October 25, 2007 Cochin, Kerala, India - A year and a half ago the April 4, 2006, journal Astrophysics and Space Science had a report entitled "The Red Rain Phenomenon of Kerala and Its Possible Extraterrestrial Origin." Kerala is a state at the southwestern tip of India on the Malabar Coast.
Six years ago in July to September 2001, several red-colored rains fell over Kerala. People said they heard a loud boom. Then red rain fell and stained white T-shirts. Residents wondered what was happening? News of the red rain mystery reached Dr. Godfrey Louis, a Professor of Pure and Applied Physics at Mahatma Gandhi University. He collected many test tubes full of the red-colored rain water and put some of the odd liquid under a microscope. He told me in an interview last year that when he first saw the red rain magnified, he was struck by the beautiful rust color of what seemed to be living cells. The cell diameters averaged 10 microns, a little bigger than a human blood cell, which is about 7 microns. Over several months, Dr. Louis began experimenting with different temperatures to see if the cells would respond. As the temperature rose, he saw more activity. Eventually he got up to 300 degrees Celsius, which is 572 degrees Fahrenheit. He also increased the pressure to 300 pounds per square centimeter. It is assumed that normal Earth life would die at such a high temperature and pressure. But the red-walled cells in the Kerala rain water seemed to thrive. During his experimentation with temperatures and pressures, Dr. Louis studied the cells under a microscope. As he watched,the cells produced smaller cells internally that were colorless, or whitish. He began calling those new, little cells "daughters" of the original "mother" cells. Once he counted as many as fifteen daughter cells bud inside one of the adult "mother cells." As the daughter cells grew, their cell walls also became red and eventually, the daughter cells erupted through the wall of the mother cell. This is clearly a process of replication. The budding is what provoked some biologist to say the red rain cells must be a form of yeast, since yeast cells also replicate by budding. But yeast cells have DNA, as all normal Earth biology has. On Earth, replication of cells requires the presence of DNA. But Dr. Louis could not find DNA. So, he sent red rain water to scientists at Cornell University in the United States for isotopic ratio studies of the elemental composition of the red rain water. Elements confirmed so far are hydrogen, silicon, oxygen, carbon, and aluminum. No phosphorous was confirmed, which would be present if Earth DNA were present. Prof. Louis also sent red rain cell water to Cardiff University's Center for Astrobiology in Wales, directed by now-retired Prof. Emeritus, Chandra Wickramasinghe to see if DNA could be confirmed – but to date, DNA has not been confirmed. http://www.earthfiles.com/news.php?ID=1337&category=Environment
