Amelia Gentleman and Robin McKie Sunday March 5, 2006 The Observer Posted on 03/06/2006 6:59:40 AM PST by S0122017
Red rain could prove that aliens have landed Amelia Gentleman and Robin McKie Sunday March 5, 2006 The Observer
There is a small bottle containing a red fluid on a shelf in Sheffield University's microbiology laboratory. The liquid looks cloudy and uninteresting. Yet, if one group of scientists is correct, the phial contains the first samples of extraterrestrial life isolated by researchers. Inside the bottle are samples left over from one of the strangest incidents in recent meteorological history. On 25 July, 2001, blood-red rain fell over the Kerala district of western India. And these rain bursts continued for the next two months. All along the coast it rained crimson, turning local people's clothes pink, burning leaves on trees and falling as scarlet sheets at some points.
Investigations suggested the rain was red because winds had swept up dust from Arabia and dumped it on Kerala. But Godfrey Louis, a physicist at Mahatma Gandhi University in Kottayam, after gathering samples left over from the rains, concluded this was nonsense. 'If you look at these particles under a microscope, you can see they are not dust, they have a clear biological appearance.' Instead Louis decided that the rain was made up of bacteria-like material that had been swept to Earth from a passing comet. In short, it rained aliens over India during the summer of 2001.
Not everyone is convinced by the idea, of course. Indeed most researchers think it is highly dubious. One scientist who posted a message on Louis's website described it as 'bullshit'.
But a few researchers believe Louis may be on to something and are following up his work. Milton Wainwright, a microbiologist at Sheffield, is now testing samples of Kerala's red rain. 'It is too early to say what's in the phial,' he said. 'But it is certainly not dust. Nor is there any DNA there, but then alien bacteria would not necessarily contain DNA.'
Critical to Louis's theory is the length of time the red rain fell on Kerala. Two months is too long for it to have been wind-borne dust, he says. In addition, one analysis showed the particles were 50 per cent carbon, 45 per cent oxygen with traces of sodium and iron: consistent with biological material. Louis also discovered that, hours before the first red rain fell, there was a loud sonic boom that shook houses in Kerala. Only an incoming meteorite could have triggered such a blast, he claims. This had broken from a passing comet and shot towards the coast, shedding microbes as it travelled. These then mixed with clouds and fell with the rain. Many scientists accept that comets may be rich in organic chemicals and a few, such as the late Fred Hoyle, the UK theorist, argued that life on Earth evolved from microbes that had been brought here on comets. But most researchers say that Louis is making too great a leap in connecting his rain with microbes from a comet.
For his part, Louis is unrepentant. 'If anybody hears a theory like this, that it is from a comet, they dismiss it as an unbelievable kind of conclusion. Unless people understand our arguments - people will just rule it out as an impossible thing, that extra-terrestrial biology is responsible for this red rain.'
Bumping!
My problem still rests withe the fat that the stuff fell in one place over a period of months. The earth (and everything else) is moving through space and rotating. The stuff should be falling all across the globe.
If the comet was in a geostationary orbit it would have stayed above the exact same location of earth.
That's the principle satellites use.
Look i dont know whether this is alien or not, but the facts are: that about 5 ton of unknown cell-like substances fell down over a period of months and the cells seem to multiply with an optimum temperature of 300oC.
Best of all, no DNA has yet been found/extracted.
If this is some earth life form, then it is a new one.
But why would there be 5 tons falling down above the same location? Isn't that a bit weird? Some people said this may be a fungii. A new fungii then, cause 300oC should kill al fungii, but 5 ton? Where it come from? Does fungii grow in clouds nowadays? Im just saying that this is the most convincing account of a possible alien microorganism i ever heard.
THE HINDU
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, JULY 28 2001. After red, yellow and green rain, it is now black rain. It poured in black colour in Kottayam district on Saturday. Reports about coloured rain have come from Palakkad, Kottayam, Ernakulam and Pathanamthitta districts in the past two days.
While red rain was widely reported, yellow rain was reported from Chittar in Pathanamthitta district.
People have collected red rain water in vessels and samples have been brought to the Centre for Earth Sciences here from Changanassery in Kottayam district for analysis.
Though the rain is often referred to as red, the actual colour is close to that of diluted wine (brownish red).
It is found to have some particulate matter which settles down on standing for some time.
The Director of the Centre, Dr. M. Baba, said the chemical analysis would take a few days.
According to scientists, some reddish tinge remained even after the solid material settled down.
But it might take up to 21 days for suspended matter in water to settle down.
A search on the Internet for incidence of coloured rain shows that yellow, green, black and red rain are not very uncommon, though most of the citations are from 19th or the early years of 21st century. The reasons cited for the colour of the rain water vary. Various chemicals have been found in the rain water, some of which are thought to be of volcanic or meteoric origin.
Red rain from Europe has been largely explained away as the result of sand from the Sahara being blown into the air by whirlwinds and coming down in southern Europe mixed with rain and appearing red. But earthquakes have followed red rain in England in the past.
There were reports of peculiar substance in the rain consisting of red iron ocher, line carbonate and unspecified organic matter.
Swams of butterflies and fungi are also said to cause the colour. Sulphur, chloride of cobalt are other chemicals often associated with yellow and red rain.
Analysis of red rain has come even in reputed magazine such as Nature. But there had been no common explanation, though red rain and its variants have occurred in all continents.
For those who believe in prophesies, red and black rain are not good omens.
There is mention of them in the apocalypse and some other prophesies. For those who love comics, there is the Batman story titled Red Rain. Then there are several poems out there that sing about red rain.
FReepmail me to be added or removed to the ECO-PING list!
A little off topic but worth the read!!
I have a dumb question.... How do you post pictures?!
<img src="http://www.website.com/filename.jpg" alt="filename">
Bacteria are very complicated living systems, complete structure, internal biochemical factories etc.. If this was some form of living entity it would be quite obviouse. Someone just wants a little attention. Perhaps a grant is in order for them to receive a few million to piss away while they pretend to do some research.
They look like magnified grains of sand to me, and if they did come from a comet, then they were from earth anyway, since the comets origin was earth to begin with.
TO ALL SCEPTICS: read the science article first.
Whatever they are: they are multiplying.
New biology of red rain extremophiles prove cometary panspermia
Authors: Godfrey Louis, A. Santhosh Kumar (Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, India)
Comments: 17 pages, 6 figures, see related paper astro-ph/0310120
SUMMARY
This paper reports the extraordinary biology of the microorganisms from the mysterious red rain of Kerala, India. These chemosynthetic organisms grow optimally at an extreme high temperature of 300 degrees C in hydrothermal conditions and can metabolize inorganic and organic compounds including hydrocarbons. Stages found in their life cycle show reproduction by a special multiple fission process and the red cells found in the red rain are identified as the resting spores of these microbes. While these extreme hyperthermophiles contain proteins, our study shows the absence of DNA in these organisms, indicating a new primitive domain of life with alternate thermostable genetics. This new biology proves our earlier hypothesis that these microbes are of extraterrestrial origin and also supports our earlier argument that the mysterious red rain of Kerala is due to the cometary delivery of the red spores into the stratosphere above Kerala.
FULL TEXT PDF
http://www.citebase.org/cgi-bin/fulltext?format=application/pdf&identifier=oai:arXiv.org:astro-ph/0312639
Easy: Where else in our solar system do you find enough water to make a popsickle let alone a comet?
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