A member of the Royal Astronomical Society and top microbiologist claims to have discovered an extraterrestrial life form and he shared details of his amazing find with C2C.
A research team at the Buckingham Centre for Astrobiology headed by Dr. Milton Wainwright of the University of Sheffield, has released not only a photograph of the purported extraterrestrial biological organism but has also detailed the findings in "peer journals".
Dr. Wainwright, who conducted the Buckingham Centre exo-biology experiments analyzed the image of the horned microorganism after being captured by super-powerful magnets 25 miles above the Earth in the stratosphere.
The Buckingham Centre team sent weather balloons into the upper atmosphere and brought the inflatable back which contained the microorganism sample.
In the extreme close-up image captured by electron microscope, the microbial life form appears insect-like with two antennae or horns protruding from its head. He gave this particular one a nickname - "cow particle" because of its bull-like horns.
Dr. Wainwright told C2C that the organism was found attached to a sodium chloride (salt) crystal in their sample catcher attached to the balloon. Its age could not be carbon-dated due to its minute size, he said.
He also said the research findings have been forwarded to NASA in hopes they would replicate his experiments. He told C2C that the actual process was "cheap" in comparison to the cost of the unmanned Mars Rover explorations.
Elaborating, Dr. Wainwright said that previously with an Indian team, the scientists had used gold balloons but had caught the sun's radiance, burning up the samples.
He said that there was "a distinct possibility" that the microbes may have been "sent by intelligent civilizations to colonize the cosmos," citing the theory known as "directed panspermia" which first garnered scientific credibility because its authors were Nobel Prize winning molecular biologist Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel of the Salk Institute.
Dr. Wainwright said, they believed, that life may have spread through a deliberate seeding though the universe.
And with the Earth's atmosphere being "an open window – not glass" all kinds of things can get through. Things may burn up, like meteors, but the evidence of their existence will survive.
Citing bizarre phenomenon like the 2001 "Red Rain" in Kerala which may have contained organisms, there's also a "distinct possibility" that previously unknown diseases like SARS, may have "come from space," Dr. Wainwright said.
Much like the fictional "Andromeda Strain" unknown extraterrestrial organisms could wreak havoc with Earth-based life forms, including humans that have no immunity to otherworldly pathogens.
To hear the comprehensive full interview with Dr. Wainwright listen here. Not yet a Coast Insider – join here.