Re: Is it Raining Aliens? Popular Science Magazine
- From: "Jason H." <exosearch@xxxxxxxx>
- Date: 6 Jun 2006 08:57:50 -0700
You can see an image of the red cells in the article "Mysterious red
cells might be aliens" By Jebediah Reed, Popular Science (June 2,'06)
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/06/02/red.rain/index.html
Planning to get in the SETI mix again by month's end, Jason H.
Jason H. wrote:
Some of you may remember a post I made back in 2004 regarding the "Red
Rain of Kerala". An article in the June 2006 issue of Popular Science
titled - IS IT RAINING ALIENS? references a 2006 paper:
"The red rain phenomenon of Kerala and its possible extraterrestrial
origin"
which can be found at
http://www.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0601022
The PopSci article reports that one of the paper's authors, Godfrey
Louis, has sent some of his samples to astronomer Chandra Wickramsinghe
(who co-authored a contemporary Panspermia theory) and his colleagues
at Cardiff University in Wales who are attempting to duplicate the
experiments, the findings of which may be published later this year.
Here is the abstract from the aforementioned paper:
"Authors: Godfrey Louis, A. Santhosh Kumar (Mahatma Gandhi University,
Kottayam, India)
Comments: 18 pages, 15 figures, accepted for publication in
Astrophysics and Space Science
A red rain phenomenon occurred in Kerala, India starting from 25th July
2001, in which the rainwater appeared coloured in various localized
places that are spread over a few hundred kilometers in Kerala. Maximum
cases were reported during the first 10 days and isolated cases were
found to occur for about 2 months. The striking red colouration of the
rainwater was found to be due to the suspension of microscopic red
particles having the appearance of biological cells. These particles
have no similarity with usual desert dust. An estimated minimum
quantity of 50,000 kg of red particles has fallen from the sky through
red rain. An analysis of this strange phenomenon further shows that the
conventional atmospheric transport processes like dust storms etc.
cannot explain this phenomenon. The electron microscopic study of the
red particles shows fine cell structure indicating their biological
cell like nature. EDAX analysis shows that the major elements present
in these cell like particles are carbon and oxygen. Strangely, a test
for DNA using Ethidium Bromide dye fluorescence technique indicates
absence of DNA in these cells. In the context of a suspected link
between a meteor airburst event and the red rain, the possibility for
the extraterrestrial origin of these particles from cometary fragments
is discussed."
The following is the link to the 2003 paper (which I posted here in
2004)
http://www.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0312639
And here is the associated abstact:
"Cometary panspermia explains the red rain of Kerala
Authors: Godfrey Louis, A. Santhosh Kumar
Comments: 20 pages, 5 figures, paper to be submitted to Nature
Red coloured rain occurred in many places of Kerala in India during
July to September 2001 due to the mixing of huge quantity of
microscopic red cells in the rainwater. Considering its correlation
with a meteor airbust event, this phenomenon raised an extraordinary
question whether the cells are extraterrestrial. Here we show how the
observed features of the red rain phenomenon can be explained by
considering the fragmentation and atmospheric disintegration of a
fragile cometary body that presumably contains a dense collection of
red cells. Slow settling of cells in the stratosphere explains the
continuation of the phenomenon for two months. The red cells under
study appear to be the resting spores of an extremophilic
microorganism. Possible presence of these cells in the interstellar
clouds is speculated from its similarity in UV absorption with the
217.5 nm UV extinction feature of interstellar clouds."
Considering their heat resistant characteristics, perhaps they are
extremophiles from inside the Earth that were injected into the
atmosphere in a volcanic steam plume?
Regards, Jason H.
.
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