Wainwright M. Life Comes From Space. The Decisive Evidence 2023

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LIFE COMES FROM SPACE

The Decisive Evidence
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Biological Entities from Space.


T he thought that life originated on this insignificantly little and
comparatively unimportant sphere to me seems so inconceivably
egotistical. After the Earth cooled of the great heat of its assemblage,
life units came to it through space, into which they had been thrown
from some other more developed sphere or spheres, Reaching the earth,
they adapted themselves to the environment they found here; and then
began the evolution of the various species as we have them each growing
individual being a collection of cell communes… It is not impossible
that, when we find the ultimate unit of life, we shall learn that the
journey through far space never could harm it and that there is very
little that could stop it… Such units of life have come, and possibly still
are coming, without injury through the cold of space.
Thomas Alva Edison


Foreword
M ilton Wainwright’s stratospheric sampling has led to the recovery

of what he calls “biological entities” which are microscopic struc-
tures whose sizes, shapes as well as elemental composition strongly

suggest their biological nature. The body of evidence discussed in this
book gives credence to a space origin of all such entities, and thus
to the continuing link between the terrestrial biosphere and a vast
external cosmic biosphere.
These findings are backed up by amazing images of fossilized
biology in the North West African and Polonnaruwa meteorites which
have been published in peer reviewed journals. This evidence has
been ignored, simply because it would mean the abandonment of a
culturally constrained belief that life (or at any rate our type of life) is
confined to our planet Earth. Such a belief is part of a pre-Copernican
philosophy that is being fiercely defended half a millennium after
scientists had finally accepted that the Earth is not the centre of the
Universe. The time has now come to concede that life is not centred
on our planet but is a cosmic phenomenon, as has been meticulously
documented by Chandra Wickramasinghe and Fred Hoyle over
more than four decades. Although Milton Wainwright’s stratospheric
“biological entities” are not recognizable terrestrial species, they are
strikingly similar to Earthly microbiota for the simple reason that
life on Earth is indeed derived from the vast — perhaps infinite —
reservoir of cosmic life. This represents a philosophy that is alien to
contemporary Western thought but is one that has been asserted by
ix
Life Comes From Space — The Decisive Evidence
many Eastern philosophers centuries before the start of the Common

Era. Confucius in China and Sakyamuni (Buddha) in India (ca. 5th
century BCE) are foremost among the philosophers whose world view
encapsulated the inter-connectedness of all living beings on Earth
and throughout the cosmos. It is high time that cultural obstacles to
accepting the facts such as are presented in this book are overcome
and that we move forward to charting a post-panspermia future for
our planet.
Gensuke Tokoro
CEO, Institute for the Study of Panspermia and Astroeconomics
Gifu, Japan
by THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG on 02/04/23. Re-use and distribution is strictly not permitted, except for Open Access articles.
ix
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9
19
Chapter 4 — History of Ideas About Life on Other Planets 33
Chapter 5 — The Astronomy of Panspermia 47
71
83
93
Chapter 9 — Evidence for Fossilised Life in Meteorites 101

Chapter 10 — Our Evidence for Meteoritic Microfossils 113
Chapter 11 — Proving that Microbial Life of Space Origin 135
Exists in the Stratosphere
Chapter 12 — Evidence that Life is Continually Arriving 143
from Space — Neopanspermia
Chapter 13 — Strange Biological Entities in the Stratosphere- 159
Personal Recollections of MW
xi

185
195
201
Acknowledgements 205
207
209
211
217
1
Introduction
W e are led to believe that modern science is free of all forms of

irrational prejudice that plagued science over the centuries.
In this book we document an instance when this is far from true in

relation to the most fundamental aspects of biology — the question
of the origin of life and its cosmic provenance. From the early
1980’s evidence in favour of the theory of cosmic life and a version
of panspermia, developed by Fred Hoyle and CW has grown to the
point that its continued marginalisation, or even outright rejection, is
a cause for serious concern. We present here the story of panspermia
in which we ourselves have been directly involved.
From the time of the earliest philosophies of classical Greece the
perennial struggle has been to disentangle religion and the “gods” from
their involvement in explanations of the external world. Democritus
(460–370 BCE) and Epicurus (341–270 BCE) held firmly to rationalist
explanations including the concept of an infinite and eternal universe.
They both supposed that all matter is comprised of indivisible particles
(atoms) and that all phenomena in the natural world — including
life — are the result of such atoms moving, swerving, and interacting
with each other in empty space in natural and predictable ways.
Nothing important was left to mystery or the gods. Although most
of Epicurus’ writings have not survived into the modern age, a long
succession of his disciples have fortunately recorded and transmitted
his views, particularly Metrodorus (331–277 BCE), and much later the
poet Lucretius (99–55 BCE). The surviving writings of these authors
1
bear testimony to a profoundly post-modern Epicurian view of life in

the cosmos. At around 400 BC Metrodorus of Chios wrote thus
It is unnatural in a large field to have only one shaft of wheat and in
the infinite universe only one living world……
(Metrodorus)
Nothing in the universe is unique and alone, and therefore in other

regions there must be other Earths inhabited by different tribes of
men and breeds of beasts….
(Lucretius)
Such an evidently post-modern set of ideas relating to life implied

also a Universe that was essentially independent of control by any god
or pantheon of gods.
The same freedom from theistic control was implied in pre-Socratic
ideas relating to the origins of life first attributed to the philosopher
Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (500 to 428 BCE). Anaxoragas posited
that ‘seeds’ (sperma) are distributed everywhere ( pan) throughout the
cosmos — pan linked with sperma signifying seeds of life everywhere
and thus defining the etymology of the modern word panspermia. We
should note, however, there are much earlier references to the same
basic idea in the wider world outside of Europe. Ancient Egyptian
papyri and engravings have references and depictions of panspermia
that date before the second millennium BC; and even older Vedic
traditions of ancient India encapsulate ideas concerning the cosmic
nature, antiquity and eternity of life. Vedic ideas on the antiquity
and ubiquity of life found their way into Jain as well as Buddhist
philosophy, as for example in this quote from a Buddhist text:
As far as these suns and moons revolve, shedding their light in space,
so far extends the thousand-fold world system. In it there are a
thousand suns, a thousand moons, a thousand inhabited Earths and
a thousand heavenly bodies. This is called the thousand-fold minor
world system…
(Anguttara Sutta, c.1st century BCE)
3
The non-European origin of the concept of panspermia, in our

view may well have played a role in the development of the continuing
prejudice against it. If this sounds strange to some readers, we need
only to recall the violent European resistance to the adoption of
decimal number system that we now use everywhere, and on which
the whole of modern mathematics and modern science depends.
One of the earliest recorded references to this Indian (Arabic)
number system dates back to the mid-seventh century just after the
rise of Islam. In the fragment of a document dated 662 CE, Severus
Sebokht, a bishop of the monastery located on the Euphrates in Syria
expresses his admiration for the Indians because of their method
of computation ‘done by means of nine signs.’ The Indian system
seems to have been known in Baghdad as early as 770, or less than

a decade after its founding, but it was principally diffused through
the writings of the Abbasid mathematician and inventor of Algebra,
Al-Khwarazmi, who died around 846.
This so-called Hindu–Arabic number system was firmly rejected
throughout Europe for centuries in favour of the bizarrely inconvenient
Roman numerals, and it was not until the 16th century CE that the
Hindu numerals (renamed Hindu–Arabic numerals) replaced the
old Roman numeral system (2). The delay in the transition was
undoubtedly connected with a deep-rooted suspicion of an alien
non-Christian pagan culture from which this number system had
emanated. We leave it to the reader to decide whether the present
resistance to accepting evidence favouring panspermia is a cultural
response with a similar cause. After all, one of its main modern
proponents hails from a distinctly non-European heritage, and one
of us MW has his roots in the working class north of England! The
late Sir Fred Hoyle also has similar roots and always hinted that this
was a major cause for his marginalisation in London-Cambridge based
scientific circles.
It is now well over 200 years since Charles Darwin’s grandfather,
Erasmus Darwin, speculated on evolution. Charles Darwin’s On

Fig. 1.1. Chandra Wickramasinghe and Milton Wainwright at a UN Space Meeting in
Austria.
Origin of Species then later synthesised and further developed ideas

that were originated earlier by, amongst others, Lamarck, William
Charles Wells, Patrick Matthew, Robert Chambers, and Alfred Russel
Wallace. For over two centuries, the ideas of these great thinkers, and
the others who followed have loomed large in our exploration of the
question of the origin of life and its evolution on our planet. Mostly, if
not exclusively, the best-known contributions to the question of life’s
origin and evolution, at any rate in the modern European tradition
has been confined to ideas that are cosily centred on our planet.
In this book we review the history — the alternative, non-
Earth-centric, theories of the development of life on our planet. We
offer the currently available evidence for the bold view that life on
Earth originated from space from an all-pervasive cosmic biosphere
(so-called idea of panspermia); and, even more heretically, that life in
the form of bacteria and viruses continues to arrive from this source
(the theory of neopanspermia).
The philosophical concepts underpinning panspermia have ancient
roots that date back to the pre-Socratic Philosopher, Anaxoragas, and
even earlier to Egyptian and Vedic traditions. This early history has
been dealt with in our earlier publications and so will not be the focus
of our present work.
5
While there has been much speculation about panspermia over

the centuries at any rate in the latter part of the common era, there
has appeared no defining book or treatise, based on experimental
evidence to adequately support its case. Darwin’s On the Origin
of Species, provided such a tome for the promotion of the idea of
evolution in general and natural selection in particular. Darwin’s great
contribution was not in having himself originated the idea of natural
selection or evolution more generally, but in providing experimental
evidence for its support and by bringing together all the available
Victorian ideas on the transmutation of species in a single volume.
Fred Hoyle and one of us (CW) developed the first truly scientific,
modern theory of panspermia, combining a vast and rapidly expanding
body of astronomical knowledge with a relevant body of biological

data such as was available in the late 1970’s and 1980’s. Since Hoyle’s
death in 2001, Chandra and his collaborators (including MW) have
continued to extend this work (Fig. 1.1). The present book completes
this journey by providing experimental evidence for neopanspermia,
showing that life must be continually arriving on our planet from
space. We also argue that this import of biological information has
greatly influenced the evolution of living things on life on Earth and
furthermore that the ingress of viruses from space is responsible for
both ancient and even up to the minute pandemics. It is our contention
that evidence of this point of view grows steadily from diverse fields of
science and from many directions.
It is part and parcel of the folklore of the Indian subcontinent
that mist and drizzle brings down microorganisms from higher in
the atmosphere, microorganisms that sometimes cause disease in
plants and animals. We ourselves are now convinced that such rain
can indeed wash down a myriad of microscopic life forms from
the atmosphere, organisms that arrive in the stratosphere from the
furthest depths of space. Strange and unusual life forms, viruses and
DNA from space interact with organisms that are already resident
here on Earth, and by bringing new genetic information could aid in
the evolution of life.
Eons ago this same source of input brought life to Earth at the
exact point when it had the conditions that could support biology.
Subsequently, repeated waves of new space-derived organisms, often
competing with one another, set up the entire pattern and structure of
the evolution of life — Darwinian evolution as we now call it.
While we ourselves accept the Darwinian theory of natural selection
as a working hypothesis, we are also certain that the development of
the evolution of life on Earth is far more complex (not least by the
appearance of epigenetics) than is provided by the prevailing view.
For example, we do not accept that natural selection on the Earth
can explain how complex cells, and the complex hereditary machinery
based on RNA and DNA came into existence in the first place. When
such ideas were first discussed there appeared to be a comfortable

billion years or so of Earth history between the formation of the Earth
and the appearance of the first microbial fossils in the geological
record. That time interval has now all but vanished, with the earliest
evidence of microbial fossils (in the Jack Hills formation) occurring
during or very shortly after the condition on the Earth surface
permitted life to exist.
Returning to Darwin, it is also worth noting here that he signally
failed to fully credit his sources in the first edition of his famous
book, and also to provide an adequate history of evolution theories
prior to its publication. He claimed that his omissions were due to
lack of time and space, but others have suggested darker and more
sinister motives. By way of a contrast we provide here a full history of
panspermia dating back from the earliest times to the version of this
theory forged largely by the work of Fred Hoyle and one of us (CW)
in the 1970’s and 1980’s. There will no doubt be many Darwinists, and
biologists in general, who will take a dim view of our findings and our
assertions, and like Archbishop Wilberforce will rant and rave as their
comfortable world view comes tumbling down!
We cannot stress too strongly that our ideas are firmly based on
the well-established methodology of science and upon hypotheses
thoroughly worked-out and verified by scientific experiments. All
7
we ask is that our findings be given a fair hearing. The reader might
be convinced that we are wrong in our conclusions, but we present
them as a sincere attempt to question the current paradigm that
appears to us to be woefully flawed and inadequate to cope with an
ever-increasing body of new data. Life on this planet, we confidently
assert, originated from space, and continues to arrive on Earth from
the depths of the cosmos.

2
Microbes and How They Gain a Living
M icroorganisms (or microbes) are microscopic organisms, living

entities which range from relatively large protozoa, to incredibly
minute viruses. Microscopic fungi (i.e. moulds like Penicillium species),

yeasts and green photosynthetic algae (such as Chlorella) also come
within the orbit of microbiology. Protozoa, like Paramecium were
once regarded as being animals, while algae, bacteria and fungi were
traditionally studied by botanists.
As a boy, one of us (MW) would spend hours peering down a
small German-made microscope (costing one pound fifty — it was
about six inches in height and went under the name “The Bijoux
Microscope”). The project involved collecting pond water, adding a
tiny amount of Oxo and then leaving it until a grey pellicle formed.
This was teeming with Paramecium, so full in fact that they could
barely move. The original microbiologists referred to this organism as
the “slipper animalcule”.
The Dutch draper, Anton van Leuwenhoek, who is credited with
inventing the microscope and who first described seeing bacteria (in
1665) is generally credited with discovering animalcules, or microbes.
If you want to split hairs however, Robert Hooke’s earlier observation
of microscopic fungi (i.e. moulds) was in truth the first microbe-
sighting. Hooke went on to popularise microscopy, making it such
that any respectable intellectual of the day was also an amateur
microscopist.
9
There is a comedy play, called the Devil on Two Sticks, written by

the English playwright, Samuel Foote in late seventeen hundreds that
refers to animalcules causing disease. Although the play is a satire,
it shows that the germ theory of disease was speculated upon then,
and perhaps even earlier in that century. Who then first scientifically
linked microbes with disease? Most people would reply, Louis Pasteur,
but in fact, the Scottish pathologist Sir John Goodsir got there first.
While working on stomach illnesses, Goodsir observed bacteria in the
stomach contents of a patient, named the organism (Sarcina venticuli),
went on to show that the organism caused the disease and finally
affected a cure by administering creosote. Which brings us nicely, as
things often do, to Charles Darwin!
Throughout his later life, Darwin suffered from incurable stomach

problems. In desperation, he sent samples of his vomit to Goodsir,
who, finding no Sarcina in them was unable to suggest an effective
treatment. It used to be generally believed that Darwin suffered from
Chagas disease which he contracted when on board the Beagle. We
now suspect however, that he suffered from lactose intolerance, a
problem that was not known about in his day. One of the present
authors (CW) was in fact diagnosed with the same malady many
years ago, and informed that this was far more common in people of
Asian rather than European descent.
Before we go any further, we need to have a look at what microbes
really are, and discuss how they “gain a living”, using a variety of
so-called “metabolic strategies”. Aerobes are obviously organisms
which require oxygen, and these are always so-called heterotrophs.
Heterotrophs gain energy and carbon by using oxygen to oxidise
carbon substrates, like sugar and cellulose to carbon dioxide (think
of how humans and animals live). Anaerobes are the opposite, they
are heterotrophs, but grow in the absence of oxygen (they are always
bacteria). Chemoautotrophs and phototrophs are what are termed
autotrophs, that is they are aerobes, but do not use carbon as a
substrate for growth and energy. Chemoautotrophs get their carbon
11
by fixing carbon from the air, and their energy from oxidizing a
substrate like sulphur or iron (again, these are always bacteria). Lastly,
phototrophs are photosynthetic organisms that use sunlight to split
water in order to gain energy, and fix carbon dioxide from the air
for their carbon needs (higher plants, algae and some bacteria are
phototrophs). The most efficient way for an organism to grow is to
use aerobic heterotrophy, hence humans, who need a huge energy
supply to operate their brains and bodies, and elephants needing an
elephantine amount of carbon and energy to achieve their size, are
both heterotrophs.
We assume that biochemistry operates in the same way throughout
the cosmos, so we assume that organisms living “out there” will use
the same so-called, “metabolic strategies as described here. Similarly,

we assume that the heredity mechanism of life will be based on RNA
and DNA throughout (of course we may get a surprise and find
other systems operating elsewhere, which are unknown to us). Based
on these assumptions, we expect that an intelligent alien will be an
aerobic heterotroph and not a bacterium, or plant.
How Might Life on Earth have Originated?
The Earth formed from smaller pieces known as planetisimals in a

newly formed solar nebula between 5 and 4.5 billion years ago. The
first evidence of microbial residues (in the form of C-12 enhanced
residues) are found in rocks dated between 4.2 and 4.3 billion years
ago almost immediately after it was possible for microbial life to
survive at the Earth’s surface.
The standard scientific view of how life began on Earth is well
known. On the prebiotic earth, chemicals interacted to give the
so-called “building blocks of life”, such as amino acids, which then
reacted to give the even more complex components of biology, such
as DNA and proteins. Essential components of the cell, such as
membranes, nuclei and mitochondria were then formed and life came
into being. Of course, all the true and mysterious complexity of this
idea is embraced by the italicised words. This kind of paragraph, and
similar unproven assertions, can be found in modern student texts
and even more advanced works. It can involve the use of slightly
different wording, but this is essentially the same explanation that has
been given by scientists for over a hundred years and more. Take for
example, this passage by H.J. Hardwicke in his Evolution and Creation
of 1887:
The first form of life, says Haeckel, was the Monera, a structure less
aluminous, “atom of bioplasm”, not even passing the structure of a
mere cell. This primordial organism gradually developed into single
nucleated cells.
Yet again the problem lies with our italicised words. Now, not
surprisingly, explanations of the origin of life have become extremely
sophisticated over the last fifty, or so, years as our awareness of all
kinds of biological complexity has developed, not least with an
understanding of the role of nucleic acids (RNA and DNA) in life.
Much of the origin of life theory nowadays involves more and more
sophisticated chemistry showing that literally thousands of chemicals
which are fundamental to biology can be naturally synthesised under
diverse conditions, which, it is claimed with little evidence, were
involved in the de novo origin of life. A whole string of theories
has recently been generated to account for life’s origins, including,
the “Clay Origin of Life”, the “Underwater Smokers” origin and the
so-called “RNA World”.
Did Life begin in Hydrothermal Vents?
Many scientists have suggested that life began under the sea, in what
are termed hydrothermal vents, fissures on the seafloor of volcanically
active areas which continually discharge geothermally heated water.
Hydrothermal vents often, so-called black or white smokers, are
extremely biologically productive and are rich in chemosynthetic
13
bacteria (i.e. those growing without a carbon food-source) and primitive

archaea. These microscopic organisms act as the base of a food chain
which supports the growth of higher organisms, including, clams,
limpets, shrimps and impressive giant tube worms. Hydrothermal
vents are also thought to be active on Jupiter’s moon, Europa and
Saturn’s moon, Enceladus; they may also once have existed on Mars.
Gunter Wachtershauser suggested the so-called iron sulphur-world
as an explanation for life’s origin in hydrothermal vents. Amino acids
may also have been formed in the methane and ammonia-rich vents
which were then transferred to cooler waters, where they interacted
with clays to form proto-life forms. It has also been suggested that
life began in areas of Earth subjected to impact events, such as the
Chicxulub impact. Such impacts could have increased the number

and variety of hydrothermal vents on the early Earth and therefore
increased to number of locations where life could conceivably begin.
Impact events like these are also thought to cause the mass extinctions
of life that marks the K/T boundary, and are therefore thought to be
involved in both the birth and extinction of life on our planet.
The Clay World Hypothesis
A model for the origin of life using clay was first proposed by
Alexander Cairns-Smith in 1985. The hypothesis suggests that complex
organic molecules arose gradually on the surfaces of silicate crystals in
solution. Studies have shown that aqueous solutions of montmorillonite
clays catalyse the formation of RNA by inducing nucleotides to form
longer chains.
The RNA World
The RNA world hypothesis suggests that life on Earth began with a
simple RNA molecule that could copy itself without the help of other
molecules. Random RNA sequences have properties useful for the
origin of life, but, based on what is known of current life it is not

possible to come to the conclusion that a self-replicating molecule
was the primary source of the catalytic functions fundamental to living
systems. In 1996, NASA concluded that the RNA World hypothesis is
plagued by “significant difficulties” notably by the chemical fragility
of RNA and the fact that it possesses a very narrow range of catalytic
activities. Charles Carter, a structural biologist at the University of
North Carolina, has provided evidence that RNA molecules alone
would not have been sufficient for all the processes needed to initiate
life on Earth, and Harold S. Bernhardt even referred to the idea as
‘the worst theory of the early evolution of life’, stating that RNA’s
complexity means it could not have arisen prebiotically.
Life-Particles or Jeewanu
In the 1960s, the Indian scientist, K. Bahadur reported synthesizing

living globules called ‘’Jeewanu” (Jeevanu is a Sanskrit word meaning
particles of life). These, he claimed had similar properties to so-called
coacervates, suggested by Oparin. Bahadur believed that life is an
inherent property of matter which can appear under special conditions
and that Jeewanu are living units. Although the Sri Lankan Chemist
Cyril Ponamperuma, was unable to repeat Bahadur’s work, the
Hungarian chemist Tibor Ganti considered the Jeewanu a promising,
overlooked, model system to understand the origin and fundamentals
of life. Experimental replication of Jeewanu was published in 2013 by
Gupta and Rai who claimed that the globules showed growth, metabolic
activities, and the presence of RNA-like material; they further claimed
that the RNA-like material detected in the Jeewanu protocells support
the RNA world hypothesis. Yet again, we have a theory, based on some
experimental data, which warrants further examination and more
rigorous scrutiny.
The above theories are intellectually impressive, and satisfying
to some, yet they fail to provide a convincing explanation of the
origin of life and we are still left with unsatisfactory statements that
15
conclude each of these claims----and then life began. All of this begs
the question — did life ever originate on Earth? At first sight, this
question seems so ridiculous, why would anyone bother to ask it!
Perhaps however, life in the cosmos always was. Now, this appears like
a religious statement but it becomes more explicable when we observe
that the human mind is programmed to think in terms of beginnings
and ends. We think of life beginning and ending, likewise with degree
courses and marriages starting and often ending. We are hard-wired
then to think in terms of beginnings and endings. So it is with life —
it must have had an origin. This feels like an unsatisfying explanation,
but it is similarly impossible for the vast majority of people to accept
the concept of infinity (other than by employing abstract ideas of
mathematics). We believe infinity, an ancient Indian concept, must

be true because we have been told it exists by more sophisticated
minds than our own, but still we emotionally want an ending to space.
Louis Pasteur clearly had doubts about life having an origin as can be
gleaned from this statement:
I have sought spontaneous generation without discovering it for
twenty years. No, I do not consider it impossible. But by what
authority do you maintain that this is the way life originated? You
put matter before life and thus make inanimate life eternal. Who tells
you that the incessant progress of science will not compel scientists
a century, a millennium, ten millenniums hence…to declare that life
and not matter is eternal.
Biologists who claim that life began on Earth need to explain

why this would happen on an insignificant planet in the corner of an
equally unremarkable galaxy. The answer could be that it was just pure
happenstance. Of course another answer might be that it reflects the
notion that we believe that we are the “centre” of the universe, looking
out from ourselves to the cosmos; life must have begun on Earth we
tell ourselves because we are nature’s (God’s?) ultimate creation. Well
maybe we are, and this is the only planet on which life originated
and continues to exist. Probability arguments, however, clearly and
overwhelmingly suggest otherwise.
Organics from Space and Life’s Origin
It is remarkable how science progresses with the changing times. In

the late 1980s, the claim by Fred Hoyle and CW that interstellar space
is full of organic molecules, derived from comets, was ridiculed; the
claimed absence of these compounds (from poor astronomical data)
was then used as a stick to beat the theory of cometary panspermia.
Now, an internet search readily brings up news, with titles like “The
Building Blocks of Life May Have Come from Space” Although this
latest evidence is claimed to be a form of panspermia in the true
sense it is not, since panspermia (life everywhere) refers to living
organisms, rather than chemicals; the presence of organics in space,
and the fact that they can be transported to Earth and elsewhere is
however, obviously relevant to the origin of life on this planet. As one
of us (CW) and Fred Hoyle maintained stridently in the 1980’s is that
they represent the degradation products of biology, firmly attesting
the validity of the theory of cometary panspermia.
In 2005, Jocda Llorca and co-workers, for example, analysed
cometary dust in the stratosphere and space (notably from comets)
and found a great variety of organic compounds. They conclude:
Since substantial amounts of cometary dust were gently deposited
on Earth, their organic content could have played a role in prebiotic
processes prior to the appearance of microorganisms.
They also suggest that the moons of Jupiter may also likely have
received such inputs.
Scientists at the University of Massachusetts have also recently
found complex primordial organics in cometary nuclei and suggest
that radioactive isotopes in comets provide heat to melt cometary
ice, providing organic-rich water over “geologically and biologically
significant time periods”, which could have been delivered to the
lifeless Earth; a process which will obviously continue to the present
day. It is precisely this model of radioactively heated cometary pools
that Hoyle and CW discussed in their 1984 book Living Comets not
17
in the context of transporting lifeless organics but as sites for the

maintenance of microbiological habitats over billions of years — thus
validating panspermia.
A modern version of the iconic Urey–Miller experiment has
been conducted by R.J. Kaiser at Berkeley, who combined carbon
dioxide, ammonia and other chemicals, like methane, at super cold
temperatures and created a “mini-comet”. When they exposed this to
electrons, amino acids and dipeptides were formed. They conclude
that:
This study reveals unambiguously, that extra-terrestrial polypeptides,
once produced, could have inseminated early Earth via comets, and
catalysed its biological evolution.
Impact events can, it seems alter, these organics. For example,

remarkable, new evidence shows how simple organics may have
been transformed into more complex pro-life molecules. In 2015,
for example, Harun Sugahara of Nagoya University conducted shock
experiments on a frozen mixture of amino acids, water and silicate at
cryogenic temperatures (77 K), and a vertical gun was used to simulate
cometary impact-events. Significantly, amino acids were converted
to proteins. While such results are exciting and vindicate part of the
Hoyle and Wickramasinghe Theory of Cometary panspermia, we are
still left with the nagging question (at least in relation to the chemical
theory of life’s origin) — how do these chemicals, however formed,
come together to form a living organism? The odds against this
remain superastronomical.
Importance of Aerobic Heterotrophy to the

Development of Intelligent Life on Earth
Aerobic heterotrophy is the most efficient means by which an organism

can gain energy. This metabolic strategy provided the energy to
allow simple organisms to move, to become predators, and to evade
predation. Predation is the major driving force of evolution, since in

the concept of survival of the fittest it leads to the selection process
that leads to complexity. Such complexity leads to the large efficient
brain of Man (Homo sapiens) and has (with the development of an
opposable thumb) allowed Man to develop technology, which in turn,
one might argue, has led to computers, books, telescopes manned
space flight and the exploration of the cosmos; all the result of Man’s
ability to utilise aerobic heterotrophy. No other metabolic strategy
could have provided the energy for driving evolution to intelligent
organisms which can split the atom, unravel the nature of DNA, and
explore space! A corollary of this observation is that highly developed,
intelligent or super intelligent organisms can only arise and evolve on
an aerobic planet.
Whether aerobic heterotrophy first arrived in an organism from
space via panspermia or developed in situ on Earth is immaterial,
although its establishment on this planet could only have followed the
appearance of the oxygen generating process of photosynthesis. The
importance of aerobic heterotrophy lies then in the fact that it is the
only growth strategy which can lead to predation and the evolutionary
arms race which eventually endowed our planet with intelligence.
Silicon and Life
The idea championed by many science fiction writers that silicon

could replace carbon as both an energy source and the building block
for complex biomolecules is in our view extremely unlikely, simply
because silicon tends to form extremely stable bonds. It is therefore
difficult to conceive of silicon being used to build biomass and act
as an energy source. However, silicon may have played a role in the
establishment of the first bacteria that arose in the cosmos, or arrived
to Earth. Life uses whatever is available at hand, so it would not be
surprising indeed to find that the second most common element on
Earth is used by cells in a more direct way, rather than merely acting
as a component of plant cell walls and diatom shells.
3
Historical Overview of Life’s Origins
T he current scientific consensus tends to distance itself from

panspermic ideas and resolutely maintains that life on Earth
arose as a one-off act of spontaneous generation (abiognenesis) at

some point in the past. This view has a long history; Robert Chambers
in his influential, pre-Darwin book Vestiges of the Natural History of
Creation on transmutation (i.e. evolution) of 1845 stated that:
The first step in the creation of life on this planet was the chemico-
electric operation by which simple germinal vesicles were produced.
While this view has become the orthodox opinion on the origin of
life, Alfred Russel Wallace, whose theory of “natural selection” came
at about the same time as Darwin’s, took the following, different view:
I submit that…. living protoplasm has never been chemically produced,
the assertion that life is due to chemical and mechanical processes
alone is quite unjustified. Neither the probability of such an organism
nor even its possibility has been supported by anything which can be
termed scientific facts or logical reasoning.
The current, popular view, of the likely origin of life then depends
firmly on a belief in a single act of spontaneous generation; that
simple life arose from organic chemicals here on Earth or from similar
chemicals which may conceivably have arrived from space. This proto-
life then became more complex, via an evolutionary process explained
by Darwinian and neo-Darwinian syntheses.
19
A largely ignored, schizophrenic turmoil pervades biology in

that while most (but not all) scientists believe that a one-off act of
spontaneous generation created life on Earth, when conditions
differed from what they are at present, these same scientists firmly
believe that spontaneous generation is not occurring at the present
time. This apparent certainty is largely based on a misreading of the
experiments and findings of Louis Pasteur in the 1860s. Andrew
Wilson (naturalist and author of the 1877 book, The Genesis of Life),
summed up the situation as follows:
There are some who…. whilst assuming that, in the present, life
invariably proceeds from life, assent to the statement that in
the beginning life arose from non-living matter, they admit the
possibility of life-developed de novo in the far distant past, but deny

the operation of any such action in the present.
It is forcefully claimed that, by using his famous swan neck

flasks, Pasteur, once and for all, destroyed the belief in spontaneous
generation. In fact, what Pasteur showed was that, if a simple nutrient
solution is thoroughly boiled and then exposed to air lacking
microbes, it will remain sterile until it is re-exposed to the microbe-
laden atmosphere. Pasteur’s contemporary critics pointed out that
things might have been different had Pasteur changed the conditions
of the experiment by using a more complex nutrient solution, by
adding some clay or silicon or by incubating his flask over a range of
fluctuating temperatures for an indefinite length of time; the possible
combinations of conditions that may be argued to have produced life
in Pasteur’s flasks are, of course, endless. But they are all without any
empirical backing.
Pasteur’s experiments demonstrated merely that he could kill most
microbes by boiling (spores sometimes survived) and that the air is
rich in microorganisms which readily contaminate boiled solutions.
Although these experiments were essential for the development of
the germ theory, the pasteurization of food and the introduction of
antiseptic (and later aseptic) surgery, they prove nothing about the
21
existence of spontaneous generation, other than that, if it does occur,

it will do so under far more complex conditions than allowed for in
Pasteur’s experiments. To his credit, Pasteur pointed out this simple
fact in the following words, which have been ignored ever since:
You will note that I never claimed to have proved that spontaneous
generation is impossible. In matters of this kind a negative cannot be
proved, and: It cannot be proved a priori that there is no spontaneous
generation. It is impossible to do more than demonstrate (1) that
there are unperceived errors in the experiments, (2) that when the
causes of error are removed without disturbing the fundamental
conditions of the tests all signs of lower life disappear.
The physicist (who determined the value of absolute zero temperature)

and inventor Lord Kelvin was one of the first to suggest that life may
have been delivered to Earth by meteors, or comets. Kelvin was not
impressed by the arguments of evolution and he claimed to show that
the Earth was too young for the process to have occurred. Darwin
said of him:
Thompson’s view of the recent age of the world have been for some
time one of sorest troubles.
He was also amongst the first to use the terms, intelligent and
benevolent design. At the end of his now famous Presidential Address
to the Edinburgh Meeting of the British Association in 1871 he stated:
Because we all confidently believe that there is at present, and have
been from time immemorial many worlds of life besides our own,
we must regard it as probable in the highest degree that there are
countless seed-bearing meteoric stones moving about space.
The hypothesis that some life has actually originated on the Earth
through moss-grown fragments from the ruins of another world may
seem wild and visionary. All I maintain, is that it is not unscientific
and cannot rightly be said to be impossible.
He then points out the paradox between those who maintain that
the spontaneous generation of life is impossible, yet apparently arose
on Earth once by abiogenesis:
I confess to being deeply impressed by the evidence put before us by

Professor Huxley, and I am ready to adapt, as an article of scientific
faith that through all space and time that life proceeds from life and
nothing but life.
Kelvin’s argument would have probably been made more plausible

had he suggested that microbes, rather than moss, were the organisms
delivered by panspermia. Not surprisingly, his ideas came in for a lot
of criticism from Darwinists. Joseph Hooker, the famous naturalist,
friend and champion of Darwin, for example, wrote:
The notion of introducing life on Meteors is astounding and very
unphilosophical… For my part, I would as soon believe in the
Phoenix as in the meteoritic import of life.
The possibility then that life may, even at this moment be arising
spontaneously in a nearby pond, or perhaps in a deep-sea vent, has
never been adequately dismissed (of course if it did so, it would likely
be consumed by existing life). The founder of endocrinology, coiner
of the word insulin and discoverer of adrenalin, Shapley Schafer said
as much in 1924:
We can by no means be certain that the evolution of non-living into
living cannot be happening still.
The idea that life is originating from simple chemicals today goes
so much against the current paradigm that it seems impossible to
even contemplate; but why then should we accept that it happened
in this way in the past? The simplistic answer, is that conditions were
different then!
The last serious attempt to demonstrate that life can have
a modern origin was by the British pathologist and dedicated
evolutionist, Henry Charlton Bastian. Working in the late 1800s and
early twentieth century, Bastian believed that life could originate
de novo (abiogenesis, or archebiosis) as well as from the products of
previous life (heterogenesis). His work was never replicated however,
and much of it can be explained by the ability of bacteria to grow
23
in apparently nutrient-free solutions, particularly in the presence

of added silicon compounds. Bastian believed that bacteria must
have been continuously originating based on the fact that they, even
over vast periods of time, have never evolved into more complex
organisms since life is said to have originated on Earth. He suggested
bacteria and other microorganisms arise de novo throughout history
and that modern forms arose now and have not had time to evolve
into more complex organisms. It is interesting to note that Bastian
was a confirmed Darwinist and asserted that spontaneous generation
was a necessary component of requirement for evolutionary theory.
Darwin read Bastian’s work with interest, and concluded that while
Bastian had some good ideas, he did not accept his findings; he
remained thoroughly convinced of the truth of archebiosis however.

Thomas Huxley, “Darwin’s Bulldog” also asserted that “if the theory of
evolution is true, then living must have arisen from non-living”.
Huxley made his own contribution to the origin of life theory
when he claimed to have discovered, Bathybius haeckelii, a substance
that he, at first, believed was a type of primordial matter and the
source of all organic life. It was however, later shown to be the
product of marine precipitation; surprisingly, Huxley was even
accused of deliberate fraud on the matter. In 1868 Huxley examined
an old sample of mud from the Atlantic seafloor and thought he had
discovered an organic substance which he called Bathybius haeckelii
in honour of the German biologist, Ernst Haekel, who had theorized
that life originated from a substance he called “Urschleim”. Huxley
thought that Bathybius could be that link between dead and living
matter. In 1872, the Challenger expedition spent three years studying
the world’s oceans, but found no evidence of Bathybius. Huxley
recanted immediately, but Haekel believed in Bathybius until 1883.
However, not everyone has taken this materialist, Earth-centric
view of life. Alfred Russel Wallace for example, believed that if life is
unique to Earth and that it exists everywhere (particularly intelligent
life) then this reality would merely reduce Man to an animal and of
no particular importance in the Universe. He believed that Man’s
intellect may well have been directed by some higher intelligence.

Contrast this with the following statement, again by Thomas Huxley,
which is in complete agreement with the generally held modern view
of life and how it came into being:
A mass of living protoplasm is simply a molecular machine of
greet complexity, the total results of the works of which, or its vital
phenomenon, depend, on the one hand, on its constitution, and on
the other, upon the energy supplied to it; and to speak of “vitality” as
anything but the name of series of operations is as if one should talk
of the horology of a clock.
The modern microbiologists, Woese and Goldenfield sum up the

current status of biology brilliantly, as follows:
Biology…. is a discipline whose perspective is that of classical 19th-

century physics, inherently incapable of dealings with the problems
of a nonlinear world, which is non-reductionist, non-deterministic
(acausal), and works in terms of fields and emergent properties, not a
static world of particles with linear relationships among them.
Andrew Crosse and an Early Attempt to Create Life
A fascinating story claims to link Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and the

history of theories on the origin of life. Frankenstein or the modern
Prometheus was published in 1818 and it has been suggested that
Shelley got the idea of creating life from the awareness of the work
of a certain Andrew Crosse, a claim which, in fact, turns out to be
wrong. Crosse’s story remains interesting however. He was regarded as
something of an ecentric and referred to locally as the “The thunder
and lightning man” because of his experiments conducted in the
Quantock Hills of Somerset in England (Fig. 3.1).
Andrew Crosse claimed he could create life in the laboratory
merely by the passing of low electric current through a solution of
potassium silicate. The life forms he claimed to produce were small
mites (which he called Ascarus electricus, or, Ascarus crossii) with
fine hairs, which after twenty-eight days he said, began to move. The
25
Fig. 3.1. Andrew Crosse, “The thunder and lightning man”.
experiments were, it seems repeated by his friend W.H. Weeks. Crosse

never claimed that he had created life de novo, believing instead that
the electric current probably stimulated some air borne ova into
hatching; despite this, he claimed the same result occurred when the
electrified solution was kept sealed from the air. The experiments were
later unsuccessfully repeated by a German Professor, called Schulze.
In 1837, a number of newspapers reported that Michael Faraday had
also replicated Crosse’s results, and discussed them at a meeting of
the Royal Institution on February, 28th, 1837. However, this appears
not to have been the case; Faraday it seems, never even attempted
the experiments. Incidentally, Faraday made an interesting comment
about life in space at the Royal Institution in 1838:
In other planets, other beings may and very probably exist, and all
things agree wonderfully suited to them as they are with us; but as
yet we do not possess sufficient observations to decide the question.
In the early nineteenth century, Andrew Crosse lived in an

isolated country house in the Quantock hills of Somerset. Based on
his experiments on electricity, he was locally known as the “Wizard
of the Quantocks the thunder and lightning man”, or simply, “the
electrician”. The experiments were conducted around 1805 in a
laboratory set up in his home, Fyn Court. Mary Shelley’ diary reveals
that she, and her husband, Percy Bythe Shelley attended a lecture
given by Crosse (Fig. 3.2) in London, in 1814. It seems likely that
the Crosse’s lecture gave Mary Shelley the idea of using electricity to
breathe life into Frankenstein’s monster.
Crosse’s work had an unfortunate impact on the history of
evolution. It was quoted by Robert Chambers in his Vestiges of the
Natural History of Creation as a valid scientific experiment which

provided proof of spontaneous generation. Religiously biased critics of
transmutation (i.e. evolution) could point to the obvious ridiculousness
of Crosse findings, and summarily dismissed Chambers’, otherwise
rational ideas on evolution.
Darwin and the Origin of Life
Charles Darwin (1809–1882) lived through a period of history that

saw two revolutions in biology. The first encouraged by his own
work was the revolution in evolution, the second was the growing
understanding of the role that microorganisms, or germs, play in
human diseases. One might get the impression from reading bio-
graphies of Darwin that this second revolution passed him by totally,
and this was the impression one of us (MW) got before delving more
deeply into the connections between Darwin and germs. While
Darwin worked on such diverse topics as insectivorous plants and
earthworms, he surprisingly, never worked with microbes or became
involved in the controversy raging from 1860 for the next forty, or
so years over so-called spontaneous generation as we have seen. This
was a long-held idea that living things just arrive from nowhere, or
27
de novo (from new) to use the scientific expression. Whether Darwin

thought all this new-fangled work on germs was for younger men, or
that the new science of microbiology was a somewhat esoteric area of
biology, best left to the experts, we will never know. Darwin certainly
had a microscope which he was fond of using in his research. With
his considerable talents, he might have made a major impact on the
development of the role of germs in the environment and as causal
agents of disease. Likewise, there is no mention of microbes in the
later editions of the Origin of Species, and Darwin never introduced
bacteria into his thinking on evolution.
Now, it is generally assumed, though yet to be demonstrated,
that life arose on Earth from chemical building blocks (recent studies
claim that these building blocks themselves may have originated from
space), and the first organisms would have been simple and ultimately
evolved to bacteria. Darwin however, never dwelled on the origin of
life on Earth, thinking it a topic beyond science of the time.
In an 1859 letter Darwin did however, explain to Lyell
The parent monad-form might perfectly well survive unaltered
& fitted for its simple conditions, whilst the offspring of this very
monad might become fitted for more complex conditions. The one
primordial prototype of all living and extinct creatures may it is
possible be now alive!
Darwin later wrote to Thomas Henry Huxley “we know nothing

as yet [of] how life originates”. Then, in the 3rd edition of Origin of
Species (1861) Darwin added the remark:
Science as yet throws no light on the far higher problem of the
essence or origin of life.
But perhaps most revealing of all about Darwin’s view on the

beginning of life is the often-quoted comment from an 1871 letter to
Hooker:
It is often said that all the conditions for the first production of a living
organism are now present, which could never have been present. But
if (and oh! what a big if!) we could conceive some warm little pond,
with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity,
etc, present, that a protéine compound was chemically formed ready
to undergo still more complex changes, at the present day such
matter would be instantly devoured or absorbed, which would not
have been the case before living creatures were formed.
Even to the end of his life Darwin maintained that there was no
evidence to support spontaneous generation and no valid explanation
of how life originated.
Though no evidence worth anything has as yet, in our opinion, been
advanced in favour of a living being, being developed from inorganic
matter, yet we cannot avoid believing that this will be proved some
day in accordance with the law of continuity.
These two comments are remarkable for 1871; in fact, the first
is one of Darwin’s most original statements. Darwin would say little
about the origin of life, clearly believing that the subject lay outside
the orbit of science and could not be subjected to experimental
verification, certainly not during the Victorian age. Surprisingly,
considering that Darwin is held in such high esteem, this short
paragraph (beginning, “it is often said”) has been known, but not
emphasised. Let us then comment on what we think is remarkable
about it. The paragraph sums up the so-called chemical theory of life,
the idea that life arose from inorganic chemicals. Surprisingly, life
is not something that is easy to define. We all know what life is, we
see it and experience it every day, but to sum up in a sentence what
distinguishes you the reader from the desk or coffee table in front of
you is not as easy as you might imagine. As a result, life is defined by
a number of characteristics. Living organisms for example reproduce,
they have ordered chemistry that leads to the synthesis of new body
material; they can by various means, obtain energy to keep them alive,
moving and growing; they use DNA and RNA as information systems;
and finally, they generally react often to stimuli. All life on earth is
based on carbon, a fact which is no accident, since the chemistry of
29
carbon is superbly fitted to building complex polymers, like proteins

which make up the bodies, or biomass, of living organisms. Carbon
also readily forms bonds with itself and other elements; these bonds
can however, be readily broken to release energy. This means that
carbon can be built up during life and decay after death contributing
to what is called the carbon cycle. All of us will one day return to the
biosphere, the elements of which we contain will then be recycled into
new organisms.
Let us get back to Darwin’s famous origin of life paragraph. For
the moment, let us ignore the first line and go into the paragraph at
the point of… But if…. Here we see Darwin describing the essentials
of the chemical theory
some warm little pond before life began in which all sorts of
chemicals come together and up pops life; the other essential
ingredients apparently being light heat and electricity. Darwin
considers here that some form of energy would have to be infused into
a system to create life. Subliminally, he is perhaps thinking of the
necessity of applying a life force to the chemical mix in order to create
life. Modern scientists do not believe in a life force. We think instead
that a gradient from non-living to life occurred without the need of a
specific life-giving force. Such a life-force has of course traditionally
been held by philosophers to exist. Darwin’s words can be seen from
another angle, what if light and electricity, rather than providing a life
force, actually modified the chemicals involved, so that they came
together to from the building blocks of life. This is the basis of the
experiments by Harold Urey and Stanley Miller on which the modern
chemical theory of life is based. In the early 1950s the young Stanley
Miller was looking for a research project to work on for a PhD with
his supervisor Harold Urey, already a Nobel Prize winner, who had
formulated a program aimed at attempting to make the basic chemical
building blocks of life, such as the amino acids, from inorganic
chemicals.
The task before Miller was therefore to create the chemical
building blocks of life using inorganic chemicals and conditions
that might have been present on prebiotic Earth. The apparatus

used was relatively simple, but potentially explosive! A mixture of
gasses contained in a glass vessel could be exposed to spark and
the resultant products dissolved and condensed in water. When
Miller passed a spark through a mixture of gases, to everyone’s great
delight, he produced a mix of amino acids. Since then, most of the
important building blocks of life have been formed using this and
other similar methods. However, controversy still reigns over whether
the conditions used actually simulate the prebiotic earth, but such
arguments are splitting hairs because the fundamental fact about these
experiments is that they tell us a lot about chemistry, but very little
about the origin of life. The best that can be said is that it is easy to
make the relatively simple building blocks of life, but amino acids or
any other chemical mixes do not form living organisms while sitting
there in reagent bottles on laboratory shelves! Biologists have hyped
these experiments beyond belief! Their latest manifestation is in the
probability that most of life’s building blocks were delivered to Earth
from space in, for example comets, a kind of chemical panspermia.
It doesn’t matter however, where these chemicals come from, there
remains an infinite distance between them being present and life
beginning. Darwin assumes in his famous paragraph that life would
originate in the presence of light. Light however, is germicidal and
would likely have denatured any proto-life forms. Interestingly most
traditions suggest that life began in a dark watery world.
There is a rare pamphlet that was published in 1894 by the Leeds
Astronomical Society. In this, which is the second of the Society’s
Reports and Transactions, can be found an article by the Society’s
then president, a certain Mr W.D. Barbour. Mr Barbour discusses the
possibility that life exists elsewhere in the universe and makes the
following relevant quote on the early ideas on the origin of life.
Other ancient traditions, or cosmogonies, are corroborative of
the “dark water production” of life. Chaldean represents water as
the producing mother. Babylonian commences with “nothing but
darkness and an abyss of water”. An Egyptian story of the origin of
31
the universe, mentions an abyss enveloped in boundless darkness.

Phoenician alludes to an eternal dark chaos and creatures developed
from water.
These ideas are reflected in modern scientific ideas that life may
have first begun under water smokers, a nice enough idea, but there is
absolutely no evidence to support it!
Microbial invasion from Venus!
Unusual, somewhat speculative evidence for panspermia was

provided by the astronomer, D.R. Barber whilst working at the
Norman Lockyer observatory near Sidmouth in England where

he spent much of his time developing photographic plates. The
procedure for developing plates in the old days involved aqueous
solutions of various silver halides. Over a twenty-five-year period
between 1937 and 1961 Barber observed six unique events involving
the mysterious fogging of his photographic plates. This was caused
by the appearance in water (from an isolated well-supply) of large
numbers of gelatine-liquefying microbes. These caused major damage
to photographic material in the brief period (three quarters to one
hour) between the washing and drying processes of astronomical
plates and films. The growth caused distinct pitting of gelatine silver
layers of 0.05 to 0.25 cm. The presence of microbes in the pits was
first detected using a stain called methylene blue, which is widely
used to stain bacteria. Over thirty photographic astronomy records
were destroyed. Then in 1956 there was similar invasion of airborne
microorganisms. The source of the pitting was laid at the door
of two organisms, an unidentified yeast and the bacterium, Bacillus
fluorescens. Both organisms were silver resistant. Barber stated:
The results showed that each recorded presence of abnormal
quantities of microorganisms in the local (supply well) or on
processed photographic marker coincided closely in date with an
inferior conjunction of Venus and a major geomagnetic storm.
So why has no one else seemingly reported this event? Well,

they have suffered the same problem, but not being astronomers
failed to recognise its significance. Barber also said that he employed a
special processing system which may have enhanced the phenomenon.
He also pointed out that the occurrence coincided with northerly
winds which apparently would have been expected to have brought
particles from the upper atmosphere to that part of Devon. So an
experienced observational astronomer links microbial influx with
the transit of Venus. Barber, however, may have been over-optimistic
in assuming microbial transfers with every inferior conjunction of
Venus; realistically the two planets would be connected biologically
over timescales of several decades. Nevertheless, the next transit of
Venus is in December 2025. We could be there, ready with our Petri

dishes containing gelatine and silver ions to test this claim.
4
History of Ideas About Life on
Other Planets
It is unnatural in a large field to have only one shaft of wheat and in

the infinite universe only one living world.........
Metrodorus of Chios, (400 BCE)
B y the early 1800s many thinkers considered it an obvious possi-

bility that life exists on other planets (spheres and globes, as they
were often called). This belief was based largely on the simple dictum
that the Creator (generally used in reference to the Christian God)
would never have established such a large number of worlds only to
leave them empty; or as Isaac Taylor states, in his Physical Theory of
Another Life of 1836:
None could tolerate the idea, and especially seeing what we see in
our own planet, that the innumerable spheres around us are totally
untenanted, and that the stupendous celestial mechanism, is a
mechanism merely.
A particularly common feature of this early literature is how often

a view is given that living things are adapted to the conditions found
on Earth and that such adaptation occurs in life-forms which exist on
other planets. Such ideas were current before Charles Darwin wrote
his seminal work on evolution in 1859.
The Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (which pre-
dated On the Origin of Species), was first published anonymously, by
33
Robert Chambers (of the encyclopaedia-publishing family, Fig. 4.1).

Chambers, unlike Darwin, speculates on the possibility of evolution
(or transmutation as it was then called) on other planets:
The whole train of animated beings, from the simplest and oldest up
to the highest and most recent are, then, to be regarded as a series
of advances on the principle of development which have depended
upon external physical circumstances to which the resulting animals
are appropriate... I contemplate the whole phenomenon as being
driven in the first place arranged in the councils of the Divine
Wisdom, to take place, not only upon this sphere (planet) but upon
all the others in space, under necessary conditions and modifications,
and being carried on, from the first to the last, here and elsewhere,
under immediate favour of creative will or energy.
Chambers went even further, suggesting that:

Where there is light there will be eyes, and these in other spheres, will
be the same in all respects, as the eyes of tellurian animals, with only
differences as may be necessary to accord with minor peculiarities of
condition and situation.
Fig. 4.1. Robert Chambers. One of number of authors who influenced Darwin.
And finally:
Thus, as one set of laws produced all orbs and their motions and
geognostic arrangements, on one set of laws overspread them all with
life. The whole production or creative arrangements are therefore in
perfect unity. It is likely...that the inhabitants of all other globes of
space bear not only a general, but a particular resemblance to those
of our own.
Darwin generally avoided philosophical arguments. On the Origin

of the Species provides a straightforward synthesis of then available
arguments on the species question, extended by various references
to Darwin’s own observations. He generally avoided speculating
at length on issues such as how life originated. In an 1863 letter to
Hooker he did however comment, “It is mere rubbish, thinking at

present of the origin of life, one might as well think of the origin of
matter”. Other Victorian thinkers did, however, consider the possibility
of life on other worlds, the most famous contribution being, The
Plurality of Worlds by William Whewell, in 1855. Whewell, like a
number of others, speculated on the possibility that the development
of life on Earth had been influenced by the catastrophic arrival of
comets or asteroids from space, a possibility, which Darwin, the
strict gradualist, did not entertain in his writings. Such gradualism
conflicts with modern ideas on “punctuated equilibrium”, the idea
that evolution occurs in spurts instead of following the slow, but
steady path that Darwin suggested.
The concept of the “habitable zone” is currently very much in
vogue. Sometimes referred to as the Goldilocks Theory, it suggests
that the Earth is perfectly positioned for its role as an abode for life;
as the following quote shows however, this is far from being a novel
view:
Our position in the solar system is very truly affirmed by astronomers
to be an extremely favourable one. Less distant from the sun than
Saturn, Mars, and Jupiter, and yet unlike Venus and Mars not so
near as to feel his power, too — the Earth seems to be fitted for the
residence of man during his state of probation.
The above comment was made by William Pinnock in 1836.

Continuing with the theme that the majority of current ideas about
life have an earlier origin, it is interesting to consider Gaia, the
claimed modern idea that the Earth acts like a self-regulating living
organism, a hypothesis generally credited to Sir James Lovelock.
However, the Victorian geographer, Sir Richard Strachey, came up
with the Gaia hypothesis in his address to Geographical Section of the
British Association in Bristol on August 26th, 1875:
The picture I have thus attempted to draw presents to us our earth
carrying with it, or receiving from the sun or other external bodies,
as it travels through celestial space, all the materials and all the
forces by help of which are fashioned whatever we see upon it. We
may liken it to a great complex living organism, having an inert

substratum of inorganic matter on which are formed many separate
organized centres of life, but all bound up together by a common law
of existence, each individual part depending on those around it, and
on past conditions as a whole. Science is the study of the relations of
the several parts of this organism one to another and of the parts to
the whole.
Although Strachey’s views were further developed by Lovelock,

here we have an earlier view of the Earth as an organism, given
some hundred years before the idea was formalized as “Gaia”. In
a similar vein, the Polish-German Professor Eduard Strassberger,
(the discoverer of mitosis, cytoplasm and nucleoplasm), rather than
emphasising the “survival of the fittest, emphasised the ways in which
organisms cooperate with one another:
But since the life of every living organism on Earth is more or less
conditional by the lives of all other organisms, it is quite reasonable
from a higher standpoint to regard life on Earth as great symbiose.
It is possible then rather than always thinking of organisms out-

competing one another, to consider how different organisms arriving
on Earth from space might collaborate in the process of evolution.
Since it has always been assumed that life originated on Earth (if
it did so) only once, the possibility that life may have arisen multiple
times appears novel and exciting. However, if we had a full history
of astrobiology it would become obvious that this idea is far from
new; Alfred Russel Wallace, for example, stated in 1890 that:
Now it is manifest that if we look back, as far as possible, into the
remote past when the first germ of animal life appeared upon the
globe, two conditions of things and two only, are conceivable. Either
(A) there was a single germ of life from which all subsequent living
forms have been evolved or developed or (B) there are several or
many germs of life from which in separate streams, so to speak, the
evolution of living creatures took place. Darwin, inclined, I think
to the latter supposition; but either A or B must be accepted by all

evolutionists of all schools.
In 1865, the German physician, Hermann Richter responded to

Darwin’s silence on the origin of life by stating:
We regard the existence or organic life in the universe as eternal
and cosmic; it has always existed and has propagated itself in
uninterrupted succession.
He termed this extraterrestrial life cozmozoa, and suggested that

the idea that life comes from space to be logically consistent with
other ideas in science and not only that, it provided a cornerstone for
Darwin’s Theory. Then in 1908, the Swedish physical chemist Svante
Arrhenius suggested a novel version of Richter’s cozmozoa theory,
naming it “Panspermia”. Arrhenius provided a mechanism by which
life could be transported between planets, suggesting that bacterial
spores were propelled through inter-planetary space by radiation
pressure.
Although most histories of panspermia are restricted to a
discussion of the contributions made by scientists like Richter,
Helmholtz, Lord Kelvin and Svante Arrhenius, the subject has a more
interesting and complex origin. Who would believe, for example,
that the famous inventor Thomas Alva Edison was a convinced

panspermist? — arguing that:
The thought that life originated on this insignificantly little and
comparatively unimportant sphere to me seems so inconceivably
egotistical.
Edison came up with the idea of what he termed “life units” and
added the supposed existence of these to his view of panspermia and
came out with this remarkable comment which we used to head the
Introduction to this book:
After the earth cooled of the great heat of its assemblage, life units
came to it through space, into which they had been thrown from
some other more developed sphere or spheres, Reaching the earth,

they adapted themselves to the environment they found here; and
then began the evolution of the various species as we have them each
growing individual being a collection of cell communes… It is not
impossible that, when we find the ultimate unit of life, we shall learn
that the journey through far space never could harm it and that there
is very little that could stop it…Such units of life have come, and
possibly still are coming, without injury through the cold of space.
Comets as the Source of Panspermic Life
The main theory to be developed in this book is the Theory of Cometary

Panspermia, that is that comets provide the environment where life
exists, replicates and is distributed throughout the cosmos (although
asteroids also play a role). Comets have historically been seen not
only as harbingers of pestilence and disaster, but also the bringers of
life to Earth. For example, the following two quotes from the French
astronomer Camille Flammarion, in his influential book, A General
Description of the Heavens (1895):
Whence came the first seed, the first germ of terrestrial life? It was either a
spontaneous generation, or it descended from the sky....................... In
the second case, the meteorites which follow the cometary train may come
from distant worlds, the debris of which they transport through
space, among which latent germs may survive, ready to fall on a

prepared Earth and bloom into the conditions of existence. Comets —
their importance would be much greater still if they should be found
to carry in them the first combinations of carbon, for it is probable
that it was by these combinations that vegetable and animal life
commenced on the earth and the other planets and these vagrant
bodies might be the source of life on all the worlds.
Mary Somerville, author of Mechanisms of the Heavens (1831),

on Molecular and Microscopical Science and On the Connections of the
Physical Sciences remarked in 1855 that:
It has often been imagined that the tails of comets have infused new
substances into the atmosphere.
While William Whiston concluded that comets delivered the

Flood and that:
At the worst, comets may be the water carriers for every observation
tends to prove that they are masses of transparent fluids.
By the way, Mary Somerville’s book On the Connection, was

the bestselling science book in the UK, prior to the appearance of
Darwin’s On the Origin of Species.
Finally, here is an anonymous quote from the popular magazine,
The Living Age, of 1861, which links comets and evolution of life on
Earth.
Had we been disciples of Lamarck, we should certainly have fixed
on the embrace of comets as the most probable explanation of the
development of species, that raising of one type of existence into a
higher.
De Maillet: Arguably the First “Modern” Proponent

of Panspermia
While Greek philosophers, like Anaxagoras, suggested the possibility

that life on Earth arrived from space or other planets in the 5th century

Fig. 4.2. De Maillet: arguably the first “modern” proponent of Panspermia.
BCE, these ideas lay dormant for nearly 2,000 years, until the French
philosopher, Benoit De Maillet provided a “modern” (opposed to
“ancient”) argument in favour of panspermia. De Maillet, a French
Government official, was widely travelled and was the author of an
anonymous book entitled Telliamed (De Maillet spelt backwards).
(Fig. 4.2). This book, which featured an imagined conversation between
a fictitious oriental (Indian) and equally fictitious European, became
a highly influential early text on geology and even detailed a theory
of evolution. For many years, Telliamed circulated in manuscript form
amongst French intellectuals, and was only published in 1748, ten
years after De Maillet died. An English edition was published in
1750 although the first unabridged version was only made available
in the late 1960s by Carozzi.
The references made by De Maillet to panspermia can be found

in a marginal note to his Third Conversation in which he states that
“seeds” are found throughout the cosmos; but what does he mean by
“seeds”? When De Maillet continues, we see he is not referring to plant
seeds, but is arguing that all life forms have arisen from microscopic
proto-forms which contain the germ of life, i.e., “seeds”, which are
impossible to see, even under the best microscopes.
The word “seed” then is used in its broad sense to mean a source,
or beginning.
It is also interesting that he speculates that such living forms might
be sub-microscopic and visualises that his “seeds” are concentrated
around planets and held there by gravity. Further, he visualizes these
seeds as traveling across the “void” of space.

Now at this point we might imagine that De Maillet is merely
talking about proto-life forms that merely resemble small seeds
or sperm, but it becomes clear however, is that he is aware that
animalculae (e.g., algae, bacteria and protozoa), are present in water
in which grass is present. De Maillet clearly believes that such micro-
scopic forms are the precursors of animals, even humans, which grow
directly into the animals and plants we see all around us on Earth.
These seeds he considers come initially from the air, but ultimately
from space and suggests that the cosmos is full of the “seeds” of
all living things and these are transmitted through the universe,
becoming more concentrated around rocky planets due to gravity.
Once they arrive on a planet with oceans, these worlds, like a vast
womb, provide a beneficial climate which nurtures the seeds until
they turn into small life forms observable under the microscope.
These small animals and plants then grow and eventually leave the sea
to colonise the land. Here, they grow to the degree of complexity we
see today. De Maillet is aware however, that some living forms do not
survive and his reference to evolution induces him to disagree with
the views of Sorel, who had claimed that “The species of animals have
existed for all times, or have been created in the past”.
De Maillet also believed that it possible that all living things

existing on Earth occur on other globes (i.e. planets). Finally, he states:
Furthermore, all the seeds do not occur around every globe. They can
only be transferred from one to another by one of these revolutions
mentioned previously, to which the entire system is subjected, that
is, the passage on globe from one vortex to another. If we could only
see all of the species populating our planets, I am convinced that we
would discover in them thousands of unknown ones.
At first sight, De Maillet’s views on panspermia do not correspond

with most recent versions which essentially view microorganisms as
the living form which is transported around the cosmos. In the recent
version of panspermia, these microbes then go on to evolve into
more developed life forms, which, on Earth, has resulted in the form
of humans. De Maillet, in contrast, views the cosmos as being full of
planets which are populated with diverse plants and animals many
of which never evolved on Earth. He also believes the small forms
(or “seeds”) which arrive on Earth and other planets; develop at first
in the oceans and then move to the land; here they then develop
directly into their mature forms, some of which fall by the wayside as
they do so.
Although the modern versions of panspermia theory generally see
microorganisms as the form that is transported throughout the cosmos,
it is interesting to note that some other authors have speculated on
the possibility that more advanced life forms may be involved in, and
may have directed panspermia. Lord Kelvin, for example, as we have
seen, talked of massy stones being transported, while Hoyle and CW
have even speculated on the possibility that insects may play a role
in panspermia. More recently, Tepfer has suggested that plant seeds
might also be transported across the cosmos. Echoing yet another
theme of De Maillet, some recent authors have argued that a vast
array of diverse life may have evolved on other planets, that life on
Earth represent only a small sample of life’s possibilities, and that
these “seeds” contain the genetic instructions for specific life forms.
Thus, it is clear that De Maillet’s views are generally consistent with

our own more recent ideas based on a more substantial body of
evidence. It is interesting to note that Tellaimed (De Maillet’s treatise)
was initially left unpublished because of the fear of a violent reaction
these ideas might evoke, especially in ecclesiastical circles. De Maillet
was perhaps wise to do so, since, in addition to believing that life was
not created by God, he also claimed that it did not even originate here
on Earth, but came from space. Such views were unlikely to make him
popular amongst a philosophical and a scientific elite most of whom
firmly believed in God and his works. De Maillet in fact goes out of
his way to avoid any mention of God, although he makes frequent
reference to the Bible as providing a means of gaining insight into the
mind-set of ancient peoples. Perhaps he was wise to do so considering

the fate that befell Giordano Bruno in 1600.
The sad story of Bruno is worth recalling. In 1584, Giordano
Bruno a Dominican priest, published his book “Dell Infinito, universo
e mondi” (“Of Infinity, the Universe, and the World”). Without benefit
of a telescope, Bruno wrote that the stars were just like our sun,
that planets must orbit these suns and that intelligent beings, just
like the humans of Earth, lived on these planets. Bruno believed life
was everywhere and that Earth was not the centre of the biological
universe. He was arrested by the Catholic Inquisition, found guilty of
heresy, and was then tortured and burned at the stake on February 19,
1600.
De Maillet can be seen as one of the first “moderns” to see the
Earth, not as the centre of creation, but merely one trivial infinitessimal
part of a vast cosmic sea of life. In this regard, he distanced himself
from subsequent philosophers and evolutionists, including Darwin,
who believed life originated on Earth. In addition, De Maillet differed
from other philosopher-scientists of his age (including Buffon) when
he stated that the Earth was two billion, rather than only a few
thousand, years old. By becoming one of the first persons to express
what might be called a post-Copernican view of biology, De Maillet’s
contribution to the history of astrobiology and evolution deserves to

be better known. Modern commentators keep coming up with ideas
about panspermia and the origin of life which they assume are novel,
but which in fact turn out to have been voiced, at the very least,
hundreds of years ago. It has become fashionable, for example, to talk
about the building blocks of life being delivered from space in the
form of organic chemicals, but here are a couple of historical views
from 1883 and 1872 respectively to add to the ones already given:
The two or three primordial organic carbohydrates needful to life
originated from certain inorganic carbohydrates of the Earth, and
these, from interplanetary space. AND:
Upwards of a hundred meteor systems have provided their tribute of
matter from outer space upon this globe, not only during the period
of Man’s existence, but doubtless from ages before he appeared
on Earth. If we not have the seeds of life conveyed to Earth from
interplanetary and interstellar space, we have a supply of many
materials to support life.
In a similar way, the idea of reverse panspermia is becoming

increasingly voiced; here it is stated in the magazine, Popular Science
of 1922:
Conversely, germ laden dust is being continuously transplanted from
our planet to other worlds. And so this interchange of matter may be
eternally spreading the same species of life throughout the universe.
Even the idea of pathospermia — diseases from space — has been

aired previously; this example, from the Report of the Natural History
and Philosophical Society of Belfast, 1889–90 is reassuring as to the
dangers of such imported pathogens:
With regard to the bacilli supposed to be imported from planetary
space, if the rules of diminution of strength of a virus (i.e., the old use
of the term to mean an infective agent) by cold is applicable to them
they should be perfectly.
Such ideas are recycled by each successive generation of scientists

because they are based on simple speculation, without evidence. In
contrast, we have broken this cycle by providing evidence that life
and organic materials are continually oncoming to Earth from space.
There has similarly been much discussion, ancient and modern,
concerning the idea that epidemics arrived on Earth from space.
In contrast to idle speculation, Fred Hoyle and CW, in their book
Diseases from Space, provided evidence, rather than mere theories to
show that influenza can be spread in this way.

5
The Astronomy of Panspermia
I n the year 2022 one could scarcely imagine that a purely astro-
nomical research project started in 1962 led to a fundamental
challenge to the received wisdom of how we came to be! How did

life originate and come to be dispersed throughout the cosmos,
planet Earth being just one of trillions of similar locales on which
this same life may have taken root and developed over the past
4 billion years. A purely astronomical investigation unconnected with
life into nature’s cosmic dust, the dust clouds that show up as dark
patches and striations against the background of stars in the Milky
Way, ended up with the conclusion that interstellar dust must include
vast quantities of bacteria and viruses in various stages of degradation
and decay. These conclusions are still being vigorously disputed by
those who still insist on preserving the status quo against all the odds.
The received wisdom in 2022, as we have already discussed, is that life
started de novo on Earth from organic molecules that were formed on
an ancient Earth by purely non-living processes. In spite of a growing
body of evidence that challenges this orthodoxy, an institutional and
cultural imperative to maintain the status quo remains implacably
strong, and still continues to dominate.
Carbon Dust in the Cosmos
The challenge of the Aristotelean concept of spontaneous generation,

for one of the present authors (CW), began in a most unlikely context
47
in 1961. CW had started a PhD project at Cambridge to re-examine

the composition and sizes of cosmic dust, the vast accumulations
of obscuring material, seen as dark markings, shapes and striations
against the background of stars in the Milky Way (Fig. 5.1). It is this
project that eventually led to the emergence of the ideas of cosmic
biology that we shall discuss later in this book.

Fig. 5.1. Clouds of obscuring dust in the mid-plane of the Milky Way.
A prelude to the nature of cosmic dust and the cosmic origins of

life, however, goes back earlier to the late 1940’s and 1950’s and to a
monumental program of work undertaken by Fred Hoyle, Geoffrey
Burbidge, Margaret Burbidge and Willy Fowler to understand how
all the chemical elements were synthesised in stars starting from
primordial hydrogen and helium. The conversion of the primordial
element H to He was already understood to take place in the deep
interiors of stars where temperatures and pressures are so high that
nucleosynthesis can take place. The reaction of 4 H nuclei merging in
these conditions into He is shown in Fig. 5.2.
It is this nuclear reaction that would keep the sun shining for
7 billion years.
49
+ neutrino + positron + energy.
Fig. 5.2. Helium synthesis in stellar cores.
The next step in the process of “nucleosynthesis” in stars involved

a prediction by Fred Hoyle in 1949 that if carbon, as we see in all life
around us, is to exist in quantity throughout the universe it must also
be synthesised in the deep interiors of stars and expelled into space.
The relevant nuclear reactions involve a two-step process (Fig. 5.3).
The first step in the process is a reaction of two helium-4 nuclei
to produce the element beryllium-8 which is highly unstable, and

decays back into smaller nuclei in far less than the blink of an eye —
its half-life being less than a billion billionth of second. It is in the
requirement of the addition of another helium nucleus to form
carbon-12 within this “blink of the eye” that led Fred Hoyle to
make his historic prediction of the existence of a hitherto unknown
and precisely defined “excited state” in the carbon nucleus, without
which carbon could not be produced. This state (now known as the
Hoyle state) was not known to exist at the time. Fred argued from
his calculations that if such a state did not exist, carbon could not be
produced in stars, and consequently we (life) would not exist. This was
the first expression of the so-called anthropic principle which asserts
that certain properties of the universe must prevail simply because
we (humans) are here! In the case of the element carbon, this so-
called excited state of the carbon nucleus (the Hoyle state) was later
discovered by William A. Fowler at the Kellogg Radiation Laboratory
at Caltech, a discovery for which Fowler was later awarded the Nobel
Prize for Physics in 1983.
The implication of the prediction of this Hoyle state and its later
verification led to the classic publication by Geoff Burbidge, Margaret
Burbidge, Willy Fowler and Fred Hoyle (B2FH paper) which laid the
foundation for our present understanding of how all the elements in
Fig. 5.3. The formation of carbon 14 from helium 4.
the periodic table, including Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, and other

elements of life, are formed from hydrogen in the deep interiors of
stars. This is considered to be one of the most monumental discoveries
of the century!
Firm beliefs about cosmic dust were already set by the work
of Dutch astronomers of the 1940’s, and almost set in stone. Every
astronomer from that time on believed that the bulk of interstellar
dust had to be formed in situ in the gigantic diffuse gas clouds of space
which had densities amounting to less than a single atom in a cubic
metre. The composition of this cosmic dust was also thought to be
beyond any dispute — composed of water ice with smaller admixtures
of other inorganic ices — very similar to the ice particles that populate
the cumulous clouds of Earth’s atmosphere. Of course, it is true that
oxygen is more abundant than carbon everywhere in space, so most
of the carbon of interstellar space one might argue would tend to
be tied up in the strongly bound molecule carbon monoxide (CO)
and not available for condensing as dust. This would be the case if
thermodynamic equilibrium prevailed, and it goes without saying
that non-thermodynamic processes — of which biology is one —
51
were not even remotely considered at the time. This was therefore an
apparently plausible argument at the time against the acceptance of a
carbonaceous composition of interstellar dust — certainly a biological
origin was not even considered at the time.
Stars emit visible light as well as radiation that is invisible to the
eye — from X rays and ultraviolet to infrared, microwave and even
radio wavelengths. The distribution of the energy radiated at these
various wavelengths depends on the temperature of the radiating
objects. The sun, which is at temperature of about 6000ºC at its
surface, emits most of its radiation in the visible part of the spectrum.
This is the circumstance that gives the chance for life to exist on Earth.
The main absorption wavelength of chlorophyll, the green colouring
substance in plants, is close to the peak emission wavelength of

the sun. The sun’s energy is thus efficiently taken up by plants to
convert water and carbon dioxide into carbohydrates, and this non-
thermodynamic process is at the base of the food chain for all life
on Earth. Other stars, if they are cooler, emit most of their energy in
the far-red or infrared wavelength range; if they are much hotter they
would emit mainly in the ultraviolet. Superposed on this continuum
of radiation emitted by stars is a host of very sharp and narrow
absorption or emission lines, giving astronomers all the information
necessary to deduce the types of chemical elements of which stars
are made.
Starlight travels vast distances through space, hundreds of light
years, to reach us. (One light year is the distance traversed by light
travelling at a speed of 300 million metres per second.) On the way
to Earth this light must cross one or more interstellar dust clouds
(Fig. 5.1). If the clouds happen to be too thick in dust they may
effectively block out all the visible light from the stars. This is indeed
the reason for the dark appearance of clouds of various shapes —
elephant’s trunks, horse’s heads or eagle’s nests — seen against the
background of stars in the Milky Way. For clouds that are not so
dense, the light from stars traversing through them is partially
absorbed and scattered by dust particles in ways that leave tell-tale
signs and signatures of their properties on the light that is received by

an observer on Earth. The dim light of a street lamp seen through a
fog has imprint on it, tell-tale signs that reveal the chemical properties
and sizes of the intervening dust particles and molecules in the air.
In the same way the dust in interstellar space leaves its own imprint
on the transmitted light from stars, and this process of deciphering
this imprint is what eventually led to the stark conclusion (we shall
come to later) that bacteria and viruses in various states of decay and
degradation exist throughout space.
Unravelling the nature of cosmic dust in this way requires
(1) astronomical observations of stars over a wide range of wavelengths,
(2) modelling the possible or plausible compositions of the dust,
and (3) performing calculations of the scattering and absorption

properties of dust in order to discriminate between various models.
This is precisely the type of research that was to occupy a large part of
the professional life of one of the present authors (CW) over the period
1962–1982, and led eventually to the theory of cosmic panspermia and
a new theory of the origins of life.
The dark clouds of interstellar space had, however, to be set in
the context of what else there existed in the Universe. The Milky Way
itself, against which these clouds can be seen, our Galaxy, is a few
hundred thousand light year-wide collection of hundreds of billions
of stars, each one more or less similar to the sun. And our galaxy is
one of many billions of similar galaxies that populate the observable
Universe that is unimaginably vast. Interstellar dust clouds are by
no means restricted to our own galaxy — our Milky Way system.
External galaxies often show conspicuous dust lanes. We know that
interstellar clouds in our own galaxy as well as in external galaxies are
stellar nurseries, the birthplace of new stars and planets. Therefore,
they must clearly have a very special importance in the scheme of
things — an importance that was not fully recognised in the 1960’s.
An interstellar cloud is on the average about 10 light years across
in size, and the typical separation between neighbouring clouds is
about 300 light years. There is a fairly wide spread of sizes of these
53
clouds and in their structure: some are more compact and uniform in
their disposition, whilst others are extended and irregular. The more
extended clouds appear as giant complexes, showing a great deal of
fine-scale structure as cloudlets and filaments. These are the so-called
“giant molecular clouds” of which the molecular complex in the Orion
nebula is an example.
Interstellar clouds may contain anywhere from ten to many
millions of individual atoms per cubic centimetre. Even the higher
values in this density range are considerably lower than the densities
that can be attained in laboratory vacuum systems. So, it should be
remembered that all our intuitive ideas of how gases behave under
normal conditions may prove wide off the mark when it comes to
understanding what happens under the extremely rarefied conditions

of space.
Hydrogen makes up the overwhelming bulk of material in
interstellar clouds and occurs in one of three forms: neutral atomic
hydrogen (intact atoms with no electrons lost), ionized hydrogen
(atoms stripped of their outer electrons), and molecular hydrogen
(atoms paired in molecular form as H2). Molecular hydrogen was first
detected using ultraviolet spectroscopy in the late 1960’s after CW’s
researches into interstellar matter had begun, although its existence
was predicted by Fred Hoyle in the 1950’s and indeed exploited in the
science fiction novel The Black Cloud. Hydrogen molecules are to be
found mostly in the denser interstellar clouds that are able to screen
off the ultraviolet starlight that would otherwise destroy them. A large
fraction of all the hydrogen in the galaxy is found to be in molecular
form, H2, and the total mass of the molecular hydrogen is billions of
times the mass of the sun.
But what else is there in interstellar clouds besides hydrogen?
Information derived from several sources, including studies of the
spectra of the sun and stars, and the direct examination of meteorites
(rocks of extraterrestrial origin) all have a bearing on unravelling
the overall composition of interstellar material. Next to hydrogen, in
order of abundances, comes the element helium, which accounts for
close to a quarter of the total mass of interstellar matter. But from

our point of view this element is inert, chemically unreactive and
therefore uninteresting. Then comes the group of chemical elements
carbon, nitrogen and oxygen that together make up several percent
of the mass of all the interstellar matter. It is these elements that are
of course crucial for life. Indeed, life depends on the function of the
unique range of properties of the carbon atom including its high
levels of chemical reactivity and its ability to combine into many
millions of interesting carbon-based compounds. Next in line are
the elements magnesium, silicon, iron and aluminium, which again
account for a percent or so of the total interstellar mass. Then a
group including calcium, sodium, potassium, phosphorus is followed
by a host of other less abundant atomic species. All these chemical

elements are synthesised from hydrogen in the deep interiors of stars
in the manner worked out by Fred Hoyle and his colleagues in the
1950’s. The synthesised elements are injected into interstellar space
through a variety of processes, including mass flows from the surfaces
of stars. In the case of the most massive stars, the end product of
their evolution is a supernova (an exploding star), and it is through
supernova explosions that life-forming chemical elements are mostly
injected into the interstellar clouds and distributed throughout the
universe.
The discovery of interstellar molecules (assemblages of atoms)
by methods of radioastronomy, millimetre-wave astronomy and
infrared astronomy got properly under way in the 1970’s and
1980’s. Next to molecular hydrogen the second most abundant and
widespread molecule in space turns out to be carbon monoxide.
Then most significantly for our story is the vast array of complex
organic molecules present in huge quantity, and these discoveries as
they progressed through the 1980’s and 1990’s provided the basis of
some of the evidence that supported the concept of panspermia that
we shall review later. In the denser interstellar clouds, particularly
in clouds associated with new-born stars, vast amounts of water in
gaseous form are found. Water is an important molecule for life, and
55
its close association, along with the organics, with newly formed stars
and planetary systems would have a vital relevance to our story.
The spatial distribution of interstellar molecules in the galaxy
shows wide variations depending on physical conditions such as
ambient temperature and density as well as the proximity of clouds
to hot stars. As a rule, denser and cooler clouds contain the larger
and more complex molecules, whereas lower density clouds and those
nearer to hot stars have simpler molecular structures. A region that
is particularly rich in organic molecules (molecules that could be
connected with life) is the complex dust clouds in the constellation
of Sagittarius, located near the centre of the galaxy. It is in this region
that the first detection of an interstellar amino acid, glycine, (a
component of proteins) was reported, as was the molecule of vinegar

and a sugar glycolaldehyde.
An important class of organic molecule that is found to be present
in vast quantity in space are the so-called polyaromatic hydrocarbons
(or PAH’s). These molecules (just as CO) are by-products of the
combustion of fossil fuels as occurs for instance in automobile
engines. They are essentially combustion/degradation products of
living material and are the substances that are largely responsible for
the suffocating smog that pollutes our larger industrial cities. Even
in interstellar space it is plausible to suggest (in our view) that such
molecules are most likely to have a direct biological connotation,
possibly representing the break-up or degradation products of
biological material.
Comparatively high densities of organic molecules tend to be
associated with regions of the galaxy where new stars (and presumably
comets and planets) are forming at a rapid rate. The Orion nebula is
a spectacular example of such a region where young stars are evident
in large numbers, some even with discs of newly formed planetary
material seen around them. Large quantities of organic molecules are
associated with the denser parts of the Orion cloud complex, and it
would be tempting to link the formation of such molecules with the
formation of stars, planetary systems, and perhaps life itself.
In addition to atoms and molecules, interstellar clouds contain

an all-pervasive and enigmatic component in the form of dust that
will provide a vital clue in support of panspermia. Astronomers had
struggled to understand the precise nature of this cosmic dust and to
discover the circumstances under which such particles are formed. In
the autumn of 1961 when one of us (CW) started reading on these
matters in earnest he found that it was almost an article of faith
amongst astronomers that interstellar dust grains were comprised of
dirty ice material — frozen water with perhaps a sprinkling of other
ices — ammonia-ice, methane-ice and a trace quantity of metals.
Furthermore, the firmly-held belief was that these particles had to
condense, more or less continuously from the gaseous atoms and
molecules that were present in the interstellar clouds. This was not
justified by the well-established science (science of nucleation) that
had existed at the time. Formation of solid particles from a tenuous
gas was a two stage process. It required (a) nucleation (seeding)
and then (b) condensation of gaseous molecules upon “seeds” or
“condensation nuclei”.
It was soon discovered that the insuperable difficulty of forming
condensation nuclei for dust to form in the exceedingly tenuous gas
clouds of interstellar space made the then fashionable ice grain theory
essentially untenable. It is at this point that the story of interstellar
dust took a radically different turn. The question arose: what if the
cosmic dust was not made of water ice (as was the general belief at the
time) but was made of carbon? At this stage the suggestion was that
the formation of carbon dust occurred at much higher temperatures,
perhaps, for instance in the outer atmospheres or envelopes of some
cool carbon-rich stars? Alternatively, biologic dust could be generated
in vast quantity in cosmic “breweries” in comets. But this latter
possibility did not take shape until decades later.
But what did the astronomical observations in the 1960’s and
1970’s really tell us about the properties of interstellar dust? What are
their precise optical characteristics as judged from an astronomical
57
perspective? We have already noted that dust shows up as conspicuous

patches of obscuration against the background of distant stars. But
several more precise quantitative statements about the nature of the
dust were already possible by the early 1960s.
The earliest attempts to obtain measurements of interstellar
dimming — or extinction, as it is called — of starlight were made as
far back as the 1930’s. In the 1960’s the most extensive modern data
on interstellar extinction came from the meticulous observations of
the Indian Astronomer Kashi Nandy at the Royal Observatory in
Edinburgh. It was found that at a single wavelength close to 4500Å (in
the blue region of the spectrum) the dimming of starlight amounted
to a reduction of intensity by a factor of about two for every 3000 light
years of traversal through interstellar space. From this one piece of

information alone it was easy to infer that interstellar dimming could
only be reasonably attributed to solid particles that have dimensions
comparable to the wavelength of visible light, that is a few thousand
Angstroms (1Å = 10–8 cm) — matching exactly the sizes of bacteria
on the Earth.
With the advent of new techniques in observational astronomy
it became possible to measure with an increasing accuracy how
interstellar dimming caused by cosmic dust varies with the wavelength
of light. This relationship between interstellar dimming or extinction
and the wavelength of light — what astronomers call the extinction
curve — provides an important item of information to tell us about
the properties of interstellar dust grains. In 1961 the extinction curve
was known only over a very limited range of wavelengths — from
about 9000 Å in the red end of the spectrum to about 3300Å in the
near ultraviolet.
Over much of the visible wavelength range it was known that
the opacity (light absorbing properties) of interstellar dust was
proportional to the inverse of the wavelength — in other words, when
the wavelength is doubled, the opacity was approximately halved.
And most remarkably, it turns out that precisely the same type of
relationship, the same extinction curve, was found to hold over wide
areas of the sky. This means that we must have dust with almost
identical sizes and properties throughout large volumes of galactic
space.
The limited range of wavelengths for which the so-called
“extinction” data was available in 1961 allowed for a wide range of
possible dust models, including ice (of the type proposed earlier
by the Dutch astronomer H.C. van de Hulst) and iron (of the kind
suggested even earlier by the Swedish astronomer, C. Schalen). For
each of these models, however, the sizes of the dust particles had
to be fixed within a very narrow range. To match the astronomical
extinction data to any particular model one needed to calculate the
scattering and absorption properties of particles of various radii using

Electromagnetic Theory as developed by Maxwell a century or more
ago. Such calculations that had already been made for iron grains and
ice particles established these models as being possible candidates for
interstellar dust, with ice particles having the edge over iron in certain
crucial respects. Particularly so because it could be argued that there
was insufficient iron in the galaxy to make up the required mass in
the form of the interstellar dust.
In 1961–1962, in the days before personal computers, the calcu-
lation of the optical properties of any new grain model was a major
computational undertaking, using formulae derived by the German
physicist Gustav Mie in 1908. The task at this time was to turn these
so-called Mie formulae into computer programmes for use on high
speed electronic computers such as were available for example at the
University of Cambridge. This is what one of us (CW) set out to do
in the winter of 1961 for a preliminary exploration of the new carbon
dust models.
This computation for carbon (graphite) dust in the 1960’s showed
that as long as the diameter of carbon particles were less than about
a tenth of a micrometre, their predicted extinction behaviour was
almost indistinguishable from the interstellar extinction observations
as they were then known. It was also possible to calculate how much
59
in the form of carbon grains we required, and the answer turned

out to be one to two percent of the total mass of the interstellar clouds.
This was consistent with the availability of carbon in interstellar space.
The next question to be asked was: where are the carbon grains
produced? Searching for suitable cosmic locations, it seemed natural
to turn to cool giant stars that are carbon rich. These are the carbon
stars that are classified into two types — the N and R series, where the
N series stars are older stars that show element (Ba, Sr) enhancement
over the R stars. Optical spectra of these stars show the C2 Swan
bands and also spectral features showing C3, CN, CH, SiC2.
The N-stars have surface temperatures that varied cyclically
between 1800 and 2500 K over a period of about a year, and they are
known to have an excess of atmospheric carbon over oxygen. Thus,

although oxygen would link up with C to form the strongly bound
molecule CO (carbon monoxide), there would be an excess of C that
is available to condense into solid particles when the temperature
fell below some critical value. Again, a computer programme had to
be used to determine the physical state of the excess carbon as the
temperature varied between 1800 and 2500 K in the star’s pulsation
cycle. Was the carbon in a gaseous or solid state? It was quickly shown
that solid carbon particles were indeed able to nucleate and grow out
of the carbon gas in the stellar atmosphere as soon as the temperature
fell towards 2000 K. It was further found that particles of radii of a
few hundred Angstroms would grow and be expelled into interstellar
space, the expulsion being caused by the pressure exerted by starlight
from the parent star. There was strong evidence from astronomy
that pointed to the existence of dust around such carbon-rich stars.
The variable and highly luminous carbon star R Corona Borealis is a
spectacular example. Here we see direct evidence of a star erratically
puffing out clouds of carbon soot into the interstellar medium.
This work which formed the basis of the PhD dissertation by one
of us (CW) was initially published as a joint paper with Fred Hoyle
entitled “On graphite particles as interstellar grains” in the Monthly
Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. The publication represented
the first step in the direction of cosmic biology although this was
not recognised as such at the time. Soon afterwards CW made a
prediction of the properties of interstellar grains based on new
measurements of the optical constants of graphite. The prediction
was that if the extinction curve of starlight (the dimming properties
of dust) was extended into the ultraviolet, a strong absorption feature
centred at a particular wavelength 2200Å would be seen. When the
first observations of stars from above the atmosphere were made, this
predicted feature was discovered, and it later served as a spectroscopic
beacon for identifying biology even in the most distant cosmic
locations. It became clear that a major paradigm change was around
the corner — a shift from volatile ice grains to cosmic dust grains that
had to be based largely on the element carbon.
From Dust to Organic Molecules
The next steps in the progress towards unravelling the precise nature
of cosmic dust required observations of stars that extended outside
the visible range of wavelengths. New techniques in observational
astronomy were now making it possible to study the behaviour of
interstellar dust at longer wavelengths beyond (the infrared) and
shorter wavelengths beyond blue (the ultraviolet). By 1965 the absence
of an infrared absorption band in the spectra of stars near the
wavelength 3.1 µm, the diagnostic of water ice, led to the conclusion
that ice particles if they exist at all can make at most only a very
minor contribution to the interstellar dust.
The observations of stars using telescopes on the ground were
affected by absorption of light as it traverses the Earth’s atmosphere.
Essentially all the ultraviolet light of stars was filtered out in ground-
based observations. With the dawn of the Space Age in the mid 1960’s,
astronomical observations were possible from above the atmosphere
using equipment carried on rockets and satellites. Such observations
of stars in the ultraviolet revealed a conspicuous feature in the form of
61

Fig. 5.4. CW and Fred Hoyle taken in 1979.
a broad peak of absorption centred on a precisely defined wavelength

2175 Å. This was exactly the property calculated for graphitic carbon
particles of a particular size — of radius 0.02 µm. The old ice grain
model of cosmic dust could not reproduce such an ultraviolet feature
and must therefore be deemed to be inconsistent with observations
and abandoned. A new generation of telescopes and instruments
carried aboard satellites (for example, NASA’s Orbiting Astronomical
Observatory 2 (OAO2)) was soon to come into full operation con-
firming this conclusion beyond a shadow of doubt; so the die was cast
to follow the trail that led eventually to cosmic life.
A striking result that emerged from the new studies was the
invariance of the 2175 Å absorption hump from star to star, thus
declaring the universality of some chemical component of the cosmic
dust. This invariance of the ultraviolet feature, according to our
original carbon grain models, demanded the presence of graphite
particles in the form of spheres with radii fixed almost at a definite
value, 0.02 µm. Even as early as 1969 astronomers were beginning to
Fig. 5.5. Hubble telescope image of the Orion nebula.
feel uneasy about the artificiality of such a constraint, so the lead that
one of us (CW) next followed was to identify this ultraviolet feature
with a spectroscopic property of the material in the dust, and that
looking more and more like complex organic molecules in space.
Figure 5.5 shows the Orion Nebula which contains giant clouds
choc-a-bloc with organic molecules. Here is an active site of star-
births, the youngest stars being younger than a few million years, and
including many nascent planetary systems (protoplanetary nebulae).
This veritable stellar and planetary nursery is considered by many to
be a region where pre-biotic chemistry occurs on a grand cosmic scale.
It was argued by CW and others as an alternative that this may more
plausibly represent a graveyard of life — polyaromatic hydrocarbons
and other organic molecules discovered here arising from the
destruction and degradation of bacterial life.
By the mid 1970’s it was becoming amply clear that the best
agreement for a range of astronomical spectra embracing a wide
wavelength interval turned out to be a dust composition that is
indistinguishable from freeze-dried bacteria and the best overall
63
agreement over the entire profile of interstellar extinction was a

mixture of desiccated bacteria, nanobacteria, including biologically
derived aromatic molecules as seen in Fig. 5.6. The same feature
characteristic of biology was also discovered widely outside our own
galaxy as shown in Fig. 5.7.
Although many astronomers continued to look for abiotic (non-
biological) models to explain the data such as in Figs. 5.6 and 5.7,
biology emerged at this time to be by far the simplest self-consistent
model. In particular, the claim that the strong peak of interstellar
extinction at 2175 Å can be explained by aromatics (PAH’s) uncon-
nected with life could be seriously flawed and could be easily disposed
of. Aromatic molecules resulting from the decay, degradation or
combustion of biomaterial may be similar to soot or anthracite. Facts

relating to the widespread distribution of microbial life and their
degradation products continued to come thick and fast.
Fig. 5.6. (Top) Horsehead Nebula in Orion showing clouds of cosmic dust.
(Bottom) Agreement between interstellar extinction (dimming data) (plus signs)
and biological models of cosmic dust. The 2175Å hump in the extinction is caused by
biological aromatic molecules.
Fig. 5.7. Agreement between the 2175Å absorption of biomolecules (life) and the dust
dimming profile of the galaxy SBS0909+532 at a distance of nearly 8 billion light years.
The paradigm in the 1960’s that cosmic dust was largely comprised
of water-ice was quickly being overturned in the 1970’s with the
advent of infrared observations showing absorptions due to CH, OH,
C–O–C linkages consistent with organic polymers. The best agreement
65
for a range of astronomical spectra embracing a wide wavelength

interval turned out to be material that is indistinguishable from
freeze-dried bacteria and the best overall agreement over the entire
profile of interstellar extinction was a mixture of desiccated bacteria,
nanobacteria, including biologically derived aromatic molecules.
The birth of the new discipline of infrared astronomy now came
into play. The first discovery of infrared astronomy that became
directly relevant to our story came from the work of John E. Gaustad
and his colleagues who confirmed that the infrared spectra of highly
reddened (dimmed) stars showed no evidence whatsoever of water ice.
This was a victory for the organic dust theory and a further disproof
for the old ice grain theory. Next there followed a spate of discoveries
all showing the presence of a new spectral feature of dust over the
infrared waveband 8–12 µm. The feature was observed in emission
in a wide variety of astronomical objects and it was immediately
interpreted as evidence that the cosmic dust was made of a mixture
of silicates — combinations of magnesium, silicon and oxygen as
they occur in the rocks of the Earth. Inorganic material, now in the
form of silicates, soon became the fashion in astronomy — a fashion
that one of us began to question. Was the newly discovered 8–12 µm
absorption/emission in cosmic dust really due to silicates? Is it not
possible that some organic materials were responsible for absorptions
over the same waveband?
On closer investigation of the silicate model of dust it soon
became apparent how poorly the newly observed astronomical feature
over the 8–12 µm band actually fitted the behaviour of any known
silicate or mixtures of silicates. Because mineral silicates (e.g. rocks)
do indeed have absorptions spanning the 8–13 µm waveband, there
was a crude match to be seen. But the identification of silicates in vast
quantity in interstellar space was by no means compelling at this point.
Other chemical systems, including some that involved carbon, could
be far stronger candidates. Whilst one could not dispute that some
quantity of silicate dust might exist in space, how would this compare
with contributions from the far more cosmically abundant element
carbon? This was the question that was explored for over a decade
before arriving at the conclusion that complex organic material, and
even biological material, might be involved in producing the infrared
signatures that were wrongly being attributed to mineral silicates.
The search for a possible carbon-based interpretation of the
8–13 µm interstellar feature began as early as 1969. What if the
carbonaceous component of the dust was not simply graphite or
solid carbon as was proposed in 1962 but made of organic materials,
organic polymers in fact — even biopoymers? Perhaps carbon atoms
in interstellar space might be combined with hydrogen and oxygen to
form an extraordinarily vast variety of organic chemicals. In terms of
the basic chemical elements at least there would be more than enough
mass to explain the properties of interstellar dust.

At this time the molecule formaldehyde H2CO had been
discovered to exist ubiquitously as a gaseous molecule in interstellar
clouds. It was present in dense molecular clouds as well as in the
less dense interstellar medium. What if such molecules started to
condense and polymerise on the surfaces of pre-existing graphite or
silicate grains expelled from stars? It turned out that such polymers
were dielectric (that is to say, non-absorbing) in the visual waveband
as the astronomical observations demanded. And most strikingly
polyformaldehyde (polyoxymethylene) had absorption bands over
the 8–12 and 16–22 µm wavebands, with the former absorption
fitting the astronomical data far better than any known silicate. This
was a breakthrough moment and within a couple of weeks the paper
entitled “Formaldehyde Polymers in Interstellar Grains” was written
and submitted to Nature.
When it was published in Nature, it made a major splash in the
science news columns of the broadsheets. This was the first-ever
suggestion of the widespread occurrence of organic polymers in the
galaxy. It marked the beginning of the cosmic life theory that was
developed throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s. With the accumulation
of more infrared data from astronomical sources it became clear that
there was unequivocal evidence of organic polymers existing on a
67
vast scale throughout the galaxy. Models involving co-polymers —

mixed chains of formaldehyde and other molecules as well as polymer
mixtures resembling tars and biopolymers — were all considered,
leading inexorably to one direction — life. What if the interstellar
grains that CW had begun investigating in 1960 were indeed
connected with biology, with life itself? This question itself, with all
its profound implications, was indeed a brutal assault on conventional
scientific thought.
A crucial breakthrough came when the Cardiff based team led
by CW collaborated with D.T. Wickramasinghe, (CW’s brother),
Professor of Mathematics at the Australian National University in
Canberra and an astronomer who had access to the 3.9 m Anglo-
Australian Telescope, in Siding Springs. This telescope at the time

happened to be equipped with just the right instruments to look for
an infrared signature of interstellar bacteria in deep space.
In February and April 1980, Dayal, collaborating with D.A. Allen,
obtained the first spectra of a source known as GC-IRS7 which
showed a broad absorption feature centred at about 3.4 µm. When
Dayal’s published spectrum was examined we found that it agreed in
a general way with the spectrum of a bacterium that we had found
in the published literature. But at this time neither the wavelength
definition of the astronomical spectrum nor the laboratory bacterial
spectrum was good enough to make a strong case for interstellar
bacteria. However, even from this early observation we were able to
check that the overwhelming bulk of interstellar dust must have a
complex organic composition.
It was precisely at this moment that Shirwan Al-Mufti with
laboratory experience became a research student at Cardiff. Here
was the chance to get the required laboratory work done. Al-Mufti’s
experiments involved desiccating bacteria, such as the common
organism E. Coli, in an oven in the absence of air and measuring,
as accurately as possible, the manner in which light at infrared
wavelengths is absorbed. The normal technique for doing such a
measurement involved embedding the bacteria in discs of compressed
Fig. 5.8. S. Al-Muftis’ Predicted Curve for Dry E. coli, later to be matched by observation
as we shall see.
potassium bromide and shining a beam of infrared light through

them. The standard techniques had to be adapted only slightly. There
was the need to match the interstellar environment which involved
desiccation, and the spectrometer that was used had to be calibrated
with greater care than a chemist would normally exercise. When all
this was done, it turned out that a highly specific absorption pattern
emerged over the 3.3 to 3.6 µm wavelength region, and this pattern
was found to be independent of the type of microorganism that was
looked at. Thus, whether we looked at E. Coli or dried yeast cells it
did not matter. This precise invariance came as a great surprise. The
newly discovered invariant spectral signature was a property of the
detailed way in which carbon and hydrogen linkages were distributed
in biological systems and could be looked for in astronomy.
The observations that were to mark a crucial turning point in this
entire story were carried out after an experimental prediction was
made following Al-Mufti’s experiments. The new observations were
of a superior quality because a new generation of spectrometers had
69
become available. Dayal Wickramasinghe sent CW his raw data by fax

to compare with the new laboratory spectra which had been obtained
just months earlier by Al-Mufti in March and April of the same year.
After an hour or so of straightforward calculations it was possible to
overlay the astronomical spectrum over the detailed predictions of
the bacterial model and find a staggeringly close fit. This was perhaps
the best possible confirmation of the bacteria model of cosmic dust,
particularly because the experimental data in the comparison was
obtained before the final astronomical observations became available.
A precise agreement between a set of data points and a predicted
curve is normally regarded as a consistency check of the model on
which the curve is based — QED. But in this case, since the model
of bacterial grains runs counter to a major paradigm in science, the

situation was otherwise.
Even as early as 1962, the presence of aromatic molecules in
space might have been inferred from the so-called diffuse interstellar
absorption bands. It has been known for over half a century that
some 20 or more diffuse absorption bands appear in the spectra of
stars, the strongest being centred on the wavelength 4430Å. Despite a
sustained effort by scientists over many years no satisfactory inorganic
explanation for these bands has emerged. A possible solution was
offered in the 1960’s by the chemist F.M. Johnson who showed that a
molecule related to chlorophyll-magnesium tetra-benzo porphyrin has
all the required spectral properties to explain the astronomical data.
Chlorophyll is, of course, an all-important component of terrestrial
biology — it is the green colouring substance of plants, the molecule
responsible for photosynthesis, the process that lies at the very base of
our entire ecosystem on Earth. So its abundance in deep space has a
direct relevance to the theory of cosmic biology.
Very recently scientists have unearthed yet another property of
biological pigments such as chlorophylls, a property that clearly shows
up in astronomy. Many biological pigments are known to fluoresce; in
the fashion of pigments as such exist in glow worms. They can absorb
blue and ultraviolet radiation and fluoresce over a characteristic band
in the red part of the spectrum. For some years now astronomers have
been detecting a broad red emission feature of interstellar dust over the
waveband 6000–7500 Å. Chloroplasts contain chlorophyll when they
are cooled to temperatures appropriate to interstellar space fluoresce
precisely over the same waveband. Cosmic biology announces itself
once again in the form of fluorescing pigments, similar to those found
in many biological systems.
6
Dawn of Modern Astrobiology
B y the start of the 1980’s one of us (CW) and Fred Hoyle were
firmly committed to the view that an immensely powerful cosmic
biology somehow came to be overlaid on Earth from the external

universe some 4 billion years ago. In 1982 at a public lecture delivered
in Cardiff under the auspices of the Royal Astronomical Society Fred
Hoyle concluded thus:
Microbiology may be said to have had its beginnings in the nineteen-
forties. A new world of the most astonishing complexity began then
to be revealed. In retrospect I find it remarkable that microbiologists
did not at once recognise that the world into which they had
penetrated had of necessity to be of cosmic order. I suspect that
the cosmic quality of microbiology will seem as obvious to future
generations as the Sun being the centre of the solar system seems
obvious to the present generation.
At the same time Fred Hoyle and CW wrote that the birth of a
new scientific discipline combining astronomy and biology was
imminent and he suggested the name Astrobiology — a fact that is
ignored by modern commentators who wish to stake their claim for
the new discipline.
The Earth is just one of many billions of habitable planets in the
galaxy that are now known to exist, following observations using the
Kepler space telescope. Our planet served as an assembly station for
the cosmic genes that carry the blueprint of all conceivable life forms
in the cosmos. The agency responsible for the transfer of such genes
71
are the comets in which warm radioactively heated domains serve as

repositories for cosmic microorganisms — bacteria and viruses.
An individual comet can range in size from a few to tens of
kilometres, and a few hundred billion of such objects exist in our
solar system mainly in a gigantic shell surrounding the entire solar
system at a distance of about a light year from the sun. From time to
time comets from this shell are deflected into orbits that bring them
into the inner regions of the solar system, sometimes colliding with
planets, but mostly to distribute material evaporating from the surface
to form meteor streams that can be crossed by planets like Earth.
We suspected then (and know now) that cometary bodies contain
long-lived radioactive heat producing elements such as Uranium and
Thorium that can maintain radioactively heated liquid domains over

many billions of years. Such liquid domains replete with organics and
other nutrients serve, in our model as the repositories and amplifiers
of cosmic life which exist in the form of archaea, bacteria and
viruses. Such bacteria and viruses carry the genetic blueprint of all
the permitted and permissible lifeforms in the universe. Besides the
Earth other planetary bodies, within the solar system and elsewhere,
must also be exposed to the process of contamination by cometary
microbes.
We now know that the earliest evidence of microbial life in the
form of bacterial residues exists in an outcrop of rocks in Western
Australia dated 4.2 billion years ago. This was shortly after the
formation of a rocky crust of the planet was complete, and the planet
was in the midst of the Hadean epoch involving frequent collisions
with comets. It is clear that impacting comets brought the first bacterial
life to Earth, and the cometary impacts also led to the formation of
oceans and an atmosphere around the planet. Life thereafter proceeds
to evolve in fits and starts from bacteria, to metazoa, to plants and
animals and eventually of course humans. This process occupied a
timespan of over 4 billion years.
As we have seen, how life on Earth progressed from single-celled
bacteria to multi-celled life and the enormous diversity of life we see
73

Fig. 6.1. Micron sized carbon spherules which are inferred to be relics of bacteria within
zirconium crystal from the rocks in the Jack Hills outcrop in W. Australia.
today is a question that has occupied the minds of thinkers from the
earliest times. Darwinian evolution is one component of the solution
but by no means the whole. New innovations in the development of
life, according to this point of view, are importation of viral genes
from the cosmos involving a now well-attested process of “horizontal

gene transfer”. Wherever and whenever the broad range of the cosmic
life system transported via the comets contains viruses defining a
form of life (genotype) that matches a local niche of a recipient planet,
horizontal gene transfer would occur and that particular lifeform
could succeed in establishing itself.
According to this point of view the entire spectrum of life on
Earth, ranging from the humblest single-celled life forms to the
higher animals must essentially be introduced from the external
cosmos. Nothing of any significance could have happened within a
closed system on Earth. With this in mind, one of us together with
Hoyle began to examine new data on the planets of our solar system
obtained from Pioneer and Voyager spacecraft for tell-tale signs of

microbial life. An indispensable condition for life was however the
need to have access to liquid water.
Subject to this constraint it was found that there were tentative
signatures of bacterial life in the planets Venus, Jupiter and Saturn
already by the early 1980’s. Since Venus is exceedingly hot at ground
level (about 450ºC) it would be impossible for life to exist at the
surface. Venus, however, has an extensive cloud cover and it is within
these clouds that life may have taken root. Water is present in small
quantities and in the higher atmosphere the temperature is low
enough for water droplets to form. Moreover, the clouds of Venus are
in convective motion in the upper atmosphere, which ranges in height
between 70 km to 45 km, with a corresponding temperature range of
75ºC at the top to –25ºC at the bottom. It was argued that the survival
of bacteria over the range of conditions in the upper atmosphere was
possible, and that repeated variations of temperature in a circulating
cloud system would tend to favour bacteria capable of forming sturdy
spores. A strong case was given for an atmospheric circulation of
bacteria on Venus between the dry lower clouds and the wetter
upper clouds where replication might take place. It was discovered
that Pioneer spacecraft data, including the presence of a rainbow in
the upper clouds, could be interpreted as implying the presence of
75
scattering particles that had precisely the properties appropriate to

bacteria and bacterial spores.
These ideas have subsequently come into vogue. In 2002 Dirk
Schulze-Maluch and Louis Irwin looked at data on Venus from
the Russian Venera space missions and the US Pioneer Venus and
Magellan probes. They discovered trademark signs of microbial life
from studies of the chemical composition of Venus’s atmosphere 30
miles above the surface. They expected to find high levels of carbon
monoxide produced by sunlight but instead found hydrogen sulphide
and sulphur dioxide, and carbonyl sulphide, a combination of gases
normally not found together unless living organisms produce them.
They conclude that microbes could be living in clouds 30 miles up
in the Venusian atmosphere, exactly in the manner we discussed 25

years earlier (New Scientist, 26 September 2002).
Hoyle and CW had also argued for localised bacterial populations
in Jupiter’s atmosphere that might even have a controlling effect on
its meteorology, including the persistence of the Great Red Spot. A
kilometre-sized cometary object hitting Jupiter at high speed will be
disintegrated into hot gas that would form a diffuse patch similar to
the Great Red Spot. Such a region of the atmosphere would be rich in
the inorganic nutrients needed for the replication of microorganisms.
A large bacterial population could then be built up in this area and
the possibility arises for a feedback interaction to be set up between
the properties of the local bacterial population and the global
meteorology of Jupiter as a whole. Additionally, a case was presented
for bacterial grains trapped in the rings of Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus,
rings that were discovered in 1979 by the Voyager missions.
It was also argued at this time that the presence of methane and
other organic compounds in any quantity on solar system bodies as
being an indication of life. Essentially all the organics on the Earth
today are either directly or indirectly due to biology. So it is likely to
be for organic matter that is found in substantial quantity elsewhere
in the Universe. The outer planets, which are known to contain
methane and other complex organic molecules, in their atmospheres,
must be teeming with microorganisms according to our point of view.

All these speculations were discussed at length in Space Travellers: The
Bringers of Life (University College, Cardiff Press, 1981). It was in a
closing section of this book that the inevitability of a merger between
astronomy and biology was first published:
The potential of bacteria to increase vastly in their number is
enormous. It should occasion no surprise, therefore, that bacterial are
widespread throughout astronomy. Rather it would be astonishing if
biological evolution had been achieved on the Earth alone, without
the explosive consequences of such a miracle ever being permitted
to emerge into the Universe at large. How could the Universe ever
be protected from such a devastating development? This indeed
would be a double miracle, first of origin, and second of terrestrial

containment.
Some biologists have probably found themselves in opposition

to our arguments for the proprietary reason that it seemed as if an
attempt were being made to swallow biology into astronomy. Their
ranks may now be joined by those astronomers who see from these
developments that a more realistic threat is to swallow up astronomy
into biology. Clearly the solution is the merging of these ancient
disciplines into a new discipline that can be called “astrobiology.” The
utter improbability of life’s origin in a primordial soup generated in
the primitive oceans is what drove one of us (CW) and Fred Hoyle
irrevocably and implacably towards astrobiology and panspermia.
A functioning of a living system depends on many thousands of
chemical reactions taking place within a membrane-bound cellular
structure. Such reactions, grouped into metabolic pathways, have the
ability to harness chemical energy from the surrounding medium in
a series of very small steps: transporting small molecules into cells,
building biopolymers of various sorts, and ultimately making copies
of themselves while also possessing a capacity to evolve. Batteries of
enzymes, composed of chains of amino acids in highly conserved
arrangements, play a crucial role as catalysts precisely controlling
the rates of chemical reactions. Without enzymes, there could be no
77
life. It is the specificity and conserved information represented in the

ordering of amino acids in enzymes that are absolutely crucial for life.
In the early decades of the twentieth century, the most important
metabolic pathways in biology had already been unravelled, e.g.,
the carbon dioxide cycle in plants. However, even if we possessed
a complete knowledge of all the metabolic pathways in biology, we
would not come any closer to understanding the processes by which
the simplest living system emerged. Many types of terrestrial venues
for the origin of life have been explored over several decades — deep-
sea thermal vents, primordial oceans amongst others — but all such
sites of choice are grossly inadequate, in our view, to overcome the
enormous hurdles of improbability that are involved.
In present-day biology, the information contained in enzymes —

the arrangements of amino acids into folded chains — is absolutely
crucial for life, and this information is transmitted by way of the
coded ordering of nucleotides in DNA. In a hypothetical RNA world
that may have predated the DNA — protein world in some origin
of life models, RNA is posited to serve a dual role as both enzyme
and genetic transmitter. If a few ribozymes are regarded as essential
precursors to all life, one could attempt to make an estimate of the
probability of the assembly of a simple ribozyme which is composed
of some 300 bases. This probability turns out to be 1 in 4300, which
is equivalent to 1 in 10180 — which already defines an event that can
hardly be supposed to happen even once in the entire 13.8-billion-
year history of the universe. A similar calculation for the ordering of
amino acids in a minimal set of bacterial enzymes gives an even more
ridiculous probability ~1 in 105000 with plausible assumptions.
On this basis it would appear impossible to avoid the conclusion
that the emergence of the first evolvable cellular life form had of
necessity to be a unique event in the cosmos. If this did indeed happen
on Earth for the first time, it must be regarded as a near-miraculous
event and one that could not be repeated elsewhere, let alone in any
laboratory simulation on Earth. To overcome improbabilities on the
scale that is involved here, it stands to common sense that one would
gain immensely by going to the biggest system available — manifestly,

the universe as a whole.
The argument that life as a cosmic phenomenon and panspermia
must be rejected a priori because it merely transfers the problem of
origin from Earth to another setting is by no means scientific. The
question of whether life started de novo on Earth or was introduced
from the wider universe is a scientific question that merits investiga-
tion and one that is open to testing and verification on many different
levels. The invocation of Occam’s razor to exclude such a discussion
is merely an excuse for keeping scientific discussion within the strict
bounds of orthodoxy — within the confines of Aristotelian philosophy
incorporated in the fabric of Judeo-Christian theology in the early part
of the first millennium. Occam’s razor and other criticisms are being
used to question any challenge to spontaneous generation strikingly
reminiscent of the restrictions that stifled science in the Middle Ages.
By the early 1980’s there was already an impressive body of
evidence that pointed not only to the organic composition of cosmic
dust but also to an origin of terrestrial life that had to be connected to
the wider cosmos. It was therefore somewhat puzzling to understand
the reluctance on the part of the scientific community to accept the
facts. There were of course very much bigger issues at stake. If the
whole of Darwinian evolution was to come under scrutiny, there
would be a motive to turn away from even the simplest facts that
pointed in such a direction. After all the victory of Darwinism over
the narrow Judeo-Christian view of creation as exemplified in the
famous Huxley–Wilberforce debate was a hard-won affair and the
memory of the blood-letting must still linger in some form in our
collective consciousness. It was a victory to be cherished at all costs,
and “smaller” truths may need to be sacrificed in the interests of
larger perceived goals. This, together with a deep cultural resistance
to accept that life could have a deep connection with the external
universe, continues to impede progress toward accepting the ideas
that we shall describe in this book.
79
The next major project that Hoyle and CW undertook during the
period 1980–1981 was an attempt to connect cosmic life, viruses and
bacteria causing disease and coming from comets, with the process of
the evolution of life on Earth. If life started on Earth some 4.2 billion
years ago (current best estimate) with impacting comets bringing
the first batch of cosmic microorganisms, how did such single celled
microbes evolve and later diversify to yield the magnificent range of
life forms we see today?
It is believed by traditional biologists that the full spectrum
of life is the result of a primitive living system being sequentially
copied billions upon billions of times. According to their theory, the
accumulation of copying errors, sorted out by the processes of natural
selection, the survival of the fittest, could account for both the rich
variety of life and the steady upward progression of complexity and
sophistication from a bacterium to man. This is perhaps a simple
representation of Neo-Darwinism, but it encapsulates its essential
features. Is this enough to explain all the available facts of biology?
When Fred Hoyle and CW began to examine this question, their
answer turned out to be an emphatic no.
In essence, the underlying argument was simple. Major evolu-
tionary developments in biology require the generation of new
high-grade information, and such information cannot arise from
the closed-box evolutionary arguments that are currently in vogue.
The same difficulty that exists for the origin of life from its organic
building blocks applies also for every set of new genes needed for
further evolutionary developments.
The alternative to the random assembly of life as a unique,
perhaps unrepeatable event in a finite universe is assembly through
the intervention of some form of cosmic intelligence. Such a concept
would be rejected outright by many scientists, although there is no
purely logical reason for such a rejection. With our present technical
knowledge human biochemists and geneticists could now perform
what even ten years ago would have been considered impossible
feats of genetic manipulation. We could for instance splice bits of

genes from one species into another, and even work out the possible
outcomes of such splicings.
In 2010 a group of scientists led by Craig Venter in the USA
have removed the entire genome of the bacterium Mycoplasma
genitalium and replaced it with a synthetically assembled genome,
producing essentially a modified bacterium which is able to replicate
with the new artificial genome. It would not be too great a measure
of extrapolation, or too great a license of imagination, to say that a
cosmic intelligence that emerged naturally in the Universe may have
designed and worked out all the logical consequences of our entire
living system.
Hoyle and one of us (CW) also initiated a new form of panspermia

that we have recently called “pathopanspermia”. The arguments relating
to cosmic evolution that we have discussed must connect also with
the idea of disease-causing viruses coming from space. One might
thus legitimately ask: if virus infections are bad for us why did the
evolution of higher life not develop a strategy for excluding their
ingress into our cells. Logically it seems easy enough for the greater
information content of our cells to devise a way of blocking the
effects of the much smaller information carried by a virus, and yet
this has not happened in the long course of evolution. Could it be,
one might wonder, whether this “invitation” to viruses was retained
for the explicit purpose of future biological evolution? It is only with
the dawn of the new millennium that an affirmative answer to this
question was provided by data from the human genome project. A
significant fraction of the human genome contains DNA derived from
viruses — fragments of viral RNA sequences converted DNA form,
and copied faithfully generation to generation. We might argue that
this storehouse of extinct viral information could somehow carry the
potential for future evolution. Moreover, there is further evidence
from genome studies that our ancestral line was indeed attacked
periodically with bacterial or viral infections that nearly culled the
81
evolving line save for a small breeding group that survived and came
through to modern times.
The human gut microbiota has been described as the most densely
populated ecosystem on Earth, with advances in culture-independent
gene sequencing techniques allowing us to estimate the total bacterial
count of the human gut at around ~1014 (100 trillion) individual cells.
Automated gene sequencing has shown that the total number of genes
associated with our microbiome massively exceeds the 22,000 or so
protein coding genes in the human genome, while a gene catalogue
of 3.3 × 106 non-redundant genes in the microbiome of the human
gut has recently been published. Gene sequence mapping does not
distinguish between viruses, plasmids and transposable genes, so it is
possible that viruses make up the main component in the microbiome.

Gut bacteria divide into two broad classes: commensal or symbiotic
organisms, and dysbiotic or pathogenic organisms. Included within
these classes are many groups of extremophiles, including acidophiles,
organism which have been shown to transfer viral particles (virions).
The potential role of the biome in health, immunity and disease
is only now becoming recognized and health conditions that have
defied understanding may well be connected with its functioning;
patients with schizophrenia for example, have a significantly altered
microbiome in their mouths and throats.
How did the human (and other) microbiomes arise in the
first place? Is it the outcome of millions of years of co-evolution
between evolved organisms (mammals, humans) and an ever-
changing population of environmental bacteria and viruses? Or
are the microbial/viral entities associated with microbiomes being
continuously replenished from space, notably from comets?
From 2001 onwards evidence for an ongoing entry of biological
entities from comets, consistent with Panspermia has grown to the
point of being close to compelling. The case for Panspermia has been
further strengthened by recent discoveries of exoplanets and the
diminishing average distance between neighbouring habitable planets.
It is now no longer heretical to suggest that microbes, like the ones

we have isolated from the stratosphere (discussed later), arrive from
space and interact with human genome. The discovery of novel
sequences that may be occasionally present in viruses could give
a clue as to their space origin, thus establishing consistency with
ongoing Panspermia.
In the balloon experiments that are being planned at the Institute
for the Study of Panspermia and Astro-economics in-falling cometary
material will be collected at regular intervals. Samples of the collected
material will be used to look for evidence of microbiome-related
genome components in stratospheric dust. Based on our 2001 sampling
of the stratosphere at 41 km we estimate a daily input of biomaterial
over the entire Earth of ~0.3 tonne. With a typical virion mass of
10–21 g we would thus have ~3 × 1026 virions per day. On this basis the
total virion count in the oceans of ~1031 virions would be replaced on
a timescale of 3 × 104 days ~100 yr, or three human generations. Over
such a timescale space-derived microbiome-related virions can act as
horizontal gene transfer (HGT) agents and play a crucial role in the
evolution of their hosts; the evolution of hominids over millions of
years, we suggest, has been driven by the accumulation of such space-
derived virions into their genomes.
The recent COVID-19 pandemic has cemented in our minds the
negative impact that viruses have on human welfare. Perhaps however,
we should take a more appreciative view of these entities, since, as we
have seen, we are certain that the evolution of humans, and all other
life on Earth is the result of space-derived information delivered by
these, and other microorganisms.
7
The Clues from Comets
C omets are relatively small celestial bodies that show up as

spectacular objects in the night sky. Their conspicuous long
tails stretch across great arcs in the night sky, and such events have
had a long recorded history in Chinese, Indian and Egyptian annals.
Comets were at once feared and revered in many ancient cultures,
seeing them as harbingers of doom and bringers of pestilence and
death. The true nature of individual comets was of course unknown
to ancient cultures.
We now know that comets are in the main “icy” bodies but with
a large component of rocky materials as well as organic molecules.
Comets range in size from a few kilometres to hundreds of kilometres
in the case of “giant comets”. Recent studies have also shown that
comets must have radioactively heated warm interior “lakes” that
would have remained liquid for billions of years and thus served
as the potential repositories of cosmic microbiology. Although an
individual comet might be thought of as an insubstantial object there
are a vast number of individual comets that have to be reckoned with.
In the solar system alone we know that a giant shell of a hundred
billion comets surrounds this system at a distance of a tenth of a light
year from the sun. It is from this reservoir of comets that individual
comets such as Comet Halley comes to be perturbed into orbits that
take them to the inner parts of our planetary system, and indeed on
occasion into our own vicinity.
83
Returning to our own story the next crucial step was indeed
connected with comets and in particular with the return to perihelion
(closest approach to the Sun) of Halley’s comet in 1986. This was
the first time that a comet was being studied by scientists since the
beginning of the space age. From as early as 1982 a programme
of international cooperation to investigate this comet came into
full swing, the aim being to coordinate ground-based observations,
satellite-based studies, and space-probe analysis on a worldwide basis.
No less than five spacecraft dedicated to the study of Comet Halley
were launched during 1985, the rendezvous dates being all clustered
around early March 1986, about one month after the comet’s closest
approach to the sun.
The long-accepted theory of comets at this time was that they were
dirty snowballs — the model of comets proposed by Fred Whipple.
The expectation therefore was that the comet will appear from close
quarters like a field of snow. On the night of March 13, 1986 scientists
on the Giotto mission watched their television screens with nervous
anticipation as cameras began to approach within 500 km of the
comet’s nucleus. The cameras were set up to photograph a bright
snowfield scene on the nucleus consistent with the then fashionable
Whipple dirty snowball model of comets. In the event the pictures
transmitted worldwide on 13 March proved to be a disappointment,
the cameras had their apertures shut down to a minimum and trained
to find the brightest spot in the field. As a consequence, very little of
any interest was immediately captured on camera — the scene was far
too dark.
The much-publicised Giotto images of the nucleus of Comet
Halley were obtained only after a great deal of image processing.
The stark conclusion was the revelation of a cometary nucleus that
was amazingly black. It was described at the time as being “blacker
than the blackest coal…the lowest albedo of any surface in the solar
system….” This was the vindication of a prediction that was a natural
consequence of the organic/biologic model of comets. As we shall see
more triumphs were soon to follow.
85
A few days after the Giotto rendezvous, infrared observations of

the comet were made by Dayal Wickramasinghe and David Allen
using the 40-metre Anglo-Australian Telescope. On March 31, 1986
they discovered a strong emission from heated organic dust over
the 2 to 4 µm waveband. As noted earlier basic structures of organic
molecules involving CH linkages absorb and emit radiation over the
3.3–3.5 µm infrared waveband, and for any assembly of complex
organic molecules as in a bacterium, this absorption is broad and
takes on a highly distinctive profile. The Comet Halley observations
by Dayal and David Allen were found to be identical to the expected
behaviour of desiccated bacteria heated to 320 K. Another victory for
this model! Later analysis of data obtained from mass spectrometers
aboard Giotto also showed a composition of the break-up fragments of

dust as they struck the detector to be similar to bacterial degradation
products (Fig. 7.1).
Fig. 7.1. Left panel: Comparison of the normalized infrared flux from GC-IRS7 with the
laboratory spectrum of E. coli (already discussed).
The right panel in the above figure shows the emission by

dust coma of Comet Halley observed by D.T. Wickramasinghe and
D.A. Allen on March 31, 1986 compared with normalized fluxes for
desiccated E. coli at an emission temperature of 320 K. The solid curve
is for unirradiated bacteria; the dashed curve is for X-ray irradiated

bacteria.
The Comet Halley observations of 1986 clearly disproved the
fashionable Whipple’s “dirty snowball” theory of comets although
astronomers at the time were loath to admit this. The old theory
still dies with variants of it postulating that there was more dirt
(organic dirt) than snow! It could not be denied that water existed
in comets in the form of ice, but great quantities of organic particles
indistinguishable from bacteria are embedded within the ice. This
conclusion was unavoidable unless one chose to ignore the new facts.
More recent studies of other comets have yielded generally similar
results. Most recently the European Space Agency’s Rosetta Mission
to comet 67P/C-G has provided the most detailed observations

that satisfy all the consistency checks for biology and the theory of
cometary panspermia. Figure 7.2 shows the close consistency between
the surface properties of the comet and the spectrum of a desiccated
bacterial sample. Other recent data from space exploration of comets
include high abundances of the element phosphorus (indicative of
life), a comet (Comet Lovejoy) emitting vast amounts of a sugar and
ethyl alcohol which are natural products of fermentation.
By the early 1990’s a conceptual framework for a grand theory of
cosmic life was fully in place, and its predictions were being borne
out in observations from several disciplines. Interstellar dust and
cemetery dust were found to possess exactly the properties that had
been predicted, and the oldest life on the Earth was pushed back to a
time when intense cometary bombardment was known to have been
taking place. We now have the strongest indication that comets seeded
the planet with life some 4.2 billion years ago.
The discoveries of microbial life enduring the most extreme
conditions were suggesting an alien context for all such properties,
and opening possibilities of microbial habitats in a wide range
of bodies in the solar system. A wrong theory does not come up
repeatedly with such an amazing series of successes. Sooner or later
a contradiction turns up and the theory has to be abandoned. This
87
Fig. 7.2. The surface reflectivity spectra of comet 67P/C-G (left panel) compared with the
transmittance curve measured for E. coli (right panel).
has not happened in our case. Why then is there such deep-rooted
hostility to our ideas? The simplest answer was that such ideas went
against the grain of an essentially geocentric scientific culture, and
more importantly perhaps a long tradition of European supremacy in
post-enlightenment science.
Despite all these impediments, CW together with Fred Hoyle
and a small team of like-minded scientists continued to pursue these
ideas doggedly in whichever direction that new data directed them.
And new data did indeed come at a brisk pace. A discovery of a
3.28 µm emission feature in the infrared in the diffuse radiation
emitted by the Galaxy confirmed that aromatic molecules of some
kind were exceedingly common on a galactic scale. It was argued
that the infrared emissions not just at 3.28 µm but over discrete set
of wavelengths — 3.28, 6.2, 7.7, 8.6, 11.3 µm — must arise from the
absorption of ultraviolet starlight by the same molecular system that

degrades this energy into the infrared. Hoyle and one of us had shown
much earlier that the 2175Å extinction of starlight may be due to
biological aromatic molecules, and it seemed natural then to connect
the two phenomena.
This led to a unified theory of infrared emission and ultraviolet
extinction by the same ensemble of aromatic molecules. A currently
fashionable non-biological aromatic molecule was coronene (C24H12)
and it was easy to demonstrate that this type of molecule was nowhere
near as good as biological aromatics.
Our first major research undertaking was a collaboration with
Indian scientists under the leadership of Jayant Narlikar and the
Indian Space Research Organisation (Fig. 7.3). The aim was to detect
bacteria entering the Earth by examining samples recovered from the
high stratosphere. Initial laboratory work in Cardiff was carried out
in the School of Biosciences with the involvement of David Lloyd
and with the assistance of research student Melanie Harris. The first
phase of this investigation was completed in July 2001 and we obtained
unambiguous evidence for the presence of clumps of living cells in
air samples from as high as 41 km, well above the local tropopause
(16 km), above which no micron-sized aerosols from lower down
would normally be expected to be transported. The detection was
made using electron microscope images, and by application of a
Fig. 7.3. Chandra and his wife Priya, Jayant Narlikar and Milton Wainwright.
89
fluorescent dye known as carbocyanine that is only taken up by the

membranes of living cells.
The variation with height of the density of such cells indicated
strongly that the clumps of bacterial cells were falling from space. The
input of such biological material was provisionally estimated to be
between 1/3–1 tonne per day over the entire planet. If this amount
of organic material was in the form of bacteria, the annual input of
bacteria is a staggering 1021 in number amounting about a tenth of
a tonne averaged over the whole Earth. These results were presented
by CW in July 2001 on behalf of our team at the Instruments, Methods,
ad Missions for Astrobiology IV session of the SPIE Meeting in
San Diego. The presentation made international headlines. Doubts
about contamination were naturally raised by sceptics imbued with

a geocentric worldview, but our initial results have since received
extensive confirmation in later work including recent studies by a
group of scientists in Japan.
While the work carried out in Cardiff failed to grow microbes
from the stratospheric collections, one of us (MW) succeeded in
culturing two separate bacterial species that were related to known
terrestrial species. Although this work was published in a reputable
microbiology journal that was subject to rigorous peer review, it
should be placed on record that hostile comments sprang from many
sources. One comment stating that the cultured microbes, despite all
the controls that were used, had to be contaminants for the reason
that they were similar to terrestrial species shows that our critics have
not read the book by Hoyle and CW entitled Evolution from Space.
If microbes on Earth are derived from comets, and continue to be
replenished on the timescale of tens to millions of year, then it is to be
expected that new organisms will be similar to ones that are resident
on Earth. Minor evolutionary genetic drifts are all that are expected,
and these are indeed what are found.
Perhaps the most noteworthy intervention as stated was a letter
written by Nobel Laureate Sir Martin Evans to a leading Indian
Scientist, Pushpa Bhargarva denouncing MW’s work as being “not
worthy of a first year undergraduate project report”! So deeply

ingrained was the prejudice against this work at this time, and sadly
this has not changed much in 2022.
Another project that we were drawn into somewhat unexpectedly
was an association with the Indian scientist Godfrey Louis to
investigate a remarkable phenomenon — the Red Rain of Kerala.
In the summer of 2001 red rain fell in large quantity over much of
the state of Kerala in south India, and Godfrey Louis, a physicist at
Mahatma Gandhi University, conducted a series of laboratory studies
on samples of the rain that he had collected. His initial results showed
that the red colour of the rain was due to the presence of pigmented
biological cells. They were generally similar in appearance to algal
cells but they were unlike any algal cell known thus far. Godfrey Louis
claimed that the cells could be cultured when they were placed in a
hydrocarbon-rich medium under high pressure at a temperature of
450°C — higher than the survival temperature of any known bacterial
or algal cell. The fall of the Kerala rain had been preceded by a loud
sonic boom, and it was conjectured that a small fragment of a comet
exploded in the stratosphere, unleashing vast quantities of red cells
that became the nuclei of raindrops. This intriguing story had an
obvious possible link to cometary panspermia theories, so it was
natural for Godfrey Louis to seek a collaboration with us. A sample
of the rain was sent to Cardiff and we worked on this for nearly a
whole decade. It may sound surprising, but it remains the case that to
this day we have not been able to identify these cells. The biological
nature of the red cell material was confirmed by Milton Wainwright
and independently by a PhD student Gangappa Rajkumar, and also
its replication under high pressure to a temperature of 121°C. There
have been claims that Red Rain cells lack DNA, although MW and
co-workers showed that they, in fact, stain positive for DNA with
the DAPPI stain. Figure 7.4 shows Red Rain cells; note the presence
of a flagellum on the top-most cell and a distinct red, caused by the
vacuum of the scanning electron microscope, emphasising that the
cells have thick walls.
91

Fig. 7.4. The Red Rain of Kerala.
In November 2012 red rain episodes similar to what happened in

Kerala in 2001 were reported over large areas of central Sri Lanka.
Investigations of the Sri Lankan red rain have shown that the red cells
present in this rain are very similar to the unidentified cells of the
Kerala red rain that we already discussed. A significant difference,
however, was the nearly simultaneous reports of fireball sightings and
a fall of carbonaceous meteorites, strongly suggesting a causal link.
Unfortunately, red rain remains an enigma, one which will not be
solved until the scientific community engages with the phenomenon
and significant research is conducted in the origin and physiology of
these cells.

8
The Microbiology of Panspermia
T he theory of panspermia is becoming increasingly more sophis-

ticated as new variants of the theory are being developed. It
is necessary therefore to define the various “sub-species” of the

theory that are currently on record. Here, we shall restrict the term
Panspermia to incorporate the view that life on Earth necessarily had
a cosmic origin. A second variant, so called Neopanspermia will be
used to refer to the view that life, not only arrived to Earth from space,
but continues to do so, while the term Pathospermia will be used to
cover the theory that diseases occurring on Earth, such as influenza
and SARS and COVID-19 originate from space. Other variants of
panspermia include the view that microbes were brought to Earth in
meteorites, so called Lithopanspermia, and even that they may one
day be ejected from terrestrial building material flung out into space
from Earth impact events, so called Archaepanpsermia.
From its very beginning, the primitive Earth, we would suggest,
would be exposed to life in the form of proto-life, small organisms,
and naked DNA — all securely protected from the harsh conditions
of space by a covering of cosmic dust or by being conveyed within a
bolide that perhaps would include frozen ices. Such life forms would
tend to be consumed by the hot “fireball” conditions that prevailed
on the early Earth; however, at the point of cooling such life forms
could gain a footing, survive on the early planet and proliferate. It
is likely that these life forms would arrive as a mixed population of
space-derived heterotrophs and autotrophs, which would immediately
93
compete with each other. Due to the law of doubling and because
of the lack of competing organisms on the proto-Earth, the first
incoming organism(s) would rapidly cover and colonise the entire
planet. Both autotrophs and oligotrophs (i.e. those heterotrophs which
can live on trace of nutrients) would initially be at an advantage, but
the continued input of organic matter from space would quickly
support heterotrophs. Any organic material protecting the incoming
life forms would also likely provide nutrients. Incoming viruses would
exist independent of such nutrients, but would need the development
of a host; incoming viruses would therefore be associated with a
host or need to acquire one. The establishment and development of
these individual life forms would depend on the prevailing conditions
and their establishment would vary as a result. Waves of different

populations would cover the newly cooled plant and would vary as
the conditions varied with the survival of the fittest prevailing. Life
might have originated by the chemical theory had this input of space-
life not occurred, but any proto-life forms of terrestrial origin would
soon be preyed upon by the alien forms. The export, from Earth to the
cosmos, of newly established forms could possibly follow the myriad
of impact events on the early planet — a kind of negative panspermia.
The above suggested sequence of events is, however, unsustain-
able without the presence of an atmosphere. This is not just to sustain
any organism requiring gases such as oxygen or carbon dioxide, but
because a newly formed atmosphere would slow down incoming
life form-delivery systems and prevent them being annihilated as
they smash into the Earth’s surface. As a result, panspermia-derived
life would have difficulty in establishing itself before the formation of
an early Earth atmosphere.
It is often pointed out that there was insufficient time for life to
have evolved on Earth, a problem which would not limit the arrival,
and establishment here of proto-life, or organisms from space. The
probability of life arriving from space and establishing on Earth will
be considered further below, but it is important to note that vast
amounts of this material continually arrive on Earth, as they would
Chapter 8 — The Microbiology of Panspermia 95
have done in the past, and the establishment of life would only require
one organism to survive and continue to replicate in a new environment.
The Space-Life Carriers
The extreme conditions existing in space means that it is unlikely

that DNA, proto-life and developed life would arrive on Earth in the
naked form. Instead they would need to be protected by some form of
covering to protect them from the lethal effects of UV (notably UVC)
ionizing radiation and extremes of temperature, etc. The best form
of such protection would be provided by conveyance in a meteorite,
asteroid or comet, but could also be provided, more simply, by a
covering of cosmic dust. Hoyle and Wickramasinghe suggest a layer

of carbon i.e. soot could protect life forms, as could cosmic dust. All
of such carriers would be obliterated in the absence of an atmosphere,
which explains why contemporary moon dust does not contain
panspermic organisms. Even in the presence of an atmosphere, most
incoming organisms would burn up, but sufficient number would
survive to inoculate the planet. Comets are likely to provide an
excellent vehicle for the transport of life forms from space to Earth.
The Cosmically Inoculated Consommé
Ever since Darwin came up with the idea of a warm little pond
scientists have tended to believe in the idea of a primordial soup.
Readers will be aware by now that we enjoy delving deep into
the historical literature to find earlier discoverers of ideas often
erroneously attributed to more famous people; yet we can find no
evidence that anyone before Darwin came up with the “warm, little
pond” metaphor. Does this metaphor conceivably have a relevance
to the modern theory of panspermia? It probably applies at some
distant epoch — Hadean epoch some 3.5–4.3 billion years ago seems
the best bet. Then the Earth’s surface had cooled but there was still a
relentless protracted episode of comet impacts which brought water

to form the Earth’s oceans. Evaporation of water from the oceans led
to the formation of an atmosphere, so conditions became optimal for
life to take root. However, the theory of panspermia states that, rather
than it developing here on Earth by unproven processes, it arrived
from space in the comets that were then bombarding Earth. Comets,
as we discussed earlier, are the natural repositories and incubators
of panspermic microbiology. This input from comets thus made up
the inoculum that would grow and proliferated in the consommé of
nutrient already present on the Earth’s surface. This inoculum could
have been made up of single organisms or proto-organism or, more
likely, a mixture of many different types. It might also have contained
representatives of one or a pot pouri of the major metabolic groups,

such as aerobes, anaerobes, heterotrophs, chemotrotrophs, and photo-
trophs (i.e. photosynthetic organisms). In short it would likely be a
mixed culture of microbes.
The consommé would contain all the nutrients needed by the
incoming microbes, including carbon sources, nitrogen as well as
a variety of mineral nutrients. The term consommé is preferred to
soup because the Earth-bound medium is likely to have been dilute
and not a thick soup. This would have given oligotrophs, that is
microbes which can grow by scavenging trace amounts of nutrients,
an initial advantage. There would be continual battle for dominance
between arriving organisms (which would already have been exposed
to competition on the parent comet). And of course there would
have been successive waves of dominant organisms with individuals
beginning to exploit niches; some would be aquatic, others terrestrial,
and their dominance would rely on standard factors such as nutrient
availability, temperature and pressure.
As soon as oxygen becomes available (via evaporation of water
from the oceans, and dissociation of water molecules), aerobic
heterotrophy would begin to dominate, since this is the most efficient
way in which a microbe can gain energy. It goes without saying that
the organisms would compete with each other and that evolution
would be kick stated. It would only require a single organism or

proto-organism to arrive for life to become established. Within a short
time, this single organism, let us call it the “pansperm”, would, due
to the law of doubling cover the planet. Once a microflora becomes
established then it would provide a food source for other organisms
delivered in the vast quantities of water supplied by comets. The term
water is a misnomer, since it would not be pure water but a mixture of
carbon, nitrogen, and other potential microbial nutrients. So, within a
very short time a living biomass would cover the Earth and be under
a process of continual change and evolution. New organisms would
then come in over the eons as they themselves evolve in comets. This
would be reduced as comets cease to impact the Earth, but microbes,
in the form of biological entities, or even bacteria and fungi (moulds)

will be deposited following cometary ablation. The inoculum would
also contain DNA and other biological material, which will add new
information, and contribute to evolution on Earth, even unto today.
Here then lies the potential for life to evolve, following the arrival of
a variety of incoming components that become assembled rather like
a child’s jig-saw puzzle. Thus, for example a delivered protoplast cell
might pick up a delivered mitochondrion or nucleus by the process
first suggested by Schimper and Meraschowski and more recently
developed by Lynn Margulis. Impact events on Earth might then
also subsequently spread these organisms back into the cosmos, by a
process of reverse panspermia. Later impact events over aeons would
also destroy some organisms, allowing others to develop, such that
even if a comet or asteroid impact were to destroy all life on Earth,
the planet would soon become re-inoculated, although the long-
term outcome would likely be very different. This process will have
occurred with differing outcomes on any planet on which conditions
allow for microbes to develop. The prevailing conditions may allow
for the selection of only one metabolic group, or species of delivered
organisms. For example, an aerobe might alone be taken up by a planet
lacking oxygen. Should photosynthetic organisms get a foothold on
such a planet then the resultant release of oxygen and decrease in
carbon dioxide would allow new inoculants to gain a footing and

obviously change the planet forever. This planet-modifying ability
of microbes is of course critical, once developed microbes could be
transferred from one plant to another, as in the possibility that life on
Earth was transferred from Mars.
Microbes and Panspermia
Life might have originally arrived on Earth from space as a single

organism (or proto-organism) or, perhaps more probably, as a mixed
population made up of heterotrophs (aerobes, anaerobes and aerobic
oligotrophs), phototrophs and chemoautotrophs). The survival of
organisms possessing these metabolic strategies would depend on

the conditions they meet, such that their survival and establishment
would be selected by the prevailing conditions on Earth.
However, if the panspermic organisms arrived in a meteorite
they could bring their own microenvironment with them in which a
mixture of, say, cyanobacteria and aerobic heterotrophs might arrive
and survive together, the former (following exposure to sunlight)
providing oxygen to support the latter. In this case colonisation of
the Earth need not, initially, be widespread but may have occurred
locally in the face of general, unfavourable physical conditions. A lone
aerobic heterotroph that might have arrived on Earth devoid of oxygen
would obviously not become established; however, if it arrived along
with an oxygen-generating phototroph it might well have survived
on an otherwise oxygen-free, but carbon dioxide-rich Earth. Perhaps
diatoms might act as effective “life capsule” for the transfer of life to
Earth as their silica shell would likely protect the internal phototrophic
protoplast from environmental extremes, notably UV radiation. It is
known that bacteria can co-exist within diatoms cases, so it is possible
that a heterotroph could be supplied to Earth in a rain of diatoms and
survive even in an oxygen-free environment, ready to be released from
its diatom shell when the Earth’s oxygen supply improves.
Survivability of Microbes in Extreme Cosmic Conditions
When Lord Kelvin suggested that life might have originated from
space, critics quickly commented that there was no way that living
things could possibly survive the transit from the outer regions of
the cosmos to Earth. At that time, microbiology, the study of algae,
bacteria, microscopic fungi and protozoa, was in its infancy, and little
was known about their survivability While the critics might have
been right about the difficulty of transferring higher organisms, we
now know that microbes are amazingly hardy, and recent studies have
shown that they are likely to be able to survive transfer through space
and the resultant impact of landing. It should also be remembered that
incoming microbes, in many cases, be protected by being contained

within protective meteorites and dirty cometary ice.
Many terrestrial microorganisms can live through periods of water
and nutrient deprivation over long periods of time. Some bacteria can
produce thick-walled protective endospores, or become dormant by
closing down almost all of their metabolic machinery. In relation to
survival over time, dormant bacterial spores from insects embedded
in amber for 40 million years can be resuscitated, while a halotolerant
Bacillus (a bacterium which produces endospores) has been apparently
isolated from a 250 million years old salt crystal. Microbes occurring
in ice cores obtained from the bottom of Lake Vostok in Antarctica
may serve as a model simulating conditions inside the permafrost
subsurface place of Mars or Jupiter’s moon Europa. In contrast,
hyperthermophilic (extreme heat-loving) microbes found on Earth
may have analogues on warm planets such as Venus or the volcanically
active moon, Io. Such facts suggest the distinct possibility of viable
cometary transfer, with microbes surviving inside the melted centres
of icy comets. Microbes can even survive a high vacuum and when
exposed to severe galactic radiation. Microorganisms also possess
remarkable DNA-repair mechanisms. The extremophile, Deinococcus
can also survive sterilising solar photons in space. UV radiation,
notably UVC is particularly damaging to microbes but bacteria such
as Bacillus subtilis, survive exposure to UV while exposed on Earth

orbit, merely by being shielded by only a single layer of dead cells.
Even if only one spore out of 10,000 can avoid lethal cosmic rays for
hundreds of thousands of years, this survival rate would be significant
in relation to panspermia. High temperatures in space might also
be expected to kill microbes, but it has been confirmed that dried
microbes and spores can survive high pressure and heating to 350°C
for 30 seconds. An indication of the survivability of bacteria in the
space environment is indicated by the fact that Streptococcus mitis was
isolated from a camera on board Surveyor 3 after spending nearly
three years on the Moon.
Necropanspermia, Necrosymbiosis and the Origin of Life
To date, ideas about panspermia have concentrated on the arrival

to pre-biotic Earth of proto-life forms, living bacteria and possibly
other microorganisms which then grow and evolve into present day
life. Another speculative possibility is that bacteria do not survive the
journey through space, but dead, freeze-dried biomass arrives instead;
what might be termed “necropanspermia”. This dead biomass would
add the fully-formed components of life and bacterial degradation
products to the prebiotic Earth.
Proto-life that has developed here could then take up these
essential components like DNA, cell membranes and mitochondria
and develop them into fully formed life, a kind of necrosymbiosis
would thereby occur. In this way, many of the complicated stages in
the development of life on Earth would be circumvented. Possibly,
this necrosymbiosis would occur in drying pools, as the preformed
components of life were brought into intimate contact. It would
certainly be interesting to determine if cellular components can be
taken up and be activated by simple life forms, although it could be
argued that these are already far too complicated for this Frankenstein-
like origin of cellular complexity to occur.
9
Evidence for Fossilized Life in
Meteorites
A number of scientists now believe that microorganisms can be

transferred between various planets including the Earth and

their moons in our solar system, and by extension in the many other
exoplanetary systems that are now known to exist. It is possible that
such “negative, or reverse panspermia” could have seeded life from
this planet to Mars, or vice versa, or even transferred life across
many hundreds of light years between exoplanetary systems. While
panspermia has long been hypothesized and recently developed with
great force by the present writers and Fred Hoyle amongst others, there
has simultaneously been a recent surge of enthusiasm for the theory,
following claims of potential extraterrestrial fossils in meteorites. Of
particular note is the (oft disputed) evidence for fossilized microbial
life in the ALH84001 meteorite.
Some twenty-four thousand meteorites are reckoned to have
reached the Earth, around one hundred and thirty having originated
from the Moon and over thirty from Mars. A number of these
meteorites had never achieved temperatures above 100°C, and were
therefore never exposed to temperatures high enough to sterilize all
parts of their interiors. An incoming body large enough to punch its
way through the atmosphere (where it exists) of one of the terrestrial
planets may strike the ground at a few several kilometres a minute,
and produce a crater thus ejecting stones and soil at high speeds.
101
Calculations suggest that the portion of Earth material ending up on

Mars following a 10-million-year period of impacts would be around
0.16%. Even a gram of basalt may contain 107–108 microbes within
fissures, making possible the viable transfer of microbes between
Earth and nearby planets. Such possibilities rely on whether lifeforms
are able to survive the “stun-effect” of being ejected into space.
Scientists have confirmed, using impact studies, that large numbers
of microbes are likely to survive such discharge and planetary impact
on re-entry. Ejected material may also ride on the vapour plumes,
making it simpler to accomplish escape velocities. Finally, it has also
been suggested that the debris produced during supernova formation
can carry living spores as some of this debris falls to Earth.
Darwin and Meteorites
There is an amazing claim that Darwin was shown what appeared

to be fossilized life inside a meteorite and reacted with joy and
amazement. The meteorite was apparently shown to him by a German
professor, Otto Hahn (Fig. 9.1). Hahn’s work seemed to show that
life originated on Earth from space, and the story goes that Darwin
became a believer in panspermia. How did this all come about?
Well, it first appeared in the August 1881 issue of the New York
magazine, Science and was for a long time overlooked. The article was
entitled, Mr. Darwin on Dr. Hahn’s Discovery of Fossil Organisms in
Meteorites. Science was founded the preceding year by journalist John
Michels, and was financed by Thomas Edison (who, as we have already
seen believed in panspermia and would doubtless have been happy
promoting the story). The current top-rated journal of the same name
is a later version. The article contains some amazing quotations from
a lost Darwin letter or letters and, even more surprisingly, spoken
words attributed to Darwin upon viewing meteorite specimens. The
passage reads:
Chapter 9 — Evidence for Fossilized Life in Meteorites 103
Fig. 9.1. Otto Hahn
Not content with the mere presentation of his work, Dr. Hahn visited
the veteran zoologist [Darwin] and brought his preparations to
him for inspection. No sooner had Mr. Darwin peered through the
microscope on one of the finest specimens when he started up from
his seat and exclaimed: “Almighty God! What a wonderful discovery!
Wonderful!
And after a pause of silent reflection he added: “Now reaches life

down!”
Hahn (1828–1904), was a lawyer, author, and amateur petrologist
in Reutlingen, Baden-Württemberg, in the newly-formed Germany. In
his most celebrated and controversial work: Die Meteorite (chondrite)
und Ihre Organismen he claimed to have found microscopic, fossilized
sponges, corals and crinoids inside meteorites. The book was well
illustrated with thirty-two micrographs. On 16 December 1880, Hahn
forwarded a letter to Darwin together with his new book.
At first it seemed like Otto Hans’ work would get a sympathetic

hearing from the scientific community. However, this acceptance
failed to last, and after 1882, Hahn published no more about fossils
or meteorites, and in an 1889 autobiographical sketch he barely
mentioned his meteorite and fossil work, seeming as if he no longer
wished to be associated with it. Hahn died in 1904 while on a trip
back to Germany from Canada, where he had emigrated.
The Hahn–Darwin story has been extensively quoted. Unfortunately
for advocates of panspermia, the Darwin scholar Jan de Whye has
concluded that this story is just a myth and that we can be reasonably
sure that Darwin did not believe in Hahn’s claim that life on Earth
came from outer space. Van Whye further concludes that:
Given the consistency of Darwin’s statements on the origin of life, the

claim that he believed in an extra-terrestrial origin seem extremely
implausible.
Henri Becquerel and Meteorite-Microbes
According to the physicist, Henri Becquerel, Louis Pasteur was one

of the first to conduct investigations into the possible occurrence
of bacterial spores in stony meteorites. However, a later study by
Gallipe and Souffland in 1921 apparently proved negative. Then,
some ten years afterwards C.B. Lipman claimed to isolate a number of
different bacteria inside surface-sterilized meteorites. These findings
not surprisingly led to intense controversy, although Lipman’s work
was repeated by Roy in1935 when he isolated bacteria from meteorite
samples in three out of twelve experiments; he identified the isolates
as common species, including, Bacillus subtilis and Staphylococcus
albus.
More recent attempts to culture living micro-organisms from
meteorites include those of Briggs and Kitto in 1962 who were unable
to detect viable organisms. However, in the same year, the presence of
another unidentified aerobic bacterium in a meteorite was claimed by
Frederick D. Sisler. Incidentally, Sisler invented a biochemical fuel cell

principle, a process that uses bacterial action to extract electric power
from organic waste. In the same year, the Russian microbiologist,
Rubchikova again grew unidentified micro-organisms from the
interior of yet another carbonaceous meteorite.
In later years scarcely any attempts have been made to isolate
microbes from meteorites. The general consensus is that such isola-
tions prove nothing, since critics can simply say that any such isolated
organisms are terrestrial contaminants, no matter how strenuous are
the efforts to use sterile isolation techniques. It has been suggested
that the only way that the presence of microbes in meteorites would
be deemed credible is if a totally new and exotic organism unknown
to Earth were to be isolated. Even so it would be argued by sceptics

that such an organism already existed but had yet to be isolated
from terrestrial samples. The statement made by S. Abyzov and
A. Imshenetsky, that:
…. meteorites extracted from soil not at once after their fall are
hardly suitable for microbiological assay….
epitomises this attitude.

As a consequence, it is clear that it would obviously be desirable to
intercept a meteorite, or meteorite dust in space above the terrestrial
biosphere, before it could get contaminated by terrestrial microbes. If
such material could be shown to contain microbes, then this might
just serve to convince sceptics of their cosmic origin.
The most famous claim for fossils existing in meteorites relates
to studies on the Orgueil carbonaceous chondrite, discovered in 1864.
On May 14, a meteor shower fell near the town of Peillerot in southern
France. The meteorites, which were composed of carbonaceous
chondrite, were given the name ‘Orgueil’, and distributed throughout
Europe for study. It is said that “Louis Pasteur investigated it, but was
not impressed, a story which may be apocryphal; since then there
have been over four hundred publications on the stone alone. It is
remarkable how many papers were published during the 1960s, in
the prestigious journal, Nature, claiming that carbonaceous meteorites

contain fossilized life. In 1966, the Nobel Laureate, Harold C.
Urey extensively reviewed the evidence for biological materials in
meteorites, observing that the organic substances present are unlike
recent rock contaminants.
Critics of the idea that the Orgueil meteorites contained fossils
(so-called “organized elements”) suggested that what supporters of
the idea were seeing were pollen grains, a claim dismissed by the
pollen expert, Martine Rossignol-Strick, and the Archaean microfossil
pioneer, Elso Barghoorn.
The Orgueil meteorites remained all but forgotten until the early
1960s, when Bart Nagy examined samples of them and found curious
microscopic intrusions that resembled fossils. His work published

in Nature, began a debate that continues to this day concerning
the presence of fossils in meteorites. A team of Chicago researchers
then found plant fragments (entire seeds) and coal embedded deep
inside one of the meteorites that had been sealed inside a glass jar
and stored in the museum at Montauban. Not surprisingly, it was
immediately suspected the plant and coal fragments had somehow
contaminated the meteorite and were indigenous to it. But x-ray
analysis surprisingly, ruled this suspicion. The plant fragments
were definitely embedded in the meteorite itself. Additionally, the
entire meteorite was encased in an impenetrable glass-like fusion
layer created by heat as it passed through the atmosphere, pointing
to intriguing possibility that the plant seeds were extraterrestrial in
origin. Critics then suggested someone had wet the rock and inserted
the plant fragments into it, where they remained as the meteorite. But
what about the glassy fusion layer? Further tests on the rock revealed
that this fusion layer was in fact dried glue, although pieces of the
original fusion layer remained within the meteorite.
It seemed obvious that sometime around 1864, before the meteorite
had been sealed inside a glass jar, someone had embedded plant
and coal fragments inside of it, and then coated it with glue to
try and recreate the fusion layer. Why had someone gone to the
trouble of perpetrating this hoax? One suggestion is that it was all

a joke, aimed at discrediting the idea of spontaneous generation, an
idea that was in vogue at the time. The joke backfired however, since
no one noticed until nearly hundred years later in 1962!
Even though one of the Orgueil meteorites had obviously been
tampered with, this did not have any bearing on whether or not
the Orgueil meteorites contains microfossils. That debate rages on.
However, if there is one thing that destroys an idea in science, it is
a hoax. No matter that the hoax was not relevant to the main claims
made about fossils, it still provides a reason for critics to summarily
dismiss anything relating to the Orgueil meteorite and interstellar life.
The whole argument was revived in the early 1960’s by Harold
Urey, together with G. Claus, B. Nagy and D.L. Europe. They examined
the Orgueil carbonaceous meteorite, that fell in France in 1864,
microscopically as well as spectroscopically. They claimed to find
evidence of organic structures that were similar to fossilised micro-
organisms, algae in particular. The evidence included electron
micrograph pictures, which even showed substructure within these
so-called “cells”. Some of these structures resembled cell walls,
cell nuclei, flagella-like structures, as well as constrictions in some
elongated objects that suggested a process of cell division. These
investigators, like their colleagues before them, became immediately
vulnerable to attack by orthodox scientists. With a powerful attack
being launched by the most influential meteorite experts of the day,
the meteorite fossil claims of the 1960’s became quickly silenced.
From the early 1950’s a fierce debate took place in the column of
scientific journals as to whether or not there was evidence of fossilised
microorganisms in carbonaceous meteorites. Although evidence for
the existence of such “microfossils” remained strong, the proponents
of “no evidence” seemed to win the debate for reasons that were not
entirely based on science. However, as always, the correct ideas are
never silenced for ever. In the late 1970’s the palaeontologist and
microscopist, Hans Dieter Pflug from the Geological Institute of Justus
Liebig University in Giessen, Germany entered the fray with startling
new evidence that could not be easily refuted. In 1979 Pflug published
evidence for microbial fossils in the sedimentary rocks of South-West
Greenland (the Isua Series) that already caused a stir. These rocks
being dated at 3800 million years put the first appearance of life back
by some 500 million years from previous estimates, thereby reducing
the time available for the development of any primordial soup. This
work has been later supported by studies of several other researchers
who have pinpointed the oldest evidence of life on Earth to be at a
time close to 4.2 billion years ago, at a time of intense bombardment
by comets.
Hans D. Pflug and Meteorite Microfossils
In 1980 Hans Pflug (Fig. 9.2) contacted one of us (CW) offering

information that was even more interesting than evidence of the oldest
terrestrial microfossils. He claimed to have discovered compelling
new evidence of bacterial microfossils in carbonaceous meteorites.
Fig. 9.2. Professor D.H. Pflug

As the name implies, the carbonaceous meteorites, contain carbon

in concentrations upwards of two percent by mass. In a fraction of
such meteorites the carbon is known to be present in the form of
large organic molecules. It is generally believed that at least one class
of carbonaceous meteorite is of cometary origin. If one thinks of a
comet containing an abundance of frozen microorganisms, repeated
perihelion passages close to the sun could lead to the selective boiling
off of volatiles, admitting the possibility of sedimentary accumulations
of bacteria within a fast-shrinking cometary body. We can thus regard
carbonaceous chondrites (a type of meteorite) as being relic comets
after their volatiles had been stripped.
In 1980 Pflug reopened the whole question of microbial fossils in
carbonaceous meteorites with great force. Using techniques that were

far better than those used by earlier workers, he found a profusion
of cell-like structures comprised of organic matter in thin sections
prepared from a sample of the Murchison meteorite which fell in
Australia, about a hundred miles north of Melbourne on 28 September
1969. He showed these images to Fred Hoyle and CW and they were
immediately convinced of their biological provenance. Pflug himself
was a little nervous to publish these results, fearing for his career and
anticipating the kind of reaction that had been seen in the 1960’s. His
work latest results were however presented at an out-of-town meeting
of the Royal Astronomical Society, held in 1980 in Cardiff (Fig. 9.3).
Pflug’s method was to dissolve-out the bulk of the minerals present
in a thin section of the meteorite using hydrofluoric acid, doing so
in a way that permits the insoluble carbonaceous residue to settle
with its original structures intact. It was then possible to examine
the residue in an electron microscope without disturbing the system
from outside. The patterns that emerged were stunningly similar to
certain types of terrestrial microorganisms (Fig. 9.4). Scores of different
morphologies turned up within the residues, many resembling known
microbial species. It would seem that contamination was excluded
by virtue of the techniques used, so the sceptic has to turn to other
Fig. 9.3. Pflug’s lecture poster and an example of a microfossil of pedomicrobium in the
Murchison meteorite.
Fig. 9.4. Pflug meteorite-morphologies resembling modern microbes.

explanations as disproof. No convincing non-biological alternative to

explain all the features was readily to be found.
Perhaps the most important and exciting recent research on the
presence of fossilized life in meteorites has been done by the former
NASA scientist, Richard B. Hoover. Hoover has been providing
convincing evidence of the presence of fossils in meteorites for a
number of years. Yet again, the scientific establishment has ignored his
studies and he has been disgracefully disowned by NASA. Richard’s
work emphasises the presence of Cyanobacteria (bacteria which used
to be called blue green algae) in fossils and as we shall see, we have
independently verified some of his findings regarding these fossilized
organisms.

10
Our Evidence for Meteorite Microfossils
M eteorites are fragments of rock originating from either asteroids

or comets that populate interplanetary space and which survive
impact on the Earth’s surface; a fragment of such material is referred

to as a meteoroid before its impact. The study of meteorites can reveal
how the solar system first began, what life (if any) is like on other
planets and how such planets were formed. Rocks originating from
elsewhere in the solar system therefore carry with them crucial
information about the planets or planetary bodies from which they
originated. Meteorites could also potentially bring evidence for the
past existence on Earth of other life forms that are now extinct.
Without doubt the most famous recent claim that meteorites
contain fossilized microbes involves the meteorite-ALH84001 which
was discovered 1984 in the Allen Hills region of Antarctica. Electron
microscope studies showed that this meteorite contains very tiny
grains of a magnetic–mineral made of oxygen and iron surrounding
tubes of width 20 nm and a length of 100 nm, which looked like
nanobacteria (i.e. ultra-small bacteria). A group of scientists at NASA
led by David McKay, claimed to have found evidence of bacteria
having lived on the meteorite when it existed as a rock on the surface
of Mars. This meteorite has become the most studied rock in recent
history, yet still we cannot confirm that these extremely small,
fossilised objects are in fact bacteria.
As we have already noted, convincing evidence of microfossils,
similar to Cyanobacteria, was discovered by Richard Hoover who
113
claims that these fossilized bacteria were once living organisms in

the parent bodies of the meteorites — asteroids, planetoids, moons,
comets — and are not Earth contaminants. Both authors have similarly,
independently provided evidence for the presence of fossilized diatoms
and other microbes in meteorites. To date, none of these claims have
been fully accepted by the scientific community, largely on an excuse
that meteorites contain mineral features that closely mimic bacteria
and other microorganism thus making it difficult to distinguish
between potential fossilized bacteria and non-biological artefacts.
And yet again, the curse of contamination comes into play.
Having read recent studies on the claimed presence of microbes in
meteorites, one of us (MW) obviously could not avoid the temptation
to look for life within these bolides. Again with the help of Alex and
Chris, MW began to work with a sample of the Northwest Africa
4925 meteorite. We chose this because it is commercially available
and confirmed to be bona fide meteorite. The single sample supplied
from a dealer was cut from an originally larger meteorite sample,
which was catalogued as Northwest Africa 4925 NWA 4925; members
of the International Meteorite Collectors Association confirmed the
authenticity of the sample. The meteorite was recovered in 2007 from
Erfoud, a town in the Sahara Desert, in the Meknès-Tafilalet of the
Maghreb region in eastern Morocco. (Fig. 10.1). The fragment which
was used was covered partially with a fusion crust, and showed a
porphyritic texture with large chemically zoned olivine megacrysts set
into a fine-grained groundmass composed of pyroxene and maskelynite;
minor phases include chromite, sulphides, phosphates, and small
Fe-rich olivines. Olivine megacrysts often contain melt inclusions
and small chromites. Its mineral composition (EMPA) is as follows:
Olivine, Fa27.6–46.8; pyroxene, Fs20.0–37.7Wo3–14.8; maskelynite,
An67–69. It is classified as an achondrite (Martian, olivine-phyric
shergottite); severely shocked with some melt pockets and moderately
weathered.
As has already been mentioned, when meteorites fall on Earth
they rapidly become contaminated, at least on the surface, by terrestrial
Chapter 10 — Our Evidence for Meteorite Microfossils 115
Fig. 10.1. The commercially sourced, North West African Meteorite.
microorganisms. So, in order to perform any microbial studies on

them, we must first sterilize the surface, so as to kill and lyse (break
apart) any microbial cells. To achieve such sterilisation, meteorite
samples were immersed in seventy percent ethanol for an hour, and
then washed twice with twice sterilised, deionized water, before being
transferred to a sterile Petri dish prior to being examined under a
SEM. (Further details of the methods employed can be found in the
Appendix).
Again MW and his team were surprised and excited by what
they found, but it would be as nothing compared to what we would
see in later studies. Figures 10.2 and 10.3 show the inside surface
of the sample after being carefully scanned and imaged. It shows a
presumptive fossilized bacterial biofilm made up of typical bacterial
forms, which would have originally been located within the original
meteorite from which the sample was cut. Had this so-called biofilm
been detected on the surface of terrestrial soil or rock samples
(either living or fossilised) most microbiologists would have no
problem in describing these small forms as being bacteria. Biofilms
are organised aggregations of microorganisms living within self-

produced extracellular polymer attached to an inorganic surface; by
living in such communities, microbes are protected against stresses
such as antibiotics and the destructive effects of UV.
Fig. 10.2. A presumptive fossilized bacterial biofilm inside the Northwest African meteorite.
Fig. 10.3. Close up image of bacteria-like structures.

Figure 10.3. shows a magnified image of the meteorite biofilm

that appears to be individual bacterial types with obvious cocci, rods,
individual rods and spiral shapes bacteria-like chains. The chemical
composition identified by EDAX of (a), the presumptive “biofilm”
region, and (b) an area away from the “biofilm” (non-biofilm region)
are essentially similar, being comprised of iron, magnesium, calcium,
silicon and oxygen (Fig. 10.4).
The sample has clearly been cut from a larger piece so that the
outside surfaces would originally have been well inside the meteorite.
Critics could further argue that the observed bacteria-like structures
are simply mineral artefacts simulating the morphology of bacteria,
which of course would prove to be a remarkable coincidence. The
bacterial forms seen in the biofilm here, unlike those seen in the Allen
Hills meteorite (which are nano-sized), are around 0.2 µm check (i.e.
similar in size to terrestrial bacteria found in natural, nutrient-limited
environments found on Earth; and again, in comparison to the Allen
Hills form, the claimed bacteria described in our work are large
enough to contain a complete bacterial genome.
Fig. 10.4. Two almost identical EDAX readings for different regions within the same
sample. Northwest Africa 4925 Martian meteorite, (A) is for the “biofilm” region, and (B)
is for another area within the broken sample which is away from the “biofilm” region.
It might be suggested that the image is of a recent bacterial

biofilm which presumably formed after the meteorite landed on
Earth. However, the fact that the bacteria having been exposed to
80% ethanol, show no sign of lysis suggests otherwise; a modern
terrestrial biofilm might have undergone mineralization during the
period when the meteorite resided on Earth, but this seems highly
unlikely. Similarly, it is highly unlikely that a modern terrestrial
biofilm could have formed from an air-derived bacterial inoculum
while, the meteorite was kept in storage. Yet again, we would doubtless
be accused of suffering pareidolia, the curse of seeing what you want
to see.
Finally, Fig. 10.5 shows fossilized filaments in the Mars meteorite
which are almost identical to those found in other meteorites by
Fig. 10.5. Fossilized filaments in the Mars meteorite identical to those found by Richard
Hoover.
Richard Hoover and identified by him as Cyanobacteria. Either dif-

ferent meteorites contain fossilized Cyanobacteria, or they contain
similar mineral artefacts. Finally, a French group, led by P.H. Gilet
recently reported finding fossilized bacteria in the Tatahouine
meteorite which, as in the Allen Hills findings, were extremely small;
much smaller than the bacteria we describe finding.
We shall next discuss finding remarkable biological objects
within a meteorite, inclusions that go well beyond what we see above.
Needless to say, our critics will continue to find a way of summarily
dismissing our work, without really providing any detailed scientific
explanation or criticism of why we are wrong; a pattern of response
that we will become well used to!
Amazing Fossils in the Polonnaruwa Meteorite
On 29, December, 2012 a large meteor that appeared in north-central

Sri Lanka was seen to fragment in the sky into many pieces and a
spray of meteoroids fell on a rice paddy field located a few miles
away from the historic ancient city of Polonnaruwa. Figure 10.6
shows the location of the fall and a small piece of the meteorite.
The Polonnaruwa meteorite shown in Fig. 10.6 (right) exhibited
many characteristics of a carbonaceous chondrite but with a remarkably
porous structure. This meteorite on account of its timing was pro-
visionally identified as arising from a cometary fragment in the
Taurid complex associated with comet Encke. A few percent carbon
as revealed by EDX analysis made it consistent with the properties
of carbonaceous meteorites but its exceptionally low density (0.6–
1.2 g/cm3) and high porosity made it significantly different from
hitherto classified carbonaceous meteorites, and hence its acceptance
as a meteorite has come to be challenged. Not only did critics claim
that such low density asteroidal/cometary bodies do not exist, but it
was subsequently argued that structures of this type could not survive
entry through the atmosphere.

Fig. 10.6. Location of fall and sample of the Polonnaruwa meteorite.
Over the past few years these reservations have been shown to
be unjustified and the meteoritic/cometary origin of the Polonnaruwa
stones appears to be vindicated. Analysis of short-lived uranium isotopes
in carbonaceous chondrites has yielded excesses of 234-uranium over
238-uranium, and 238-uranium over 230-thorium from which it could
be concluded that a fluid condition must have persisted in the parent
bodies of these meteorites as recently as during the past few 100,000
years.
There is much controversy over whether the Polonnaruwa stone
is a true meteorite, a fact which is not helped by the Wikipedia article
about it being totally inadequate and omitting any recent studies on
its composition and providence, leading the reader to conclude that it
originated on Earth. It is claimed for example, that the Polonnaruwa
meteorite is really a piece of what is called fulgurite. Fulgurite is
commonly referred to as “fossilized lightning”, and is made up of
tubes, clumps, or masses of sintered, and glassified soil, sand, rock,
organic debris and other sediments that are occasionally formed when
lightning discharges into ground; that is, they are not extraterritorial.
When this meteorite was first studied in Cardiff it was found to clearly
contain embedded microbial structures, while oxygen isotope studies
clearly established it as of non-terrestrial origin.
For many years, space scientists have used oxygen isotope studies
to determine the non-terrestrial origin of claimed meteorites. The
proportion of the stable isotopes of this element are different in
terrestrial and extra-terrestrial samples. So, by determining the so-
called isotope fractionation one can work out if a proposed meteorite
sample is authentic. In order to clear up the matter, Jamie Wallis,
one of CW’s research students, sent a sample of the presumptive
Polonnaruwa meteorite to the Isotope laboratory at Gottingen
University in Germany. The results were completely decisive, the

Polonnaruwa sample is not from Earth, but is truly extra-terrestrial;
the same result came back when the sample was tested in Japan. We
can be confident then, that despite what uninformed critics say, the
Polonnaruwa meteorite is authentic and we can similary be confident
therefore that any fossilized material it contains came from outer space
(Fig. 10.7).
Fig. 10.7. Oxygen isotopic composition data.

The above data is taken from a sample of the Polonnaruwa

meteorite (sample P159/001-04), compared with data from other CI
chondrite and CI-like chondrite meteorite samples (Alais (8.6), Ivuna
(9.23) and Orgueil (8.79), (Meta-C) B-7904 (10.91), Y-82162 (11.59),
Y-86720 (11.58) and Y-86789 (10.94)).
Further Details of the Evidence Showing that the

Pollonaruwa Stone is Meteorite
Technical details, modified from Jamie Wallis and Richard Hoover’s

publications, showing that the Polonnaruwa stone is a meteorite are
shown below. You can skip these if they are not of interest; you can
rest assured however, that the data confirms that a true meteorite
is being studied. Further samples of the Polonnaruwa meteorite are
fortunately available for scientists to study in the future.
Jamie Wallis reported on the physical, chemical and mineral
properties of a series of stone fragments recovered from the North
Central Province of Sri Lanka following a witnessed fireball event on
29 December, 2012. He comments: The stones exhibit highly porous
poikilitic textures comprising of isotropic silica-rich/plagioclase-like
hosts. Inclusions range in size and shape from mm-sized to smaller
subangular grains frequently more fractured than the surrounding
host and include ilmenite, olivine (fayalitic), quartz and accessory zircon.
Bulk mineral compositions include accessory cristobalite, hercynite,
anorthite, wuestite, albite, anorthoclase and the high pressure olivine
polymorph wadsleyite, suggesting previous endurance of a shock
pressure of ~20 GPa. Further evidence of shock is confirmed by the
conversion of all plagioclase to maskelynite. Here the infrared absorp-
tion spectra in the region 580 cm−1 to 380 cm−1 due to the Si-O-Si
or Si-O-Al absorption band shows a partial shift in the peak at
380 cm−1 towards 480 cm−1 indicating an intermediate position between
crystalline and amorphous phase. Host matrix chemical compositions
vary between samples, but all are rich in SiO2. Silica-rich melts display
a heterogeneous K-enrichment comparable to that reported in a
range of nonterrestrial material from rare iron meteorites to LL
chondritic breccias and Lunar granites. Bulk chemical compositions
of plagioclase-like samples are comparable to reported data e.g. Miller
Ranger 05035 (Lunar), while Si-rich samples accord well with mafic
and felsic glasses reported in NWA 1664 (Howardite) as well as data
for fusion crust present in a variety of meteoritic samples. Triple
oxygen isotope results show Δ17O = .0.335 with δ18O (‰ rel. SMOW)
values of 17.816 ± 0.100 and compare well with those of known CI
chondrites and are within the range of CI-like (Meta-C) chondrites.
Rare earth elemental abundances show a profound Europium anomaly
of between 0.7 and 0.9 ppm while CI normalized REE patterns accord
well with those of high potassium and high aluminium glasses found
in lunar and 4 Vesta samples. Two-element discrimination maps of
FeO vs SiO2, FeO vs TiO2, FeO vs Al2O3 and FeO vs Na2O similarly
match those of impact glasses present in lunar samples and remain
within relatively close proximity of the KREEP component. Iridium
levels of between 1–7 ppm, approximately 104 times that of terrestrial
crustal rocks, were detected in all samples.
Richard Hoover’s evidence

In a PhD Thesis, Dr. Jamie Wallis showed that the Polonnaruwa
stone exhibit nonterrestrial oxygen isotopes and physical properties
which are different from all known meteorites and terrestrial rocks.
While they have properties which are not seen in all known groups
of meteorites, these stones are also substantially different from
all known Earth rocks. No established meteorites have density ~0.6
to 0.8 gm/cm3 and only two Earth rocks (pumice and diatomite)
are able to float in water. However, recent observations show that
Comet 67/P and the dark boulders on Near Earth Asteroid Bennu
also have densities <1 gm/cm3. The physical properties and ENAA
clearly demonstrate the dramatic differences in density, porosity

and element composition of the Polonnaruwa stone as compared to
major Carbonaceous Chondrite, Apollo 14 KREEP basalt, Continental
crust rocks and Pacific micronodules. The density and porosity of
the Polonnaruwa stones is similar only to that of the Comet 67P/
Churyumov-Gerasimenko and the dark boulders of the Near Earth
Asteroid 101855 Bennu. Clearly, the Polonnaruwa stones are very
different from the measured representatives of major groups of car-
bonaceous meteorites. The Rhenium excess is particularly interesting.
Rhenium is a heavy, third-row transition metal in group 7 of the
Academia Journal of Scientific Research periodic table with atomic
number 75. It is one of the rarest elements in the Earth’s crust with
an estimated average concentration of one part per billion (ppb).

The unusual concentrations of Rhenium, REE’s and HPE’s to provide
additional support to the earlier demonstrated Oxygen Isotope and
mineralogy data establishing that the Polonnaruwa stones are not
terrestrial rocks. Although the Th/U ratios of the Polonnaruwa stone
is not markedly different from the other carbonaceous chondrites
studied, their excess of K is astonishingly high.
Neutron activation analysis studies help resolve the mystery of
the very low-density Polonnaruwa stone and have revealed very
dramatic differences in the density, porosity and element composition
of the Polonnaruwa stone as compared with CI, CM, CO, CK
and CV meteorites, zircons, pacific micro-nodules and rocks from
the continental crust of Earth and Moon. Some of the Lanthanide
rare earth elements (REE) are particularly higher (La, Ce, Nd, Sm)
while the Europium level is lower than that of other carbonaceous
meteorites. The Polonnaruwa stone exhibits astonishingly high levels
of the group one alkali metal Rubidium and the group 7 transition
metal Rhenium, which have radioisotopes with extremely long half-
lives (>40 Ga); Rhenium is one of the rarest elements in the Earth’s
crust with an average concentration <1 gm/cm3.
The Sheffield-Examination of the Polonnaruwa Meteorite

for Fossils
The provenience of the Polonnaruwa meteorite we were provided

with was checked by colleagues (including CW) on visits to Sri Lanka,
so we can be certain that it fell to Earth (with many other samples)
and was collected off the ground by a local farmer. A sample of the
meteorite was forwarded to Sheffield, where it was sterilized with
bleach (10% w/v), washed with sterile distilled water and then dried
(37oC). The indomitable Chris Rose and Alex Baker then sectioned
and examined it under the scanning electron microscope; where
appropriate, the samples were analysed using a scanning electron
microscope with an attached element analyser (EDAX). (Further

details of the methods employed can be found in the Appendix).
What we found within the Polonnaruwa stone is truly amazing
and you can imagine how astonished we were when we saw the
images which follow.
Figure 10.8 shows clear images of diatom frustules. It is important
to note that these are images of inside the meteorite, not on its surface.
The diatoms are partially integrated within the matrix material and
therefore do not result from ingress of modern frustules. Note for
example, how in the top right-hand image, the notch in the frustule
can be seen to fit exactly into a projection from the body of the
meteorite; even clearer evidence of such integration can be seen by
referring to the following image (Fig. 10.9).
The obvious response to these images is that they are modern
frustules which have somehow fallen on the cut surface of the
meteorite or have gained ingress when the meteorite was possibly
submerged in water. The likelihood of the former is negligible and
is dismissed by the clear evidence of integration, while we conclude
that it is impossible for them to have passed through the small pores
in the matrix to reach the interior of the meteorite. The large erect
frustule is twenty-five microns in length while the background pores
are far smaller.

Fig. 10.8. Images of diatom frustules located within the Polonnaruwa meteorite (not an
exposed surface). (Bar represents 25 µm)
Fig. 10.9. A Polonnaruwa-diatom frustule which was imaged in Cardiff, showing clear
integration of the left side of the frustule with the meteorite-matrix.
The argument that the diatoms we see in the Pollonaruwa stone

originated when water seeped into its porous body does not square
up; simply because if this were the case then we would also find, in
the centre of the P meteorite, all manner of aquatic life, including
diatoms, free-living algae, rotifers and terrestrial worms; instead all
we find are diatoms. Remember the pond-water paramecia I used to

enjoy seeing as a boy with my Bijou Microscope — where are they?
Why are they not found inside the Polonnaruwa meteorite if it was
contaminated with terrestrial water? Diatoms, being rigid, cannot
move in and out of small pore openings in the same way as other
pond life. If it is claimed that terrestrial diatoms can contaminate the
centre of the Polonnaruwa stone, why are smaller and more flexible
aquatic microbes and animals absent? The absence of terrestrial,
aquatic life in the Pollonaruwa meteorite demonstrates that the
diatoms which are present are fossilized and came from elsewhere in
the cosmos and not from terrestrial soil, mud and water. Once again,
we provide evidence that microbial life is not restricted to this planet.
An internet critic claimed that the frustules shown in the original

report of the presence of diatoms in the Polonnaruwa meteorite are
too pristine to have made an interstellar journey. It is important to note
however, that diatom frustules are extremely hardy. They have for
example, been found in 2–40-million-year-old marine Eocene deposits.
Frustules also survive intact during the production of filter material,
such as Chromosorb which is diatomite crushed, blended, pressed
into brick and fired at 900oC and then ground. Diatom frustules have
also been shown to partially survive heating to 1100oC. It would seem
likely therefore that diatom frustules would readily survive the rigours
of a cosmic journey when embedded within a meteorite.
A major objection to a space origin for these frustules is that
they are identical to modern diatom. Surely, it is argued, they would
be different from modern terrestrial specimens unless, in the unlikely
event, they had somehow co-evolved in space. This objection can
be answered by again pointing out that modern diatoms are identical
to those isolated from Eocene sediments and appear not to have
dramatically changed as they evolved during the interim vast time
period. It is possible therefore that diatoms have not evolved, but
were delivered to Earth aeons ago and have not fundamentally changed
since, and of course, in our view they are still arriving on Earth
from space.

Fig. 10.10. A diatom frustule-half in the Polonnaruwa meteorite, covered in a net-like
material which looks like the plasmodial phase of a terrestrial slime mould.
An example of how difficult it is to interpret scanning electron

microscope images of the interior of meteorites is shown in Fig. 10.10.
Here, we clearly see a boat-shaped half of a diatom frustule inside
the Polonnaruwa meteorite. Again, it seems impossible for this large
structure to have been washed into the interior of the stone, so we
conclude that it is not a terrestrial, modern diatom, but arrived within
the meteorite. The diatom frustule is covered in a slime-like material,
showing a characteristic net-like appearance.
Microbiologists in the know would likely recognize this as the
plasmodial stage of a slime mould. It would make a pleasing story to
assume that this net was fossilized and came to Earth from space, via
panspermia. Slime moulds have in the main been around on Earth for
some 100 million years, while some marine species have been here
for over two billion years, without undergoing much evolutionary
change. They have the amazing trick of shutting down their metabolism
in a process called cryptobiosis. Perhaps slime moulds exist elsewhere
in the cosmos, using growth strategies which enable them to survive
long periods in space. However, unlike the diatom frustule, which
they cover, the slime mould seen in this picture could readily have
seeped into the meteorite as it lay in mud and water prior to it being
recovered and analysed. The EDAX results however, show that the
mineral composition of the slime and meteorite matrix are essentially
identical showing that the slime is in fact fossilized.
While there can be arguments about the provenance of diatoms
in the Polonnaruwa meteorite, there can be no argument about the
biological nature of the object shown in Fig. 10.11. Here we see an
oval-shaped structure within the body of the meteorite. The oval
shaped void contained within the fossil is surrounded by a double-
layered structure with cross linkages suggestive of a plant cell wall
(a), (b) parent material and (c) a plant-like palisade layer. EDAX

Fig. 10.11. An oval-shaped fossilised biological inclusion and EDAX graph for a complex
structure found in the Polonnaruwa meteorite. Note that this image is taken from a cut
section.
analysis shows that all of the indicated regions have essentially

identical composition and are well-integrated in the body of the
meteorite. The matrix matter of the meteorite and the fossilised
palisade layers are identical, showing that the palisade layer is not
derived from modern plant material that has somehow become
embedded in the fossil matrix.
Figure 10.12 shows a detail of an image of a present-day grass-
shard (a) and the fossil plant wall found in the Polonnaruwa meteorite;
the similarities are obvious. Although we do not necessarily claim that
the meteorite-fossil is a grass shard (its oval structure, for example,
might suggest a seed), it is certainly plant-like; it could equally be an
unknown biological entity of cosmic provenance.
The results show that fossils of complex life, including complex

eukaryotes exist in the cosmos and that their fossils are delivered to
Earth from space; the obvious corollary being that life is, or was, at
some time present elsewhere in the Universe.

(b)
DE
Fig. 10.12. (a) Electron microscope image detail of part of the palisade layer of the wall
of a non-fossilized present-day terrestrial grass shard and (b) part of the palisade layer of
wall of the fossilised biological inclusion.
Clearly, our conclusions, which are based on experimental evidence

are likely to prove difficult to accept to a vast body of conservative
scientists. The presence of such complex biology in claimed meteorite
would be used to stridently maintain that the Polonnaruwa stone is
not a meteorite, since by definition (or consensus), meteorites have
not been shown to contain evidence for life! The analysis of the Sri
Lankan (Polonnaruwa) meteorite samples conducted by Jamie Wallis
and Daryl Wallis in Cardiff and independently by Richard Hoover
have produced results that are so amazing that they continue to
provoke intense argument and controversy. The Sri Lankan meteorite
contains within it fossilised extinct microbes and fossilised diatoms
that are beautifully preserved. These new discoveries clearly confirm
that life is a truly cosmic phenomenon. The only way out for the critic
is to assert that the “meteorite” sample studied here is not a genuine
meteorite, but is a rock from the Earth. Not only does this assertion
fall foul of the well-attested fireball sightings that preceded the fall,
but it also contradicts the discovery that the meteorite contains a
ratio of oxygen isotopes that are not consistent with Earth rocks.
Strident rejections that have been voiced in some circles in the West
have distinct echoes of racist slurs. In one reported attack (on the
internet) it has been stated that Sri Lankans would not have been
able to distinguish a meteorite from dried cow shit! But returning to
hard science we must mention in passing that Jamie and Daryl Wallis
discovered that the Polonnaruwa meteorite contains so high a content
of the element iridium that it cannot possibly have come from Earth.
Some critics will probably say, yet again, that we are suffering
from pareidolia when interpreting plant-like fossil images, a criticism
which we have no additional analytical evidence to refute. This
argument is not, however, tenable in relation to the observed frustules
which are irrefutably diatoms. While it could be suggested that the
diatom frustules are terrestrial and somehow washed into the centre
of the stone (despite their large size relative to the pore size of the
bolide), we yet again emphasize that the same argument cannot be
used in relation to the plant-like fossil which is clearly integrated
into the body of the rock. Nor obviously could this region have
fossilised between the bolide being observed and it being collected
and studied. A terrestrial origin for the fossilized biology described
here could possibly be explained by the suggestion made by Urey,
who concluded that the most probable origin of supposed biology
in the Orgueil meteorite is that a nearby planetary body, at some
point, became temporarily contaminated with water and life forms
from Earth — these having being preserved and are now returning.
Whether the introduction of such a currently untestable proposition
helps in the matter is, however, debatable. Most scientists will, despite
the evidence presented here, likely fall back on parsimony and assert
that the Polonnaruwa bolide is not a meteorite and that our findings
must somehow relate to terrestrial fossils present in a tektite, or other

geological sample (as yet, however, we have failed to find any evidence
suggesting the presence of biology in tektites). Most biologists, who
are immersed in an Earth-centred evolution-theory paradigm, will
find it hard to accept the conclusions we have reached, particularly
in regard to our claims that a meteorite contains a plant-fossil, a
finding which we claim demonstrates the existence of non-terrestrial
life closely similar to life that has evolved on Earth. All we can assert
is that we and others amongst our colleagues and collaborators have
proved that the Polonnaruwa stone is indeed a meteorite, and this
meteorite contains diatoms and fossilised plant life. This work has
been peer reviewed and has either been published or accepted for
publication by an international scientific journal. Such findings prove
that life exist elsewhere in the Universe! There are times when we
ourselves can hardly believe what we have found!
Fossilized Worm-like Structures Complete the

Polonnaruwa Meteorite Story
Below, (Fig. 10.13) is yet another remarkable photograph of the inside

of the Polonnaruwa meteorite. Here, we see in the meteorite matrix
Fig. 10.13. Worm-like structures inside comma-shaped cavities of the Polonnaruwa

meteorite.
(a) slightly ovoid cavities, mostly single, (b), but one as a pair. At the
base of the cavity we see a comma-shape indentation (c) which in
some case contain worm-like structures (d), while others are empty
of the worms as shown in more detail (e), having apparently been
removed in some way from one of the comma shaped depressions.
Since these cavities occur in the cut surface of the meteorite, we can
see that when the upper half of the meteorite is put in place, sealed
“tomb-like” structure will be reformed; these containing the comma-
shaped cavities which in turn contain the worms-like structures.
The fact that the worm-like structures, exactly fit the comma-like
cavities, and are entombed, shows that they are not contaminating-
contemporary organisms. Interestingly, an easily overlooked structure,
which is clearly a diatom (and similar to the ones shown above), can
be seen in the top left-hand corner of the image.
A mass of worm-like structures can be seen in Fig. 10.14 on the

surface of group of cavities. The congregation of a number of these
forms provided the opportunity to perform an elemental analysis
on them. As can be seen, the worm-like mass contains oxygen and
silicon, but no carbon. This shows that worm-like features are indeed
fossilized biological structures and not contemporary organisms
which have somehow gained entry to the middle of the meteorite, or
overlain its surface after cutting. These images again demonstrate the
presence of biology in a meteorite confirming that life exits, or existed
elsewhere in the cosmos.

Fig. 10.14. Mass of worm-like fossils and corresponding EDAX, showing them not to be
organic, i.e., not contemporary living bacteria.
11
Proving that Microbial Life of Space
Origin Exists in the Stratosphere
Some Personal Recollections (MW)

B eginning sometime in the mid-1980s one of us (MW) began

to teach panspermia to around one hundred and fifty first-year
Biology students, taking, a course on general microbiology. The lecture
was given to provide an alternative to the then, as indeed now, generally
accepted theory that life began when chemicals in a primordial “soup”
came together from first amino acids and the proteins (more of which
later). At that time panspermia was largely ignored or rejected by the
scientific establishment and few undergraduate students anywhere in
the world would have been exposed to the idea. It certainly was not to
be found described in detail in run of the mill first year biology texts.
The idea that MW was teaching even a single lecture on the subject
was frowned upon by the majority of his departmental colleagues,
notably members of the teaching committee, a situation that remained
until MW retired some thirty years later. For the first time it became
amply clear that while the established academics shunned panspermia,
students in contrast, found the subject fascinating.
When reading up on the subject MW, of course, could not fail to
become acquainted with the name of co-author, Cardiff astronomer and
mathematician, Chandra Wickramasinghe. Panspermia is a conjoint
subject made up of astronomy and biology — notably microbiology,
135
since it involves the claimed transfer of microbial life across the

cosmos. Not surprisingly, MW was keen to meet CW, and even col-
laborating with him in some way. MW assumed that since CW was
head of an academic department in Cardiff (he was Professor of
Applied Mathematics and Astronomy) that he would have eminent
microbiologists on his door step, to advise him; alternatively, if they
were not interested, then microbiologists elsewhere in the country,
or even the wider world, would be falling over themselves to become
involved. It was with such thoughts that co-author MW, kicked the
idea of a possible collaboration into the long grass and got on with
his own, firmly Earth-based, research on environmental microbiology,
involving prosaic subjects like sewage and soil pollution and soil
biochemistry. Fate then intervened, as it seemed to do throughout the

development of our story. As MW was a member of the UK Society
for Microbiology, he received the Society’s publications, including
one that published letters of general interest from members. One
such published letter that enraged MW was basically a rant against
panspermia in general and CW in particular. MW promptly wrote
and published a riposte to the letter and assumed that was the end of
the matter.
As fate decreed, however, co-author CW read this letter and
promptly contacted MW immediately enquiring if he might be
interested in discussing panspermia with a view to collaborating on
a joint publication in his capacity as a microbiologist. While a few
microbiologists at Cardiff seemed happy or comfortable at the time
to work with CW, for political reasons (which were to always interact
with this story) he welcomed the prospect of a microbiologist from
outside Cardiff to join his team.
“Team” is something of exaggeration. Chandra Wickramasinghe
never had a team in the sense that there were scientists in laboratories
in his department who were working together on panspermia. Instead
he had to find collaborators wherever he could, anyone who was happy
to suffer the opprobrium of their peers and work on panspermia.
Some, would provide access to scientific equipment not housed in
Chapter 11 — Proving that Microbial Life of Space Origin Exists in the Stratosphere 137
the Cardiff Astronomy or Mathematics Departments, like electron

microscopes, while others would have the ability to launch probes
into the stratosphere. Other collaborators were purely theoretical aides
adding their knowledge of astronomy and space science to the mix.
Several unsuccessful attempts were made at this time to get funding
from the UK research councils for this Work, but of course it was
clear that committees do not fund heterodoxy in science. In our later
collaborations CW and MW had to grub around for funding where
we could, using all kinds of “creative” strategies. This work was often
funded by private individuals without any allegiance to institutions,
whose only interest was in finding the answer as to how life originated.
We certainly were always severely restricted in what we could do on
account of the lack of funds. But as Rutherford posted on a sign in his

laboratory — “We have no funds, so we must use our brains”. Having
restricted funding is of course very frustrating, but we can understand
Rutherford’s message from our own experience. As we shall see, by
lacking funds, we were redirected into more innovative approaches
which we would never have become involved with otherwise. Of
course, the opposite is also true and we could have (and could now
do) a lot more had we been flush with funds. But it is what it is, or
rather was what it was!
At the first meeting between the present authors CW got straight
to the point and asked of MW if he would try and isolate microbes
from some samples he already had in his possession. These had
been collected from 41 km in the near space environment of the
stratosphere with Indian collaborators, including the celebrated
cosmologist Jayant Vishnu Narlikar under the auspices of the Indian
Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
MW would eventually travel to India and become involved in
this stratosphere-sampling work, but for the moment, he was content
to take the samples provided by CW back to Sheffield and try and
isolate anything that could be found in them. Isolating microbes was
then becoming a lost art as most microbiologists were beginning
to rely upon DNA methods to identify microbes directly in the
environment. Growing bacteria and fungi is a bit like gardening,

an art form. Fortunately, MW received his apprentice training as
a microbiologist before the advent of DNA-based methods and so
was well acquainted with the “old-fashioned” media-based methods,
for which you need the equivalent of “green fingers”. These methods
involve the use of agar contained in plastic petri dishes (when MW
first started his career these were made of heavy glass). Specially
selected nutrients are then added to the agar before it is poured (when
the mix becomes referred to as a medium), in order to specifically
grow individual organisms. Fungi (i.e. moulds) for example, tend to
prefer sucrose as a source of carbon foodstuff, while bacteria often
selectively grow on glucose. Some bacteria, such as Helicobacterium
pylori, the cause of stomach ulcers are what is termed “fastidious”

and need to be provided with a complex medium in order to grow.
Even before the attempt at isolating microbes from the stratosphere
samples had started it was expected that it would be hard work
getting anything to grow. For one thing the samples would have
been exposed to the extremely low temperature conditions and UV-
radiation exposure found in the stratosphere and so would likely not
grow on a sugar-rich medium at laboratory incubation temperatures.
This likelihood was empathised by the fact that, despite numerous
attempts, none of the microbiologists were able to isolate anything
from the Indian samples. But amazingly, MW soon got something to
grow, not because of any genius as an isolation-wizard, but because
of sheer luck, or serendipity. Serendipity is a word is of Arabic
origin, first used in AD 361. It relates to the old word, Serendip,
for the island of Sri Lanka, formerly Ceylon. The word was coined
by Horace Walpole based on the inspiration of a Persian fairy tale,”
The Princes of Serendip”, whose heroes made discoveries by chance.
The most famous example of serendipity is of course the discovery of
penicillin by Sir Alexander Fleming. Other examples include pulsars,
radioactivity, vulcanised rubber and x-rays. In fact, serendipity is such
a frequent and important means of scientific discovery, that MW used
to suggest to his students that they actually plan for it; for example, by
leaving, exposed to the air, samples of any biological experiment they

were working on, and let microbial contamination enter the frame. Of
course you have to be an experimentalist to be exposed to the benefits
provided by serendipity and you have to spot what it sends you, or as
Louis Pasteur famously said, “Fate (serendipity) favours the prepared
mind”. There is no way that Donald Trump, for example could have
discovered penicillin by some happy accident! We will see later that
serendipity once again comes into this story and dramatically changes
the course of our research.
Back to the role of serendipity in relation to our stratospheric
research program. One of the benefits of having PhD students is that
one can get them to do the more mundane jobs, leaving you, the
experienced scientist, to concentrate on the more enjoyable, fun —

specialist and innovative work (university technicians who were
employed in the past are, it turns out, a dying breed). So MW being
a minor prima donna, asked one of his PhD students to prepare a
bacterial growth medium which he would then use to try and isolate
bacteria from the stratospheric samples. The expectation was that
he would find a clear, pristine medium in the petri dishes left by the
student in the area of the laboratory devoted to sterile, microbiological
work. Instead, he found a collection of petri dishes containing a
brown murky medium. This was surprising, as well as annoying from,
the outset!
The student could have started again and provided MW with
proper clear samples of the medium, but as it was the end of the
day MW decided to use the ones in front of him, without delay. So
using sterile techniques he transferred some of the stratospheric
sample into the centre of one of the murky plates and then transferred
the petri dish to a 37oC laboratory incubator and left it incubating
overnight. On inspecting the plates, the following day, amazingly
characteristic, slimy growth of a bacterium could be seen around the
sample. Next, some of this slime was transferred, using long-practised
sterile techniques, to a fresh dish and re-incubated. This was done to
ensure that we had a sample of the isolated bacterial culture, just in
case something untoward happened to the original. Then, MW sent

off the newly isolated bacterium for DNA analysis by an independent
laboratory. This would take a heavy toll on MW’s meagre research
funds, but it was realised that an independent analysis would hold
more sway than one conducted in “house”.
A week or so later, the result arrived and the email result was
read with excitement. Two bacteria had been unequivocally isolated-
Bacillus simplex and Bacillus pasteuri; subsequently the same strato-
spheric sample yielded a fungus, which was independently identified
as Endyogontium album. MW and colleagues, then published a scientific
paper on the successful isolation and so informed the world that
bacteria and fungi can exist in the stratosphere at a height of 41 km
(around 25 miles).
Some years later a balloon flight launched to a height of 41 km in
2008 led to the recovery of more stratospheric material, and analysis
by Dr. S. Shivaji and his colleagues in India yielded cultures of three
hitherto unknown microbial species which were all highly resistant
to ultraviolet light. One of the newly discovered species was named
Janibacter hoylei, in honour of Sir Fred Hoyle. All the new bacteria that
were discovered had a large fraction (80%) of their DNA identical to
terrestrially common phenotypes, but they were sufficiently different
to be listed as “new” species.
The work we have described, however, did not mark the first
claimed recoveries of bacteria from the stratosphere. As early as 1970,
Russian scientist, Imshenetsky reported the isolation of microbes at
a height of 61km in the stratosphere. Nevertheless, ours involved the
use of more modern sampling and more reliable microbial analysis
techniques.
So where did serendipity enter our own story? To recap, we have
mentioned that we asked the PhD student who had obtained a darker
than usual bacterial medium by “mistake”. It was from this sample
that MW had attempted the isolation of microbes from the original
stratosphere samples. In order to save researchers time many media
are made up by chemical companies and sold to scientists in bottles.
Like similarly sold food products these bottles are stamped with a
use-by-date. On this occasion, not being experienced, the student had
used a very old bottle of medium, which should have long-since been
discarded. The resultant growth medium failed to set properly and so
by accident, the student gave me what is called a “soft medium”. One
of us (MW) immediately recognised this but still decided to use it.
Now, any microbes present in the stratosphere would likely be freeze-
dried as the result of the conditions present there. Freeze drying is
used to store representative samples of bacteria in culture collections;
in this state they remain alive, but dormant, allowing them to survive
for very long periods, thus enabling them to be forwarded to research
workers who then resuscitate the bacteria. And the recommended
way of resuscitating such viable freeze-dried bacteria is — you guessed

it — to use a soft culture medium. Thus by pure accident the student
having prepared a soft medium had provided the best conditions for
reviving freeze-dried bacteria from an exceptionally cold environment
like the stratosphere; by not throwing this accidental medium away to
employ instead normal hard medium, serendipity played a crucial role.
So, had the student known what he was doing, we would probably not
have isolated bacteria from the stratosphere on this occasion.
Both of the present authors were obviously excited first by
this discovery and subsequently in having the work published in a
mainstream microbiology journal. Then we were shocked by a bolt
from the blue! A very senior biologist at Cardiff University informed
the then Vice Chancellor that our work resulted from contamination
and that we were somehow cheating, simply put, we were accused of
being lying charlatans. CW was hauled over the coals, and of course
was determined to defend our position and reputation. There is no
doubt that some of the Cardiff scientists were surprised, shocked,
and doubtless disappointed that we isolated microbes from the
stratosphere samples so quickly, but there was absolutely no reason
for them to attack us with such malicious claims.
Two overseas research trips relating to the question of microbes
in the stratosphere stand out. One was a visit that MW made to the
Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in California. This is a laboratory

famous for its work on physics and its association with the Star
Wars Initiative. MW had the opportunity to visit, and with the help
of the physicists, P.K. Weber, J.B. Smith, and I.D. Hutcheon, to use a
complex piece of equipment, called a nano-sims. One way by which
we can determine if bacteria, isolated from the stratosphere, come
from space is to determine their carbon isotope ratios. Carbon has
two isotopes, C14 and C12. Earth-derived organisms are composed
almost exclusively of the C12 isotope, while it is expected that space–
derived organisms would contain a significantly different mixture of
the two. We can theoretically determine the isotope composition of
microscopic living organisms using a nano-sims machine connected to
a scanning electron microscope. The visit to the Lawrence Livermore

was in the hope of doing precisely this. MW was accompanied by Brig
Klyce, the author of a first-rate website on panspermia, called Cosmic
Ancestry. Although not trained as a scientist, Brigg had become
extremely knowledgeable about this topic. Unfortunately, our visit
proved to be fruitless. The nano-sims we found at Lawrence Livermore
was an amazing, largely home-built machine, but it possessed a
major weakness from our perspective, namely it was equipped with a
relatively poor scanning electron microscope. While this component
of the set up was fine for the work done by physicists we were unable
to locate our extremely small bacteria with it and therefore could not
determine their isotope ratios. Yet the problem remains how did they
get to this region?
There can be no doubt then that microbes exist in the stratosphere
at heights of up to 41 km and probably far beyond. The question is —
are they incoming from space, or are they as most scientists tend to
suggest “lofted” from Earth to this extreme height?
12
Evidence that Life is Continually
Arriving from Space — Neopanspermia
W e have already referred to the results of a few investigations

carried out by co-author MW on samples of stratospheric material

supplied to him by CW.
These were obtained from a balloon-sampling experiment carried
out over India (Fig. 12.1). A very large balloon was used to carry
what is called a cryosampler into the stratosphere at a height of up to
42 km (around 25 miles). You can gauge this height by thinking of
the flight you made in a holiday jet which generally cruise at around
10 km (Further details of the methods employed can be found in the
Appendix).
The balloon carried evacuated cryosampler-tubes cooled in situ
to liquid He temperatures; large amounts of atmosphere were then
sucked when seals on the tubes were opened remotely as the balloon
crossed the stratosphere. These metal tubes were then parachuted to
Earth and washed out with buffer in the laboratory under strictly
controlled aseptic conditions. The washout was passed through a filter-
membrane with extremely small pores, in order to trap and isolate
any microscopic structures that can be captured in the stratosphere;
any living microbes present on these can then be grown (Fig. 12.2).
Additionally, the surface of the filters was scanned using a
scanning electron microscope in order to examine any organism at
extremely high magnification. We also used a sophisticated ultraviolet
143
light microscope to see any living objects, exposed to so-called “vital

stains”, which amongst other things, can locate the presence of DNA
(Fig. 12.3).
Because the entry point into the cylinders was restricted in size, no
large microorganisms such as algae and fungal spores, pollen grains

Figure 12.1. Left to right: the very large balloon used to lift the cryosampler (shown here
in its transport cradle), and Chandra Wickramasinghe holding one of the cryosampler
tubes.
Fig. 12.2. New, pristine white micropore-filters before filtration of cryotube washout and,
after filtration, covered with cosmic dust.
Chapter 12 — Evidence that Life is Continually Arriving from Space — Neopanspermia 145

Fig. 12.3. Large bacterial mass isolated from 41 km and the same mass stained with
carbocyanine stain.
and grass shards were allowed into the sampler. As we have seen, in
2003, we reported the isolation of two bacteria (Bacillus simplex and
Staphylococcus pasteuri) and the fungus (Engyodontium album) from
a single stratosphere sample obtained from the 2001 balloon flight. In
a separate study, two further bacteria (B. licheniformis and B. pumilus)
were isolated (in India, by Shivaji and colleagues) from a different
subset of the same stratospheric samples. As a result of the first ISRO

2001 stratospheric collection project, it was possible to estimate the
number of bacterial cells collected in a measured volume of the
stratosphere that entered each cylinder from the height of 41 km. This
led to an estimated in-fall rate over the whole Earth of 0.3–3 tonnes
of microbes per day. Such an infall converts to some 20–200 million
bacteria per square metre arriving from space every single day.
This truly vast number unfortunately pales into insignificance when
compared to bacteria and viruses originating from the Earth’s surface,
some of which could be lofted to heights of about 3 km in upward
air currents and brought down in mist and rain. The average flux
of mainly recycled viruses was found to be 800 million per square
metre per day and an estimated number of bacteria amounting to

10 million per square metre per day. The close similarity of these
estimates suggests that a significant fraction of the flux discovered
may have come from the stratosphere and ultimately from space.
A research student of MW, Tariq Omari also used molecular
techniques to demonstrate the presence of so-called extremophile
bacteria at a height of around 30 km; bacteria which are adapted to
growing in extreme environments on Earth. The following bacteria
were isolated: Oceanobacillus iheyensis — An extremely halotolerant
and alkaliphilic species isolated from deep sea sediment at a depth of
over a thousand meters on the Iheya Ridge; Prochlorococcus marinus,
A photosynthetic marine extremophile; Flexistipes sinusarabici. A type
of bacteria previously isolated from Atlantis II Deep brines in the
Red Sea; Persephonella marina, A bacterium previously isolated from
deep hydrothermal vents and adapted to growth at high temperatures;
Salinispora tropica, An obligate marine actinomycete; Kineococcus
radiotolerans, A radiation resistant microbe, previously isolated from a
heavily irradiated area of the Savannah River, a nuclear reservation in
South Carolina, and finally Marinithermus hydrothermalis. The latter
which, as its name suggests, is a thermophilic marine bacterium was
previously isolated from a 1,300 metre deep-sea hydrothermal vent
chimney in Japanese waters. Tariq also isolated Aquicella siphonis,
a species of bacteria which has been found growing in the Lascaux

Cave, of cave-paintings fame. None of these bacteria are commonly
found in the laboratory environment, so their isolation does not result
from laboratory contamination.
In further DNA-based studies, Tariq showed that a vast array of
bacterial DNA is present at around 24–280 km in the stratosphere.
He is also confident that he isolated human DNA from this region;
although this claim can obviously be challenged on the grounds of
likely contamination. This finding however, if corroborated, opens
up the intriguing possibility that small particles of human material
such as sub-micron skin-fragments could be continually elevated
from Earth’s surface to the stratosphere, and carried across the globe
in stratospheric air currents, and then possibly transferred into

interplanetary space.
A most intriguing finding in relation to our own work was recently
reported by Russian workers of bacteria (species of Delftia and
Mycobacterium) found on the outside windows of the International
Space Station that orbits the Earth at a height of 400 km. Although
these organisms are found on Earth, there is no known mechanism
by which they could have been carried to the orbiting height of the
ISS. How these bacteria reached the ISS and also how they survived
the rigours of the environment at this height remains a mystery. As
with our own isolation of bacteria and fungi from the stratosphere
(at 41 km), bacteria on the ISS could have originated either from
space or the Earth; the mechanism by which bacteria could reach the
height of 400 km has yet to be explained. A recent paper by Berera
and colleagues notes that vertical winds can reach velocities of up
to 250 meters per second, and carry nanometre-sized, and possibly
larger bacteria, out into space The probability of such an escape seems
extremely low, but one thing we can be certain of that neither this, nor
any other mechanism, could elevate the 10–40 plus micron biological
entities we find, to the very high stratosphere. Incidentally, since the
Russian workers used molecular methods to identify bacteria present
in the stratosphere they would never have come across the biological
entities (which we describe below) of the kind that we have discovered

much lower in the stratosphere.
For some inexplicable reason, NASA has failed to engage with
this Russian work, even though it was written up in a peer-reviewed
scientific publication; one can only wonder why they have not (as far
as we can tell) repeated these Russian studies.
As we said earlier, we have also scanned the surface of some of the
membranes through which the ISRO cryotube-stratospheric air was
filtered.
Figure 12.4 shows a scanning electron microscope image of
what appears to be a clump of bacterial cells. The clump (which we
colloquially refer to as the “puppy particle”). The clump is about
10 microns across and is made up of individual bacteria-like cells.

Although, the clump has the appearance of being made up of bacteria,
experience shows that inorganic particles present in the stratosphere
often appear to be microbial cells when they are not. Elemental
(EDAX) analysis showed that the entire particle lacked large amounts
of mineral elements which are typical of cosmic dust particles, e.g.

Fig. 12.4. A presumptive bacterial clump from the stratosphere collected at a height of
41 km (Bar represents 10 µm).
silicon, iron and heavy metals. As a result, we can regard the clump
as being organic in nature and, since the individual particles are of
the size of bacteria we are pretty certain we are seeing here a clump of
bacteria, isolated from the stratosphere.
How then did this bacterial cell mass reach a height of 41 km? It
is generally accepted that no mechanisms exist which could transport
a large particle (as opposed to a gas or volatile) from Earth to the
highest regions of the stratosphere. While theoretical possibilities
have been suggested to account for how a one-micron particle (the
general size of an individual bacterium) might be elevated to the
lower regions than at present it is impossible to explain how a ten-
micron masses like the one shown in Figs. 12.3 and 12.4 could reach
a height of 41 km. It might be argued that the clump was formed

by the coming together of individual, smaller bacterial cells which
had individually reached the stratosphere; alternatively, individual
cells could have clumped together in the cryosampler during storage,
or during filtration. It is worth noting that any bacteria present in
the stratosphere and in the cryosampler will be freeze dried and
metabolically inactive and therefore could not grow to form a clump
like the one seen here. Perhaps individual bacteria could have clumped
together onto the membrane when the membrane was held at room
temperature, but again this seems to be highly unlikely.
We see another bacterium in Fig. 12.5 (labelled “b”). This image
shows a presumptive bacterial cell (or clump of cells) attached to
a large inorganic crystal which EDAX analysis shows to be made up
of zirconium (z). The formation of slime-like material (indicated by
the arrow) suggests that the attachment is biological in nature. Again,
there is no known mechanism by which this zirconium particle, plus
its attached bacterium, could have been transferred from Earth to a
height of 41 km. This zirconium particle plus bacterium was therefore
captured by the crysosampler at a height of 41 km during a rapid
descent to Earth. It could be that these components, the bacterium
and the zirconium crystal, originated from satellites or space stations
or from man-made space debris. Such a possibility would depend on

Fig. 12.5. A presumptive bacterial clump (b) attached to a zirconium crystal (z). (Bar
represents 0.5 µm).
whether or not these man-made objects are sterilized prior to being

transferred to space. Probability enters into the argument; are there
sufficient bacteria present in the stratosphere, derived from these
objects, to explain the increasing independent reports (based on
a variety of sampling methods) of the presence of microbes in the
stratosphere. Statistically this seems unlikely considering the vastness
of the stratosphere and the fact that the individual sampling events
were sent up from widely separated areas on the Earth’s surface. We
are therefore left with the very high probability that the presumptive
bacteria originated from space, and are incoming to Earth.
Since the tropopause is generally regarded as a barrier to the
upward movement of particles it is difficult to see how such micro-
organisms can reach heights above 17 km. Volcanoes provide an
obvious means by which this could be achieved, but these occur
infrequently and any microorganisms entering the stratosphere from
this source will rapidly fall out of the stratosphere. It is difficult to
understand how ten micron clumps could be ejected from the Earth
to this height, suggesting that such bacterial masses are most plausibly
incoming to Earth.
Although there seems to be no obvious means by which micro-

organisms could regularly reach 41 km, a number of possibilities
can be suggested. For example, it is possible that particles, including
microorganisms, are transported to the stratosphere in the updraft
resulting from so-called blue lightning strikes. These are conical blue
jets that travel upwards from cloud tops and travel at a hundred
thousand metres per second to a height of 70 km, charging the
atmosphere as they go; whether microorganisms could survive such
charging and the high rate of upward movement is of course open to
question. Microorganisms might also be carried above the tropopause
when thunderstorms and forest fires occur together. Apparently, forest
fires strengthen thunderstorms, which then pump immense plumes
of smoke and soot (as well as presumably microorganisms) into the

stratosphere. Finally, so-called gravito-photophoresis (GP) might pro-
vide yet another mechanism by which small microorganisms could
reach the stratosphere. As a result of GP, micron-sized soot particles
can be carried to a height of 10–20 km, and beyond. Calculated
vertical velocities exceed settling velocities by a factor of 30, and
it takes about 30 years to transport soot from 10–20 km, and a
further 20 years to transport it from 20–80 km. The effect of GP is
strongly altitude dependent with the lofting force most effective at
an altitude of between 10 and 85 km. It is therefore possible that
small microorganisms (less the five microns) could be carried by this
mechanism on soot particles. Such transfer would be particularly
advantageous, since a coating of soot would protect the organisms
from the damaging effects of ultraviolet radiation. However, a major
problem with this suggestion is that GP only works on soot particles
of diameter around one millimetre; submicrometre-sized bacteria
might however, reach the stratosphere by this mechanism, either
independently or when travelling on soot particles. This caveat imme-
diately excludes the possibility that fungal spores, which are relatively
large, are carried up from the Earth to the stratosphere in this way. It
is possible, however, that sub 5-µm microscopic fragments of fungal
hyphae can be carried from Earth to this region and then, infrequently,
cultured from stratospheric air samples.
We think therefore that the stratospheric microflora is made up of

two components: (a) a mixed population of bacteria and fungi derived
from Earth, which can occasionally be cultured; and (b) a population
made up of clumps of, viable but non-culturable, bacteria which
are too large to have originated from Earth; these, we suggest, have
arrived in the stratosphere from space. Finally, we speculate on the
possibility that the transfer of bacteria from the Earth to the highly
mutagenic stratosphere may have played a role in bacterial evolution.
It is particularly noteworthy that bacteria and fungi growing under
low nutrient (i.e. oligotrophic) conditions are usually much smaller
than equivalent cells grown in nutrient rich environments; oligotrophically
growing microorganisms are therefore likely to be the requisite size to
enable them to be transported through the stratosphere.

A question which is often asked is — are the stratospheric bacteria
and fungi we isolate living or dead? This can be answered by reference
to Fig. 12.6.
This shows living bacteria (stained-yellow or green) and dead
bacteria (stained red) found on membranes exposed to the stratospheric
air (41 km) from the Indian balloon mission. Dead bacteria, staining

Fig. 12.6. Particles stained using a Live/Dead (BacLight) Stain.
red, were far more numerous on the extended field of view, but this
image shows that some bacteria are alive in the stratosphere when
captured by the cryosampler.
We can conclude this section by saying that there exist at least two
separate populations of stratospheric microorganisms. One population
consists of common Earth bacteria and fungi that are carried on a
relatively regular basis (by phenomena such as blue lightning, fire-
associated storms and GP) to heights above 17 km; these organisms
can be cultured, albeit rarely, from stratospheric air samples. The fact
that such bacteria are, essentially, genetically identical to the same
species derived from Earth suggests to us that they are from Earth,
but of course they could have originally come from space. The second
component of the stratospheric bacterial population consists of

bacteria that exist as relatively large clumps; this population is viable,
but non-culturable. It is assumed here that such clumps (around
10 mm across) are too large to have originated from Earth and
their distribution in the atmosphere indicates that they have a non-
terrestrial origin. Since the majority of bacteria found on Earth have
yet to be cultured, the possibility exists that an unknown fraction of
these bacteria may have originated from space. The possibility still
remains however, that all components of the stratospheric microflora
are incoming to Earth. We recognize of course that our views are
controversial and will need to be verified by further studies of the
microbiology of the stratosphere.
Could the Transfer of Microbes from Earth to the

Stratosphere Have Influenced Evolution on Earth?
It has occurred to us that the possibility that transfer of bacteria (and

other microorganisms), whether incoming or exiting from Earth to the
stratosphere may have impacted on (and continues to impact) bacterial
evolution. The continued development of life on Earth has depended
upon the presence of an atmosphere that shields the biota from the
lethal effects of ultraviolet. Such protection will necessarily have

reduced the exposure of bacteria to the potentially mutagenic ultra-
violet and other radiation. This problem can obviously be overcome
if a mechanism exists whereby bacteria can be transferred from
the relatively benign environment of Earth to the highly mutagenic
conditions found in the stratosphere. The above described mechanisms
provide a means by which such transfer of bacteria between Earth
and the stratosphere can occur. Those bacteria that are mutated,
but not killed, by exposure to stratospheric ultraviolet radiation (a
mixture of UV-A, B and C), will be returned to Earth as the result
of sedimentation. The novel, multiple or increased number of muta-
tions they carry with them will enhance the mutation pool that is
available for natural selection to act upon and, as a result, the rate
of bacterial evolution will have been greater than if such evolution
was solely dependent on mutations occurring below the stratosphere.
It is likely that such mutations will occur most often in the lower
regions of the stratosphere where numbers of bacteria are greatest and
where residence times allow for rapid mutation, but not sterilization.
Of course, such a view is dependent on a large number of bacteria
being exchanged between the Earth and the stratosphere. However,
even if we consider volcanic transfer alone, the number of bacteria
transferred is likely to be significant over the aeons that bacteria have
existed on the Earth.
Bacteria, and other organisms incoming to Earth from Space would
have, and will continue to provide new genetic information which, we
suggest has always aided the evolution of life on Earth.
Large DNA-Staining Biological Entities in the

Stratosphere
We expect DNA and RNA to be the universal biological information

and replication system in life throughout the cosmos. An obvious
experiment to do therefore is to check to see if what, what we
believe are organism in the stratosphere, contain DNA. Melanie

Harris obtained the images below (Figs. 12.7 and 12.8) which show
amorphous masses around 20–30 µm in size; these stain yellow-green
showing the presence of a DNA sensitive stain. We believe that these
objects, or masses of smaller objects (possibly bacteria) are too large
to have been uplifted from Earth to 41 km and that they are DNA-
rich life forms incoming from space to Earth.
Fig. 12.7. Large particles from the stratosphere, staining positive for DNA.
Fig. 12.8. More unusual biological entities staining positive for DNA.
Figure 12.8 shows an array of particles isolated from 41 km, all

larger than the five microns limit over which particles cannot be
carried into the high stratosphere. Again a DNA stain (acridine
orange) confirms that they contain DNA, and are therefore biological.
We conclude that it remains difficult to explain how microorganisms
are elevated to 41 km and possibly above. Some modelling studies
suggest however. that particles less than five microns in size, which
include bacteria, and fungal hyphal fragments can possibly reach this
height. This five micron cut off is extremely important. We base our
claim that stratosphere-isolated life forms come from space largely

on this point. Stratosphere biology smaller than this could, possibly
have been elevated from Earth (or of course could still be incoming
from space), but anything larger than five microns must be incoming
to Earth from the cosmos, a point which is critical to our argument
given in Chapter Thirteen.

13
Strange Biological Entities in
the Stratosphere-Personal
Recollections of MW
H aving confirmed that bacteria and fungi exist in the stratosphere

and after publishing the results, we gave a number of local and
international lectures, which were generally well received. We were
hopeful that funding for continuing this work would follow naturally
in view of the immense interest that had been aroused. Then bad
news arrived! The Indian scientists asked us to contribute some
funds in order to continue having access to their stratosphere-derived
samples and actively collaborating with them. This seemed reasonable
enough, so we set about trying to obtain grants from UK grant-giving
agencies in order to continue our work. We had of course attempted
this before, but without success, so we were not surprised when on
this occasion as well a contribution to funding was denied.
Fate intervened, however, when MW received an email from a
colleague pointing out that a couple of Sheffield University research
students were launching balloons in the countryside nearby. MW
contacted them and excitedly awaited their visit to his office. The
students, Chris Rose and Alex Baker (Fig. 13.1) were immediately
recruited and the stratospheric balloon project resumed.
They were of course excited by the possibility of getting involved
in the stratosphere research project, and more amazingly, they offered
to design and build samplers for the project. People often criticise
159

Fig. 13.1. Chris Rose and Alex Baker.
today’s students for lacking initiative, but these two proved to be

amazingly enthusiastic and proactive. At the time they were setting up
a business based on launching balloons and hopefully making money
out of a variety of popular initiatives, such as offering to photograph
birthday greetings or even proposals of marriage against a background
of near space, at altitudes just below thirty kilometres. They would later
develop and diversify the business into a company called “Sent into
Space”, and developed stratosphere advertising campaigns. They even
appeared on the TV programme, Dragons Den with the wonderful idea
of offering a service to distribute the ashes of loved-ones into space!
Later, they did exciting work with schools, offering children the chance
to becoming actively interested in the science of near space.
Within a few weeks, Chris and Alex returned to MW’s office
with the first design for a stratosphere sampler. We were aware that
we could not afford to build a cryosampler of the type we used in
India, and so had to go for a much simpler and cheaper alternative;
one which could be elevated as high as possible by a single helium-
filled weather balloon. By not having funding, fate again intervened
and made us completely alter our sampling strategy.
Chapter 13 — Strange BEs in the Stratosphere-Personal Recollections of MW 161
We decide to choose a surface sampler that is, instead of collecting

the sparse atmosphere of the stratosphere in a cryotube tube, we went
for a sampler, one in which particles present in the stratosphere would
alight on the surface of discs which could then be placed in scanning
electron microscope; any organisms present could then be viewed
and photographed. So we needed a system that could open up in the
stratosphere and then close to prevent any contamination, during both
the ascent and fall through the heavily contaminated atmosphere.
MW suggested using a CD-drawer, which simply opens and closes by
remote electric command; it was however, up to Chris and Alex to
develop this idea and build the final sampler (Fig. 13.2). Chris and
Alex have subsequently designed and built much more elaborate
stratosphere samplers, often with the use of 3D printers.

So, a CD-based drawer system is a sampler box and we were ready
to conduct the first launch. Amazingly, both Alex and Chris are not
only expert balloonists, but their PhD studies involved the routine use
of scanning electron microscopes and associated hardware; not only
that, they had access to scanners which were far more sophisticated
than the ones which we had access to in the Biology Department at the
University of Sheffield. Alex and Chris have only a passing knowledge
of microbiology, which surprisingly is useful, since they could never
photo-shop the convincing biological images they provided; this acted
as a kind of built-in control.

Fig. 13.2. CD-Drawer sampler and sampling discs for the scanning electron microscope.
So, just down the road from MW’s laboratory then, were two
amazingly proactive and enthusiastic students who not only launched
balloons, but were expert in the use of scanning electron microscopy
electron microscopes and finally, had access to sophisticated versions
of this machine. This appears to be so incredibly fortunate that it begs
the question of the involvement of Fate (whatever that is) in science;
a rationalist, or cynic would of course just dismiss such a suggestion
as mere coincidence. It is interesting that Sir Alexander Fleming for
one, expressed the same feeling — that destiny somehow intervened
when he discovered penicillin. It seemed to him that he was merely
the receiver of the contaminated petri dish and thus the motivation to
study the phenomenon further.
It would perhaps be useful to discuss here what exactly a scanning

electron microscope (EM) is. In the standard EM, extremely fine
sections of biological material are exposed to an electron beam allowing
us to obtain a highly magnified image inside biological material. As the
name suggests, the scanning EM in contrast can magnify extremely
small features, or bodies on the surface of a material. Additionally, the
scanning EM can be attached to what is called an EDAX machine.
This allows the operator to target a chosen spot and determine its
elemental composition. By using a scanning electron microscope, we
were able to examine the surface of special carbon discs exposed to
the stratosphere and look for, and image microbes. By using EDAX,
we were then able to determine which materials were made solely
of carbon (suggesting a living material) and those containing only
inorganic elements, like silicon and iron which indicate non-biological
material, such as cosmic dust. We shall see later that this ability to
distinguish between living and none-living material in our stratosphere
samples was crucial to our work.
The first balloon sampling flights carrying a surface sampler were
launched from Chester and subsequently from around Bakewell in
Derbyshire. MW was not involved in these initial sampling flights,
nor in the electron microscope studies, which were all conducted
by Alex and Chris and associated technicians. MW’s role was to
use his microbiological expertise to interpret the images that were

transferred to his computer screen. When the first images arrived,
MW was excited beyond belief. To be truthful he had not expected
the flights to produce much. Yet here on the screen in front of him
were amazing images of what appeared to be microscopic organisms,
but even more excitingly, unusual organisms the likes of which he
had never seen before in his near fifty years as a biologist (including
here my childhood experience looking down a microscope and
collecting butterflies and moths, both providers of an awareness of
the morphology of organisms and their biology). Because MW did
not know (and still does not know) what group of organisms they
belong to he referred to them from the start as “Biological Entities”
(BEs). They certainly were not typical terrestrial algae, bacteria, fungi
or protozoa (i.e. typical microbes) nor were they pollen grains. Of
course, the suspicion was that they were not Earth organisms at all,
but are instead coming in from space to Earth; there would be a lot of
work ahead to prove this hunch.
Subsequently, we obtained just enough funding to conduct further
balloon-sampling flights over the UK, as well as Iceland, Death Valley
and the US Prairies. Biological entities were isolated from all of these
locations, showing that their presence in the stratosphere is not
restricted to the UK, but is probably a worldwide phenomenon.
From the beginning, critics again opined the obvious belief that it
was more likely that, as our planet is teaming with microbes, that our
stratosphere-isolated BEs originated from Earth. If this were the case,
then we would expect to find other Earth-derived biology, notably
grass shards and pollen grains, mixed in with the BEs found on our
sample-discs; in fact, we would expect such normal biology to swamp
our discs. Yet we have never found such remnants, nor for that matter,
any typical large Earth microbes such as algae and protozoa; this we
suggest, is a priori evidence that our BEs are incoming from space
to Earth. One of the reasons we sampled over the grass-rich Prairies
was to increase the likelihood that we would sample pollen and grass
shards, but yet again, we found nothing but the unusual BEs on our
sampling discs.
The response to the publication of our first paper on BEs was

predictable Occam’s razor was uncritically evoked to explain our
findings. William of Occam’s famous dictum states that, given two
possibilities, the obvious is likely to occur. So, if we see and film an
elephant in our local supermarket carpark we might suggest that it
either came from space or escaped from a passing circus. Occam’s
razor tells us that the likelihood is that the elephant originated from
a circus. At first sight, this seems to clinch the matter, but Occam’s
dictum can over simplify matters leading to a wrong conclusion (as
the saying goes “you can cut yourself on Occam’s Razor”). What if, for
example, we investigated further and found that no circuses passed
with a thousand mile of where the elephant was seen? This fact would
not of course prove that the elephant has a cosmic origin, but it would
show that you cannot use Occam’s razor naively without reference
to the complexity of a situation. Francis Crick of DNA structure
fame, has firmly stated that Occam’s dictum is not applicable to
biology, yet it was blindly applied as a criticism of our work without
any reference to other evidence which suggest that our BEs have a
space origin.
Our work soon covered the internet and we were informed by the
administrator responsible for public relations that it was the biggest
media splash that the University of Sheffield ever had. The person in
question was a young girl who was new to the job, and thinking she
was doing her job and promoting the University. Unfortunately, “the
suites” at Sheffield apparently reprimanded her; certain members of
the University obviously thought that claims that life originate from
space brought the University into disrepute! The administrator left to
take maternity leave and we never found out what happened to her.
We hope that the apparatchiks at Sheffield were kind to her.
This would not be the first time that senior members of the
University of Sheffield would set out to actively block MW’s work, the
result being that MW went through a trying period of critical attack
against his academic freedom.
An excellent example of how much prejudice there is against

the idea that life comes from space is provided by what happened to
former PhD student Tariq, who is one of the best research students
MW has had over his forty-year career. Some years ago, Tariq gave
an excellent talk on his research on panspermia to a UN space
meeting. Afterwards he was accosted in the corridors by a very senior
member of the European Space Agency who advised him that if he
wanted a serious job in science he should immediately ditch MW as
his supervisor and switch to a different research topic. When Tariq
told MW this story his initial response was one of fury, who the hell
did she think she was! On calming down however, he realised that
she was giving “tough love”. She herself did not need to be a bigot
to pass on the truth about what scientist-bigots can do to student’s

future. Tariq returned to his native Iraq and made a fertile career in
administration. If this episode truly reflects modern science, and we
are afraid it does, then Tariq is well out of it! We rant on about the
injustices which the two present authors and anyone else working
on panspermia have had to suffer. They are real, but in the scheme
of things they are minor insults, and they can be casually dismissed
as victimhood, so let us get back to what matters — the sheer joy of
scientific discovery, and of course the pursuit of truth.
The Sheffield-based Stratosphere Balloon Sampling
Material was obtained from the stratosphere using a specially con-

structed sampler, lofted by a helium weather balloon, between
2023–15. The first balloon was launched in July 2013 from Chester,
Cheshire, followed by other UK launches, one in Iceland and one
over Death Valley and finally, Wyoming, USA. The balloons reached
heights around 22–28 km and the sampling times, when the sampling-
drawer was open were of the order of 25–145 minutes. The sampling
box, which was lifted by the balloon, contained the sampling apparatus
(Fig. 13.2) which is described above; much more sophisticated versions
of this sampler, improved by 3D printing are now being used. Sterile

carbon discs were included in wells in the drawer. These adhesive
carbon tabs, sometimes referred to as Leit tabs could be removed after
landing and placed directly into a scanning electron microscope. In
this way, we could collect any particles as the sampler crossed the
stratosphere, over the time span when the drawer remained open.
The sampling apparatus was shielded from the possible downfall of
particulate matter from the balloon itself by means of a cover.
Before the launch, the sampling drawer was scrupulously cleaned,
air-blasted, and swabbed with seventy percent alcohol to ensure that
no remaining contaminants were present. A video camera was also
included in the sampler box in order to monitor the opening and
closing of the sampling drawer in addition to recording the view

of the Earth from the stratosphere. An instrument which records
various data such as GPS position and altitude, internal and external
temperature, humidity, air pressure, acceleration (multi-directional),
and magnetometry was also included. After release, it ascended to
upper tropopause boundary, entering into the stratosphere, where
the low pressure eventually caused thinning and expanding of the
balloon’s elastic material, eventually leading to it to burst. A parachute
was then deployed to slowly bring the box safely back to Earth. On
landing, the box was examined to check for any damage. Even the
slightest damage meant that no further analysis of the samples took
place. In addition to particulate samples, we also obtained some
exquisite images of the stratosphere (Fig. 13.3).
Control Flights
Separate Control Flights were also performed before each of the

sampling flights, where the drawer box remained unopened, but all
the other analysis techniques were followed in the same manner as
the test launches. No particulate matter from Earth was ever found
inside the sampler, proving that the drawer was sealed airtight. As

Fig. 13.3. View of Death Valley taken from the ascending sampler.
a result, none of the stubs were exposed to any terrestrial particles

which might reside at ground level or any height in the stratosphere.
The negative findings from the controls also prove the sterility of the
samples’ processing and analysis procedures.
What We Found in the Stratosphere
When the balloon, with the sampler, ascended above 22 km, the sampler
drawer shown in Fig. 13.2 was opened outwards, thus enabling the
SEM stubs mounted on it to be exposed to the conditions of the sur-
rounding stratosphere, and allowing particles that might be present
in the air to fall on the mounted stubs We also located stubs on the
outside of the sampling box to show the difference between stubs
exposed to transit up and down through the atmosphere to those left
in the sampler. As we expected, we found lots of Earth-derived debris
on the outside of the box, including pollen, spores and grass shards
(Fig. 13.4). An absolutely crucial point, worth re-iterating, is that such
particles were never observed on any of the SEM stubs positioned
inside the drawer.
Fig. 13.4. SEM images of terrestrial material found on the outside of the sampler box.
A. Pollen and fungal spores and B, C, and D, part of a grass shard found only on stubs
placed on the outside of the sampler.
Fig. 13.5. Marked impact on the sampling discs resulting from high-speed, incoming
micrometeorites are shown in A and B.
When we examined the first disc which was exposed to the

stratosphere we were delighted to see that craters appeared on the
hard carbon discs, presumably caused by cosmic dust impacting
the sampler (Fig. 13.5).
Figure 13.6. shows how essential it is to employ EDAX elemental
analysis to back up any claims that a microscopic particle is a true
BE. This object could easily have been interpreted as a “mouse-like”,
biological entity, with legs front and rear and a “snout” on the front
(right) side. The elemental analysis below however, shows that it
contains none of the carbon and oxygen (C and O) typical of life
forms and the other BEs, but a single, marked peak for aluminium
(Al). This is in fact, a stratosphere-derived “mouse” made up entirely
of aluminium; it is a mouse that never lived anywhere!
Fig. 13.6. A particle that looks biological but EDAX shows is inorganic and made up of
aluminium.
It is crucial to note therefore that all the BEs described below are
comprised of carbon and oxygen, with the occasional EDAX signature
for nitrogen and do not contain large amounts of mineral elements,
such as calcium, silicon, and iron which are typically found in cosmic
dust, incoming to the stratosphere (the exception being the diatom
frustule made up entirely of silicon, and the stratosphere-derived
sphere which contains titanium and a slight amount of vanadium).

Fig. 13.7. Fragment of a diatom frustule, closely similar to a Nitzschia species.
We were delighted to see an obvious biological entity, collected

from around 24–28 km in the stratosphere (Fig. 13.7). There could be
no doubt that this is a broken diatom frustule, resembling Nitzschia a
terrestrial species which lives in freshwater and the oceans. Diatoms
are ancient organisms; whose evolution we know little about. They
consist of an often beautifully sculptured silicon shell which contains
the living organism (or protoplast). The protoplast gains energy from
sunlight, while fixing carbon dioxide by photosynthesis. What we see
here is the broken silicon shell, the internal protoplast having long
since disappeared.
When news of our first paper on BEs hit the media a number of
scientists immediately suggested that this diatom frustule must have
come from Earth, and that our claims that it was incoming from space
were nonsense. Most critics simply invoked Occam’s razor and said
that the most obvious explanation was that we had caught a diatom
as it was uplifted from Earth. These naysayers clearly had not read
our paper, because had they done so they would have found that we
discussed and dismissed the Occam Razor argument.
We argue then that the diatom frustule came from space, probably
from a watery planet or comet. Watery planets are common in the
Universe and these could provide a home, as could comets, for
oxygen-producing, photosynthetic diatoms. Diatom frustules would
act as an ideal physically protective panspermic-vehicle for the algal
cell itself, and for any oxygen requiring associated organisms, such
as an aerobic bacterium; frustules might also protect against ionizing
radiation. In addition, diatoms are known to be resistant to UV and B,
although possibly not UVC; protection against UVC would however,
be provided by the finest smear of organic material or inorganic
salt originating from the home, watery environment. The input of a
large quantity of oxygen-producing photosynthetic organisms would
obviously be highly advantageous to an anoxic, early Earth. It is

highly noteworthy, that as mentioned above, we have observed diatom
frustules in a meteorite, adding weight to our claim that they exist
elsewhere in the cosmos. Encasement in these bolides would provide
additional protection for diatoms, and other microbes, as they journey
through the cosmos. Richard Hoover has pointed out that there
exists a close relationship between the measured infrared properties
of diatoms and the infrared properties of interstellar dust present in
parts of the cosmos, and that many diatoms are the right size and
shape for entry into the Earth’s atmosphere, even at diameters up to
100 microns; finding which again point to the panspermic origin of
the Earth’s diatoms.
Amazingly, we continued to isolate more and more unusual forms
from the stratosphere, with every launch, but one, yielding BEs. Even
this occurrence fits expectation, since we would expect these, what
we believe are organisms, to exist in the stratosphere in “swarms”, so
that on some sampling trips they will be missed and nothing will be
sampled.
Let us look at some of the more interesting BEs. Figure 13.8
shows a somewhat phallic image. One of the consequences of
examining living things under the scanning electron microscope is
that spheres and tubes tend to collapse under the vacuum which has
Fig. 13.8. A somewhat phallic BE isolated from the stratosphere.
to be imposed, the structure seen here is therefore in reality balloon-

shaped. The UK, popular newspaper referred to this particle as being
“an Alien’s manhood!”
In the middle of the balloon structure, we see a proboscis with
a nose-like opening, which would clearly have extended downwards.
There is an opening or sphincter at the top and an ear-like projection
on the side. We assume that this organism lived in a watery environ-
ment (possibly on a comet). The proboscis, we speculate, would have
been used for feeding and the sphincter for ejecting waste; the ear-like
structure we think will be replicated on the unseen side of the balloon
and is possibly used for propulsion.
Without doubt the most significant BEs we have isolated is shown
in Fig. 13.9. It is an almost perfect sphere which the EDAX report
showed is made up mainly of carbon and oxygen, but also titanium.
Whether or not this element is present as titanium metal, or
a compound, like titanium oxide is not clear. A close look at the
sphere showed it was covered in what looked like mycelium. So, a
perfect sphere showing signs of biology had been captured from the
Fig. 13.9. A sphere isolated from the stratosphere made up mainly of carbon and oxygen,
but also containing titanium. Note the surface filaments to the right.
stratosphere at around 24–28 km. More excitement followed when

Chris and Alex were asked to go back and try and move the sphere
over. MW is not certain to this day why he made this request, but
when they used incredibly sensitive needles to move the sphere under
the scanning electron microscope they revealed an impact crater, and
material oozing from out of the sphere (Fig. 13.10). The fine needles
were seen to be bent, showing that the sphere had taken some moving
from its original position.
This, together with the presence of an impact crater in the hard
carbon disc shows that the sphere was travelling at speed when it
collided with sampling disk. It could not have travelled at such speed
coming up from Earth, so the presence of the impact crater provides
strong evidence that the sphere was incoming from space when it
hit the sampler. Analysis of the material oozing out of the sphere
(Fig. 13.11) showed it to be made up only of carbon and oxygen, that
is, the ooze is biological.
Fig. 13.10. SEM images for the Large Sphere. The sphere was moved using nickel-
chromium nano-tips. A: Shows the LSO during initial attempts to remove it, B, and C:
during the manipulation, and D: after removing the needle away; note the biological
material oozing out.
Fig. 13.11. The titanium-rich BE after being moved across sampling stub. Showing a
filamentous outer coat and carbon-oxygen-rich material oozing out next to an impact
crater.
To summarize then, we isolated from the stratosphere a relatively

large (in microscopic terms) an almost perfect sphere, made up
of carbon, nitrogen and titanium and covered in what looks like
biological mycelium; the inside of the sphere contains a biological
medium made up only of carbon and oxygen and traces of nitrogen.
We are bold enough to assert that the isolation of this sphere and the
other BEs shown above proves that life exists elsewhere in the cosmos
and is continually incoming to Earth. We are not the only life forms
in the cosmos!
What will critics make of the extremely bold claim? Well firstly,
we know that similar spheres are found on Earth, so the obvious
claim will be that our sphere is terrestrial. However, as with the
other BEs we have isolated, we cannot find descriptions of a similar
&
Fig. 13.12. More unusual BEs isolated from the stratosphere.
biological sphere being found in an Earth environment. Geology-

derived spheres always contain large amounts of elements like calcium
silicon or iron, while man-made spheres (like coal ash and other fuel-
burning derived spheres) are rich in carbon, oxygen, but also contain
large amounts of mineral elements, such as calcium silicon, and iron,
which are not seen in large amounts in the stratosphere-derived
sphere. It is difficult to suggest a mechanism which could lift such a
relatively large microscopic sphere from Earth to a height of between
24–28 km. No such mechanism has yet been identified.
More unusual BEs are shown in Fig. 13.12. The “horned” BE is
smaller than five microns, but is attached to a salt crystal which could
not have been elevated to the stratosphere. The flask-shaped organism
Fig. 13.13. A gossamer-like particle recovered from the third stratospheric sampling trip.
is partially collapsed due to scanning electron microscope treatment,

and the highly unusual BE shown in the bottom image is either part
of single organisms, or is a complex of smaller organisms attached to
a “base plate”.
An unusual gossamer-like organism is shown in Fig. 13.13. Note
the thick ridge in the inset image, which suggests that the gossamer
is not a paper-thin sheet, but a collapsed balloon-like structure. The
EDAX inset at the bottom shows a prevalence of C and O.
Very surprisingly, we also found, what look like biological, filaments
attached to a mass of inorganic particles; in fact, the filaments help to
bind the mass together (Fig. 13.14).

Fig. 13.14. Detail of a filament-rich BE isolated from the stratosphere. EDAX of filaments
show them to be made up only of carbon and oxygen.
We are surprised because such filaments could not survive, an

unprotected journey from Earth to the stratosphere. The filaments are
clearly attached to the particle mass and are not just air borne labora-
tory contaminants, like microscopic cotton threads. We also know that
the filaments are not mineral hairs because they EDAX at carbon and
nitrogen without silicon and heavy metals. Areas where the filaments
collapse were also seen; fungi and other filamentous organisms show
this response when exposed to the vacuum imposed during scanning
electron microscopy. Ergo these are biological filaments. Since such
filaments will be susceptible to breaking when traveling through space,
so we assume that the particle mass shown here would have been part
of a larger mass which would have afforded protection to the filaments.
Finally, Fig. 13.15 shows an object impacting the graphite sampling

disc at its base. The particle is around 50 × 20 µm in size. It is clearly
not a piece of inorganic dust but appears to be biological in nature.
It is not obvious however, if this object is a single entity or part of a
larger biological structure or, indeed, a group of smaller forms massed
together. It possesses distinct spiracle-like openings. The damage at the
base, we assert is caused to the sample disc surface the BE-carrying ice
particle impacting the sampler.
Fig. 13.15. A BE with spiracle-like pores.

How Can we be Certain that Biological Entities

Originate from Space?
Before we answer this question we need to gather together the

evidence that the stratosphere-derived biological entities are in fact
organisms. Well, firstly they look like organisms! Without additional
evidence a critic would scoff at this suggestion, simply because, as
we have mentioned before, our minds have a passion for seeing
pattern in random images (so called pareidolia). Every now and then
newspapers publish pictures showing seemingly unbelievable images,
such as the face of Christ seemingly appearing in the draining’s of a
beer glass! Evolutionists think humans developed this ability in order
to immediately recognise patterns so that we could avoid predators.

Even if a random image is not a lion we had better see it as such and
react accordingly!
The BEs range from around 10–40 µm plus and clearly exceed the
“5-micron rule” and could not (on the basis of present modelling) have
been elevated from Earth to space. EDAX analysis shows that BEs are
composed of carbon with trace of nitrogen and lack elements such
as silicon, calcium and heavy metals typically found in cosmic dust.
These stratosphere-derived organisms are highly unusual and cannot
be assigned to terrestrial taxonomic groups. BEs exhibit bilateral,
symmetry, show varied morphology and do not, we maintain, false
sightings resulting from pareidolia.
For safety reasons, we did not attempt to culture any of the
stratosphere-derived BEs. We are frequently asked if these organisms
are dangerous to life on Earth. Since they have been probably incoming
from space to Earth for aeons they are as much part of biology of our
planet as we are. It is possible however that some of the stratosphere-
derived organisms could pose a risk; as indeed could incoming
bacteria and viruses. The possibility that pathogens, including the
SARS and the corona virus could have a space origin is discussed in
the theory of pathospermia and has been emphasized by the work of
Hoyle and Wickramasinghe and more recently by Wickramasinghe
and co-workers.
If microscopic life forms have been incoming to Earth from

space for aeons, as suggested by our findings then it is possible that
their DNA may have been infected with life from other planets and
played a major role in the evolution of life. This possibility reached
its apotheosis with the suggestion by Professor Ted Steel of Chandra’s
group that octopus genes and the Cambrian explosion arrived from
space; the claim appeared in a suitably peer–reviewed journal, but not
surprisingly, has not been readily accepted.
The fact that life forms impact Earth means that they will also
impact other astronomical bodies, including our Moon. Why then
do we not find extensive deposits of dead BEs on the moon’s surface?
The answer is simple, the Moon has no atmosphere, so any incoming
BEs would be smashed to smithereens and any carbon associated with

them would be destroyed by UV light incident on the moon’s surface.
According to our theory, the origin, development and evolution of
life on Earth could only have occurred following the development of
an atmosphere sufficient to slow down incoming BEs and other life
forms. Life will therefore be spread around the cosmos, but will only
be established on planets which have similar atmospheres.
A very large number of cosmic dust samples have been captured
in the stratosphere by NASA and others. Is there any evidence of
biology in such samples? We can only find two samples from the
images posted on the Internet, which we think are relevant to our
studies; these are shown in Figs. 13.16 and 13.17.
The first cosmic dust image, published by NASA, shows a mass of
cosmic dust particles and filaments — which could be biological, at
the top left and bottom right. An amazingly similar image of filaments
present on a particle mass isolated from the stratosphere by us, is
also shown (Fig. 13.16). A far more interesting image, this time of an
interplanetary dust particle, is shown in Fig. 13.17; published by Luigi,
Colangeli, components of the particle mass look distinctly biological.
This again shows a mass of particles and large collapsed balloon-
like structures. There are numerous filaments apparently holding the
particles together. In the bottom right of the image it can be seen, that
one of these filaments overlays and cuts into one of the balloon-like
structures. The collapse of the larger balloon-structures is the result
(as we have frequently seen), as we keep mentioning, of imposing a
vacuum during the use of the electron microscope. These samples could
have been badly preserved in a moist environment, allowing terrestrial
biology to grow on them. This seems very unlikely however, since
cosmic dust curators go to great lengths to store their samples in the
appropriate manner. Should the veracity of these images be questioned
it would not of course have a negative impact on our findings.

Fig. 13.16. A NASA cosmic dust particle, showing biology-like filaments (top image)
and a remarkably similar filament-rich particle mass isolated by us from the stratosphere
(bottom image).

Fig. 13.17. An interplanetary dust particle showing signs of biology (with permission of
Luigi Colangeli).
Critics often quote Occam’s Razor, or parsimony, to dismiss our

contention that our BEs are incoming to Earth from space. They
argue that since the Earth is home to a vast amount of biology it is far
more likely that any organism found in the stratosphere to originate
from Earth, rather than space. While Occam’s Razor is a useful tool
in the physical sciences it can be a very dangerous implement in
biology. As Francis Crick pointed out, it is very rash to use simplicity
and elegance as a guide to biological research. One of the first
indications that biology resides in the stratosphere came, as we have
seen, with the isolation of a diatom frustule from this region. Since
vast numbers of diatoms exist in the world’s oceans critics could,
and did, argue that this frustule must have been carried up from
Earth to the stratosphere and then isolated by our sampler In fact,
the isolation of an empty diatom frustule in the stratosphere adds,
rather than detracts from our theory. Watery planets are common in
the Universe and these could provide a home, as could comets, for
oxygen-producing, photosynthetic diatoms. Diatom frustules could
act as an ideal physically protective panspermic-vehicle for the algal
cell itself, and for any oxygen requiring associated organisms, such
as an aerobic bacterium; frustules might also protect against ionizing
radiation. In addition, diatoms are known to be resistant to UV and B,
although possibly not UVC; protection against UVC would however,
be provided by the finest smear of organic material or inorganic
salt originating from the home, watery environment. The input of a
large quantity of oxygen-producing photosynthetic organisms would
obviously be highly advantageous to an anoxic, early Earth. It is highly
noteworthy that claims have been made for the isolation of diatom
frustules from presumptive carbonaceous meteorites which would

provide additional protection for these organisms as they journey
through the cosmos. Finally, Hoover reported that there exists a close
relationship between the measured infrared properties of diatoms
and the infrared properties of interstellar dust present in parts of the
cosmos, and that many diatoms are the right size and shape for entry
into the Earth’s atmosphere, even at diameters up to 100 µm; results
which again point to the possible panspermic origin of the Earth’s
diatoms.
Should any stratosphere pollen grains be isolated, either by us or
other workers, then this would be taken as evidence that all of our
sampled BEs must originate from Earth. However, according to our
current understanding, particles greater than five microns in size
cannot cross through the tropopause into the stratosphere. This claim
relies on the work of James M. Rosen, who found a “natural break”
in the distribution of stratospheric particles; anything five microns, or
below, is of terrestrial origin, while anything above this is cosmic dust
and incoming from space. C.E. Junge also concluded that terrestrial
particles larger than one micron are only found in the stratosphere for
very short periods following rare, major volcanic events, like Krakatoa.
If a pollen grain or other Earth-derived particle, smaller than five
microns reached the stratosphere then this would not contradict our
suggestion that BEs originate from space. If, however, a pollen grain
larger than five microns were to be found in the stratosphere then this
would demonstrate that an, as yet unknown, mechanism exists which
can elevate particles bigger than this across the tropopause. Such a
finding would at first sight destroy our claim that the BEs which we
find in the stratosphere originates from space. In this case we would
initially fall back on claims of organism novelty, i.e. that since our
BEs (with the exception of the diatom fragment) are morphologically
similar to no known biology found on Earth they must originate
from elsewhere, an obvious tenuous position since such stratosphere-
derived biological entities may exist, undiscovered on Earth (one
would still however, ask why it is that common, known organisms, are
not over represented on our sampling stubs). The claim that we have
discovered biology originating from space would however, continue to
be supported by the fact that, in some cases, our stratosphere-isolated
biological entities cause impact events on the sampling stubs (see
for example, Fig. 9), and in the case of a biology-associated titanium
ball, a clear impact crater (Fig. 8). We assume that such impacts are
caused when the BEs reach the surface of the sampling stubs from
space inside minute ice grains; it is these we theorize which cause the
impact events, only to disappear and leave the pristine BE resting on
the impacted carbon surface of the stub. Such impact damage could
not be caused by organisms “lazily” drifting up from Earth. They
might however, be explained on the basis that an unknown elevation
mechanism can carry five micron-plus BEs and particle masses, such
as the ones we have sampled, from Earth to extreme heights in space.
We remain confident that the evidence continues to show that the
increasing number of biological entities which we have isolated from
the stratosphere, some of which are described here, originate from
space, most likely from comets.
14
Conclusions
A s we have seen, the basic concept of panspermia has a long

history stretching back over many centuries or even millennia,
but until the1960s, when NASA made some tentative exploration,

no attempt had been made to provide any experimental evidence
in support of the theory. The reasons are obvious. Prior to this
date it was difficult to reach and to sample the stratosphere and
then investigate, using electron microscopes and other techniques
(like EDAX), anything that was captured there. Even when these
difficulties were overcome the stratosphere was assumed to be sterile
and little interest was shown in exploring the possibility that this
region is home to a distinct biosphere. The studies of the Russian,
A.A. Imshenetsky should have alerted scientists to the reality that
microbes can be found at heights above 42 km, but his work was,
as usual, dismissed on the basis of contamination. Work by the
Indian group and ourselves later confirmed the Russian studies, as
we discussed in earlier Chapters, but the same old excuse was used
in order not to take these findings on-board. There have now been
sufficient independent studies to show that microorganisms do indeed
exist in the stratosphere. The question then is how did they get there?
Surprisingly, even experienced scientists claim that “they just drift
up there”. In reality, it is extremely difficult to elevate even small, one
micron, particles to the high stratosphere. We of course assert, that
it is impossible for the larger (10 to 40 µm plus) particles, which we
find in this region, to come from Earth. Instead, our evidence shows
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that they are incoming to Earth from space. Such findings show that
the theory of panspermia is the only theory that can accord with the
facts that life exists elsewhere in the cosmos. Of course critics might
be emboldened to say, without any proof, that large particles can
be elevated to the stratosphere, but the mechanism by which this is
achieved has yet to be discovered. Obviously, we cannot argue against
such strident soothsaying. However, the evidence that clinches it for
us, is the absence of common terrestrial organisms on the inside of
our samplers, such as, fungal spores and grass shards; all of which
we find on the outer sampler containers which are exposed to the
lower stratosphere. Since there is no sieve between this region and the
stratosphere capable of holding back these common organisms, and
only allow our BEs to go higher, then these unusual organisms we

assert are arriving at the Earth from space.
If microscopic life forms have been incoming to Earth from
space for aeons, as suggested by our findings, then it is possible that
their DNA may have played a major role in the evolution of life. This
possibility reached its apotheosis with the suggestion by Edward
Steele, CW and collaborators that octopus genes and the Cambrian
explosion itself arrived from space; the claim appeared in suitably peer
reviewed journal, but not surprisingly, has not been readily accepted;
could all the defining genes of novel life forms have indeed arrived
directly from space?
Another question often raised is why do we not find extensive
deposits of dead BEs on the Moon’s surface? The answer is simple,
the Moon has no atmosphere, so any incoming BES would be
smashed to smithereens and any organic molecules associated with
them would be destroyed by UV light incident on the Moon’s surface.
According to our theory, the origin, development and evolution of
life on Earth could only have occurred following the development of
an atmosphere sufficient to slow down incoming BE’s and other life
forms. Life will therefore be spread around the cosmos, but will only
become established on planets which have similar atmospheres to
our own Earth. Of course, there are always “flies in the ointment” of
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all scientific findings which need to be addressed. We have two. The

first of course is the fact that we isolated an empty diatom frustule
from heights of 24–28 km. Diatoms are common Earth organisms,
occurring in untold numbers in the Earth’s oceans. Our stratosphere-
isolated diatom could therefore have been simply transferred from
this environment to the stratosphere. The problem with this argument
is that a diatom frustule is even less likely to make this journey than
are, for example, lighter, grass particles.
We realise that here we are risking becoming “hostages to
fortune” since if any stratosphere pollen grains, or fungal spores are
isolated, either by us or other workers, then this would be taken as
evidence that all of our sampled BEs must originate from Earth.
(The Frontispiece image, top line, right shows a particle which could
possibly be a pollen grain of the garden flower, hollyhock, Alcea
species.) This realization leads us into the second, and most damaging
fly in our ointment that is provided by the work of Della Corte et al.
in 2014. They claim to have isolated a complex, unknown biology-like
particle at circa 24–28 km in the stratosphere, which they described
as being non-mineral and comprising mainly carbon and nitrogen,
i.e. by our definition a Biological Entity. They also reported finding a
chain of fungal spores at this height. At first sight this latter claim is,
of course, fatally damaging to our argument that terrestrial spores, etc.
do not, because of their size, reach the stratosphere. However close
examination of the spore chain provided by Della Corte shows that
it is unbroken and pristine and therefore is unlikely to have survived
as a chain in the stratosphere, an environment of harsh winds and
cosmic dust movements. In fact, fungal spore chains are never found
when fungal-spore collectors are used to sample the relatively calm
Earth’s atmosphere; only isolated spores of Cladosporium species are
found, never pristine chains. It is noteworthy then that Della Corte
suggests that the relatively benign effect of the SEM beam detached
a fungal spore from the parent chain. The suggestion that such a
spore-chain is of terrestrial origin and was isolated in the stratosphere
is therefore untenable. As a result, the above-mentioned findings
do not fundamentally damage our claim that the BEs we isolate in

the stratosphere originate from space. Ironically, after suffering from
suggestions that all of our work results from contamination, we use
this argument to protect ourselves. Sensibly argued claims rather than
knee-jerk reactions about contamination are however, acceptable.
We know that volcanic dust, ejected by rare, super eruptions, can
reach the lower stratosphere. Could this dust be contaminated with
Earth biology? Since ejected volcanic dust is super-heated, we think
this is unlikely. It could be argued however, that such dust picks up
BEs as they ascend through the lower atmosphere. Why, we ask,
would these organisms be unusual, and how could organisms around
forty microns, and larger, in size be picked up, and elevated by sub-
micron volcanic dust particles?

The reader will perhaps have noticed that we have not mentioned
much about viruses. This neglect is simply because we have no means
of detecting viruses in the stratosphere. It would also be difficult to
demonstrate that viruses are incoming to Earth from space, simply
because being so small, they will be continually uplifted from Earth.
We have however, stated that viral diseases may originate from space
and that incoming viruses may add information to the Earth’s biome
which will have an influence on evolution.
As we have mentioned above, a number of critics have stated
that if our work is correct, then the surface of the Moon and other
planets should be covered with a layer of diatom fragments and other
biological entities originating from space; clearly this is not the case,
not at any rate for the Moon. We have provided an obvious answer
to this apparent conundrum, namely that the Moon does not support
an atmosphere, and as a result, any biological particles impacting
their surface would be obliterated. The Earth, in fact, provides a
“Goldilocks’ atmosphere” which is “just right” for demonstrating
neopanspermia.
We are also plagued by the application of the aphorism
“extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”. Implicit in
this statement is the idea that a novel scientific idea can only be
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suggested when all the information demonstrating it to be correct

is available. Science does not however, progress in this manner, but
instead proceeds by the accumulation of small increments of new
knowledge. We prefer another of Carl Sagan’s quotes namely that
“somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.”
Where do we think our biological entities originate, and how do
we think that they got here? The Hoyle and Wickramasinghe theory
of cometary panspermia lays great stress on comets, hence it is being
referred to as the “Cometary Theory of Panspermia”. Comets provide
ideal conditions for the growth and replication of microbes, and the
cometary theory suggests that these bodies act as ideal incubators
for microscopic life forms. These life forms can then be spread
throughout the cosmos by well attested astronomical processes in the

manner that has been extensively discussed by CW, Fred Hoyle and
their many collaborators and co-workers over many decades.
It is worth noting that the stratospheric balloon work of one of
us MW has revealed the presence of craters on sampling discs that
were exposed to the stratosphere caused by impaction by cosmic
dust particles. Occasionally, we also see such impacts around BE’s
(putative biological entities). Now these organisms are much less
dense than cosmic dust, so how do they form impact craters? We
believe that the comets, containing BE’s, break up into smaller clumps
which by the time they reach the samplers are minute particles; it is
these particles which impact the sampler, causing the formation of
a crater. When the cometary ice particles evaporate, then any BE
contained within is left intact and comes to be associated with an
impact crater.
Another question we are often asked is — Do you have any
evidence for Directed Panspermia? This idea relates to the suggestion
that life was intentionally sent to Earth by some unknown cosmic
civilisation. The idea would likely have never got traction had it not
been championed by the Nobel Prize winning biologist Francis Crick.
Presumably, life would have been sent (and possibly continues to be
delivered) by some kind of craft. It has even been suggested that it
might have been derived from the waste products of visiting aliens!
Since we are unlikely to find such a delivery vehicle the idea remains
just that, an idea. For the sake of completeness, MW has suggested
that BEs, notably the titanium spheres could act as a vehicle for
directed panspermia. Not surprisingly the internet is full of conspiracy
theories that these spheres could be spread by Governments of
Earth, in order to spread some possibly toxic agent. Strangely, of
all the countries in the world such conspiracy theories seem always
to emphasize the USA, and without any evidence the involvement
of the CIA or NASA. A single rocket containing a payload of
microorganisms would effectively inoculate a single, lifeless planet,
but perhaps a better idea would be for the alien experimenters to
inoculate comets with microbes and let them randomly spread life
wherever they travel.
Of course such speculation begs the question why would aliens
bother to do all this? Well, we bother to do all kinds of experiments,
just for intellectual gratification; aliens might — just might — be far
more intellectually developed than us, so maybe directed panspermia
could be simply the work of a few alien hobbyists, playing with life
in the universe!
It is noteworthy that we also demonstrated the presence of DNA
in some of the biological entities. Recent studies discussed in a
peer reviewed PhD Thesis by Tariq Omairi show that a vast array
of bacterial DNA is present at around 24–28 km in the stratosphere.
Tariq additionally isolated human DNA from stratosphere samples.
Although the obvious possibility is that such DNA is a contaminant,
this finding (should it be confirmed) opens up the intriguing possibility
that small particles of human material such as sub-5-micron skin-
fragment are being continually elevated from Earth to the stratosphere,
and possibly beyond.
The fossilized biology we find in the Polonnaruwa stone is
without question truly amazing. We provide convincing evidence that
this stone is a meteorite, but it is yet to be officially accepted as such
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by the US-based Meteoritic Society, a fact which will be used to

summarily discount our work. The important point however, is not
whether the stone meets the accepted definition of a meteorite, but
that it is not of terrestrial origin. Biology may be extinct in the home
of the Polonnaruwa stone, but this need not be the case; after all, we
live on a planet teaming with both living things and dead fossils! A
different issue arises in relation to the North West Africa meteorite.
Here, we know we are working with an officially recognized meteorite,
but the images of biology it contains, although convincing, are less
dramatic than those found in Polonnaruwa sample.
Finally, it is important to note that any individual part of our
findings could be proven wrong without compromising the theory
of panspermia. For example, BEs may be found to be terrestrial

organisms and the meteorite fossils that we, and others, find may
turn out to be artefacts. Such individual findings would not fatally
compromise our varied evidence that life originated from space and
continues to arrive from this source.
Our conclusions can be summarized as follows:
(1) Bacteria and microscopic fungi are present in the stratosphere at

heights of at least 41 km. Individual organisms of size around one
micron and below, could possibly be elevated to the stratosphere,
but not clumps of bacteria around 10 µm. We suggest, that the
stratospheric bacterial flora consists of two populations, one
mostly exiting and a second, incoming population.
(2) Large DNA-containing masses are incoming to Earth from space.
(3) Complex biological entities are incoming to Earth from space.
We suggest that these originate from comets. The Entities are
presumably mostly dead, although a small proportion could be
living. Our claim that these relatively large organisms are incoming
from space is based on (a) the “five micron rule”, that is no biology
above this size reaches the stratosphere from Earth, (b) the
absence of common Earth-derived material inside our samplers
and (c) the fact that some particles are associated with impact
events on the sampler discs, caused we think, by cometary ice-
impact. An alternative explanation is that the BEs, we find, were
originally Earth-based organisms, which were ejected from our
planet by a massive impact event (such as the one believed to
have made the dinosaurs extinct) and are now returning.
(4) We suggest that all incoming biological material could contribute
information to the Earth’s biome and therefore influence terrestrial
evolution.
(5) We have not studied viruses, but it is likely that these are also
incoming from space to Earth.
(6) These incoming organisms are as much part of Earth’s biology
and we assume most will be harmless. Some however, (notably

viruses) could cause pandemics.
(7) Meteorites contain fossilized organism showing that microbial
life once existed on Mars and other planets.
Finally, let us return to one of the Biological Entitles discussed

above which is particularly significant (Fig. 14.1). The final figure is
a repeat showing of a large particulate mass made up of inorganic
cosmic dust particle interwoven with filaments which, because they
are not inorganic, we suggest are biological. When MW first saw
this image he was a little concerned thinking that it was unlikely that
filamentous organisms would make the journey from space to the
stratosphere. But this particulate mass provides us with a smoking
gun that life is incoming from space. Firstly, look at the size. There
is no way that a mass of 2–300 µm could be elevated to just below
30 km.
Secondly, if the mass originated from either space or Earth
without being protected, it would have been broken up and the
filaments would have been destroyed. This points to the fact that the
mass was in some way covered and protected. If it originated from
Earth with such a covering, it would be far too heavy to be elevated
to the stratosphere. If it came from space however, a covering would
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Fig. 14.1. A filament-rich BE 200plus microns in size. Note the EDAX showing that the
filaments are biological.
not present a problem, and in fact would protect the particulate

mass. We believe that this covering is cometary ice, which evaporated
leaving the filamentous mass in a pristine condition. This particulate
mass contains biological filaments and came from space. Yet again we
provide evidence that Earth is not the only place in the cosmos that
supports life.
Our conclusions will doubtless be met with much hand-waving
and the “internet-Einsteins” and trolls will very much enjoy attacking
them. More rational scientific debate may also dismiss our claims.
We ask however, that rather than endlessly debating our findings,
the scientist should send samplers to the stratosphere to look for our
BEs, or search meteorites for fossilized life forms. Neither of these
tasks is expensive or time consuming, certainly not when compared
to the vast amounts of money NASA spends on searching for life on
other planets. Rather than speculating on why we are wrong, a small

amount of money and effort could confirm, or dismiss our findings.
We are modestly certain that our evidence shows that microbial
life exists elsewhere in the cosmos; we are not alone. It would be
tragic if our claims were to continue to be subjected to a knee-jerk
dismissal, or merely become the subject of endless, fruitless debate.
Even we find it difficult to believe what we have found, but in the
immortal words of that famous detect fictional detective:
“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains,
however, improbable is the truth.”
We thought we might end on a light note by concluding in the

style of Darwin, firstly when he added his famous quote at the end of
the first edition of On the Origin of Species:
There is even more grandeur in this view of life. A view, which sees
life-forms not being original, or restricted to a nugatory globe, in the
corner of an insignificant galaxy, but able to spread throughout the
cosmos. Life-forms that grow and evolve on any sterile world they
meet, or otherwise contribute to nature’s development on already
populated worlds.
And mirroring Darwin’s “Tangled hedge quote” in later editions

of The Origin:
It is wonderful to reflect on the feeling of awe one gets when gazing
at the milky way, and to know that it is teeming with a diversity of
life, and the nucleotide-blueprints of future life. All to be continually
spread throughout the cosmos, by a natural process, or one that is
directed by some, as yet, unknown intelligence.
Darwin’s famous classic revolutionised our ideas about how

species originated. We hope that this book will revolutionise our view
of how life originated on this planet and convince the reader that it
continues to be delivered to Earth from the depths of the cosmos.
Postscript — Future Prospects
G enetic similarities of stratospheric bacteria as discovered by

Wainwright and others to existing terrestrial genera have been
cited as an argument to discount their possible space origin. However,

if all terrestrial bacterial genera all have an ultimate space origin,
homologies of the type found (e.g. the genera discovered by Shivaji
and others) are to be expected and do indeed corroborate a space
origin of all bacteria on Earth as discussed extensively by Hoyle and
Wickramasinghe in numerous books and papers.
In order to take the matter further, and hopefully reach a decisive
conclusion, further tests of the collected microbial samples would
be desirable. One such test (as has been discussed in the book)
involves the deployment of the rather rare laboratory resource — a
Nanosims machine. This technique which has to be deployed directly
on the original cells (before replication) will determine the isotopic
composition of carbon, oxygen and other constituent elements within
the individual bacterial cells, and if the composition turns out to be
non-terrestrial, it is QED! Proof once and for all that panspermia —
neopanspermia — is proved. The tight control of the relevant
experimental resources worldwide has so far prevented us from
gaining access to this equipment. The sceptic is thus left in a seemingly
comfortable position to assert, if he or she so wished, that what we
have found in the balloon samples in 2001 and 2009, as well as in the
samples recovered more recently on the International Space Station,
were terrestrial contaminants — being lofted to the stratosphere
195
even against incredible odds. This is just one instance of control of

science by a small, but highly influential, group of “gatekeepers” that
is hindering current progress in Biology and which cannot be easily
overcome.
A paradigm shift of the kind discussed throughout this book
may thus be stalled for seemingly rational reasons based on either
prudence or pragmatism:
(1) The proposed paradigm shift from Earth-centred life to cosmic-

centred life might be seen as a threat to national security. The critic
might assert that people may become so scared and emotionally
unsettled that even the enforcement of law and order might pose a
problem.
(2) To admit that we have supported a wrong paradigm may have
economic repercussions in regard to the many large funding
commitments that are already in place for exploring ideas based
on a wrong premise.
(3) An inevitable demand that would follow for re-orientation of
existing space programmes would have serious fiscal implications
that would need to be kept in mind.
(4) To cope with ameliorating the worst effects of any future pandemics
it would have to be deemed prudent — even necessary — to
monitor the stratosphere for potentially lethal incoming pathogens
(bacteria and viruses), and such a world-wide programme would
require large budgets as well as new strategies in world health
economics.
None of the above reasons would be good enough to halt the

acceptance of a new paradigm which we believe is long overdue.
From the earliest times primitive man appears to have had an innate
perception of a connection between life and some major aspect of
the Universe. The fact that most primitive gods and goddesses being
invariably placed in the skies was itself an expression of this link. With
the triumph of Christendom over Greco-Roman “Paganism” dawn of
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“civilization” saw a firm rejection of earlier views about the nature

of life in the cosmos, and this included an aversion to Panspermia.
Giordano Bruno’s famous assertions on alien life that led to his
death in 1600, and similar assertions have punctuated history. The
modern interest in aliens expressed in science fiction can generally
be interpreted as an implicit acknowledgement of alien life, and
furthermore of our own intimate connection with it.
It is a curious fact that whilst science fiction movies portraying
alien life become box office hits, the vast body of technical data on
alien life such as been curated in this book are scarcely known to the
public at large. This is not due to any weakness or inadequacy of the
evidence itself, but due to the fact that prominent science journals
that enjoy the widest media exposure deliberately act as censors of

“unacceptable” science. In such a situation no discoveries get to be
published except those that conform to the academic orthodoxy. We
thus have a situation of total and absolute control of information in
science and this is surely to be regretted.
The alternate viewpoint reviewed in this book that viral and
bacterial genes are continually added to genomes of evolving life-forms
leaves the role of neo-Darwinian evolution occupying a less important
role as a kind of fine-tuning, rather than as the main driving force.
Major evolutionary traits in the development of complex life are thus
all externally derived, and evolution essentially driven from outside. If
this is so the overall impression will be of a pre-programming in the
higher levels of development in biology. The mechanism is that the
relevant viral genes that were transported to Earth (neopanspermia,
or even necropanspermia) had evolved over vast timescales and in
innumerable locations and suddenly came to be expressed locally on
the Earth. The evolution of the eye may be seen as one example of this
type, and even some highly complex, and less definable manifestations
of gene expression in our own immediate line of descent in hominid
evolution bear the signs of “pre-programming” or pre-evolution as
pointed out by the Japanese biologist, S. Ohno who, in 1970 wrote:
Did the genome of our cave-dwelling predecessor contain a set

or set of genes which enabled modern man to compose music of
infinite complexity and write novels with profound meaning? One
is compelled to give an affirmative answer……It looks as though
the early Homo was already provided with the intellectual potential
which was in great excess of what was needed to cope with the
environment of his time…
It can be speculated, consistent with the panspermia theory

reviewed in this book, that the relevant genes for all such processes,
including the musical and intellectual development in humans
discussed by Ohno, evolved in a cosmic context and involved dispersal
and exchange of viral genes across billions of light years. We can argue
that Darwinian evolution occurred not on a single planet like Earth

but over innumerable habitats in the grandest possible cosmic setting.
We saw in earlier Chapters that evidence from the examination of
meteoroids and other astronomical data supports this point of view.
The huge numbers of habitable planets (over one hundred billion in
our galaxy alone) that have recently been detected and the estimated
mean distance of such planets being only a few light-years, imply that
panspermia must be regarded as inevitable.
From studies of aquatic environments, it is estimated that about
31
10 viruses are always in our midst, and the bulk of this grand total is
likely to have fallen from the skies. Such viruses can have played three
well-attested roles throughout our evolutionary history. They could
cull us through the mechanism of disease (viral multiplication); they
could protect us as in the role of placental syncytium, a virus-caused
cellular membrane, that protects a fertilised egg (non-self) from being
attacked by the immune system; or they could merge with our DNA
(endogenisation), endowing it with evolutionary potential. They would
also inevitably contribute to our microbiomes and thus have a
controlling influence on our lives. If all such viruses — including those
that contribute to our microbiomes — are of cosmic origin, it is not
surprising that ingrained in every human being there is an instinctive
feeling of a deep connection with some major aspect of the Universe.
199
Fig. 15.1. Gauguin’s painting of 1897: “Where do we come from? What are we? Where
are we going?”.
Early man gave expression to this feeling by inventing pantheons

of gods that mostly resided in the sky; and later religions inherited
similar traditions that continue to the present day.
Artists through the ages also depicted a similar cosmic connection,
as for instance in the famous painting in 1897 by Paul Guaguin
with the title: “Where do we come from? What are we? Where are
we going?” (Fig. 15.1) As clearly seen in the reproduction, in the
reverential gaze upwards to the sky, tells the whole story.
As for the answers to Gauguin’s questions, the first “Where do we
come from?” is already answered. We (our DNA) came from space
in the form of bacteria and viruses, cosmic viruses that evolved an
almost infinite range of evolutionary outcomes over aeons of time. The
answer to Gauguin’s second question — what are we? — is thus also,
at least partially, answered by virtue of developments in biology that
have taken place after the dawn of the millennium. After the human
genome was fully sequenced our cosmic ancestry was essentially
laid bare. We have discovered as we have reviewed throughout this
book that much of our genetic inheritance may be comprised of
DNA actually delivered by viruses. At least 43% of the entire human
genome may be traced directly to viruses and their closely related
products. This estimate is based on the likely hypothesis that 34%
of the human genome which constitute LINEs (Long Interspersed
Nuclear Elements) (21%), and SINEs (Short Interspersed Nuclear

Elements) (13%), which are retroviral derived and controlled, and
HERVs (Human Endogenous Retroviruses) and LTRs (Long Terminal
Repeats) (9%).
We can now answer Gauguin’s second question with confidence.
We are essentially a complex of cosmic viruses; our evolution in every
significant respect was directed by the ongoing incidence of cosmic
viruses. In the fullness of time, long before the Sun exhausts its
hydrogen fuel and becomes a red giant, some part of our augmented
and reshuffled genomes will return to space to influence the evolution
of life elsewhere in distant cosmic habitats. “Seeds” carrying our
Earthly genetic heritage will eventually come to be sown on other
planets.
Gauguin’s third question “Where are we going to?” has the answer
“We are going back into space — back into the cosmos where we
came from.”
Appendix
Text of Guest Editorial in International Journal of

Astrobiology
International Journal of Astrobiology 1(2): 77–78 (2002) Printed in the United Kingdom
DOI: 10.1017/S1473550402001118 © 2002 Cambridge University Press
Editorial
The Beginnings of Astrobiology
W ith the present surge of interest in astrobiology and its

emergence as a new scientific discipline in its own right,
the role of a celebrated pioneer is all too often forgotten. There
can be little doubt that the late Sir Fred Hoyle played a key part in
relating astronomical phenomena to questions of life. One of his
first contributions in this area was his introduction of the so-called
anthropic principle to astronomy. By the late 1940’s astronomers
had worked out how the simplest chemical element Hydrogen
could be converted into Helium in stars, thus providing the
main energy source by which stars shine. The building of nuclei
beyond Helium by stellar nuclear processes appeared difficult at
the time because of instabilities in nuclei with atomic masses 5
and 8. Hoyle had the grand vision of making most if not all of the
elements in the Periodic Table in stars. In the early 1950’s Hoyle
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argued that by the very fact of our existence, the existence of life, the
element Carbon had to be synthesised in quantity in stars. This could
not happen, Hoyle concluded, unless the nucleus of Carbon possessed
an energy level corresponding to a hitherto unknown excited state
which he was able to calculate. This was necessary so that three Helium
nuclei could combine first to form a Carbon nucleus in the excited
state that subsequently decayed into the ground state. One of the
major triumphs of Hoyle’s Anthropic Principle was that his predicted
excited state was subsequently discovered in the laboratory by Ward
Whaling and Willy Fowler at Caltech. This discovery opened the door
to a brand new discipline of Nuclear Astrophysics. In a seminal paper
published in 1957, Hoyle together with Willy Fowler, Geoffrey and
Margaret Burbidge showed that all the chemical elements needed for
life C, N, O, P, Mg, Fe, S,… were made in stars. In a sense Hoyle’s
work in 1957 already provided the foundation stone for astrobiology.
He showed that in essence we were made of stardust.
Fred Hoyle was amazingly prescient in recognising the importance
of molecules in interstellar space even in the 1940’s. Long before
the discovery of the 21 cm line of neutral Hydrogen by Radio
Astronomers Hoyle had argued for the widespread occurrence of
Hydrogen molecules in the galaxy. Over two decades had to elapse
before the molecule H2 was discovered observationally and shown to
be a major component of interstellar clouds.
In 1924 the Russian A.I. Oparin had promulgated the Primordial
Soup Theory of the origin of life, and the same theory was indepen-
dently proposed by the English Biologist J.B.S. Haldane in 1929. Hoyle
admitted to being suspicious of Haldane’s theory from the outset,
as indeed he was of his politics! As early as 1955 in his classic book
Frontiers of Astronomy, Hoyle discussed the merits of expanding the
setting for the primordial soup to encompass the entire solar nebula,
thus enhancing enormously the chances of life emerging from non-
living material.
With the discoveries of carbon-based molecules in space, Hoyle
and I began to consider even grander cosmic vistas for life. In the
203
mid-1970’s we argued that complex organic polymers would form

on the surfaces of interstellar dust. We referred to polyformaldehyde,
polysaccharides, bicyclic and polycyclic aromatics as prebiotic compo-
nents of dust, identifying these classes of substances by infrared and
ultraviolet spectral features. Although our own identifications in the
1970’s were refuted at the time, similar identifications of organic and
prebiotic polymers in interstellar dust are now generally accepted
without dissent. By 1980 Hoyle and I made out a case for over 20%
of interstellar carbon to be in the form of dust grains that mimicked
the properties of freeze-dried bacteria. In view of the efficiency of
conversion that was demanded by the astronomical observations
we argued further that these organic dust particles most probably
had a biological provenance. The idea was that comets condensing

around primitive stellar-planetary systems inevitably mopped up a
fraction of viable microbes from interstellar clouds, amplified them
enormously in their warm watery interiors and returned most of it
back into interstellar space from which new star systems can form.
Some fraction of this biologically processed material would also
and its way onto the surfaces of planets that could then be seeded
with life. With the explorations of Comet Halley in 1986 the simple
model of an inorganic dirty ice comet had to be replaced by one that
included a significant organic component. Once again astronomical
observations revealed that the cosmic dust from this comet was
largely indistinguishable from bacterial material or their degradation
products.
These ideas, referred to as panspermia, are still controversial of
course, but there are definite signs of progress towards an acceptance,
albeit in a limited form. It is now generally conceded that organics in
interstellar clouds and in comets played a decisive role in life’s origins
on the Earth. Moreover, it is accepted that microorganisms are sturdy
enough to withstand the rigors of space travel, if suitably coated or
encased, so transfers of life between comets and planets in the solar
system are more or less taken for granted.
Fred Hoyle’s visions for astrobiology remained for the most part
unrealised throughout his lifetime. Now they are slowly coming to
be accepted and may even be drifting into mainstream science. His
priority in this area is amply documented and beyond dispute. In a
lecture delivered in Cardiff on 15 April 1980 entitled “The relation of
biology to astronomy” Fred Hoyle concluded thus:
Microbiology may be said to have had its beginnings in the nineteen
forties. A new world of the most astonishing complexity began then
to be revealed. In retrospect I find it remarkable that microbiologists
did not at once recognise that the world into which they had
penetrated had of necessity to be of cosmic order. I suspect that
the cosmic quality of microbiology will seem as obvious to future
generations as the Sun being the centre of our solar system seems
obvious to the present generation.
Today Hoyle’s prophesy may not be too far from being realised.
Chandra Wickramasinghe
Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology
Cardiff University
References
Relevant technical papers are reprinted in “Astronomical Origins of Life:
Steps towards panspermia” ed. F. Hoyle and N.C. Wickramasinghe (Kluwer
Academic Press, 2000).
Popular exposition: “Cosmic Dragons: Life and Death on our Planet” —

(Souvenir Press, 2001).
Original invited Guest Editorial was first published in International Journal of

Astrobiology, 1(2): 77–78 (2002)
Acknowledgements
I n addition to the collaborators mentioned above, MW would like

to thank Dr. Jim Gilmour and Professor Roger Anderson for useful
discussions and support. We also thank Lakshmi Narayanan at WSPC

for her patience in dealing with a difficult MS.
205

Biographies of Authors
Milton Wainwright, BSc, PhD, FRAS was born in 1950 in the mining
village of Fitzwilliam in the West Riding of Yorkshire. He obtained his
BSc and PhD from Nottingham University, and after a short period
as a National Research Council of Canada Research Fellow became
lecturer in Environmental Microbiology at the University of Sheffield.
Here, he taught and researched for forty-two years in the Departments
of Microbiology and Molecular Biology and Biotechnology. He is an
Honorary Professor at the Universities of Cardiff and Buckingham,
UK, the University of Ruhuna, Sri, Lanka, and the Slavic University
of North Macedonia; he is also a Visiting Professor of King Saud
University, Riyadh, and one of the few biologists to be made a Fellow
of the Royal Astronomical Society. He has published widely on the
history of science, particularly on the germ theory, the history of
antibiotics (notably penicillin) and alternative accounts of the history
of natural selection and evolution.
Nalin Chandra Wickramasinghe, MBE, BSc (Ceylon), MA, PhD,

ScD (Cantab), Hon DSc (Sri Lanka, Ruhuna), Hon DLitt (Tokyo,
Soka), FRAS, FRSA was born in 1939 in Sri Lanka. He commenced
work in Cambridge on his PhD degree under the supervision of the
late Sir Fred Hoyle, and published his first scientific paper in 1961. He
was awarded a PhD degree in Mathematics in 1963 and was elected a
Fellow of Jesus College Cambridge in the same year. In the following
year he was appointed a Staff Member of the Institute of Astronomy
207
at the University of Cambridge where he remained until 1973. He

was formerly a Fellow of Jesus College Cambridge and Staff Member
of the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge; Formerly
Professor and Head of the Department of Applied Mathematics and
Astronomy, Cardiff University, UK; Director of the Buckingham
Centre for Astrobiology, University of Buckingham, UK; Honorary
Professor, University of Buckingham; Honorary Professor University
of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka; Honorary Professor, Sir John Kotelawala
Defence University of Sri Lanka; Adjunct Professor, National
Institute of Fundamental Studies, Sri Lanka He has also held visiting
Professorial appointment in the US, Canada and Japan and Sri Lanka
over the past four decades. Professor Wickramasinghe has published
over 350 papers in major scientific journals, some sixty in the journal
Nature. Together with the late Sir Fred he pioneered the theory of
cometary panspermia the evidence for which has become compelling
over the past few years. Finally, he is also the author/co-author of over
thirty-five books.
Further Reading
Cairns–Smith, A.G. (1982). Genetic Takeover and The Mineral Origins of Life,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Fiore, M. (2022). Prebiotic Chemistry and Life’s Origins. London, Royal Society
of Chemistry.
Hoyle, F. and Wickramasinghe, N.C. (1978). Lifecloud. The Origin of Life in
the Galaxy. London, Dent.
Hoyle, F. and Wickramasinghe, C. (1979). Diseases from Space. London,
Dent.
Hoyle, F. and Wickramasinghe, N.C. (1981). Space Travellers: The Bringers of
Life, Cardiff, University of Cardiff Press.
Hoyle, F. and Wickramasinghe, N.C. (1984). From Grains to Bacteria: Cardiff,
University of Cardiff Press.
Hoyle, F. and Wickramasinghe, C. (1982). Evolution from Space. London,
Dent.
Hoyle, F. and Wickramasinghe, N.C. (1985). Living Comets. Cardiff, University
of Cardiff Press.
Hoyle, F., Wickramasinghe, N.C. and Watkins, J. (1986). Viruses from Space.
Cardiff, University of Cardiff Press.
Hoyle, F. and Wickramasinghe, N.C. (1988). Cosmic Life Force. London,
Dent.
Hoyle, F. and Wickramasinghe, N.C. (1990). The Theory of Cosmic Grains.
Dordrecht, Kluwer.
Hoyle, F. and Wickramasinghe, N.C. (1993). Our Place in the Cosmos.
London, Weidenfeld and Nicholson.
Hoyle, F. and Wickramasinghe, N.C. (2000). Astronomical Origins of Life.
Dordrecht, Kluwer.
209
Luisi, P.L. (2010). The Emergence of Life. Cambridge, Cambridge University

of Cambridge Press.
Ryan, F. (2009). Virolution. London, Harper Collins.
Wickramasinghe, C. (2015). A Journey with Fred Hoyle. Singapore, World
Scientific Publishing.
Wickramasinghe, C. (1967). Interstellar Grains. London, Chapman and Hall.
Wickramasinghe, J., Wickramasinghe, C. and Napier, W. (2010). Comets and
the Origin of Life. Singapore, World Scientific Publishing.
Wickramasinghe, C. (2001). Cosmic Dragons: Life and Death on Our Planet.
London, Souvenir Press.
Wickramasinghe, J.T., Wickramasinghe, C., Napier, W.M. (2009). Comets
and the Origin of Life. Singapore, World Scientific Publishing.
Wickramasinghe, C. (2015). The Search for Our Cosmic Ancestry, Singapore,
World Scientific Publishing.

Wickramasinghe, C. (ed.) (2015). Vindication of Cosmic Biology: A Tribute to
Sir Fred Hoyle, Singapore, World Scientific Publishing.
Walker, T. and Wickramasinghe, C. (2015). The Big Bang and God, USA
Palgrave Macmillan.
Wickramasinghe, C. and Bauval, R. (2018). Cosmic Womb, USA, Inner
Traditions.
Wickramasinghe, C., Wickramasinghe, K. and Tokoro, G. (2019). Our
Cosmic Ancestry in the Stars, USA, Inner Traditions.
Wickramasinghe, C. (2015). A Destiny of Cosmic Life — Chapters in the Life
of an Astrobiologist, Singapore, World Scientific Publishing.
Wickramasinghe, C. (2018). Proofs that Life is Cosmic: Acceptance of a New
Paradigm, Singapore, World Scientific Publishing.
Mesler, B. and Cleaves, H.J. (2016). A Brief History of Creation, New York,
Norton.
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Index
Abiogenesis, 22 Becquerel, Henri, and meteorite

Aerobes, 10, 22 microbes, 104
Aerobic heterotrophy, 17, 18 Bernhardt, Harold S., 14

Al-Khwarazmi, 3 Bijoux microscope, 9
Al-Mufti, Shirwan, 67ff Bruno, Giordano, 43, 197
ALH84001 meteorite, 101ff Buddhist philosophy, 2
Allen, D.A., 67ff, 85 Burbidge, Geoffrey, 48, 202
Anaerobes, 10, 96 Burbidge, Margaret, 48, 202
Anaxoragas, 2, 4
Anglo-Australian Telescope studies, Cairns-Smith, Alexander, 13
67ff Carbon dust in space, 47ff
Anguttara Sutta, 2 CD-based drawer to collect
Anthropic principle, 202 stratospheric bacteria, 161ff
Arabic number system, 3 Chambers, Robert, 19, 26, 34
Arrhenius, Svante, 37 Chemoautotrophs, 10, 96
Astrobiology, beginnings of, 201ff Chicxulub impact, 13
Autotrophs, 94 Claus, G., 107
Clay origin of life, 12
Bacteria from camera on Moon, 100 Comet 67P/C-G, 86ff
Bacteria from ice cores, 99 Cometary panspermia, 17
Bahadur, K., 14 Comet Halley, 83ff, 203
Baker, Alex, 159ff Comet Lovejoy, a cosmic brewery, 86
Barber, D.R. and fogging of Comets, 96
astronomical plate, 31, 32 Comets, bringers of life, 83
Barbour, W.D., 30 Comets, radioactively heated interiors,
Bastian, Henry Charlton, 23 72ff
Bathybius haeckelii, 23 Consommé, 96
Beagle voyage, 10 COVID-19, 93
217
Cozmozoa, 37 Giotto mission to comet Halley, 84ff

Crick, Francis, 189 Goldilocks Theory, 35
Crosse, Andrew, 24, 25, 26 Goodsir, Sir John, 10
Cryosampler to collect stratospheric
microbiota, 144ff Hadean epoch, 95; earliest life to
Earth, 72
Darwin and meteorites, 102ff Haeckel, 12
Darwin, Charles, 3, 5, 10, 22, 26, 27, Haekel, Ernst, 23
28, 29, 30, 33, 34, 35, 43, 95 Hahn, Otto, 102ff
Darwin, Erasmus, 3 Haldane, J.B.S., 202
Darwinian evolution, 6 Hardwicke, H.J., 12
Dayal Wickramasinghe’s data on Harris, Melanie, 88ff
comet Halley, 85 Helmholtz, 37
De Maillet, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43 Heterogenesis, 22
Democritus, 1 Heterotrophs, 10, 94, 96

Directed panspermia, 189 Hindu–Arabic numerals, 3
DNA from space, 5 Hooke, Robert, 9
DNA, RNA, 11, 12, 28 Hooker, Joseph, 22
Hoover, Richard, 111
Edinburgh meeting of the British Hoyle, F., 1, 3, 5, 16 17, 45, 48, 71ff,
Association 1871, 21 79ff, 95ff, 101, 189ff
Edison, Thomas Alva, 38, 102 Hoyle, Fred and RAS Cardiff meeting,
Egyptian papyri and traditions, 2, 4 71
Epicurus, 1 Human genome project, impact, 80ff
Europe, D.L., 107 Huxley–Wilberforce debate, 78
Evans, Martin, 89 Huxley, Thomas, 23, 24, 27
Hydrothermal vents, 12
Faraday, Michael, 25
Flammarion, Camille, 38 Improbability of life’s origin, 76ff
Foote, Samuel, 10 Imshenetsky, A.A., 185
formaldehyde in space, 66ff Indian number system, 3
Fowler, Willy, 48, 202 Indian Space Research Organisation,
Frankenstein, 24 88
Interstellar dust, 47
Gaia, 36
Gangappa, Rajkumar, 90 Jeevanu, 14
Ganti, Tibor, 14 Johnson, F.M. and chlorophyll in
Gauguin painting, 199 space, 69
Gauguin questions, 200 Judeo-Christian theology, role of, 78ff
219
K/T boundary, 13 Panspermia, 37ff, 93

Kaiser, R.J., 17 Pasteur and meteorite, 105
Kelvin, Lord, 21, 22, 37, 42, 99 Pasteur, Louis, 10, 15, 20, 21
Pflug and microfossils, 109ff
Lamarck, 4 Pflug, Hans Dieter, 107ff
Life on other planets, 74ff lecture in Cardiff, 110
Living comets, 16 Photosynthetic algae, 9
Louis, Godfrey, 90 Phototrophs, 11
Lovelock, James, 36 Pinnock, William, 36
Lucretius, 1, 2 Polonnaruwa meteorite, various
studies, 119–133
Margulis, Lynn, 97 Polycyclic aromatics, 203
Mars meteorites, 101ff Polyformaldehyde, 203
Matthew, Patrick, 4 Polysaccharides, 203
Meraschowski, 97 Ponamperuma, Cyril, 14

Metrodorus, 1, 2, 33
Microbes from Venus?, 31 Red rain of Kerala, 90ff
Microfossils in meteorites, 101ff Richter, Hermann, 37
Miller, Stanley, 29 RNA/DNA, 77
Moon, bacteria, 186 RNA world, 13, 14
Rose, Chris, 159ff
Nagy, Bart, 106 ROSETTA Mission, 86ff
Narlikar, Jayant, 88ff Royal Institution lecture by Faraday,
NASA Orbiting Astronomical 25
Observatory, 61
Necropanspermia, 100 SARS, 93
Necrosymbiosis, 100 Schimper, 97
Neopanspermia, 4, 143ff Schulze-Maluch, Dirk, 75
Nucleosynthesis, 48 Severus Sebokht, 3
Shelley, Mary, 24
Ohno, S., 197, 198 Silicon and life, 18
oligotrophs, 94 Sisler, Frederick D., 105
Oparin, A.I., 202 Somerville, Mary, 39
Organic molecules in space, 16, 54ff Space-life carriers, 95
Organic/biologic signatures of cosmic Space Travellers: the Bringers of Life,
dust, 61ff 76
Organised elements in meteorites, SPIE meeting of 2001, 89
106ff Strachey, Richard, 36
Orgueil meteorite, 105ff Strassberger, Eduard, 36
Stratospheric collections of Vestiges of the Natural History of

microorganisms entering Earth, Creation, 19, 33
82, 143ff Viruses from space, 5
Tariq, Omari, 146ff Wainwright, M., 4, 5, 9

Taylor, Isaac, 33 Wainwright’s personal recollections,
Telliamed, 40 159ff
Tepfer, 42 Wainwright’s studies of Meteorite
fossils, 113–118
Urey–Miller experiment, 17 Wallace, Alfred Russel, 19, 23, 37
Urey, Harold, 29, 106, 107 warm little pond, 95
Wells, William Charles, 4
Van Leuwenhoek, Anton, 9 Whaling, Ward, 202
Vedic ideas and traditions, 2, 4 Whewell, William, 35
Venter, Craig, 80 Whiston, William, 39

Venus, life, 74, 75 Wickramasinghe, Chandra, 4, 5, 6,
Venus transit, and microbes at 10, 16, 17, 42, 45, 47, 71ff, 79ff
Sidmouth, 32 Wickramasinghe, Dayal, 67ff
Wilberforce, Archbishop, 6
Wilson, Andrew – Genesis of life, 20

Wainwright M. Life Comes From Space. The Decisive Evidence 2023

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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

LIFE COMES FROM SPACE

ISBN 978-981-126-625-6 (hardcover)

For any available supplementary material, please visit

Biological Entities from Space.

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Thomas Alva Edison

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M ilton Wainwright’s stratospheric sampling has led to the recovery

tures whose sizes, shapes as well as elemental composition strongly

many Eastern philosophers centuries before the start of the Common

W e are led to believe that modern science is free of all forms of

In this book we document an instance when this is far from true in

bear testimony to a profoundly post-modern Epicurian view of life in

Nothing in the universe is unique and alone, and therefore in other

Such an evidently post-modern set of ideas relating to life implied

The non-European origin of the concept of panspermia, in our

seems to have been known in Baghdad as early as 770, or less than

Origin of Species then later synthesised and further developed ideas

While there has been much speculation about panspermia over

body of astronomical knowledge with a relevant body of biological

such ideas were first discussed there appeared to be a comfortable

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M icroorganisms (or microbes) are microscopic organisms, living

minute viruses. Microscopic fungi (i.e. moulds like Penicillium species),

There is a comedy play, called the Devil on Two Sticks, written by

Throughout his later life, Darwin suffered from incurable stomach

the same so-called, “metabolic strategies as described here. Similarly,

How Might Life on Earth have Originated?

The Earth formed from smaller pieces known as planetisimals in a

Did Life begin in Hydrothermal Vents?

bacteria (i.e. those growing without a carbon food-source) and primitive

Chicxulub impact. Such impacts could have increased the number

The Clay World Hypothesis

The RNA World

origin of life, but, based on what is known of current life it is not

In the 1960s, the Indian scientist, K. Bahadur reported synthesizing

mathematics). We believe infinity, an ancient Indian concept, must

Biologists who claim that life began on Earth need to explain

Organics from Space and Life’s Origin

It is remarkable how science progresses with the changing times. In

in the context of transporting lifeless organics but as sites for the

Impact events can, it seems alter, these organics. For example,

Importance of Aerobic Heterotrophy to the

Aerobic heterotrophy is the most efficient means by which an organism

predation. Predation is the major driving force of evolution, since in

Silicon and Life

The idea championed by many science fiction writers that silicon

T he current scientific consensus tends to distance itself from

arose as a one-off act of spontaneous generation (abiognenesis) at

A largely ignored, schizophrenic turmoil pervades biology in

possibility of life-developed de novo in the far distant past, but deny

It is forcefully claimed that, by using his famous swan neck

existence of spontaneous generation, other than that, if it does occur,

The physicist (who determined the value of absolute zero temperature)

I confess to being deeply impressed by the evidence put before us by

Kelvin’s argument would have probably been made more plausible