British scientists believe they have found evidence of alien life after a specially designed balloon sent 27 km into the stratosphere captured small biological organisms that they say can only have come from space. The mission was launched during the Perseid meteor shower to check for life amongst the meteor shower debris. The balloon carried sterile microscopic slides which were carefully protected until the balloon reached high into the stratosphere. Once the required height was reached, the slides were exposed to the atmosphere and then sealed before returning. When the balloon fell back down to Earth the scientists discovered microscopic aquatic algae on the microscope slides. In typical geek-speak, the scientists explained their findings:
“The entities varied from a presumptive colony of ultra-small bacteria to two unusual individual organisms – part of a diatom frustule and a 200 micron-sized particle mass interlaced with biofilm and biological filaments.”
The scientists explained that their findings were evidence for the theory of ‘cometary panspermia’ which states that the ‘seeds of life’ exist all over the Universe and travel through space from one planet to another. Pictures of two of the strange organisms were presented with their paper.
The picture below shows an “unidentified ‘alien’ biological complex organism with a segmented neck connected to a flask-shaped body”.
This picture shows a “collapsed ‘alien’ organism with a ‘proboscis’- or head of the animal- with 2 nostril-like openings and a ‘sphincter’-like opening at the top”.
The environment in the stratosphere is very extreme. It can get down to -90 degrees C and is a near vacuum. There is also a lot of harmful radiation as there is not the same level of protection as we get from the atmosphere.
Previous missions, dating back over a decade, have claimed to have found life in the stratosphere but were either scientifically discredited or debunked by naysayers. The team of scientists, led by astrobiologist Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe, quickly discounted any debunkers who may seek to claim the microorganisms were somehow carried upward, from Earth, into the stratosphere.
“By our current understanding of the means by which such particles can be transferred from Earth to the stratosphere they could not – in the absence of a violent volcanic eruption occurring within a day of the sampling event – make such a journey. If there is no mechanism by which these biological entities could be elevated from Earth to the stratosphere, then it must have arrived from above the stratosphere and have been incoming to Earth.”
