Antarctica's Blood Falls: Extraterrestrial Life Is Possible

One of the most amazing sights in Antarctica, the Blood Falls have been a mystery ever since they were discovered, in 1911.

A bloody column of water coming out of a glacier isn’t what you’d expect to see in the frozen land of Antarctica, but if you visit Taylor Glacier, that’s exactly what you’re going to find. At first, scientists thought they were dealing with some sorts of red algae, but further research proved the bloody color was caused by something spectacular.

It turns out a small lake was sealed under Taylor Glacier roughly 2 million years ago.

The glacier acted like a natural time capsule for the ancient microbes living in the lake. These invisible forms of life have survived without oxygen, light or heat and are considered to be the “primordial ooze” out which every living thing on Earth evolved.

The Blood Falls are proof life can be found in the most extreme environments, probably even on other planets, like Mars.

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This is a stunning bit of information for all of you who are searching for life elsewhere.
This adds to the complexity, detail and evidence for life to exist elsewhere.

I have believed for many years that the answers we all seek are here on Earth everywhere we look..it just all depends on how we look and what we are willing to accept.

We designed aircraft based on the flight of birds. We have learnt so much from nature and used it to develop some of the worlds most incredible inventions yet we still refuse to accept that life exists elsewhere.

This, again, shows us that we have to explore our own world to obtain the answers to the universe. As much as it will be a good thing for us to venture to other planets and know for FACT that life is out there..we still have so much to explore of our home.

reply to post by Extralien


Awesome Extralien. I was also fascinated by those lakes that were iced over and never saw the light of day. The researchers used heated coils to melt through and explore. Inside, they found diverse life forms as well. There was also a really cool piece I read and started a thread on about ancient fossilized organisms being found inside of salt. This stuff is really cool and star and flag. Nicely put together.

we still refuse to accept that life exists elsewhere.

Who is "we"? Please show me a quote from a reputable scientist who refuses to accept that life exists elsewhere. Just one.

Please note: there is a difference between saying there is no extraterrestrial life and saying we have no evidence of extraterrestrial life.

reply to post by Extralien


The evidence towards a commonality and ease of life throughout the Universe is now approaching staggering and undeniable. The evidence continues to mount, the odds of us being alone are BEYOND slim in my humble opinion. Thanks for sharing, S/F..

reply to post by Phage


"We" was used as a general loose term as in "we designed aircraft"
But "we" didn't... only a few people designed aircraft.

I was not directly pointing fingers at anyone but rather looking broadly over all of "us" now and from the past too..

I thought that would have been evident in my previous useage of the word "we"...

Now, back on topic...

"We" continue to learn something new every day it normally seems to come from our own daily experiences and our natural desire to learn and expand.

fortunately we have things such as Hubble which gives us views that are unsurpassed in anything that is found here on Earth, even though our discoveries lead is to awe and amazement all the time.

reply to post by Extralien


It does not concern me that it means life could exist elsewhere.
That however is really cool.
Thanks for sharing it.

reply to post by Extralien

I understood your use of the word "we". What I do not understand is why you say that "we" refuse to accept the existence of extraterrestrial life. This is a claim that is very often made but I have yet to see any backup for it and it bothers the hell out of me.

I'm sure you'll find people who deny it because of their religious convictions. You'll find people that deny it out of ignorance. Are these the "we's" you were talking about? Because you will not find scientists asserting anything like it.

The excitement of proving extraterrestrial life has been overshawdowed by my sudden feeling that:

What the heck are they unleashing upon us now? Just what we need given our current state of affairs -- primative ooze containing microbes from a million years ago that can survive in any climate extreme.

Great.....

Well maybe that could explain the mystery Methane pockets on mars ,extremophile bacteria in the ice deposits , Now all we need is for NASA to send a mission to actually look for life for a change .
Good find , Star and Flag for you

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by Extralien

 

I understood your use of the word "we". What I do not understand is why you say that "we" refuse to accept the existence of extraterrestrial life. This is a claim that is very often made but I have yet to see any backup for it and it bothers the hell out of me.

It bothers me too to see such inaccurate claims made. Look at the poll results for belief in ET life:

USA:

THE ROPER POLL: Most Americans Psychologically Prepared for Proof of Extraterrestrial Life

Three in Four (74 percent) Claim They Are At Least Somewhat Psychologically Prepared For an Official Government Announcement Regarding the Discovery of Intelligent Extraterrestrial Life

Most Americans Believe Alien Life is Possible, Study Shows

The telephone poll, which questioned 1,000 Americans, found that 60 percent of those surveyed believe extraterrestrial life exists on other planets.

Poll probes Americans' belief in UFOs, life on other planets

Most Americans say it is very likely or somewhat likely that humans are not alone in the universe and that intelligent life exists on other planets.Only a third of adults, however, believe it's either very likely or somewhat likely that intelligent aliens from space have visited our planet, according to a survey of 1,003 adults conducted by Scripps Howard News Service and Ohio University.

Canada:
Mufon Poll-Canada

In response to the question: “Do you believe in the existence of life elsewhere in the universe?” people answered:
Yes: 78%
No: 12.6%
Not sure: 9.0%

So most people in the US and Canada, and I suspect the Western world, believe in the possibility of ET life. So I wish people would stop saying that's not the case also. Where the Poll numbers drop below 50% is belief that we have proof that the ET life has visited Earth, but there's a difference between saying ET life exists, and saying it has visited Earth. People fail to make that distinction a lot too and that really bothers me as well.

Back to the OP topic, I do find it fascinating that we are still learning so much about life, in unexpected places. I'm fascinated by the subject of "extremophiles" or organisms that can thrive in extreme environments once thought to be uninhabitable. That should give us some insights that it might be possible to find ET life in places we previously thought was impossible too.

Invalid premise in the commentary in video picture.........How can it be frozen in ice (H2O) 1.5 million years and not have access to oxygen? It is an iron rich environment...very attractive to lightning and other electromagnetic features near the planets poles. Salt leeches out of ice, oh yeah, did you notice the images in the ice?

Originally posted by debris765nju
Invalid premise in the commentary in video picture.........How can it be frozen in ice (H2O) 1.5 million years and not have access to oxygen? It is an iron rich environment...very attractive to lightning and other electromagnetic features near the planets poles. Salt leeches out of ice, oh yeah, did you notice the images in the ice?

We could conduct an experiment:

Create a small sealed room. Put lots of ice (frozen H20) in it.

Then ask for volunteers to enter the sealed chamber to see if they suffocate when the gaseous O2 molecules in the air are depleted, but there's still plenty of ice left. I won't volunteer to be the subject of that experiment, would you?

Anyway there are such things as anaerobic bacteria that don't need Oxygen to survive.

ok so to clarify

sorry if im a bit slow

but i guess whats being said is the "bloody column" is just iron and bacteria?

hows it oozing out like that

anyone wanna break down this situation for "us" and "we" lay people

reply to post by Arbitrageur

Huge size disparity....a small room packed with ice to represent the glacier and humans which require massive amounts of oxygen instead of the bacteria which may or may not need oxygen. Then there is the contamination factor of a manmade structure and handling of ice and/or snow as compared to being encapsulated in ice formed by some of the purest water on earth. The question i am interested in is, did the life form get trapped in the ice or did it develope there in that virginal place?

Thanks for sharing, this is great, it just goes to show the life can really exist in the most harsh of environments.


@ Dramey

The only thing keeping the microbes alive, the study says, is their ability to generate energy from chemical reactions with sulfur and iron.

Linkage

This reminds me of an article i was reading which explained a collection of microbes which were found at the bottom of the sea, they survived on gasses from volcanic cracks and were totally independant from what we know as the the norm food chain, it was great to read about.

Knowing that life can exist in these types of environments and teaching us that life can be different in everyway should help us to expand our search for life outside of our planet.

wow . . . you people will really argue about anything

or is it 'we' people will really argue about anything?

don't want to offend.

cool topic by the way.

reply to post by Extralien


this is so cool
i cant beleive ive never heard or seen this before

so let me get one thing straight. . .
its not actual blood right, just iron or something??
if its blood then we should be taking another look at this lol

I agree with phage...i think anyone with a sane mind can say there is ET life out there.It's not very *scientific* to say so because we still have no evidence apart from number crunching.But the sheer size of the universe and the fact we are discovering bacteria and even more complex organisms living under conditions once thought impossible makes it even more likely.I always think people should make the distinction between ET life existing in the universe and intelligent ET life visiting earth.People seem to try and merge those two together for some reason.

[edit on 15-9-2009 by Solomons]

Wow, a time capsule of primordial goo in the Antarctica that some people say proves life can exist on other planets.

Hmmmm? I thought evolutionists abandoned the: "From Goo to YOU by way of the ZOO" doctrine?

Let's try shooting lightning bolts into it and see if we can come up with a T-Rex or a Trilobite.

Interesting phenomena that I never heard of before, however, IMHO it does not prove life crawled out of a cesspool.

reply to post by Extralien


Wow. That is nuts.

More fuel for the fire.. Between this and the bacteria found in the outer atmosphere by the Indian space agency, its looking likely isn't it? Not that I ever had any doubts anyway.

I hope we find bacteria/life somewhere off world soon.

It will change absolutely EVERYTHING!

Mass investment into privatized space travel, the corporatisation of Space, the rebirth of actual capitalism, importation of off world resources, explosion of technology and wealth.

Im not gonna hold my breath tho...