.

So I'm not discouraging speculation. Just suggesting caution and rigor.

Peace.

Originally posted by AceWombat04
reply to post by Guyfriday

 

But I think we must be very cautious and rigorous, remembering always that an amoeba is not a person, and that arsenic isn't magical. We have to explain away questions such as, "Why and how would complex life forms with a similarly novel biochemistry as these postulated microorganisms appear as 'shadow people' to our eyes?" and "If they are not that way but only appear that way, by what mechanism do they appear so?" Etc.

For no other then this part, you deserve a star. You asked the two biggest questions that need to be answered in regards to Shadow People research and this phenomenon taking place.

I remember a video of Michio Kaku talking about the highest form of evolved civilation and how efficiently they would explore a star system.

He explained that this civilization in it's most efficient plans would send a factory that produced robots to produce more factories.


This is similar to how bacterial colonies works on our planet, who is to say that they are not the higher lifeform?
We cannot exist without bacteria, they power us, they protect our atmosphere and our planet, the build us and break us down when our material bodies perish.

Who is the higher consciousness? us or them?


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Because distances between stars are so vast, and the number of unsuitable, lifeless solar systems so large, a Type III civilization would be faced with the next question: what is the mathematically most efficient way of exploring the hundreds of billions of stars in the galaxy?


A Von Neumann probe is a robot designed to reach distant star systems and create factories which will reproduce copies themselves by the thousands. A dead moon rather than a planet makes the ideal destination for Von Neumann probes, since they can easily land and take off from these moons, and also because these moons have no erosion. These probes would live off the land, using naturally occurring deposits of iron, nickel, etc. to create the raw ingredients to build a robot factory. They would create thousands of copies of themselves, which would then scatter and search for other star systems.

Originally posted by Wertdagf
reply to post by purplemer

 

Jumping from desert rock varnish to fairies is a little to much for me.

But im sure many will eat it up.

You got that right.

Why except the pedestrian explanation -- indigenous clay collecting other air-borne minerals -- when you can claim crypto lifeforms instead.

Maybe bacteria are involved too, along with the clay, but this doesn't make for a shadow biosphere.

There are, however, microbial biospheres deep in the earth (a km or two down) and in the upper regions of the atmosphere. And no doubt there is still a bevy or more of undiscovered microbes on earth, but it cannot be considered a shadow biosphere.

Also, one scientist's hypothesis does not make for a "theory gaining scientific support"

Originally posted by SemperParatusRJCC
Well it definitely seems plausible. It would also account for some of the reports of ghosts. Though hearing about this, I can't help but think about the Nox from Stargate SG-1.

I remember being in my parents basement when there was a blackout due to our fusebox tripping out due to a power surge. Turning round I saw what looked like a pair of large glowing blue fuzzy patches like eyes. Even looking around they stayed in the same place, so I went over to the fusebox keeping an eye on where those patches were. Reset the fusebox and those patches were actually some dust/mold that was on the side of the boxes.

I

reply to post by Wertdagf


We know that we share our planet with more than we can see. To many of us that is not a hypothesis. How much however remains to be seen..

Originally posted by Guyfriday
reply to post by purplemer

 

This makes a lot of sense to me, it would explain a lot of the Shadow People encounters around the world.
As read here;
ATS: Shadow People: What do they do?

If these microbial life forms could manifest themselves as human, animal, or insect forms then we might be on the something. There has been studies done on this topic before though;

From the Washington Post 3 Dec 2010:

Prompted by debate about the possible existence of a shadow biosphere, Wolfe-Simon set out specifically to see whether microbes that lived in California's briny, arsenic-filled Mono Lake naturally used arsenic instead of phosphorus for basic cellular functions, or were able to replace the phosphorus with arsenic.

She took mud from the lake into the lab and began growing bacteria in Petri dishes. She fed them sugars and vitamins but replaced phosphate salt with arsenic until the surviving bacteria could grow without needing the phosphates at all. Her research found that some of the bacteria had arsenic embedded into their DNA, RNA and other basic underpinnings.

"If something here on Earth can do something so unexpected - that breaks the unity of biochemistry - what else can life do that we haven't seen yet?" said Wolfe-Simon, a NASA Astrobiology Research Fellow and member of the National Astrobiology Institute team at Arizona State University.

And before that: A Shadow Biosphere By Carol Cleland 12/01/06

Philosophers and scientists traditionally focus upon two characteristics that distinguish a living system from a nonliving system. First, the capacity of a system to maintain itself as self-organized unit against both internal and external perturbations. And second, the ability to reproduce and transmit to its descendants adaptive heritable modifications. Molecular biology provides an account of how our familiar Earth life realizes these abstract functional properties in a concrete physical system. Life as we know it on Earth today is based upon a complex cooperative arrangement between proteins and nucleic acids. Proteins supply the bulk of the structural material for building bodies, as well as the catalytic material for powering and maintaining them. Nucleic acids store the hereditary information required for reproduction and for synthesizing the enormous quantity and variety of proteins required by an organism during its life span.

Don't get me wrong, this is very cool information. I've been dwelling on it for sometime now, and I believe that this may have some connections with the Shadow People (even though at the face of it they seem like two separate issue)

I guess only time will tell?

Is the basis for your "shadow people" hypothesis the use of the word "Shadow" in "Shadow biosphere"? It seems so, and if that is the case then you are woefully off-track with what is being discussed.
The "shadow" in "Shadow biosphere" isn't referring to literal shadows. It's used in the same way as "Shadow government" as in "existing but unseen".
I sincerely hope i'm wrong in this assumption and you are just using the topic as a jumping off point for the existence of unseen beings (of some sort), though even that is in another ballpark, topic-wise.

Originally posted by AceWombat04
I would caution against extrapolating from the hypothesis that there might be microorganisms which incorporate arsenic into their DNA, to arrive at the much less well supported position that this hypothesis might lend support to belief in complex ethereal or alien beings living among us. The evidence for even the microbial hypothesis is controversial and in question. More research seems necessary. And there is no evidence in the research to suggest that this model could apply to more complex life forms hiding in plain sight (although I suppose it is within the realm of extremely speculative conceivability. Beyond that you get into personal belief, not science found in this research. Which is fine of course, but we must be careful to distinguish between the two.)

I also think the term "shadow biosphere" and references to these postulated organisms as "invisible" gives people the idea that we're dealing with something of an almost magical nature. But all they're really saying is that because it hasn't really occurred to us that life may have evolved to do this long ago, there might be microorganisms living in certain parts of the world that we have yet to discover and confirm because we simply haven't been looking. They aren't suggesting that there are fully fledged animals or faeries creating desert varnish. They're talking about scientifically evaluable microorganisms with different biochemistry, not a whole ecosystem of complex life forms that are invisible to us. They're postulating a scientific blind spot, and that's important. But it doesn't mean what some seem to have interpreted it to.

Now, that doesn't mean such entities don't exist, or can't exist. It doesn't mean we know everything or that I'm closed minded to the possibility of life forms, processes, and dynamics that are so invisible to us as to only be glimpsed by a few people, if any. That idea intrigues me, as I'm sure it does most people, and I'd love to find evidence of it for which no other possible explanations exist. I'm just saying I don't think we should take what is an extremely narrow, very specific hypothesis and apply it to much more fanciful concepts and try to support them with this research. There is nothing in the research to suggest that that's warranted in my opinion.

Beliefs, on the other hand, are everyone's prerogative. I have my own beliefs. But I couldn't argue that there was much scientific basis for them, let alone any in this particular research.


Peace.

edit on 4/14/2013 by AceWombat04 because: (no reason given)

WELL SAID.
This should be on the front page of ATS.

Thank you for putting these thoughts here in so eloquent a manner. I applaud you.

Originally posted by AceWombat04
reply to post by Guyfriday

 

I'm all for further research into this, of course. And as I said, I'm open to the possibility of such entities existing. I'm just saying that the leap from detectable, physically tangible, scientifically evaluable microorganisms with novel biochemistry - which has not been proved even in and of itself to my satisfaction, as the research is very controversial and in its infancy - to shadowy, intelligent beings that seem to have an ethereal, non-physical form (or at least the ability to appear that way to us - which I think is an important distinction) is a large one. It is within the realm of conceivability in my opinion, since the feasibility of microorganisms supports - to a degree - the feasibility of more complex life forms.

But I think we must be very cautious and rigorous, remembering always that an amoeba is not a person, and that arsenic isn't magical. We have to explain away questions such as, "Why and how would complex life forms with a similarly novel biochemistry as these postulated microorganisms appear as 'shadow people' to our eyes?" and "If they are not that way but only appear that way, by what mechanism do they appear so?" Etc.

Could these mineral traces in some cases perhaps be the byproduct of something "magical" (i.e. explainable only through ethereal, interdimensional, or other exotic means)? A sort of more scientifically valid "exoplasm" if you will? In my opinion, conceivably. But lots of things are conceivable, and nothing in the postulated model in this research being discussed suggests that or supports that. It would only be an extremely speculative consideration and a long walk from the source material in my opinion.

So I'm not discouraging speculation. Just suggesting caution and rigor.

Peace.

two for two

You are my new hero.
Finding a rational, well-spoken, and reasonably skeptical person on ATS is rarer than this desert varnish.
Thank you again.

Originally posted by Knives4eyes
I remember a video of Michio Kaku talking about the highest form of evolved civilation and how efficiently they would explore a star system.

He explained that this civilization in it's most efficient plans would send a factory that produced robots to produce more factories.


This is similar to how bacterial colonies works on our planet, who is to say that they are not the higher lifeform?
We cannot exist without bacteria, they power us, they protect our atmosphere and our planet, the build us and break us down when our material bodies perish.

Who is the higher consciousness? us or them?


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Because distances between stars are so vast, and the number of unsuitable, lifeless solar systems so large, a Type III civilization would be faced with the next question: what is the mathematically most efficient way of exploring the hundreds of billions of stars in the galaxy?


A Von Neumann probe is a robot designed to reach distant star systems and create factories which will reproduce copies themselves by the thousands. A dead moon rather than a planet makes the ideal destination for Von Neumann probes, since they can easily land and take off from these moons, and also because these moons have no erosion. These probes would live off the land, using naturally occurring deposits of iron, nickel, etc. to create the raw ingredients to build a robot factory. They would create thousands of copies of themselves, which would then scatter and search for other star systems.

The issue here is "consciousness" - higher OR lower.
Bacteria, from all we know, has none.
So, while I understand and appreciate your point, it's moot.

reply to post by ImNotACylon

My reference to the "Shadow" is as you stated:

It's used in the same way as "Shadow government" as in "existing but unseen".

I believe that the Shadow People are living along side with us (or at least that's what they seem to be doing) The issue of these micro-organisms are seemingly living along side with us and are interesting in that they show that other types of life form can exist in our world.

I have heard somewhere that plasmas can have a sort of intelligence all their own....
If thats the case the orbs may simply be plasmas created by various earth causes......
They have been photographed making crop circles though......so either they are creating the cirles of their own intelligence (which i think may be rudimentary)or they are creating the crop circles at the bidding of another intelligence altogether....either way.....there is purposefull behaviour exhibited beyond a shadow of doubt....
Whether its our earth calling out to us...or some far away entity reaching us through space somehow....or any other communication.......from somewhere else...its real....
.

reply to post by purplemer


you know i've always felt that the human race is very arrogant in their assumptions about the universe,theories are taken as facts because of so called "solid" evidence,this is some badass ideas but not long ago this theories would have been scoffed at,it makes me wonder if this theory were to be proven right how many of our "laws" of the world have to be changed to accomadet this newfound truth,and how many other "laws" are flawed and only seem to be correct due to our lack of technology to prove them to be so,the more we know the closer we get to knowing the truth,we don't really know anything at all

reply to post by purplemer


This is how I've always justified the existence of the "Other People" (Faeries, etc). Imagine reality before you as a complicated weave of Venetian blinds and you sometimes catch a glimpse of outside when you twist that wand all the way to make the slits go up instead of down.

Divination and scrying techniques depend on this nature, however it works. Even though I've learned to lift a slit of the blinds enough to get what I want, I know they are still only blinds.

reply to post by TheEthicalSkeptic


ohh also have you heard about the whole,"the beatles never broke up" some guy claims to have visited an alternate universe and to have taken a cassette with a nonexistant beatles composition,in the universe the man visited the beatles never broke up,i'm not really into the beatles but i found everyday chemistry pretty badass,it might be a hoax i'm not sure myself what i do know is that some sites claim it to be a hoax due to apperantly the songs being mashups of several beatle members solo careers,and the composition is in question because it's not "advanced/technical/intricate" enough to be a work of the beatles,what i can say for such claims is that 1.if it's from an alternate universe as the man claims then just because it sounds like a mashup it doesn't automatically debunk the man's claim since in the other universe non of the members had a solo career and what would have been their solo music ended up as a mix of ideas.2.the composition doesn't have to be like the composition of OUR beatles (the ones from our universe) because of the same arguement i make in the first case they are from another universe they might of never done drugs or they could all been gay our rules don't apply to them :b. i've only put this arguments because others seem to miss this.w.e make your own conclusion heres 1 of 11

www.youtube.com...

Not seen orbs yet, but when I was a lot younger I would 'catch' a shadow in the corner of an eye, always outside, in broad daylight. Never got unnerved by it though, thankfully. Never seen a ghost either.

Originally posted by Wertdagf
reply to post by purplemer

 

Jumping from desert rock varnish to fairies is a little to much for me.

But im sure many will eat it up.

sorry but fairies are an endangered species and are off the menu

on topic there is always some truth in any story

reply to post by ImNotACylon


What makes you so sure that bacteria have no consciousness.....

Those entities were here on earth long before us.
This is who they are
en.wikipedia.org...