AW: [meteorite-list] Red Rain From Comets?

From: Martin Altmann <altmann_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon Mar 6 17:26:17 2006
Message-ID: <00b701c6416c$f9cef080$936cfea9_at_name86d88d87e2>

Hiho Sterling, Mark, List,

"Blood rain" belong to the broad repertoire of natural phenomenons (comets,
halos, strange clouds, animalic monstrosities, earthquakes, rains of frogs,
corn, sulphur and and and) as bad omens as they were plentifully reported,
printed and spread in somewhat hysterical Europe of the end of 15th century
until Age of Enlightenment.

Here I chose an example analogous to the comet-blood-rain in India, with
some better details :-)
It's from a pamphlet (HAB Wolfenb?ttel. 38.25 Aug. 2?, fol. 802):

"...auch wie zwo Meilwegs von Bamberg in einem Flecken Radelsdorff genant /
di? 1518 Jahrs den 10. Mertz / dreymal Fewr vom Himmel gefallen / H?user
angez?nd / auch ein Weib sampt ihrem Hau? verbrand / vnd zu nacht / ein
Feuriger Besem vnd Stralen / so wol etliche Helleparten vnd Spiesse an den
Wolcken de? Himmels gesehen worden / darau? Blutstropffen gefallen / auch
was sich sonsten zugetragen. Mit consens der Obrigkeit allda beschrieben."

Freely translated:
...also two miles away from Bamberg in a village called Radelsdorf on 10th
of March 1518 felt three times fire from the sky, igniting houses - a woman
was burnt together with her house - and at night fiery besoms and rays, as
well as several halberds and spears were observed at the clouds in the sky,
from which drops of blood felt. And other observations all in agree with the
local officials described.

Wow and here a meteorite shower with blood rain!
(BSB M?nchen. Res/4 p.o.germ. 234,34)
"...inn der Statt Dantzig vnd vmbher / vnd wie ein Fewer wolcken sich / inn
derselbigen Statt hat nider gelassen. Auch wie es Blut geregnet / vnnd Stein
zu f?nff pfunden geworffen / daruon vil Volcks auff den Strassen todt
blieben ist. 1579. jar."

"...in the city of Gdansk (hurry up Mr.Marcin Polandmet!!) and sourroundings
was settling a fiery cloud in that town. Also it rained blood and stones
with a weight of 5 pounds where thrown down, wherefrom a lot of people were
left dead in the streets. AD 1579"



-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: meteorite-list-bounces_at_meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces_at_meteoritecentral.com] Im Auftrag von Sterling
K. Webb
Gesendet: Montag, 6. M?rz 2006 21:52
An: mark ford; meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com
Betreff: Re: [meteorite-list] Red Rain From Comets?

Hi,

    If these were algae or their spores, they would
grow, bloom, or whatever it is algae do. They would
also give you a big positive in the kind of DNA test
that was performed on the funny "cells."
    The fellow at Sheffield interviewed by the BBC
talked about this particular test being done on a jar
of algae and how positive it was. He's going to
duplicate Louis' test, and he said he didn't really
doubt that the outcome would be the same,
because the test was so straightforward.

    As far as Louis' hypothesis about the cells
being delivered by a meteor airburst, I ignore
it completely. Nothing is more fruitless than
endlessly arguing about an unobserved delivery
system hypothesis. One should not waste a second
on how these guys got here until and if we have
determined what these things are.
    The notion that one airburst could rain down
weird particles in the same location for days or
weeks is utterly silly, as if the atmosphere had
no horizontal transport, like, maybe, wind?

    I don't think delivery is a problem. Stuff falls
into the ocean, small particles are transpired
upwards (like algal spores), and rain out over
Kerala for days, weeks, months. No big deal.

    The only question that matters is WHAT,
not how. Naively, since it's neither my job
nor my field of study, I can't imagine that, after
more than a century of microbiology and the
(apparently) incredible sophistication of the
field, somebody can't tell us whether this thing
that looks like a cell IS a cell or not. It would
seem like the most simple and obvious of
questions.

    I hadn't found that bit about how Louis had
tried culturing them in weird substances (mentioned
in your subsequent post). Using Cedarwood
oil may seem a strange choice, but it is used as
a preservative because it kills all microbial life
dead, dead, dead. The fact that it was at 300 C.
suggests that whatever these things are, they
don't contain (much) water, else they'd pop.
Excuse me, lyse.

    Me, I would have tried:
        a) ammonia, water, with methane and a
bit of hydrogen, weak light, and coolish (Titan)
        b) low pressure CO2, argon, a bit of
water vapor, more light, less cool (Mars)
        c) high pressure CO2 and sulfurous stuff,
plenty hot (Venus)
        Well, all the Solar System environments.
You get the idea. Since CO2 seems to be so
ubiquitous, I'd try warm CO2, straight up,
barkeep.

    Then, there's the other possible regimes. Maybe
they have thick walls and are quiescent because of
all this nasty oxygen everywhere. Would they like
a taste of chlorine? A dash of fluorine, perhaps?
A pick-me-up of bromine? Iodine?

    I mean, we swim in this deadly poisonous
oxygen constantly and we actually seem to
enjoy it! That's very strange. But fluorine, a
better and more effective "oxidative" agent
than the weaker oxygen seems to cause us
to fall down and die... Likewise, chlorine
and the rest. Switch'em around. See what
happens...

    Life could just as well use a reduction cycle
to generate chemical energy for themselves,
instead of oxidation. Try them out; see what happens.
If it seems nobody can say what these things are
by looking at them, poking, prodding, like a
three-year-old, let's see if we can get them to DO
something. One thing we CAN say about life, it
ought to DO something.


Sterling K. Webb
-------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "mark ford" <markf_at_ssl.gb.com>
To: "Sterling K. Webb" <sterling_k_webb_at_sbcglobal.net>;
<meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Monday, March 06, 2006 7:29 AM
Subject: RE: [meteorite-list] Red Rain From Comets?
Received on Mon 06 Mar 2006 05:26:11 PM PST