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 From 25 July to 23 September 2001, red rain sporadically fell on the southern Indian state of Kerala. Heavy downpours occurred in which the rain was coloured red, staining clothes with an appearance similar to that of blood.Gentleman, Amelia; Robin McKie (2006). Red rain could prove that aliens have landed. Guardian Unlimited. Retrieved on March 12, 2006. Yellow, green, and black rain was also reported.JULY 28, 2001, The Hindu: Multicolour rain It was initially suspected that the rains were coloured by fallout from a hypothetical meteor burst, but a study commissioned by the Government of India found that the rains had been coloured by airborne spores from a locally prolific terrestrial alga.Abstract of official report. Then in early 2006, the coloured rains of Kerala suddenly rose to worldwide attention after media reports of a conjecture that the coloured particles were extraterrestrial cells, proposed by Godfrey Louis and Santhosh Kumar of the Mahatma Gandhi University in Kottayam. The terrestrial origins of the solid material in the red rain were supported by an investigation into the isotopic ratios of nitrogen and carbon.DiGregorio, Barry E. (2007). "What made the rain red in India? Isotopic analysis points to a terrestrial origin for the unusual organic particles that colored the rain like blood.". Analytical Chemistry (Washington, DC, United States) 79 (9): 3238. Retrieved on 2007-09-10. “J. Thomas Brenna in the division of nutritional sciences at Cornell University on his results 'My chemical tests are consistent with a terrestrial origin for this material. This doesn’t mean it is not extraterrestrial, but it certainly does not support it.'”
The rain Kottayam district in Kerala, which experienced the most intense red rainfall The coloured rain of Kerala first fell on 25 July 2001, in the districts of Kottayam and Idukki in the southern part of the state. Some reports suggested that other colours of rain were also seen.Ramakrishnan, Venkitesh (2001). Coloured rain falls on Kerala. BBC. Retrieved on March 6, 2006. Many more occurrences of the red rain were reported over the following ten days, and then with diminishing frequency until late September. According to locals, the first coloured rain was preceded by a loud thunderclap and flash of light, and followed by groves of trees shedding shrivelled grey "burnt" leaves. Shrivelled leaves and the disappearance and sudden formation of wells were also reported around the same time in the area.Radhakrishnan, M. G. (2001). Scarlets Of Fire. India Today. Retrieved on March 6, 2006.Mystery of the scarlet rains and other tales — Times of India, 6 August 2001Now wells form spontaneously in Kerala — Times of India, 5 August 2001 (from the Internet Archive) The colouration of the rain was due to red particles in suspension in the rain water, and the red rain was at times as strongly coloured as blood. It typically fell over small areas, no more than a few square kilometres in size, and was sometimes so localised that normal rain could be falling just a few metres away from the red rain. Red rainfalls typically lasted less than 20 minutes.Louis G. & Kumar A.S. (2006). The red rain phenomenon of Kerala and its possible extraterrestrial origin. Astrophysics and Space Science. (full paper (PDF)) (at journal website) Official report Photomicrograph of particles from red rain sample Initially the Centre for Earth Science Studies (CESS) had suggested that the cause of the red rain was an exploding meteor. A few days later, when the red rain continued to fall, they retracted this. (Clearly debris from a meteor wouldn't have continued to fall in the same area.) Instead, the announcement jointly from the CESS and the Tropical Botanical Garden and Research Institute (TBGRI) concluded that the particles colouring the rainwater were some type of spore.Monday, August 6, 2001: ‘Red rain was fungus, not meteor’ Then in November of 2001, commissioned by the Government of India's Department of Science & Technology, the CESS and TBGRI released a report which concluded that Kerala's rains were coloured by algal spores, which were successfully grown in medium into lichen associated algae of the genus Trentepohlia. Although red or orange, Trentepohlia is a Chlorophyte green alga which can grow abundantly on tree bark or damp soil and rocks, but is also the photosynthetic symbiont or photobiont of many lichens, including some of those abundant on the trees in Changanacherry area.Sampath S., Abraham T.K., Sasi Kumar V., Mohanan C.N. (2001), Coloured rain: a report on the phenomenon, Centre for Earth Science Studies  Rain water sample (left) and after the particles settled (right). Dried sediment (center). The report also stated that there was no dust of meteoric, volcanic or desert origin present in the rainwater, and that the colour of the rainwater was not due to any dissolved gases or pollutants. The report suggested that heavy rains in Kerala in the weeks preceding the red rains could have caused the widespread growth of lichens, which had given rise to a large quantity of spores in the atmosphere. However, it found no definite mechanism for the apparent extraordinary dispersal of the suspect spores, nor for the uptake of the suspect spores into clouds. The authors of the report analysed some sediment collected from the red rains, using a combination of ion-coupled plasma mass spectrometry, atomic absorption spectrometry and wet chemical methods. The major elements found are listed below.
The presence of aluminium and the very low content of phosphorus is puzzling because aluminium is not ordinarily found in living cells, while normally about 3% phosphorus can be expected in the dry weight of biological cells.Todar, Kenneth (2005). Procaryotes in the Environment. Todar's Online Textbook of Bacteriology. Retrieved on June 2, 2006. The CESS analysis also showed significant amounts of heavy metals in the red raindust, including nickel (43), manganese (59), titanium (321), chromium (67) and copper (55) (amounts in ppm), though the report does not comment on this. Cornell University AnalysisGodfrey Louis sent a sample of the red rain to J. Thomas Brenna in the Division of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell University. Brenna conducted carbon and nitrogen isotope analyses using a scanning electron microscope with X-ray microanalysis, an elemental analyzer, and an isotope ratio (IR) mass spectrometer. According to a review in Analytical Chemistry by Barry DiGregorio:
Brenna concludes: "My chemical tests are consistent with a terrestrial origin for this material. This doesn't mean it is not extraterrestrial, but it certainly does not support it." DiGregorio, Barry (May 1), "What made the rain red in India? Isotopic analysis points to a terrestrial origin for the unusual organic particles that colored the rain like blood", Analytical Chemistry 79(9): 3238, <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17523227>. Retrieved on 25 January 2008 Conventional theories History records many instances of unusual objects falling with the rain — in 2000, in an example of raining animals, a small waterspout in the North Sea sucked up a school of fish a mile off shore, depositing them shortly afterwards on Great Yarmouth in the United Kingdom.Lane, Megan. "It's raining fish!", BBC, 2000-08-07. Retrieved on 2006-03-06. Coloured rain is by no means rare, and can often be explained by the transport of dust from desert regions in high pressure areas, where it mixes with water droplets. One such case occurred in England in 1903, when dust was carried from the Sahara and fell with rain in February of that year. At first, the red rain in Kerala was attributed to the same effect, with dust from the deserts of Arabia initially the suspect. LIDAR observations had detected a cloud of dust in the atmosphere near Kerala in the days preceding the outbreak of the red rain Satyanarayana M., Veerabuthiran S., Ramakrishna Rao D., Presennakumar B. (2004), Colored Rain on the West Coastal Region of India: Was it Due to a Dust Storm?, Aerosol Science and Technology, v.38, p.24–26. However, this hypothesis could not explain certain aspects of the red rain, such as its sudden onset and gradual decline over two months, and its localisation to Kerala despite atmospheric conditions that should have seen it occur in neighbouring states as well. Another theory is that the rain contained mammalian blood, a large flock of bats having been killed at high altitude, perhaps by a meteor[citation needed]. Some bat species in India live in very large communities. However, no bat wings or other remains were found raining from the sky, and no known natural process would separate the red blood cells from white cells, platelets and other blood components. Red blood cells disintegrate rapidly in regular rainwater because of osmosis, but this was not evident with the red particles.It's raining aliens — transcript of a New Scientist podcast - get podcast here Furthermore it would have had to be a sizeable quantity of bats to cover a province of India. (Sept. 2006) "Red Rain" (in English). Oceanography 19 (3): 11. “Other researchers thought the red downpour might have been rain contaminated with mammal blood from a flock of bats killed at high altitude, perhaps by a falling meteor. Some bat species live in India in large numbers. But no wing of bat was found in the red rain, and no known natural process would have separated red blood cells from white cells, platelets, and other blood components, biologists stated.” Extraterrestrial hypothesis
 Another hypothesis was proposed in 2003 by Godfrey Louis and A. Santhosh Kumar, two scientists at Mahatma Gandhi University in Kottayam, Kerala. Having collected samples of the rainwater at many locations, Louis and Kumar claimed that the red particles did not look like dust but instead appeared to be biological cells. Chemical analyses indicate that they consist of organic material, and so they proposed that the particles may be microbes of extraterrestrial origin. Louis and Kumar's analysis found that the red particles were typically 4 to 10 µm across, spherical or oval in shape, and similar in appearance to unicellular organisms. On average, 1 millilitre of rain water was found to contain 9 million red particles, and the weight of particles in each litre of rainwater was about 100 milligrams. Extrapolating these figures to the total amount of red rain estimated to have fallen, Louis and Kumar calculated that a total weight of some 50,000 kilograms of red particles had fallen over Kerala. Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy analysis showed that the particles were composed of mostly carbon and oxygen, with trace amounts of silicon and iron (see table).
A CHN analyzer showed 43.03% carbon, 4.43% hydrogen, and 1.84% nitrogen. Louis and Kumar performed tests with ethidium bromide in an attempt to detect any evidence of DNA or RNA present in the red particles, but no such evidence was found. Their results were published in the journal Astrophysics and Space Science.  Further tests on the particles were carried out at Sheffield University by Milton Wainwright, who has studied stratospheric spores. In March 2006 he said the particles were similar in appearance to spores of a rust fungus,Is mysterious ‘red rain’ first evidence of life in space? — Yorkshire Today later saying that he had confirmed their similarity to spores or algae, and found no evidence to suggest that the rain contained dust, sand, fat globules or blood. He also said, “There appears to be an increasing tendency among scientists to come up with wild explanations when asked by the press to comment on unusual, novel phenomena. A good example is provided by comments about the recent Indian red rain phenomenon.”1 April 2006, New Scientist: Red rain fantasies A correction was printed in The ObserverFor the record, The Observer, March 12, 2006 regarding Dr. Wainwright's comment that the red rain lacked DNA. Dr. Wainwright asked in the correction to make clear that he currently had no view on whether the samples contained genetic material or not, and that it was physicist Godfrey Louis who is of that view. The controversial research of Godfrey et al. is the only evidence suggesting that these organisms are of extraterrestrial origin.Godfrey, Louis & & Kumar, A. Santhosh (December 29), New biology of red rain extremophiles prove cometary panspermia, <http://arxiv.org/ftp/astro-ph/papers/0312/0312639.pdf>. Retrieved on 27 November 2007 Godfrey suggests these microbes could be a prehistoric domain of life, or a Proto-Domain. A sample of the rain was also sent to Cardiff University for analysis by noted panspermia proponent Chandra Wickramasinghe. Wickramasinghe has reported on the 30th of March 2006 that “work in progress has yielded [sic] positive for DNA”.Cardiff Centre of Astrobiology: Analysis of red rain of Kerala Since then Patrick McCafferty has published a study showing a correlation between historic reports of colored rains and of meteors. "Claim of alien cells in rain may fit historical accounts: study", World Science, January 22, <http://www.world-science.net/exclusives/080122_red-rain.htm>. Retrieved on 25 January 2008 Possible cometary origin A few hours before the first occurrence of the red rain, a sonic boom was reported by residents of Changanasserry in Kottayam district, accompanied by a flash of light. Louis and Kumar suggest that this was caused by the disintegration of a small comet entering the Earth's atmosphere, and that this comet contained large quantities of the red particles. Observations show that 85% of the red rain fell within 10 days of 25 July, and Louis and Kumar suggest that this is consistent with the settling of red particles released into the upper atmosphere by a cometary break-up. However, this hypothesis could not explain certain aspects of the red rain, such as gradual decline over two months, and its localisation to Kerala despite atmospheric conditions that should have seen it occur in neighbouring states as well. Subsequent research by a different group of scientists concluded that the red particles were spores of the alga Trentepohlia, but may simply be contamination from the lichens that grow abundantly in the region.Coloured Rain: A Report on the phenomenon http://www.geocities.com/iamgoddard/Sampath2001.pdf Louis and Kumar further suggest that the particles are cells and thus represent evidence of extraterrestrial life. If the particles are biological in nature and did originate in a comet, it would be the first evidence in favour of the theory of panspermia, in which life on Earth is proposed to have been carried here from elsewhere in the universe. Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe have been among the proponents of the theory, but it has been dismissed by most mainstream scientists. Proto-domain hypothesis The newly hypothesized tree of life. Proto-domain organisms are a hypothetical group of microorganisms acknowledged by some proponents of panspermia, including Godfrey et al.http://arxiv.org/ftp/astro-ph/papers/0312/0312639.pdfWhen aliens rained over India - evolution - 02 March 2006 - New Scientist It is suggested that these hypothetical organisms might share many of the same abilities as terrestrial life on Earth: metabolism, homeostasis, organization, growth, adaptation, reproduction, and response to stimuli. However, unlike all life thus far discovered on earth, if the objects in red rain are proto-domain organisms they would appear to lack DNA as their informational macromolecule.http://arxiv.org/ftp/astro-ph/papers/0312/0312639.pdfSkepticism greets claim of possible alien microbesRed rain could prove that aliens have landed | World | The Observer To date, red rain represents the only supposed evidence of the existence of proto-domain organisms. Proponents of the proto-domain theory argue that the fact that the "cells" in red rain lacked DNA is evidence that they could not have been algal spores. However, mainstream scientific opinion regards the existence of proto-domain organisms as at best a hypothesis and at worst as wild speculation. http://arxiv.org/ftp/astro-ph/papers/0312/0312639.pdfSkepticism greets claim of possible alien microbesRed rain could prove that aliens have landed | World | The Observer Critics also argue that the lack of DNA is not proof that these organisms are either prehistoric or extraterrestrial, noting, "further work in progress has yielded positive for DNA using [DAPI] staining in the cells and daughters."The Why Files | Red rain controversy: Aliens or hype? This identification, however, is not yet fully confirmed, and might be considered equivocal. Further occurrencesReports say that on August 21, 2007 red coloured rainfall occurred in a few places in the northern part of Kozhikode district. Places around Vadakara, a municipality in Kozhikode district, which is fifty kilometres northward of Kozhikode town witnessed this phenomenon. Centre for Water Resources Development and Management (CWRDM) an agency of government of India, was reported to be awaiting samples for examination.http://www.newkerala.com/july.php?action=fullnews&id=55259 ReferencesExternal links
Louis and Kumar's papers
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from Wikipedia This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from Wikipedia |
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