View Full Version : NASA scientist finds evidence of alien life
18079
March 05, 2011
http://news.yahoo.com/s/digitaltrends/nasascientistfindsevidenceofalienlife
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/03/05/exclusive-nasa-scientists-claims-evidence-alien-life-meteorite/
I'll wait for his peers to publish their findings before putting much stock in this. I recall finds in meteorites that were found to be false positives (of terrestrial origin) before.
On the other hand, if true, then good on ya Dr. Hoover!
Ok, most publications are reviewed BEFORE they are published. It sounds like they just wanted to push this out as soon as possible. I find it odd that they don't show the images of the negative controls ( moon rocks and silicon wafers ). This is sloppy science and even though they show a positive control which is the image of a bacteria found on earth, they need to show what the image of a structure devoid of life looks like to be consistent.
silentreader
03-06-2011, 09:54
Ok, most publications are reviewed BEFORE they are published. It sounds like they just wanted to push this out as soon as possible. I find it odd that they don't show the images of the negative controls ( moon rocks and silicon wafers ). This is sloppy science and even though they show a positive control which is the image of a bacteria found on earth, they need to show what the image of a structure devoid of life looks like to be consistent.
Hoover’s findings were published late Friday night in the Journal of Cosmology, a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
In order to satisfy the inevitable hoard of buzz-killing skeptics, Hoover’s study and evidence were made available to his peers in the scientific community in advance of the study’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.
“Given 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,” writes Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics scientist Dr. Rudy Schild, who serves as the Journal of Cosmology’s editor-in-chief. “No 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.”
Looks to me like this has gotten a thorough peer-review already, yes? The comments will be interesting though.
Meh...anybody who's ever been to Washington, DC, knows alien life forms exist - however, we normally use the PC acceptable term for them...politicians.
Richard :munchin
I thought they already found a fossil from Mars in Arizona or somewhere a while back.
Everybody knows there's life from outside this planet because there's no way that guy who plays the main character in "House" is human.
Looks to me like this has gotten a thorough peer-review already, yes? The comments will be interesting though.
When you are not showing all of the data, it becomes suspect. They also mentioned that they published it so it would get criticism. The only criticism they are going to get is a big "WTF" from their peers. If they wanted to do this properly, they would not make an announcement on Yahoo news or Fox News and the additional review should have been done in private before the paper is published.
When you are not showing all of the data, it becomes suspect. They also mentioned that they published it so it would get criticism. The only criticism they are going to get is a big "WTF" from their peers. If they wanted to do this properly, they would not make an announcement on Yahoo news or Fox News and the additional review should have been done in private before the paper is published.IMO, your analysis overlooks the political dimensions of the announcement.
oops, Bible missed this one by a mile.
IMO, your analysis overlooks the political dimensions of the announcement.
Sigaba,
From a scientifical point of view, I do not care about the political announcement. I am looking at this from a technical point of view. When you are making qualitative assertions, you need a qualitative negative control image of the lunar dust samples and silicon wafers that they claimed to have used. I can look at the paper again but I don't see that image in there.
Sigaba,
From a scientifical point of view, I do not care about the political announcement. I am looking at this from a technical point of view. When you are making qualitative assertions, you need a qualitative negative control image of the lunar dust samples and silicon wafers that they claimed to have used. I can look at the paper again but I don't see that image in there.Wiseman--
My statement was not a criticism of your technical analysis.
I was offering the opinion that, for better or for worse, scientific research done by a government agency is going to have a political component. Does separating technical analysis from other factors help or hinder our understanding of how scientists--and professionals in other fields--get things done? (To paraphrase a feminist slogan "the scientific is political.")
This may be a great opportunity for one to think about how he/she would handle the political dimensions of scientific work.
This may be a great opportunity for one to think about how he/she would handle the political dimensions of scientific work.
Ah-ha! Politics and science - :rolleyes: - I knew you'd find a way to bring this around to global climate change. ;)
Richard :munchin
Team Sergeant
03-06-2011, 13:55
With an almost infinite number of galaxies (and with those too many planets to count) for anyone to believe we are alone in the universe is just plain stupid.
I also don't care about the "politics" or what the pope thinks of the announcement.
We are just an insignificant spec in this universe. Our planet just happened to be the right distance from the Sun. To sustain life.
I think I posted this before. If you broke down the History of the world into a 24 hour day. Every minute is equal to 30,000 years. Recorded history of man only took up the last ten seconds. Dinosaurs ruled for over two hours.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEAYOYJKCgM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEAYOYJKCgM
"oops, Bible missed this one by a mile."
What? How?
"Recorded history of man only took up the last ten seconds."
Wrong. (Maybe at the time of the original report.)
I think Cosmos came out in the early eighties. Maybe 30 years ago. So each minute is worth 30,000 years. Thats not even going to add a second to our time here.
1 sec=500 years
Scientists find weird crap constantly that disproves theories.
They had a show on HI the other day where they found some monolithic circular buildings in Turkey buried in the sand for maybe 15000 years. Perfect joints, huge blocks of rock-that civilizationt had to be around for a long time before that discovery, by way of extrapolation, just to figure out how to do it.
They found a map that belonged to an admiral Piri Reis of the Antartic coastline from the Middle Ages, too-so-I'm saying there's no telling how long some type of homo sapiens has been around.
Red Flag 1
03-06-2011, 17:53
Probably groundwork for publishing obama's birth certificate
RF 1
Our planet just happened to be the right distance from the Sun. To sustain life.
The important part of that distance is that water can exist in all three states simultaneously (I know that there are 57 states ;) ).
Pat
I thought they already found a fossil from Mars in Arizona or somewhere a while back.
That would be "Antarctica"; meteorite name ALH 84001 found in Dec '84. The "There might be life in this here rock" announcement was initially made in 1996. Now its thought that the different chemistry on Mars when the rock was there before being ejected, could be the reason for the formations some have thought to be exobiologic.
18083
http://www.space.com/9623-martian-meteorite-evidence-extraterrestrials-scientists.html
GratefulCitizen
03-07-2011, 12:16
It's entirely possible that the rock was originally expelled from the Earth.
The amount of water on Earth is interesting when compared with the other planets.
Maybe all those water-containing comets came from Earth, rather that the water on Earth coming from comets.
The percentage of near-parabolic orbits among long period comets is much higher than it "should" be, falling in from all directions, and have perhelions concentrated near the sun (1-3 AU).
There has never been an observed case of comet having an incoming hyperbolic orbit.
This evidence would point to comets having recent origin from within the solar system.
Earth has most of the water and would be the likely source.
If some catastrophe in Earth's past could launch the comets, it could probably launch some other random rocks.
<shrug>
My guess is that scientific interpretation on any issue will be highly correlated with the motivations of the funding source.
...and here comes the NASA peer onslaught:
AP: Scientists skeptical of meteorite alien life claim
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110307/ap_on_sc/us_sci_alien_life
"There has been no one in the scientific community, certainly no one in the meteorite analysis community, that has supported these conclusions," NASA Astrobiology Institute Director Carl Pilcher told The Associated Press Monday. "The simplest explanation for Mr. Hoover's measurements is that he's measuring microbes from Earth. They're contamination."
Biological terrestrial contamination is *the* biggest concern for anything found here, even if it originally was from another planet/source.
on the other hand from here (http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20110206212725data_trunc_sys.shtml) I found:
To test whether the bacterial remains were truly indigenous to the meteorites, Hoover used energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) to measure nitrogen content. He found that the nitrogen content of the meteorite filaments was almost always below the detection limit of the EDS detector. This is significant as EDS analysis of terrestrial minerals and biological materials indicate that nitrogen remains detectable for thousands of years. Since nitrogen is undetectable in the meteorite fossils, Hoover argues they are indeed indigenous, rather than modern terrestrial biological contaminants that entered the meteorites after arrival on Earth.
Original paper as published in the Journal of Cosmology here (http://journalofcosmology.com/Life100.html)
18095
GratefulCitizen
03-09-2011, 12:17
...and here comes the NASA peer onslaught:
AP: Scientists skeptical of meteorite alien life claim
Biological terrestrial contamination is *the* biggest concern for anything found here, even if it originally was from another planet/source.
Contamination will always be claimed if biological evidence is found on meteorites.
Biological evidence tends more to undermine orthodoxy on the formation of the solar system rather than forward the likelyhood of extraterrestrial life.
Here's why:
Suppose that life exists somewhere on some distant planet and that planet ejected a rock with biological evidence on it.
This assumes that a planet can eject a rock into space.
That rock (and perhaps many others) scatter about the cosmos.
The dispersion will be subject to inverse-square laws associated with distance (like shotgun scatter).
Because of the inverse-square law, the most likely source (overwhelmingly so) would be the closest.
The closest source is Earth (meteorite returning home).
The original assumption establishes that a planet can eject rocks.
Finding life on a meteorite would tend to support the idea that solar system debris (comets, meteoroids, asteroids) came originally from within the solar system (Earth).
This would just add to the mounting problems associated with current orthodoxy.
(Orbits and inclinations of long-period vs. short period comets, small perihelions, short lifespans of Jupiter family comets, the excess of asteroids concentrated at Jupiter's L4 Langrange point when compared to its L5, etc.)
Contamination will always be claimed.
GratefulCitizen
03-11-2011, 21:12
Scientists find weird crap constantly that disproves theories.
They had a show on HI the other day where they found some monolithic circular buildings in Turkey buried in the sand for maybe 15000 years. Perfect joints, huge blocks of rock-that civilizationt had to be around for a long time before that discovery, by way of extrapolation, just to figure out how to do it.
They found a map that belonged to an admiral Piri Reis of the Antartic coastline from the Middle Ages, too-so-I'm saying there's no telling how long some type of homo sapiens has been around.
It's hard to say how many pieces of the puzzle went missing after the the Library at Alexandria was destroyed (thank you Christians and Muslims).
The source maps for the Piri Reis map were supposedly assembled from several other maps from around the time of Alexander the Great.
The map also indicates an ice-free coastline for Antarctica (as do some other ancient maps).
I subscribe to the theory that the Grand Canyon and much of its upstream area were carved out suddenly and recently by a few huge lakes draining.
Have a close friend who is Navajo and learned the old prayers and ceremonies from relatives who never spoke nor learned a word of English.
Some of these ceremonies reference specific, recent geologic details consistent with the "rapid, recent" Grand Canyon theory.
Some of the other histories, ceremonies, and prayers match up exactly with accounts from Genesis.
A couple of these involve obscure details and doctrines, not common to pop culture, one of which is antediluvian, identical in doctrine, and translates almost word-for-word.
My tradition came around the world, east to west, and was translated from Hebrew to Greek to Latin to English.
His tradition came around the world, west to east, and was passed down by word of mouth.
No crossover. Same story.
What are the odds?:munchin
Sirs
...snip
The original assumption establishes that a planet can eject rocks.
Finding life on a meteorite would tend to support the idea that solar system debris (comets, meteoroids, asteroids) came originally from within the solar system (Earth).
snip...
Pardon my naivete', but in my understanding of the way things work on this stable, rotating sphere we all inhabit, it would be extremely difficult to get this planet to eject rocks. The only two possibilities are
1 - being ejected from a volcano
2 - being fragmented and dispersed from the surface as the result of a meteor strike.
Gravity and air resistance prohibit number 1 from having the required energy to launch ejecta into space, and unless the meteor in number 2 was of sufficient size to blow a chunk off the opposite side of its strike zone, it doesn't have the required energy either.
My question to you then sir, is how does a planet launch rocks?
Furthermore, the Bible makes no mention of aliens as such. It does describe some strange creatures, but they all seem to share a common thread of supernatural... or immortal descent.
Genesis speaks nothing of a universe or solar system, how could it have 'missed' this?
In the absence of any compelling evidence to the contrary, it is almost foolish to disregard the possibility that there are other forms of life in this huge universe. I personally was hoping for little green men though. These tiny bacteria are almost disappointing if they truly are 'alien life forms' :).
Beam me up Scotty.
GratefulCitizen
03-12-2011, 18:40
Sirs
Pardon my naivete', but in my understanding of the way things work on this stable, rotating sphere we all inhabit, it would be extremely difficult to get this planet to eject rocks. The only two possibilities are
1 - being ejected from a volcano
2 - being fragmented and dispersed from the surface as the result of a meteor strike.
Gravity and air resistance prohibit number 1 from having the required energy to launch ejecta into space, and unless the meteor in number 2 was of sufficient size to blow a chunk off the opposite side of its strike zone, it doesn't have the required energy either.
My question to you then sir, is how does a planet launch rocks?
Furthermore, the Bible makes no mention of aliens as such. It does describe some strange creatures, but they all seem to share a common thread of supernatural... or immortal descent.
Genesis speaks nothing of a universe or solar system, how could it have 'missed' this?
In the absence of any compelling evidence to the contrary, it is almost foolish to disregard the possibility that there are other forms of life in this huge universe. I personally was hoping for little green men though. These tiny bacteria are almost disappointing if they truly are 'alien life forms' :).
Beam me up Scotty.
Just echoing some of Dusty's comments on the uncertainties in science.
The comparison between cultures is not a claim to the truth of those stories, it is meant to show that the cultures are probably not separated by a great deal of time, despite travelling around the Earth in opposite directions.
The ice-free Antarctic coastline indicates a problem with the orthodox scientific timeline.
The age limit on Jupiter's family of comets indicates problem with the orthodox scientific timeline.
Contamination will always be claimed because of probabilities associated with inverse-square law dispersion.
Orthodox theories on solar system formation have enough problems without adding life on meteorites.
The comet/asteroid/meteoroid issue can be approached from the effect>>cause direction.
First try and trace the orbits back, using the laws of physics, then try to determine the potential launching mechanism.
Theories get proposed and develop "inertia" when they hang around for awhile.
Eventually, they can turn into a belief system.
The Pythagoreans discovered irrational numbers and suppressed this knowledge because it didn't match with their belief system.
According to legend, a follower named Hippasus revealed the secret and was assassinated for his indiscretion.
Ptolemy's Almagest never claimed the astronomical theories to be truth, they just were very precise and better than the alternatives.
1500 years of being the best game in town resulted in the belief that it was absolute truth, hence the difficulty for Copernicus and Kepler.
Many in science seem to covet the political and moral authority found in government and religion.
Their purging of heretics is certainly an effective way to consolidate power, but stifles scientific progress.
There was a time when the clergy in Europe wielded great power because most people were illiterate.
Many are now are dependent on scientific "clergy" because they don't understand the math and heretics within the scientific "clergy" are purged.
With the internet, hopefully it won't take another 1500 years to get past the current orthodox inertia.
Just echoing some of Dusty's comments on the uncertainties in science.
Understood, and thank you for taking the time to clarify.
On a similar note, I sure do wish that library in Alexandria was still around.
On a similar note, I sure do wish that library in Alexandria was still around.Me too. The things forensic anthropologists would learn from the DNA pulled out of the magic nose goblins the patrons used as scroll marks would be amazing.
GratefulCitizen
04-04-2011, 14:31
Scientists find weird crap constantly that disproves theories.
They had a show on HI the other day where they found some monolithic circular buildings in Turkey buried in the sand for maybe 15000 years. Perfect joints, huge blocks of rock-that civilizationt had to be around for a long time before that discovery, by way of extrapolation, just to figure out how to do it.
They found a map that belonged to an admiral Piri Reis of the Antartic coastline from the Middle Ages, too-so-I'm saying there's no telling how long some type of homo sapiens has been around.
Your post piqued my curiosity about the Piri Re'is map (already knew about it in passing, but never pursued it in any depth).
It led to some other interesting finds.
Many in science, geologists in particular, defend "the clock" with religious zeal.
They don't tell you that the "principles" of Uniformitarianism and Superposition are actually just assumptions which often run contrary to evidence.
Picked up a book last week (Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings) which is the source of much of the research on the Piri Re'is map.
The author (Hapgood) had also written a previous book, Earth's Shifting Crust.
Plate tectonics were a relatively new idea when these books were written, and tried to explain the evidence of scattered fossils and odd climate records.
Hapgood's research indicated either continents which moved more rapidly than allowed by plate tectonics theory, a rapid change in the position of the equator, or both.
It is important to note that the spin axis of the Earth, in space, would not change; the sphere would reorient itself while the spin axis maintains orientation is space.
Drastically changing the spin axisrelative to space is contrary to conservation of momentum.
An adequate explanation for the (rapid) mechanism was lacking when his books were written, and plate tectonics did not offend "the clock".
Some continued the logical progression of Hapgood's work, but these theories have been discounted in faver of plate tectonics theory (in spite of the abundance of problems associated with plate tectonics).
The highly accurate ancient mapping of an ice-free Antarctica does not mesh with an ice cap which is supposed to be over 1 million years old.
Cores from the Ross Sea floor also bring the ice cap's age into question.
Hapgood's findings and the Ross Sea cores proved inconvenient to "the clock" and were thrown down the memory hole.
When they resurfaced, there were some attempts at refutation.
The rapid displacement theory and logical extensions of this idea have been continually poo-pooed, discouraging further investigation.
There was a prominent scientist of Hapgood's time who thought it warranted "serious attention".
Some of the Foreword (from Earth's Shifting Crust) written by that scientist:
"...The author has not confined himself to a simple presentation of this idea. He has also set forth, cautiously and comprehensively, the extraordinarily rich material that supports his displacement theory. I think that this rather astonishing, even fascinating, idea deserves the serious attention of anyone who concerns himself with the theory of the earth's development."
-Dr. Albert Einstein
Another interesting bit thrown down the memory hole...:munchin
mark46th
04-04-2011, 15:50
My favorite Hubble photo is the one showing galaxies out to infinity. Gotta be someone or something else out there. Hope it's not the Borg...
My favorite Hubble photo is the one showing galaxies out to infinity. Gotta be someone or something else out there. Hope it's not the Borg...
Naahh, prolly just some more politicians..
from the planet...screwem'all....:munchin
But really, with all the stuff ya see on the history, natgeo channels....it does make ya wonder..