Red Rain of Kerala Revisited

Most may remember an incident that happened in 2001 where an area of India received several showers of red rain. There were numerous theories fo what caused this rain from dust to bat blood to alien live from a recent metoer explosion in the upper atmosphere. Since then there has been very little said on this topic and has remained largely unresolved.

A Dr Godfrey Louis has been studying the red particles since that time to unravel the secrets behind, and in November this year he will be releasing his work at the SPIE international conference in San Diego of November this year.

Source

We found that when a microlitre of the rain specimen was heated in a specially-made pressure chamber, the cells replicated several folds at 300 degrees Celsius. We are waiting to publish this in a scientific journal and get it peer-reviewed,’’ said Dr Godfrey Louis, professor and head of the university’s department of physics.

The new results would add some substance to the duo’s previous finding that DNA cells were absent in the red rain cells despite these showing a clear cell structure in transmission microscopy.

Where these microbes come from is unknown but the conditions in which they thrive are quite astounding and really show that there may be numerous forms of life existing in quite inhospitable extremes that we cannot bear.

I am looking forward to the full publication of this study, here is a brief conclusion from Dr Louis from all their studies.

“We believe that the origin of the red particles was from cometary fragments which underwent atmospheric disintegration above Kerala,” he said.

[edit on 13-7-2008 by Shere Khaan]

i live in west texas where the soil is iron rich. if you get a storm cell with a strong in flow of air, you can get red rain. it rains mud, actually. It is more of an orange color.

if you have outflow, then before the storm hits the sky turns dark and red.

this is an interesting story i haven't heard of yet.

It's worth reading into, it really is one of those strange stories that seem to have a logical explanation, but just gets weirder and weirder.

The wikipedia article on the red rain is a good place to start.

Then have a read of this article on another explanation of the preliminary results from Dr Louis' work.

Without even the Astrobiological indications, it is very interesting simply on the nature of the microbial life which defy everything we know of and may make inter planetary tests for life somewhat redundant.