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NASA scientist finds evidence of alien life

08 March 2011 02:09 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. That astonishingly awesome claim comes from Dr. Richard B. Hoover, an astrobiologist at NASAâ€™s Marshall Space Flight Center, who says he has found conclusive evidence of alien life â€” fossils of bacteria found in an extremely rare class of meteorite called CI1 carbonaceous chondrites, APA reports quoting â€œDigital Trendsâ€.
(There are only nine such meteorites on planet Earth.) Hooverâ€™s findings were published late Friday night in the Journal of Cosmology, a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
â€œI interpret it as indicating that life is more broadly distributed than restricted strictly to the planet earth,â€ Hoover, who has spent more than 10 years studying meteorites around the world, told FoxNews.com in an interview. â€œThis field of study has just barely been touched â€” because quite frankly, a great many scientist [sic] would say that this is impossible.â€
Hoover discovered the fossils by breaking apart the CI1 meteorite, and analyzing the exposed rock with a scanning-electron microscope and a field emission electron-scanning microscope, which allowed him to detect any fossil remains. What he found were fossils of micro-organisms (pictured below), many of which he says are strikingly similar to those found on our own planet.
â€œThe exciting thing is that they are in many cases recognizable and can be associated very closely with the generic species here on earth,â€ said Hoover. Some of the fossils, however, are quite odd. â€œThere are some that are just very strange and donâ€™t look like anything that Iâ€™ve been able to identify, and Iâ€™ve shown them to many other experts that have also come up stump.â€
In order to satisfy the inevitable hoard of buzz-killing skeptics, Hooverâ€™s study and evidence were made available to his peers in the scientific community in advance of the studyâ€™s publications, giving them a chance to thoroughly dissect his findings. Comments from those who decided to sift through the evidence will be published online, alongside the study.
â€œGiven the controversial nature of his discovery, we have invited 100 experts and have issued a general invitation to over 5,000 scientists from the scientific community to review the paper and to offer their critical analysis,â€ writes Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics scientist Dr. Rudy Schild, who serves as the Journal of Cosmologyâ€™s editor-in-chief. â€œNo other paper in the history of science has undergone such a thorough vetting, and never before in the history of science has the scientific community been given the opportunity to critically analyze an important research paper before it is published.â€
Needless to say, if HooverÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s conclusions are found to be accurate, the implications for human life will be staggering. HereÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s hoping that heÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s right.
Update: While the Journal of Cosmology says that â€œno other paper in the history of science has undergone such a thorough vetting,â€ some highly respected names in the scientific community are challenging the validity of Cosmology, and the findings of Dr. Hoover.
â€œ[The Journal of Cosmology] isnâ€™t a real science journal at all,â€ says PZ Meyers in Science Blogs, â€œbut 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.â€
So there you have it â€” this is either reality-altering news, or the work of kooks. Our hearts believe, but our brains are kind of bummed.