14 DAY TRIAL // Forget blurry alleged UFO videos and whatever state-of-the-art equipment NASA and others are using to make head and tail of what outer space is made up of. Apparently, all it takes to find proof of alien life is a balloon.
Writing in a recent issue of the journal Cosmology, scientists at the University of Sheffield and the Buckingham University in the United Kingdom say that, with the help of a specially designed balloon, they have been able to prove that alien life is not just possible, but also very much real.
In their paper, the researchers detail that, in order to find evidence of life that does not originate on planet Earth, they sent the balloon some 16 miles (26 kilometers) up into the atmosphere during the recent Perseid meteor shower.
The balloon was launched on July 31, 2013, and it got to spend some 17 minutes in the atmosphere. During these 17 minutes, it collected samples of whatever was hanging in the atmosphere at that time. It then returned to Earth.
When the researchers analyzed these findings, they found fragments of a single-celled algae known to the scientific community as diatom.
Several previous studies have shown that, either during storms or in the aftermath of various natural phenomena, microorganisms find themselves stranded in our planet's atmosphere.
Still, the British researchers maintain that there is no way such microorganisms could reach the height of 16 miles above the Earth's surface. Therefore, the algae fragments their balloon stumbled upon and returned with must have been carried into the atmosphere by the Perseid meteor shower.
“Most people will assume that these biological particles must have just drifted up to the stratosphere from Earth. But it is generally accepted that a particle of the size found cannot be lifted from Earth to heights of, for example, 26 kilometers,” says Professor Milton Wainwright with the University of Sheffield, as cited by The Telegraph.
“The only known exception is by a violent volcanic eruption, none of which occurred within three years of the sampling trip. 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,” he further argues.
The researchers maintain that, in light of these findings, they have no choice but conclude that outer space is teaming with life.
As Professor Milton Wainwright puts it, “Our conclusion then is that life is continually arriving to Earth from space, life is not restricted to this planet and it almost certainly did not originate here.”