Directed Panspermia: Are Cosmic Winds The Carriers Of Life?

Thanks to independent media, and Slashdot in particular, who reported about it on Saturday, here is a news story that most mainstream media have decided not to cover or publish.

The news story, is certainly not welcome by established religions and those in the world establishment that strongly support the vision of our planet as the center of life in the universe.

Photo credit: Bjarne Henning Kvaale

The topic itself has fascinated me for over twenty years, since I first read the original book by Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wrickamasinghe pointing out through a mathematical calculation the high possibility that life not only was not exclusive to planet earth, but its very likely origin in another part of the universe.

My readings at the time were filled by the futuristic vision of the Gaia Hypothesis of Lynn Margulis and James Lovelock contemplating planet earth as a truly living organism as well as by those of the much derided psychedelic guru Timothy Leary who had indeed a great anticipatory vision for much of the macro-reality we live in and for the social engineering apparatus at work through our civilization.

But what Fred Hoyle and Timothy Leary unveiled before me had the dimensions of a magnificent revelation. It was the suggestion of an idea for which my being felt empathy and similarity, a vision through which the long religious and traditional education I had been receiving since my early age, would suddenly crumble.

Of course, at the time, talking and sharing such ideas beyond your very closest circle of friends would have not opened many doors to your own credibility and image, and so memes like that one never got great mileage for the disruptive potential they carried.

And while probably this holds true to this very day, times have radically changed making it possible for small independent reporters like me to give due coverage to news and stories that instead of reporting about the sheer brutality and greed of our society point the finger to possibilities and issues that transcend our planetary petty interests in a big way.

 

 

The area surrounded by an ellipsis shows where the red rain fell

The news story I am referring to reports of a red rain phenomenon which occurred in Kerala, India in July 2001 and which went on for several weeks.

The red rain phenomenon was called so because the rainwater appeared red colored in many different locations spread over a few hundred kilometers around Kerala.

The phenomenon went on for about 2 months.

"The red rain occurred in many places during a continuing normal rain. Vessels kept in open areas clearly away from trees and house roofs also collected red rainwater. It was reported from a few places that people on the streets found their cloths stained by red raindrops. In few places the concentration of particles were so great that the rainwater appeared almost like blood. Another characteristics of the red rain were its highly localized appearance. It usually occurs over an area of less than a square kilometer to a few square kilometers."

The extraordinary news is that the striking red coloration of the rainwater around Kerala 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.

And according to the authors of this scientific paper reporting the event, Godfrey Louis and A. Santhosh Kumar of Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, India, an estimated minimum quantity of 50,000 kg of red particles had fallen from the sky through the red rain phenomenon.

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.

Photomicrograph of the red rain particles under 1000x magnification. Particles have size variation from 4 to 10 micrometers. Inset shows red rainwater contained in a 5ml sample bottle.

EDAX analysis shows that the major elements present in these cell like particles are carbon and oxygen.

But the most striking element of all is the one showing that a test for DNA using Ethidium Bromide dye fluorescence technique indicates complete absence of DNA in these red rain cells.

The authors provide sufficient information indicating a highly possible connection between a meteor airburst event and the red rain, which would in turn give further support to the possibility that the DNA-less cells fallen with the red rain are likely living cells of extraterrestrial origin, being carried unconsciously by cometary tails or meteors. "This meteor airburst is evidenced by the sonic boom experienced by several people during early morning of that day."

"The first case of red rain occurred in this area few hours after
the airburst event. This points to a possible link between the meteor and red rain. If particle clouds are created in the atmosphere by the fragmentation and disintegration of a special kind of fragile cometary meteor that presumably contain a dense collection of red particles, then clouds of such particles can mix with the rain clouds to cause red rain. The atmospheric fragmentation of the fragile cometary meteor can be the reason for the geographical distribution of the red rain cases in an elliptical area of size 450
km by 150 km. Maximum cases of red rain occurred in Kottayam and nearby districts. From this, it can be inferred that while falling to the ground at low angle, the meteor has been traveling from north to south in a south-east direction above Kerala with a final airburst above Kottayam district. During its travel in the atmosphere it
must have released several small fragments, which caused the deposition of cell clusters in the atmosphere from north to south above Kerala."

Such vision for a possible directed seeding of life on planets via a "directed panspermia", is not only worth more investigation, but it is of itself highly liberating for the millions of us bowing to a pessimistic and world-centric view of earth and of the forces governing it.

Directed panspermia is a hypothesis that the seeds of life are prevalent throughout the Universe, and furthermore that life on Earth began by such seeds landing on Earth and propagating.

The idea has its origins in the writings of Anaxagoras, but was first proposed in its modern form by Hermann von Helmholtz in 1879. I personally find it a truly fascinating story to study, research and analyze. Whatever your credo and stance, if you have an open-minded, researcher attitude, this is the best kind of stretching your brain muscle can get.

The report ends by saying:

"The biological cell like nature of the red rain particles is revealed by the electron microscopy and elemental analysis. Fine structure and enclosing cellular membranes in the red rain particles as evidenced by TEM is indicative of biological-like cells. The external morphology of the cells as reveled by the SEM is also indicating that the red particles are like biological cells. The optical microscope images also support the idea that these transparent red particles are similar to biological cells. The clear presence of carbon as shown by the elemental analysis indicates the organic nature of these particles. While these particles have striking morphological similarity with biological cells, the test for DNA gives a negative result, which argues against their biological nature.

The present study of red rain phenomenon of Kerala shows that the particles, which caused the red coloration of the red rain, are not possibly of terrestrial origin.

It appears that these particles may have originated from the atmospheric disintegration of cometary meteor fragments, which are presumably containing dense collections of red rain particles. These particles have much similarity with biological cells though they
are devoid of DNA.

Are these cell like particles a kind of alternate life from space?

If the red rain particles are biological cells and are of cometary origin, then this phenomena can be a case of cometary panspermia (Hoyle & Wickramasinghe, 1999) were comets can breed microorganisms in their radiogenically heated interiors and can act as vehicles for spreading life in the universe."

Are we stars' children indeed?

Read the full scientific report.