Exclusive: NASA Scientist Claims Evidence of Alien Life on Meteorite

Originally posted by Arbitrageur

The conclusive evidence that the SNC meteorites originated on Mars comes from the measurement of gases trapped in one meteorite's interior. The trapped gases match those that Viking measured in the martian atmosphere.

But I think if you press anyone they would admit we're not 100% sure. But it's a pretty good guess with evidence like that.

No it's not a good guess... it assumes that the Martian atmosphere was the SAME millions of years ago as it is today... and at the same time they claim the meteor came from a wetter time when Mars was able to support life. So how can a sample of air taken today... match that of Mars during its wet period millions of years ago?

And Panspermia would require the little bug to be deep enough in the rock to survive entry into our atmosphere. I find it a joke that they mention 'fossil life forms' in the same context with 'panspermia' Fossils do not seed a planet with life

Your right I am a decent researcher, maybe I should see if NASA needs some help. Looks like they could use it..

reply to post by zorgon


Zorgon,

No one knows if these are from Mars. The paper says the filaments are from a carbonaceous condrite.

The media is taking the Mars thing and running with it. So instead of reporting of fossils in a CI1 meteorite, they are going all 'life on mars' on us....

It is frustrating.

Originally posted by zorgon
No it's not a good guess... it assumes that the Martian atmosphere was the SAME millions of years ago as it is today...

It probably was pretty similar millions of years ago, though not billions of years ago.

and at the same time they claim the meteor came from a wetter time when Mars was able to support life. So how can a sample of air taken today... match that of Mars during its wet period millions of years ago?

Mars was probably very similar millions of years ago to what it is today. And I haven't seen them "claim the meteor came from a wetter time when Mars was able to support life", have you got a source for that? I don't think that's what they're claiming either for ALH84001 or for this latest topic but show me the source if I'm wrong.

And Panspermia would require the little bug to be deep enough in the rock to survive entry into our atmosphere.

Yes but I suspect if panspermia from Mars to Earth happened at all, it would have more likely been billions, rather than millions of years ago. And the microbes would have had to hitch a ride in some small cracks and crevices in the Mars rock, where they'd be protected from solar radiation and the heat from entering the Earth's atmosphere.

there have been many informations like that before

Originally posted by Exuberant1
reply to post by zorgon

 

Zorgon,

No one knows if these are from Mars. The paper says the filaments are from a carbonaceous condrite.

The media is taking the Mars thing and running with it. So instead of reporting of fossils in a CI1 meteorite, they are going all 'life on mars' on us....

It is frustrating.

Yep, I don't know how the Mars reference slipped into this story.
Once again, read the paper.

(no, not the newspaper!)

Originally posted by anubis1
there have been many informations like that before

The first video is about the paper we're talking about in this thread, and the second video is not closely related.

reply to post by loagun


They're reporting on that stuff because it sells. It makes them a lot of money because people with empty lives are so concerned about what dress Jordan is wearing this week. No shady motives behind it; just supply and demand

This guy writes a decent piece trying to argue why he thinks the claim is not to believe.

I've mentioned Cosmology before — it isn't a real science journal at all, but is the ginned-up website of a small group of crank academics obsessed with the idea of Hoyle and Wickramasinghe that life originated in outer space and simply rained down on Earth. It doesn't exist in print, consists entirely of a crude and ugly website that looks like it was sucked through a wormhole from the 1990s, and publishes lots of empty noise with no substantial editorial restraint. For a while, it seemed to be entirely the domain of a crackpot named Rhawn Joseph who called himself the emeritus professor of something mysteriously called the Brain Research Laboratory, based in the general neighborhood of Northern California (seriously, that was the address: "Northern California"), and self-published all of his pseudo-scientific "publications" on this web site.

scienceblogs.com...

reply to post by zorgon


It is irrelevant if this meteorite came from Mars. That is not what is newsworthy, you're creating a straw man. You also lied and pretended that the article said all the microbes were similar to equivalents on Earth, even though the article explicitly states that while some of the microbes were similar to terrestrial equivalents, many are not.

These are nitrogen lacking biological fossilized remains, implying they are at least 80 million years old. This meteorite dissolves in water, you do the math on whether or not it could stay on earth for 80 million years without dissolving away.

80 million year old fossils (yes some of them are NOT similar to Earth microbes) deep inside a meteorite that could not survive for a long period of time on Earth without dissolving away. This is simple to understand so I believe you are intentionally trying to misdirect.

Originally posted by MothersofAmerica
That is not what is newsworthy,

True any fossil found anywhere off world would be big news...

This is simple to understand so I believe you are intentionally trying to misdirect.

If as you claim this is so simple, then why do we not have confirmation yet? The ALH84001 meteorite was claimed to have fossil nanobacteria in 1996... yet we are still not even sure about that. This recent find was first published at NASA in 2004... now here we are in 2011 and find the paper relegated to an obscure journal that isn't taken very seriously and we have to wait till March 15th to get any news.

NASA has done this many time lately... sensational announcements with dead end results

Looks good to be sure... but if these are so CLEARLY fossil bacteria in an electron microscope, why the delay and hesitation? Either they are clearly there or they are not. Takes 7 years for scientists to look at them and decide yay or nay?

Hmmmmm

Without picking out the dozen or so posts and replying to each one, I'll just sum it up here (you know who you are).

You complain the mainstream media "never reports on alien life" or the possibility of alien life.

Finally the MSM covers a story on alien life and you deny it saying it can't be true because it's on Fox News... I agree Fox reports on what they want to report on. But is there ANY pleasing you people?

Make up your minds!

The fact that this was announced by fox news should have told you everything you need to know about this.

Some people are already asking why this was published in a journal of questionable status.

I notice for example that it doesn't appear on standard lists of peer reviewed journals around the web, even though the journal itself claims to be peer reviewed.

The journal is going to publish its last edition this year and seems to have basically been set up as a rogue journal to challenge the status quo.

If there is such good evidence in this paper, why publish it in a journal that is set up outside the orthodoxy of science? There shouldn't be any need for that if the science is solid.

Looking at the paper (very, very brief glance) we see some rocks that were recovered in the late 1800's are now found to have suggestive looking structures in them which didn't vaporise when coming through our atmosphere. There seems to be some chemical analysis which suggests the structures can't be contamination from (recent) earth-dwelling bacteria.

My first question is why it took over 100 years to study some of these rocks!?

Nothing I've said above proves that these weren't extraterrestrial lifeforms. But there's very little point getting too worked up about it until the research is looked at in detail by other qualified scientists.

Originally posted by wingsfan

Exclusive: NASA Scientist Claims Evidence of Alien Life on Meteorite

www.foxnews.com

We are not alone in the universe -- and alien life forms may have a lot more in common with life on Earth than we had previously thought.

That's the stunning conclusion one NASA scientist has come to, releasing his groundbreaking revelations in a new study in the March edition of the Journal of Cosmology.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Wow and here last night while going through various youtube videos I came across this:

RUSH LIMBAUGH EXPOSES LIFE ON MARS?



Now that would be a trip if there was a connection

reply to post by XtraTL


Oh my goodness the media is stupid. Here is an article on this saying the picture is of something from the meteorite:

tvnz.co.nz...

It looks like a lifeform because it is. It's not from the extraterrestrial meteorite at all, but Spain. It appears in the paper only for comparison!

The picture is labelled for goodness sake! "Giant bacterium Titanospirillum velox". Don't these people have access to google!?

Originally posted by XtraTL
Oh my goodness the media is stupid.

Yup they are... they did the same thing to the laser signal from Gliese. It was a simple misreading of the original article (or deliberate more like) An error that was never corrected.

And they say WE are the crazy ones

:shk:

Originally posted by MothersofAmerica
reply to post by zorgon

 

It is irrelevant if this meteorite came from Mars. That is not what is newsworthy, you're creating a straw man. You also lied and pretended that the article said all the microbes were similar to equivalents on Earth, even though the article explicitly states that while some of the microbes were similar to terrestrial equivalents, many are not.

These are nitrogen lacking biological fossilized remains, implying they are at least 80 million years old. This meteorite dissolves in water, you do the math on whether or not it could stay on earth for 80 million years without dissolving away.

80 million year old fossils (yes some of them are NOT similar to Earth microbes) deep inside a meteorite that could not survive for a long period of time on Earth without dissolving away. This is simple to understand so I believe you are intentionally trying to misdirect.

edit on 6-3-2011 by MothersofAmerica because: (no reason given)

Hurrah!

Someone else actually read the paper.

You have to take the lower 8million year minimum age tho.

Looks like a complex paper, but it's not.

Read the first two bits.
Read the conclusions.
If not convinced, read the rest.
Check how many references are cited.

Attack the argument, not the people or the source (yet).

As for how many references, we remind ourselves that Einstein's Special Theory paper had no references.
But that was a special case of course.

It's a pretty succinct paper, with a LOT of supporting information.
That's what makes it so elegant.

"If your theory cannot be understood by the Man on the street, then it's not a very good theory"
- reportedly Einstein.

You gotta see the film/play "Insignificance" to see where I'm coming from

Film clip

I think this is an interesting paper.
At it's heart is a very very simple claim.

Put up for the broadest peer-review in history, and easy for others to replicate the proces of analysis.

Why has it taken so long?

The required technology to make a seemingly 'simple' analysis.
- EDS, Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy.

It's hard to get round this. A NASA scientist makes a claim after doing his work, and comes to a conclusion, leaving his work open to peer review. Time will tell as to the opinions of others of his work, in the meantime it should be appreciated by the rest of us. A third party claiming "Kooks" without any corresponding scientific evidence is rubbish and should be treated as such. Duh!

More reading for Dr Hoover,

www.panspermia.org...

Originally posted by ommadawn
At it's heart is a very very simple claim.

Your right, it is

Why has it taken so long?

Good question. He already took the pictures, can't they examine those to make a decision? Or don't they trust them?

The first batch of commentaries from scientists have been posted. New batches of commentaries will be posted through the 10th.
Here's the first batch:
journalofcosmology.com...

Originally posted by zorgon

Originally posted by ommadawn
At it's heart is a very very simple claim.

Your right, it is

Why has it taken so long?

Good question. He already took the pictures, can't they examine those to make a decision?

Or don't they trust them?

From the third commentary posted today, I think this answers your question:
"And so too the experts, for whom this information is not new, who have been monitoring the accounts of fossils in these same meteorites since 1961 have something to get excited about (Claus & Nagy, 1961). This is because, while the elemental and mineral composition data remains identical to prior accepted reports, the morphological data far exceeds anything yet shown on the subject."