Paranormal Magazine

New evidence from astrobiology “overwhelmingly” supports the view that life was seeded from outside Earth, a scientist has claimed.

Prof Chandra Wickramasinghe of Cardiff University says the first microbes were deposited on Earth 3,800m years ago.

The astrobiologist has helped developed the panspermia theory which suggests an extra-terrestrial origin for life.

He argues for a cycle of life as microbes find their way into comets and “multiply and seed other planets”.

In the article, published in the International Journal of Astrobiology, Monday, he argues humans and indeed all life on Earth is of alien origin, brought onto the planet by comets hitting the planet.

Prof Wickramasinghe, of Cardiff University’s centre for astrobiology, says there is a cyclical transfer process of life from planet to planet.

He believes comets hit planets and push living organic matter out into space, some of which survives and in turn gets transferred to developing planetary systems over a timescale of millions and millions of years, seeding life on the newly formed planets.

He accepts this model still does not explain how life actually began in the first place, but says there is no hard evidence to support the theory that life only began in a “primordial soup” on Earth, or other places.

Over the past three decades research has shown that large swathes of the Milky Way are strewn with gigantic dust clouds full of organic molecules, which some people have argued shows life emerging independently from new in these clouds.

In his paper, he says recent interpretation of spectra readings from the organic molecules found in interstellar clouds has indicated that they are in fact the remains of bacteria which has been broken down, rather than being built up.

“Interstellar clouds appear to be the graveyard of life not its cradle,” he said.

“Each time a new planetary system forms a few surviving microbes find their way into comets. These then multiply and seed other planets,” he said.

He adds: “We are thus part of a connected chain of being that extends over a large volume of the cosmos. Evidence is pointing inexorably in this direction.”

The professor and his late colleague Sir Fred Hoyle championed the panspermia theory from the 1960s.

[via: news.bbc.co.uk]

When Andrew Kerr woke up yesterday morning, he felt a bit alienated from the rest of Albury in south Canterbury.

Not because he’s an Englishman in a country full of Kiwis, but because a large crop circle had appeared on his farm.

The unusual pattern had him wondering whether his insurance cover had an “alien policy”.

But Mr Kerr’s friends were the creative culprits.

“I was annoyed this morning but now I have to just have a laugh about it.”

His friends, who did not want to be named, told The Timaru Herald they donned balaclavas and dark hats to flatten the crop on Sunday night.

“It was more exciting because we thought that he might come out and catch us,” one said.

“He’s always the life of the party and always been the joker.”

So what would Mr Kerr do to his friends? That could not be revealed, but he made it clear that “revenge will be sweet”.

[via: stuff.co.nz]

The chance of discovering life on other worlds is greater than ever, according to Britain’s leading astronomer.

Lord Rees, the president of the Royal Society and Astronomer Royal, said such a discovery would be a moment which would change humanity.

It would change our view of ourselves and our place in the cosmos, he said.

His comments come as scientists gather in London for an international conference to discuss the prospect of discovering extra-terrestrial life.

Scientists have been scanning the skies for radio broadcasts from intelligent life for 50 years, and so far they have only heard static.

But the chances of discovering life now were better than ever, Lord Rees said.

He said: “Technology has advanced so that for the very first time we can actually have the realistic hope of detecting planets no bigger than the earth orbiting other stars.

“(We’ll be able to learn) whether they have continents and oceans, learning what type of atmosphere they have.

“Although it is a long shot to be able to learn more about any life of them, then it’s tremendous progress to be able to get some sort of image of another planet, rather like the earth orbiting another star.”

The recent deployment of space telescopes capable of detecting earth-like planets around distant stars now make it possible to focus the search.

“Were we to find life, even the simplest life, elsewhere that would clearly be one of the great discoveries of the 21st Century.

“I suspect there could be life and intelligence out there in forms that we can’t conceive.

“And there could, of course, be forms of intelligence beyond human capacity, beyond as much as we are beyond a chimpanzee,” he added.

[via: news.bbc.co.uk]

THE last ever UFO files have been released by the MoD and they show that sightings of mysterious objects in the sky have almost TRIPLED in a year.

In 2009 there were 643 reports of bizarre lights, strange spheres and curious orbs in our skies — a figure only beaten in 1978.

UFO expert Nick Pope said 31 years ago there were 750 reports from panicked members of the public.

But this is the last time the Ministry of Defence will release these figures. The government closed their UFO hotline just before the end of last year, after it had been running for almost 60 years.

The files contain sightings from military personnel, police officers and air traffic controllers.

Mr Pope, who used to run the MoD’s UFO project, said last night: “This is incredible. Britain is being inundated with UFO sightings.

“I’m sure the record would have been smashed had the MoD not terminated the UFO project late last year.

“These sensational figures just show how wrong that decision was.

“There are sightings here from military personnel, police officers and air traffic controllers.”

[via: thesun.co.uk]

One of Britain’s biggest health clubs has been criticised as insensitive for putting up a sign warning overweight people that they would be eaten by aliens.

The advert was meant to encourage people to join up and lose those excess pounds put on over Christmas – but it has had the opposite effect.

The sign, which features a green alien, read: “Advance health warning! When the aliens come, they will eat the fatties first.”

It then goes on to urge people to take up a special offer to join the health club and spa attached to Cadbury House hotel in Bristol.

But it prompted an angry reaction from some people in the local community, with residents saying it is offensive to those struggling with their weight.

The club, which is one of the largest independent health clubs in the UK, has two purpose-built studios along with a spa, salon and bistro. It employs a team of personal trainers and offers more than 100 fitness classes each week.

Vicky Palmer contacted the health club to complain after seeing an advert similar to the sign in a local newspaper. Mrs Palmer, who had an eating disorder as a teen, said the sign and adverts should be removed.

“I am not overweight yet I still find this extremely offensive and patronising, but how much more so to someone genuinely overweight?,” she said.

Yatton councillor Tony Moulin described the sign as “tacky”. Mr Moulin said: “I think this sign is insensitive, tacky and could cause offence to some people.”

Manager at the health club Jason Eaton said: “The alien campaign has been developed as a tongue in cheek look at the fact that people, generally, over the Christmas period do put on a little weight.

“We do not intend to cause any offence to anyone.”

[via: telegraph.co.uk]

A new theory may explain the mysterious force that is causing our universe to expand at a faster and faster rate.

Could a neutrino — an electrically neutral and nearly mass-free sibling to the electron  – have triggered dark energy, the anti-gravity force discovered just over a decade ago?

That’s the latest idea from a team of theoretical physicists who suggest that dark energy was created from neutrino condensate in the split second after the universe’s birth 13.7 billion years ago.

The idea sprang from calculations showing that the density of dark energy is comparable to the value of neutrino mass, said lead researcher Jitesh Bhatt, with the Physical Research Laboratory in Ahmedabad, India.

Dark energy, an unknown force that is accelerating the expansion of the universe, is the leading cosmological mystery of modern-day science.

It was discovered in 1998 after astrophysicists noted that supernovae — the exploded remains of massive stars — showed an accelerated rate of expansion in the last 2 billion years or so when compared to older epochs.

Explanations for dark energy fall into two basic camps: those theories that add a new physical entity or those that change the laws of gravity, said Eric Linder with the University of California at Berkeley.

[via: news.discovery.com]

Member-states of the European Space Agency (Esa) have given final approval to revised plans to explore Mars.

There have been protracted discussions on what Europe could do at the Red Planet and how much it might cost.

The Council of Esa has given the green light to a two-mission endeavour that would see the launch of an orbiter in 2016 and a rover in 2018.

The exploration projects will be undertaken in partnership with the US space agency (Nasa).

Esa’s Council of Ministers has approved an initial budget of 850 million euros to support the missions. It will need to increase the cash available by about 150 million euros in future years.

“This marks an important moment for Europe in its steps towards space exploration on the world scale,” said Professor David Southwood, the director of science and robotics at the agency.

“We have been to the planets before, sure. But now we have a plan for exploration ahead to build our technical capability and explore Mars in a long-term partnership.”

The two-mission scenario has been born out of a much smaller proposal passed in 2008 which had the idea of launching a technology-demonstration rover to Mars in 2011 known as ExoMars.

Technical considerations that saw this concept grow in scope and cost meant the whole endeavour was revised.

The 2016 orbiter would be designed to track down the sources of methane and other trace gases recently detected at Mars. The presence of methane is intriguing because its likely origin is either present-day life or geological activity.

Confirmation of either would be a major discovery.

The 2018 ExoMars rover – now a much bigger vehicle – could then be targeted at one of the most interesting sources.

The 2016 mission would also have sufficient mass margin to put some sort of lander on the surface, although this would stay in just one location and may not be very long-lived.

Even so, Europe is keen to have a go at putting down some sort of instrument package on the planet to gain expertise in entry, descent and landing technologies.

David Southwood told BBC News that the programme was “on the road in that full implementation of the hardware build will now start”.

[via: news.bbc.co.uk - Johnathan Amos]

As James Cameron’s animated sci-fi movie Avatar goes on general release, astronomers point out that the movie’s habitable moon called “Pandora” may exist in reality.

Although none have been found to date, “exomoons” orbiting exoplanets are sure to exist. Could an exomoon be detected? If so, could that exomoon’s atmosphere be probed? Yes and yes, according to today’s announcement by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), Mass.

Pandora is a fictional alien world 5 light-years away from Earth orbiting an exoplanet in the system of Alpha Centauri A. As detailed in an exclusive Discovery News interview with the visionary director of Avatar, Cameron has been very careful to base his creation on science fact (unlike some movies I won’t mention). The biology of Avatar’s alien creatures are no doubt impressive, but what about the planetary physics? Could an exomoon be habitable… even inhabited?

“If Pandora existed, we potentially could detect it and study its atmosphere in the next decade,” said CfA’s Lisa Kaltenegger.

Kaltenegger and her colleagues point out that all the gas giant planets in our solar system (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune) have moons, and if these moons are large enough, they possess an atmosphere.

One example is Saturn’s large moon Titan that has a very thick atmosphere and — as the 2005 ESA Huygens mission discovered — a lot of the surface features are very Earth-like. It’s not a huge leap of the imagination to think that a larger rocky moon, orbiting a gas giant (a large Jupiter-like exoplanet) in another star system might have an exomoon with an atmosphere too.

“All of the gas giant planets in our solar system have rocky and icy moons,” Kaltenegger added. “That raises the possibility that alien Jupiters will also have moons. Some of those may be Earth-sized and able to hold onto an atmosphere.”

However, seeking out exoplanets is hard, and although over 400 of these worlds have been detected, some hi-tech piece of kit would be needed to go on an exomoon hunt.

When searching for exoplanets, astronomers will often look for a slight dimming in star light as an exoplanet passes in front of it. The exoplanet-hunting Kepler space telescope is currently looking for these exoplanet “transits” and it is hoped that the presence of exomoons orbiting the exoplanets may be detected too.

As an exomoon orbits its host exoplanet (in the same way our moon orbits the Earth), the exomoon will “tug” on the exoplanet very slightly. From Kepler’s point of view, the telescope will see the transiting exoplanet wobble very slightly as it passes in front of the star. This could be the signature of the presence of an exomoon.

Say if Kepler could detect the presence of an exomoon (not necessarily in the Alpha Centauri A system as no exoplanets have been spotted there, yet), how could astronomers work out if it’s a real-life Pandora?

“Alpha Centauri A is a bright, nearby star very similar to our Sun, so it gives us a strong signal” Kaltenegger explained. “You would only need a handful of transits to find water, oxygen, carbon dioxide, and methane on an Earth-like moon such as Pandora.”

“If the Avatar movie is right in its vision, we could characterize that moon with JWST [the James Webb Space Telescope] in the near future,” she added.

Interestingly, exomoons provide an exciting opportunity for the survivability of life. In the case of an exoplanet orbiting a red dwarf star, the exoplanet would have to orbit very close to the star to exist within the “habitable zone” (the region surrounding a star that’s neither too far away or too close, but in just the right location for water to be maintained in a liquid state). This is because red dwarfs emit less light than a star like our sun; therefore an exoplanet needs to be closer to a red dwarf to receive a quantity of light for life as we know it to survive.

But there’s a problem. If an exoplanet orbiting a red dwarf is within the habitable zone of the star, there’s a high probability that the exoplanet will be “tidally locked” with the star. Tidal locking means that the same side of the exoplanet will always be facing the star, continuously getting heated. The far side will be forever cold. This kind of situation is very bad for life to survive as there will be no such thing as “days,” just one eternal, boring “day.”

However, put an exomoon in orbit around this tidally locked exoplanet and we’ll have a situation where the exomoon is always orbiting (it will therefore have days). The exomoon would become the more likely location for life to survive, even thrive.

Whether or not Pandora is really out there, perhaps there’s more chance of an Earth-sized exomoon (with an atmosphere) rather than an exoplanet nurturing life…

[via: news.discovery.com - Ian O'Neill]

A giant pyramid which appears to be a UFO hovering over the Kremlin has caused frenzied speculation in Russia that it is an alien spacecraft.

The object has been compared to an Imperial Cruiser in the Star Wars films and witnesses estimated it could be up to a mile wide.

Two film clips exist which appear to show the same object and footage has been repeatedly playing on Russian television news channels.

The shots, one taken at night from a car and one during the day, were both filmed by amateurs.

The ‘craft’ was said to have hovered for hours over Red Square in the Russian capital.

The clips of the ‘invasion’ have gone to the top of the country’s version of YouTube.

The identity of the shape has not been confirmed. Russian reports ruled out a UFO but police refused to comment.

Nick Pope, a former Ministry of Defence UFO analyst, said it was “one of the most extraordinary UFO clips I’ve ever seen”.

“At first I thought this was a reflection but it appears to move behind a power line, ruling out this theory.”

A spokesman for aerospace journal Jane’s News said: “We have no idea what it is.”

[via: telegraph.co.uk]

Of all the incredulous tales that turn up in the Quad-Cities, none that I know of can match this … A dog falling from the night skies.

And it’s true, too!

Sadie, a petite-sized Pomeranian, landed next to a Davenport street last weekend after surviving a flight of about two miles, clutched in the talons of a great horned owl.

As the owl flies, Sadie’s flight covered between 24 to 30 city blocks. She was scruffed up, but suffered nothing worse than bruises and a broken tail.

Sadie’s owl-napping saga began when her owner, Michelle McCarten, and friends were watching fireworks a week ago Saturday in the Village of East Davenport. Sadie was spooked by the booming, jumping off McCarten’s porch at 2216 E. 12th St., and fleeing into a nearby woodsy area. McCarten and friends called and searched. No luck.

What they didn’t realize was that a giant owl known to perch in the area had grabbed Sadie.

Sadie became the flying dog. She was soaring over east Davenport, destined to become a late-night snack for the owl. But the owl lost its grip. Sadie plunged to earth.

“I had stopped for the sign at East 29th and College when this dog came flying out of the sky right in front of my Jeep — right out of the sky,” says Jamie Padden, Davenport.  “It dropped out of nowhere.”

The owl followed, ready to snatch back its lost snack.

Padden was horror-struck to see the little dog scrambling to get away.

“I opened my car door and ran screaming at that owl,” she says. “It was after the dog.

“That owl was so big I swear that its wings spread halfway across the street.  That sounds overdramatic, but it’s true.”

Padden shooed the owl away and scooped up the whimpering dog. She took it home, gave it a bath, and called Davenport police to report that she had just picked up a dog that had been dropped from the sky by a great horned owl.

Barb Elmore, a police service generalist who took the call from Padden, says her first thought was “That is one lucky dog.”

While the police department gets lost animal calls all the time, Padden’s report was the first of its kind, Elmore said.

“Í knew that no one would believe me,” Padden says, “so I left my phone number, in case anyone called about a missing dog. That little dog was so scared that I took her to bed with me that night. She was frantic, shaking.”

Next morning, Sadie’s owner and a friend, Kris Overstreet, resumed their search. They called Davenport police and were given Padden’s number.

“We called immediately,” McCarten says. “It sounded like my dog. Jamie brought her to us and I cried.  It was my Sadie.”

McCarten pieced together the tale of Sadie’s wild ride, something that is confirmed by a Quad-City ornithologist. Rick Crouch of Wild Birds Unlimited doesn’t question that Sadie was grabbed by a great horned owl.

“They are big, strong birds that stand 24 inches from feet to tip of head.  They have a great capacity to lift,” Crouch says. “They are nocturnal, hunting by night, easily picking up rabbits, cats or small dogs.  They have a strange appetite for skunks.”

Sadie, still shaky, is happily home with her owner. She has bruises and tenderness around her hind quarters where her tail was broken.

“She’s nervous. I’m giving her an aspirin a day. She’s comfortable,” McCarten says. “Getting her back is my best early Christmas present.”

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