Scientists claim to have in their hands the "first evidence of alien life" after sending a balloon in the atmosphere.
Milton Wainwright, lead author if the study and a professor from the University of Sheffield, and his colleagues released a balloon which may have reached the high levels of the stratosphere. Upon its return, they were surprised that it is carrying with it organisms which were oddly large and unlikely to have come from Earth.
“In the absence of a mechanism by which large particles like these can be transported to the stratosphere, we can only conclude that the biological entities originated from space," Milton wrote.
They concluded "that life is continually arriving to Earth from space, life is not restricted to this planet and it almost certainly did not originate here.”
They launched the balloon near Chester City. It had microscope studs attached to it which are only launched into the stratosphere after reaching the height of 22-27 kilometers from the Earth.
The balloon afterwards safely landed, still intact, in Wakefield city. The researchers found that they were able to capture biological organisms and one diatom fragment. The odd size of the entities provided unusual data.
At first, they thought that these may be particles emitted by volcanic eruptions but the idea was immediately disregarded since there were no volcanic activity near the area for the past three years.
The group will soon conduct a second test by October simultaneous to a meteor shower associated with the Haley's Comet. During this time, huge amount of cosmic dust would be present which hopefully would allow the scientists to find more odd and undiscovered biological organisms in the atmosphere.
They also plan to conduct an isotope fractionation. “If the ratio of certain isotopes gives one number then our organisms are from Earth, if it gives another, then they are from space," Professor Wainwright told the Irish Times.
The study was published in the Journal of Cosmology.
