Every year thousands of tons of material from outer space rains down on our planet’s surface. Most of the time we’re unaware. But sometimes it can’t be ignored. Around the world people have reported finding strange matter where these meteors fall. Sometimes it’s a gelatinous goo. Other times it looks like it’s raining blood. Paranatural s1e3: Blood Rain and Star Jelly
November 28th 2001, Manchester, England ... Mera [Paranormal Investigator] searches for anything that could have fallen from a recent meteor shower. And finds something completely unexpected. A gelatinous blob. It has a smell often associated with meteoric rock. An odour similar to rotten eggs. ibid.
Dr Dan Rolph of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania has found hundreds of historical accounts of strange substances falling from the sky. But one story in particular stands out ... ‘Flying Saucer Just Dissolves’. ibid.
August 1994 ... A strange gelatinous rain pummels the tiny town of Oakville, Washington. ibid.
Murchison, Australia, September 28th 1969: in the morning hours residents of this coastal town see a bright ball of fire shooting through the sky. Then, moments later, it rains rocks. Scientists later collect more than ninety kilograms of meteoric material ... They find amino acids. ibid.
On the other side of the planet meteor showers bring another strange rain. July 2001 India: people hear an explosion in the sky. Then as it does every year the summer monsoon brings heavy rainfall in southern India. When the rain comes it is blood-red. ibid.
Star jelly sightings after meteor showers occur around the world. But recently many reports are coming from Scotland. ibid.
The further South you go the stranger life seems to become. Japan: Earth’s Enchanted Islands: The Southwest Island, BBC 2015
Is there life beyond Earth? The answer could be waiting on the planet next door. Mars may be our best hope for resolving the mystery of creation. Mars has more in common with our world than any planet we know of in the universe. But it’s still millions of kilometres away. Nova: Is There Life on Mars? PBS 208
Robots: Mars today is a busy place. Three satellites are in orbit and three landers on its surface. ibid.
Mars had had a turbulent past. ibid.
There have been over forty attempted missions to Mars. Most unsuccessful. ibid.
Not only did Viking find no life but no water either. Mars was pronounced a wasteland. ibid.
In 1996 Nasa scientists unveiled a Martian rock – a meteorite that had landed in Antarctica. ibid.
Water was once here. ibid.
The soil turns out to be 90% silica. ibid.
Could have been up to a thousand times saltier than Earth’s oceans. What made the waters of Mars turn to poison? ibid.
Unlike Earth, Mars today has countless small magnetic fields pock-marking its surface. ibid.
The north is much less weathered than the south. ibid.
Phoenix has landed in the right place ... For the first time we have touched water [ice] on another planet. ibid.
It’s not acidic – a reading of 8.3. ibid.
Salt content in the sample – it’s unexpectedly low, another plus for life. ibid.
The tenacity of life on Earth has radically altered our view of where alien life might arise. The discovery of water along with carbon, methane and hydrogen on the red planet means Mars has the building blocks of life. And the controversial Mars meteorite discovered in 1996 reveals structures that might be fossilised microbes. Hunt for Aliens 2010
The discovery of methane on Mars was a real surprise to people. Ashwin Vasavada, NASA
Methane on Mars suggest possible life, NASA scientists say. CBC News online headline 15th January 2009
Almost all aspects of life are engineered at the molecular level, and without understanding molecules we can only have a very sketchy understanding of life itself. Francis Crick, What Mad Pursuit, 1988
Are we alone in the universe or could there be another Earth out there? ... One in five should have planets that are warm enough for life. Alien Planet Earths, Discovery 2014
Alive! It’s alive! It’s alive! Young Frankenstein 1974 starring Gene Wilder & Marty Feldman & Peter Boyle & Teru Garr & Cloris Leachman & Madeline Kahn & Kenneth Mars & Richard Haydn & Rolfe Sedan & Gene Hackman & Mel Brooks et al, director Mel Brooks
Every complete set of chromosomes contains the full code; so there are, as a rule, two copies of the latter in the fertilized egg cell, which forms the earliest stage of the future individual. In calling the structure of the chromosome fibres a code-script we mean that the all-penetrating mind, once conceived by Laplace, to which every causal connection lay immediately open, could tell from their structure whether the egg would develop, under suitable conditions, into a black cock or into a speckled hen, into a fly or a maize plant, a rhododendron, a beetle, a mouse or a woman. To which we may add, that the appearances of the egg cells are very often remarkably similar; and even when they are not, as in the case of the comparatively gigantic eggs of birds and reptiles, the difference is not so much in the relevant structures as in the nutritive material which in these cases is added for obvious reasons.
But the term code-script is, of course, too narrow. The chromosome structures are at the same time instrumental in bringing about the development they foreshadow. They are law-code and executive power, or to use another simile, they are architects plan and builder’s craft-in one. Erwin Schrödinger, What is Life?
You know, there could be humans on that planet. Fire Maidens from Outerspace 1956 starring Anthony Dexter & Paul Carpenter & Susan Shaw & Harry Fowler & Sydney Tafler & Jacqueline Curtis & Rodney Riak & Maya Koumani & Owen Berry & Richard Walter et al, director Cy Roth, scientist to scientist
Let’s just hope there’s some form of life. ibid. scientist to scientist
Life – I’ll say this very slowly – is merely the application and outcome of applied chemistry. Victor Frankenstein 2015 starring James McAvoy & Daniel Ratcliffe & Jessica Brown Findlay & Andrew Scott & Charles Dance & Freddie Fox & Mark Gatiss & Callum Turner & Daniel Mays & Spencer Wilding et al, director Paul McGuigan
Alien hunters are homing in on extraterrestrial life. Aliens – The Definitive Guide, Discovery 2013
By taking evolution further and becoming a robot species. ibid.
Will the extraterrestrial visitors come as our friends? Or as our conquerors? Aliens – The Definitive Guide: How to Prepare
This film is about the scientists and government agencies who have throughout the ages kept a very big secret from mankind. For the first time on film we expose the cosmic conspiracy against mankind. The conspiracy of silence led by NASA which keeps us all living in ignorance of the greatest revelation in human history: that we, mankind, are not alone in the universe. That within our own galaxy thousands of life-forms exist which like us have the ability to build and to fly craft which can travel from one planet to another. Chris Everard, Secret Space II
If alien bacteria could make their home on a rock in space, could they even survive the trip? Phil Plait’s Bad Universe: Alien Attack! Discovery 2010
What if we’re alone in the galaxy? What if no other intelligent life has ever glimpsed the beauty of a star rising over a planet’s horizon? For many years this question was asked not by scientists but by philosophers and theologians. But then fifty years ago an astronomer came up with a mathematical equation that changed everything. The equation estimated the number of intelligent civilisations in our galaxy, and it gave the possibility of their existence a scientific legitimacy. The Search for Life: The Drake Equation, BBC 2010
In 1960 Dr Frank Drake was a leading light in the new field of radio astronomy. ibid.
Are we alone? Science tells us that it is improbable. If alien life does exist beyond our planet, then surely it’s only a matter of time before we have evidence here on Earth. Mexico – a creature that for more than five years has left scientists unable to explain its origins. Alien Investigation, Channel 4 2012
Measuring no more than nineteen inches, pink and almost hairless, and with large, luminous eyes, the creature was said to be conscious and made a noise that no witness could identify … the Metepec creature. ibid.
Long Island, New York: an unknown creature washed up on the shore. ibid.