Red Rain

The Kerala red rain phenomenon was a blood rain event that occurred from 25 July to 23 September , when heavy downpours of red-coloured rain fell.
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When the rain was gone, here came another token anon. Here came black flies, and flew in men's eyes; in their mouth, in their nose, their lives went all to destruction; such multitude of flies here was that they ate the corn and the grass. Woe was all the folk that dwelt in the land! Thereafter came such a mortality that few here remained alive. Afterward here came an evil hap, that king Riwald died. Many works which record occurrences of blood rain, such as that of Layamon, were written significantly after the event was supposed to have taken place.

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The 14th-century monk Ralph Higden in his work, the Polchronicon , recounts that in there was a rain of blood, perhaps intended by the author as an indication of the coming Viking invasion. Written in the 12th century, the Book of Leinster records many sensational events, including showers of silver; it records a shower of blood in In the work of William of Newburgh , a rain of blood proves the drive and determination of Richard the Lionheart.

While some of his advisers thought the rain was an evil omen, Richard was undeterred: Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London. In Germany, a shower of blood was one of several portents for the arrival of the Black Death in — In Germany, such works were particularly popular amongst Protestants. In Europe, there were fewer than 30 recorded cases all together of blood rain in the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries. There were instances across the 16th and 17th centuries; there was a decline in the 17th century when only 43 were recorded, but this picked up again with in the 19th century.

A study [20] has unambiguously established that the cause of blood rain in Kerala was the aerial spores of green microalgae Trentepohlia. The study used molecular phylogenetics to compare the evolution of DNA sequence of T. Results suggest that the isolate from Kerala is, in fact, a recently introduced species from Austria. The research confirmed the likelihood that the introduction happened through clouds over the ocean, a phenomenon of intercontinental species dispersal previously reported for bacteria and fungi but not for an alga.


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Clouds over ocean dispersal is analogous to the intercontinental flights; spores of this alga from Europe are transported to India via clouds that drift across the Arabian Sea. Spores might have been carried first to the clouds for its dispersal. How exactly these lower stratospheric clouds containing algal spores got in Kerala remain unknown but it might be related to the monsoon as well, as Kerala is the first state that the southwest monsoon strikes together with Sri Lanka. While most ancient authors, such as Hesiod and Pliny, tended to ascribe the rain to the acts of gods, Cicero rejected the idea and instead suggested that the red rain may be caused by " ex aliqua contagione terrena ", "from some earthly contagion".

Despite the obvious red colour Trentepohlia annulata and numerous related species are blue-green algae. The red colouring comes from beta caroteine and related natural pigments.


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There are very many such common pigments in nature, comprising scores if not hundreds of compounds, ranging in colour from yellow through orange, red and purple, eg. The red colourant masks the natural greenish hue of the original organism.

Sri Lanka red rain mystery solved

It is a strong colouring compound which is why beta-caroteine and its derivatives are sometimes used in food colouring. For a bit of fun, you could get some beta-carotein-based food colourant and experiment on concentration and colour vs. Trentepohlia annulata and related algal species are pretty much ubiquitous in wet tropical and subtropical environments, but they don't like cold weather.

The red colour in your photograph is extraordinary and very unusual. I would assume that conditions of nutrient availability, pH and temperature would have to be 'just right'. However, they omitted an explanation on how debris from a meteor continued to fall in the same area over a period of two months while unaffected by winds. Their work indicated that the particles were of biological origin consistent with the CESS report , however, they invoked the panspermia hypothesis to explain the presence of cells in a supposed fall of meteoric material.

Two months later they posted another paper on the same web site entitled "New biology of red rain extremophiles prove cometary panspermia" [43] in which they reported that. These claims and data have yet to be verified and reported in any peer reviewed publication. In Louis and Kumar published a paper in Astrophysics and Space Science entitled "The red rain phenomenon of Kerala and its possible extraterrestrial origin" [3] which reiterated their arguments that the red rain was biological matter from an extraterrestrial source but made no mention of their previous claims to having induced the cells to grow.

The team also observed the cells using phase contrast fluorescence microscopy, and they concluded that: In August Louis and Kumar again presented their case in an astrobiology conference.

The Extraordinary Tale of Red Rain, Comets and Extraterrestrials

The red cells found in the red rain in Kerala, India are now considered as a possible case of extraterrestrial life form. They can also be cultured in diverse unconventional chemical substrates. The molecular composition of these cells is yet to be identified. Researcher Chandra Wickramasinghe used Louis and Kumar's "extraterrestrial origin" claim to further support his panspermia hypothesis called cosmic ancestry. Cosmic ancestry speculates that higher life forms, including intelligent life, descend ultimately from pre-existing life which was at least as advanced as the descendants.

Louis and Kumar made their first publication of their finding on a web site in , and have presented papers at conferences and in astrophysics magazines a number of times since. The controversial conclusion of Louis et al. The hypothesis' authors — G.

Louis and Kumar — did not explain how debris from a meteor could have continued to fall on the same area over a period of two months, despite the changes in climatic conditions and wind pattern spanning over two months. Louis then incorrectly reported on 29 August in the non-peer reviewed online physics archive "arxiv. Regarding the "absence" of DNA, Louis admits he has no training in biology, [54] [56] and has not reported the use of any standard microbiology growth medium to culture and induce germination and growth of the spores, basing his claim of "biological growth" on light absorption measurements following aggregation by supercritical fluids , [43] an inert physical observation.


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Both his collaborators, Wickramasinghe [57] and Milton Wainwright [25] independently extracted and confirmed the presence of DNA from the spores. The absence of DNA was key to Louis and Kumar's hypothesis that the cells were of extraterrestrial origins.

The White Stripes - Red Rain - HD

Louis' only reported attempt to stain the spores' DNA was by the use of malachite green , which is generally used to stain bacterial endospores, not algal spores, [58] whose primary function of their cell wall and their impermeability is to ensure its own survival through periods of environmental stress. They are therefore resistant to ultraviolet and gamma radiation , desiccation , lysozyme , temperature, starvation and chemical disinfectants. Visualizing algal spore DNA under a light microscope can be difficult due to the impermeability of the highly resistant spore wall to dyes and stains used in normal staining procedures.

The spores' DNA is tightly packed, encapsulated and desiccated, therefore, the spores must first be cultured in suitable growth medium and temperature to first induce germination , then cell growth followed by reproduction before staining the DNA. Other researchers have noted recurring instances of red rainfalls in , , , , , and , including one described by Charles Darwin , [54] and several times since then. Most recently, coloured rainfall occurred over Kerala during the summers of , , , , [59] and ; since , the botanists have found the same Trentepohlia spores every time.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For other uses, see Red Rain. Archived from the original on 20 March Retrieved 12 March Archived from the original on 6 September Retrieved 18 October Astrophysics and Space Science. Archived PDF from the original on 15 January Archived from the original on 15 May Retrieved 6 March K; Sasi Kuma; V.

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Archived from the original PDF on 13 June Retrieved 30 August Archived from the original on 14 June The Times of India. Retrieved 20 July Archived from the original on 20 October Archived from the original on 23 September Archived from the original on 19 November J Phylogen Evolution Biol 3: Archived PDF from the original on 1 October Archived from the original on 15 January Archived from the original on 26 December Isotopic analysis points to a terrestrial origin for the unusual organic particles that coloured the rain like blood".

My chemical tests are consistent with a terrestrial origin for this material. This doesn't mean it is not extraterrestrial, but it certainly does not support it. Archived from the original on 21 July