AW: [meteorite-list] Red Rain

From: mark ford <markf_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed Mar 8 04:13:15 2006
Message-ID: <6CE3EEEFE92F4B4085B0E086B2941B31508A2B_at_s-southern01.s-southern.com>

Hi Martin et al.

Yes it's amazing what you can achieve in an afternoon, We have nearly got enough material here for our own 'metlist paper' on red rain!

(Universities really ought to get an internet connection with access to google, it would save them a lot of time :) lol )

MF

-----Original Message-----
From: meteorite-list-bounces_at_meteoritecentral.com [mailto:meteorite-list-bounces@meteoritecentral.com] On Behalf Of Martin Altmann
Sent: Wednesday, March 08, 2006 1:56 AM
To: Meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com; MexicoDoug@aol.com
Subject: AW: AW: [meteorite-list] Red Rain

Wow Doug,

you jack-of-all-trades, when will you finally join IMCA for us to elect you
as the still missing director for Middle- and Southamerica?

A million of Aporia crataegi caused also some years ago here in Germany a
local Red Rain near Karlsruhe.

But especially striking was that microscopic view of meconium Mark found,
well it's human, but I guess, as we are all made of the same stuff and have
similar processes running in our intestines, that from insects will look
similar...
http://www.humpath.com/IMG/jpg/fetal_colon_meconium_23w_02-2.jpg
which shows striking similarities to those putative cosmogenic cellular
structures found in the Red Rain in India.

For me it's funny, that such a phenomenon made it up into serious scientific
journals and congresses - it's a little bit similar with the circulation of
such stories in medieaval and early modern times, well now not as a horrible
harbinger of numinous punishments, but as a possible extraterrestrial
sensation.
I forgot to outline, why people then were also panicked by red rains.
Of course it has a biblical reference, it's one of the 10 plagues Moses
demonstrates to the Pharao in Exodus Chap 7, when he turns the water of the
Nile into blood (3 of the plagues are insects).
In the late medieval Europe and the following times people lived in a
permanent awaiting of the soon to come apocalypse. The wars, the recurring
disastrous contagions, the threatening and occupations of the Mongols,
Arabs, Turks, the fall of Jerusalem and Constantinople, religious wars,
pogroms, schismata, prosecutions of heretics and so on lead to that
hysteria, which was obviously so strongly pronounced, that even very common
natural phenomenons like e.g. sundogs or even strange shaped clouds were
taken as a bad omen. It's very characeristical that in, as far as I know,
most cultures meteorites where warshipped or in ritual use or at least used
as material to craft tools - only in medieavel occident not, there they were
something negative. Take Ensisheim, there exist also a pamphlet, where the
fall is pictured with the sky full of the typical miraculous bad signs.
And with the new media of print numerous broadsides and chapbooks, the
forerunners of newspaper, were printed reporting those natural phenomenons.
Would be an interesting source for meteorite falls, perhaps Joern could give
us some examples?

Hah, and that I like most on the list, that in only one evening such riddles
like this Red Rain, which is waiting for a solutions since several years can
be solved (at least I give that meconium theory a much better chance than
that cometary thing) by the members with their different interdisciplinary
backrounds or like in my case with my smattering...

So we saw, that Red Rains aren't new, that hey can be caused by insects -
and Dr.Louis forgot to tell that those rains coincided with swarms of
insects, the fauna of butterflies is rich especially in Kerala, see link
below, in human meconium there are similar "pseudo-cells" like found in the
red rain,
So Louis and team only have to ask a specialist to compare some meconium
from insects with that red rain samples,
and then they will have most probably the explanation.

Here for you Doug. Kerala has 330 species of butterflies and so many, that
they are a tourists' magnet - one can book a "Butterfly Week" or even a
15-days-butterfly-trip in Kerala!
http://www.butterflieskerala.com/html/bker.htm

Buckleboo!
Martin






-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: meteorite-list-bounces_at_meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces_at_meteoritecentral.com] Im Auftrag von
MexicoDoug_at_aol.com
Gesendet: Dienstag, 7. M?rz 2006 19:51
An: altmann_at_meteorite-martin.de; markf@ssl.gb.com;
meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com
Betreff: Re: AW: [meteorite-list] Red Rain

Martin A. writes:

<< I'm not a lepidopterologist, >>

Hola Martin believe it or not, I am an Lepidopterist, well at least an
amateur for many years !

Your suggestion is also what I immediately thought when I saw the subject in

my emails. I don't have time at the moment to look into this, but if anyone

has some time, during peaks in the population of Painted Lady butterflies
(_Vanessa cardui_) red rains have appeared and been harbingers of things to
come in
the typical scaring peasants routine like comets, in history on several
ocassions, as a matter of fact...so wherever this red rain has appeared (I
haven't
been following the thread),it would be easy to check to see if it coincides
with a population spike and new brood of cardui's. The Painted Lady is one
of
the few butterflies with nearly a worldwide distribution and seemingly
migration runs en masse. For this reason, in the US it has been used in
releases in
weddings (instead of throwing rice:)). The is a contingent of ecologists
that
oppose this due to claimed changes in local gene pools (mostly for
Monarchs).
Since the butterfly farming industry for weddings (and funerals) took off a
few years back and most people don't hear the scientists' bellyaching that
experimental designs are screwed up when taking censuses for experimental
work and
possibly crosscontaminating gene pools and spreading plagues in the local
butterfly populations with the alien introductions of the same species, the
biggest appeal not to do this is the blood like liquid and hey if you are
getting
married, why the heck would you risk eith your butterflies express mailed
arriving dead or secreting "blood". That works a little better to dampen
the
spirits.

Anyway, sorry if I haven't read the thread enough and if this was already
discussed in more depth besides Martin's suggestion,

Saludos, Doug
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Received on Wed 08 Mar 2006 04:12:11 AM PST