RE: [meteorite-list] Red Rain From Comets?
Hi, Fair point about the fact that known algae should reproduce with ease, there are of course some 'cells' which don't have DNA in them (ironically red blood cells if I remember rightly?) and I would always assume something is much more likely to be 'unknown terrestrial' rather than unknown extraterrestrial!!! (Although the references throughout history to this - some of which hint at meteor type events are 'interesting'). And just found out that this weeks 'New Scientist magazine' has blood rain on the front cover (no, not literally!) haven't read it yet, but it indicates that an important announcement is on the horizon... I too am a little puzzled as to why more intense further analysis hasn't been (or made public) so far carried out, rather than just the almost school boy level' tests that seem to have been undertaken so far, surely we must at least know if it is animal vegetable or mineral after several years. What ever the case, extraterrestrial claims require extraordinary proof imho. MF __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Red Rain From Comets?
Hi, This particular red rain story has been around for 5 years, since the rain fell in 2001. The news here is that it's finally being tested by someone other than the initial Indian investigators, whose paper on the red rain particles was accepted by Astrophysics and Space Science, a well-known journal (but pro-panspermia) this January. Louis and Kumar's paper can be found at: http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/pdf/0601/0601022.pdf Normally, I would blow this sort of thing off; we all know the red rains are African (or Arabian) dust. It fell on the Africa facing coast of India, blah, blah... It's been widely bandied about on nutty websites nobody wants to be seen looking at, and so forth. But when I heard this evening, the BBC do a story about Sheffield studying it, I dug up this paper and read it. Now I'm sceptical about my scepticism. Take a look at the microphotographs and the TEM and SEM photos. This is not dust, obviously. To call them biological in appearance is a study in understatement and modesty. Not being an expert in anything biological nor the appearance of cells in TEM and SEM, I invite the List's sceptics, whom I know exist from the last Panspermia go-round, to look this over and post an opinion. They look like biological cells, but not like the usual cells in some specific ways. They have thick walls, membranes, surface features, detail, and inner organizations, and are 4 to 8 micrometers in diameter. They have no DNA or RNA, apparently. Their bulk composition is mostly CHON (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen), 98%. They did fall from the sky, at least 50 tons of them. They do not seem to do anything, do not culture, grow, or change. However, sealed jars of them in their original rainwater have remained unchanged, undecayed or altered, after four years. In they were inorganic, that would be understandable, but a CHON mixture would rot in rainwater, or be eaten by real bacteria. The solution must have some bacteria as they were primitively collected; what happened to them? Comments? Ideas? Debunkment? Sterling K. Webb -- - Original Message - From: Ron Baalke [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Meteorite Mailing List meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com Sent: Sunday, March 05, 2006 10:50 PM Subject: [meteorite-list] Red Rain From Comets? http://www.guardian.co.uk/space/article/0,,1723936,00.html Red rain could prove that aliens have landed Amelia Gentleman and Robin McKie The Observer (United Kingdom) March 5, 2006 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
Re: [meteorite-list] Red Rain From Comets?
I have a couple of problems with this article. One is that the rain continued for a couple of months in one area and I would expect significant dispersal over this time from high altitude. Secondly, I did some work trying to measure the atmospheric absorption due to meteor showers (at Sheffield University, it just so happens). After much study of several years of nightly data from observatories over the world and theoretical modelling of particulate size distribution and their persistence in the atmosphere we came up with a big fat zero. Meteor showers (associated with comets, of course) even the biggest ones, do not contribute in a measurable amount to atmospheric absorption of starlight. If this is so, I wonder how it can rain down for a couple of months producing red rain. Rob McCafferty --- Ron Baalke [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: http://www.guardian.co.uk/space/article/0,,1723936,00.html Red rain could prove that aliens have landed Amelia Gentleman and Robin McKie The Observer (United Kingdom) March 5, 2006 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.' __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Red Rain From Comets?
meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com Sent: Sunday, March 05, 2006 10:50 PM Subject: [meteorite-list] Red Rain From Comets? http://www.guardian.co.uk/space/article/0,,1723936,00.html Red rain could prove that aliens have landed Amelia Gentleman and Robin McKie The Observer (United Kingdom) March 5, 2006 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.' __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
RE: [meteorite-list] Red Rain From Comets?
HI Stirling and list, This is indeed an interesting one. I'm not an expert, but the large algal blooms that periodically appear in the pacific/atlantic and Indian oceans would be a likely suspect to me... It is well known that algae (and other simple life forms) reproduce by water evaporation (through TINY spores which are carried to high altitude by the normal terrestrial water cycle, i.e evaporation/rain). Try putting a bucket outside and within weeks it will have algae growing in it - from the rain. Now I am not sure if these 'algal spores' would show up as 'biological' in the particular DNA test that Louis and Kumar performed but do I know that alagal spores are very primeval in form, (since they practically the oldest life form), and they have a vast range of shapes and sizes some remarkably similar to the one's in Louis and kumar's paper. Example of spores at http://www.geo.arizona.edu/palynology/ppfspor.html Now we are talking about serious quantity of material here, but take a look at some photos of an algal blooms they often cover many hundreds of miles and appear on satellite photos! (Also common in India as it happens) http://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/oceancolor/scifocus/IOC/IOC_1.shtml Also One alledged sonic boom is WAY not enough evidence to link the red rain with a 'comet impact', no physical evidence for a meteor event was put forward, 'Sonic booms' occur all the time for a variety of reasons, especially in hot countries, that are at war with their neighbours... ( i.e Thunder Aircraft patrols) My humble opinion for what it is worth. Mark Ford __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
FW: [meteorite-list] Red Rain From Comets?
According to this article, Louis now seems to have made the cells divide!? HOWEVER, a scientist called Godfrey Louis, who has written a paper arguing in favor of a panspermic explanation for the red rain, says he has cultured the red rain cells in unconventional nutrients such as cedar wood oil, and shown that these DNA-devoid microbes divide happily at a temperature of 300 degrees C http://www.kurzweilai.net/mindx/frame.html?main=/mindx/show_thread.php?r ootID%3D55957 Hmm, now I am getting cynical!?? Best Mark Ford -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of mark ford Sent: Monday, March 06, 2006 1:30 PM To: Sterling K. Webb; meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com Subject: RE: [meteorite-list] Red Rain From Comets? HI Stirling and list, This is indeed an interesting one. I'm not an expert, but the large algal blooms that periodically appear in the pacific/atlantic and Indian oceans would be a likely suspect to me... It is well known that algae (and other simple life forms) reproduce by water evaporation (through TINY spores which are carried to high altitude by the normal terrestrial water cycle, i.e evaporation/rain). Try putting a bucket outside and within weeks it will have algae growing in it - from the rain. Now I am not sure if these 'algal spores' would show up as 'biological' in the particular DNA test that Louis and Kumar performed but do I know that alagal spores are very primeval in form, (since they practically the oldest life form), and they have a vast range of shapes and sizes some remarkably similar to the one's in Louis and kumar's paper. Example of spores at http://www.geo.arizona.edu/palynology/ppfspor.html Now we are talking about serious quantity of material here, but take a look at some photos of an algal blooms they often cover many hundreds of miles and appear on satellite photos! (Also common in India as it happens) http://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/oceancolor/scifocus/IOC/IOC_1.shtml Also One alledged sonic boom is WAY not enough evidence to link the red rain with a 'comet impact', no physical evidence for a meteor event was put forward, 'Sonic booms' occur all the time for a variety of reasons, especially in hot countries, that are at war with their neighbours... ( i.e Thunder Aircraft patrols) My humble opinion for what it is worth. Mark Ford __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Red Rain From Comets?
Hi, If these were algae or their spores, they would grow, bloom, or whatever it is algae do. They would also give you a big positive in the kind of DNA test that was performed on the funny cells. The fellow at Sheffield interviewed by the BBC talked about this particular test being done on a jar of algae and how positive it was. He's going to duplicate Louis' test, and he said he didn't really doubt that the outcome would be the same, because the test was so straightforward. As far as Louis' hypothesis about the cells being delivered by a meteor airburst, I ignore it completely. Nothing is more fruitless than endlessly arguing about an unobserved delivery system hypothesis. One should not waste a second on how these guys got here until and if we have determined what these things are. The notion that one airburst could rain down weird particles in the same location for days or weeks is utterly silly, as if the atmosphere had no horizontal transport, like, maybe, wind? I don't think delivery is a problem. Stuff falls into the ocean, small particles are transpired upwards (like algal spores), and rain out over Kerala for days, weeks, months. No big deal. The only question that matters is WHAT, not how. Naively, since it's neither my job nor my field of study, I can't imagine that, after more than a century of microbiology and the (apparently) incredible sophistication of the field, somebody can't tell us whether this thing that looks like a cell IS a cell or not. It would seem like the most simple and obvious of questions. I hadn't found that bit about how Louis had tried culturing them in weird substances (mentioned in your subsequent post). Using Cedarwood oil may seem a strange choice, but it is used as a preservative because it kills all microbial life dead, dead, dead. The fact that it was at 300 C. suggests that whatever these things are, they don't contain (much) water, else they'd pop. Excuse me, lyse. Me, I would have tried: a) ammonia, water, with methane and a bit of hydrogen, weak light, and coolish (Titan) b) low pressure CO2, argon, a bit of water vapor, more light, less cool (Mars) c) high pressure CO2 and sulfurous stuff, plenty hot (Venus) Well, all the Solar System environments. You get the idea. Since CO2 seems to be so ubiquitous, I'd try warm CO2, straight up, barkeep. Then, there's the other possible regimes. Maybe they have thick walls and are quiescent because of all this nasty oxygen everywhere. Would they like a taste of chlorine? A dash of fluorine, perhaps? A pick-me-up of bromine? Iodine? I mean, we swim in this deadly poisonous oxygen constantly and we actually seem to enjoy it! That's very strange. But fluorine, a better and more effective oxidative agent than the weaker oxygen seems to cause us to fall down and die... Likewise, chlorine and the rest. Switch'em around. See what happens... Life could just as well use a reduction cycle to generate chemical energy for themselves, instead of oxidation. Try them out; see what happens. If it seems nobody can say what these things are by looking at them, poking, prodding, like a three-year-old, let's see if we can get them to DO something. One thing we CAN say about life, it ought to DO something. Sterling K. Webb - - Original Message - From: mark ford [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Sterling K. Webb [EMAIL PROTECTED]; meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com Sent: Monday, March 06, 2006 7:29 AM Subject: RE: [meteorite-list] Red Rain From Comets? HI Stirling and list, This is indeed an interesting one. I'm not an expert, but the large algal blooms that periodically appear in the pacific/atlantic and Indian oceans would be a likely suspect to me... It is well known that algae (and other simple life forms) reproduce by water evaporation (through TINY spores which are carried to high altitude by the normal terrestrial water cycle, i.e evaporation/rain). Try putting a bucket outside and within weeks it will have algae growing in it - from the rain. Now I am not sure if these 'algal spores' would show up as 'biological' in the particular DNA test that Louis and Kumar performed but do I know that alagal spores are very primeval in form, (since they practically the oldest life form), and they have a vast range of shapes and sizes some remarkably similar to the one's in Louis and kumar's paper. Example of spores at http://www.geo.arizona.edu/palynology/ppfspor.html Now we are talking about serious quantity of material here, but take a look at some photos of an algal blooms they often cover many hundreds of miles and appear on satellite photos! (Also common in India as it happens) http://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/oceancolor/scifocus/IOC/IOC_1.shtml Also One alledged sonic boom is WAY not enough evidence to link the red rain with a 'comet impact', no physical evidence for a meteor event was put forward, 'Sonic booms
AW: [meteorite-list] Red Rain From Comets?
Hiho Sterling, Mark, List, Blood rain belong to the broad repertoire of natural phenomenons (comets, halos, strange clouds, animalic monstrosities, earthquakes, rains of frogs, corn, sulphur and and and) as bad omens as they were plentifully reported, printed and spread in somewhat hysterical Europe of the end of 15th century until Age of Enlightenment. Here I chose an example analogous to the comet-blood-rain in India, with some better details :-) It's from a pamphlet (HAB Wolfenbüttel. 38.25 Aug. 2°, fol. 802): ...auch wie zwo Meilwegs von Bamberg in einem Flecken Radelsdorff genant / diß 1518 Jahrs den 10. Mertz / dreymal Fewr vom Himmel gefallen / Häuser angezünd / auch ein Weib sampt ihrem Hauß verbrand / vnd zu nacht / ein Feuriger Besem vnd Stralen / so wol etliche Helleparten vnd Spiesse an den Wolcken deß Himmels gesehen worden / darauß Blutstropffen gefallen / auch was sich sonsten zugetragen. Mit consens der Obrigkeit allda beschrieben. Freely translated: ...also two miles away from Bamberg in a village called Radelsdorf on 10th of March 1518 felt three times fire from the sky, igniting houses - a woman was burnt together with her house - and at night fiery besoms and rays, as well as several halberds and spears were observed at the clouds in the sky, from which drops of blood felt. And other observations all in agree with the local officials described. Wow and here a meteorite shower with blood rain! (BSB München. Res/4 p.o.germ. 234,34) ...inn der Statt Dantzig vnd vmbher / vnd wie ein Fewer wolcken sich / inn derselbigen Statt hat nider gelassen. Auch wie es Blut geregnet / vnnd Stein zu fünff pfunden geworffen / daruon vil Volcks auff den Strassen todt blieben ist. 1579. jar. ...in the city of Gdansk (hurry up Mr.Marcin Polandmet!!) and sourroundings was settling a fiery cloud in that town. Also it rained blood and stones with a weight of 5 pounds where thrown down, wherefrom a lot of people were left dead in the streets. AD 1579 -Ursprüngliche Nachricht- Von: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Im Auftrag von Sterling K. Webb Gesendet: Montag, 6. März 2006 21:52 An: mark ford; meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com Betreff: Re: [meteorite-list] Red Rain From Comets? Hi, If these were algae or their spores, they would grow, bloom, or whatever it is algae do. They would also give you a big positive in the kind of DNA test that was performed on the funny cells. The fellow at Sheffield interviewed by the BBC talked about this particular test being done on a jar of algae and how positive it was. He's going to duplicate Louis' test, and he said he didn't really doubt that the outcome would be the same, because the test was so straightforward. As far as Louis' hypothesis about the cells being delivered by a meteor airburst, I ignore it completely. Nothing is more fruitless than endlessly arguing about an unobserved delivery system hypothesis. One should not waste a second on how these guys got here until and if we have determined what these things are. The notion that one airburst could rain down weird particles in the same location for days or weeks is utterly silly, as if the atmosphere had no horizontal transport, like, maybe, wind? I don't think delivery is a problem. Stuff falls into the ocean, small particles are transpired upwards (like algal spores), and rain out over Kerala for days, weeks, months. No big deal. The only question that matters is WHAT, not how. Naively, since it's neither my job nor my field of study, I can't imagine that, after more than a century of microbiology and the (apparently) incredible sophistication of the field, somebody can't tell us whether this thing that looks like a cell IS a cell or not. It would seem like the most simple and obvious of questions. I hadn't found that bit about how Louis had tried culturing them in weird substances (mentioned in your subsequent post). Using Cedarwood oil may seem a strange choice, but it is used as a preservative because it kills all microbial life dead, dead, dead. The fact that it was at 300 C. suggests that whatever these things are, they don't contain (much) water, else they'd pop. Excuse me, lyse. Me, I would have tried: a) ammonia, water, with methane and a bit of hydrogen, weak light, and coolish (Titan) b) low pressure CO2, argon, a bit of water vapor, more light, less cool (Mars) c) high pressure CO2 and sulfurous stuff, plenty hot (Venus) Well, all the Solar System environments. You get the idea. Since CO2 seems to be so ubiquitous, I'd try warm CO2, straight up, barkeep. Then, there's the other possible regimes. Maybe they have thick walls and are quiescent because of all this nasty oxygen everywhere. Would they like a taste of chlorine? A dash of fluorine, perhaps? A pick-me-up of bromine? Iodine? I mean, we swim in this deadly poisonous oxygen constantly and we actually seem to enjoy it! That's very strange
AW: [meteorite-list] Red Rain From Comets?
Here a picture of red rain (AD 1503, Jakob Mennel). http://www.aeiou.at/aeiou.history.data.jpg/008751.jpg Buckleboo Martin __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
[meteorite-list] Red Rain From Comets?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/space/article/0,,1723936,00.html Red rain could prove that aliens have landed Amelia Gentleman and Robin McKie The Observer (United Kingdom) March 5, 2006 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.' __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
