Evidence of alien life!

[Krynn72]

We'll have to wait for peer review of his findings, but hes invited several people to double check him.

Dr. Richard B. Hoover, an astrobiologist with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, has traveled to remote areas in Antarctica, Siberia, and Alaska, amongst others, for over ten years now, collecting and studying meteorites. He gave FoxNews.com early access to the out-of-this-world research, published late Friday evening in the March edition of the Journal of Cosmology. In it, Hoover describes the latest findings in his study of an extremely rare class of meteorites, called CI1 carbonaceous chondrites -- only nine such meteorites are known to exist on Earth.

Though it may be hard to swallow, Hoover is convinced that his findings reveal fossil evidence of bacterial life within such meteorites, the remains of living organisms from their parent bodies -- comets, moons and other astral bodies. By extension, the findings suggest we are not alone in the universe, he said.


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011...-evidence-alien-life-meteorite/#ixzz1FpwasZA6

 

[ríomhaire]

I was expecting this to be a joke, like a birthday thread or something. Interesting if this turns out to be true. If it is true I want to know to they have DNA.

 

[Mogi67]

only a matter of time before the worms crash land on earth

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

I'm evidence of alien life mother ****er

 

[PvtRyan]

Reading a SA thread on this and it's most likely bollocks:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/03/did_scientists_discover_bacter.php

It's also published in a journal that has about the credibility of a Geocities site.

 

[ríomhaire]

only a matter of time before the worms crash land on earth

Short Recoil will take care of them.

 

[dfc05]

Reading a SA thread on this and it's most likely bollocks:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/03/did_scientists_discover_bacter.php

It's also published in a journal that has about the credibility of a Geocities site.

Yeah, I was about to look up the journal. Thanks for doing it already . I did notice that they have retarded essays (I wouldn't even call them articles) such as "Is Darwin the new Jesus?" which made me skeptical already.

Also, the lack of an official NASA announcement of an announcement would indicate that even NASA doesn't support this.

[edit] Searching the NASA website for the author, came up with something strange.

http://www.batse.msfc.nasa.gov/colloquia/abstracts_summer07/rhoover.html

Notice the date. I speculate that this dude has been attempting to publish in respectable scientific journals for a few years, was turned down, and ended up in "Journal of Cosmology". It's kinda sad because he's actually done other work published in more legit journals before.

 

[JUL3]

Space worms? Cool.

 

[Stylo]

Reading a SA thread on this and it's most likely bollocks:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/03/did_scientists_discover_bacter.php

It's also published in a journal that has about the credibility of a Geocities site.

All I had to do was see "Fox News" to determine it was most likely bollocks.

 

[Raziaar]

Fox news? Why give the news organization with a viewer base that is the least likely to give a shit about such a thing?

 

[Shem]

Fox news? Why give the news organization with a viewer base that is the least likely to give a shit about such a thing?

Where's the evidence that other news organizations like MSNBC and CNN have a viewer base more interested in extraterrestrial discoveries?

 

[MorganFreeman911]

I, for one, welcome our new Space Worm overlords.

 

[Mogi67]

Fox news? Why give the news organization with a viewer base that is the least likely to give a shit about such a thing?

not to mention the fact that Fox News literally fabricates their own news

 

[Raziaar]

Where's the evidence that other news organizations like MSNBC and CNN have a viewer base more interested in extraterrestrial discoveries?

I don't have evidence of that.

I just know that huge swaths of the FOX viewer base is deeply religious and critical of programs like NASA and SETI for reaching beyond and trying to discover things that don't mesh well with their religious views. Many of them are just as critical with the search for extraterrestrial life as they are with things like evolution.

And yes I know that not all religious people are like that, many believe there can be life outside of planet Earth. Just not god's favorite life.

 

[Maestro]

I'll be convinced when a major government agency endorses ET life.

 

[Mogi67]

I don't have evidence of that.

I just know that huge swaths of the FOX viewer base is deeply religious and critical of programs like NASA and SETI for reaching beyond and trying to discover things that don't mesh well with their religious views. Many of them are just as critical with the search for extraterrestrial life as they are with things like evolution.

And yes I know that not all religious people are like that, many believe there can be life outside of planet Earth. Just not god's favorite life.

Well, they do listen to the MSM, how intelligent can they really be?

 

[Raziaar]

I always find it so funny how FOX always calls all the other networks the Maintream Media and how they're not the MSM, yet every day they're bragging about how nobody watches the other news networks and they dominate market share. So funny.

Sorry FOX, you ARE dominating the news and you ARE the mainstream media.

 

[JUL3]

I, for one, welcome our new Space Worm overlords.

Oh how I lol'd.

 

[Warped]

I wonder if the microbes were all ready on the meteorite or if our microbes here just simply crawled into it

 

[Mogi67]

This would be all over the news if it was real.

 

[Robbo]

I wonder if the microbes were all ready on the meteorite or if our microbes here just simply crawled into it

He said he broke off a fresh surface in a sterile lab, but yeah thats what I was thinking. It's more likely that a microbe that looks like something on Earth came from Earth rather than the other way round

 

[Stylo]

So, if this were true, our first discovery of life outside our planet would be a meteorite containing fossils of tiny space dicks?

 

[Bad^Hat]

This would be all over the news if it was real.

Yeah, because if anyone knows how to separate fact from fiction, it's the media.

 

[Danimal]

UN appoints alien ambassador.

Mainstream news acknowledges UFOs during WW2.

This shit happens on FOX ****ing NEWs.

Clearly any kind of publically announced alien meeting is going to be fake.

 

[Bad^Hat]

Meeting?

 

[Warped]

Interesting read about the recently declassified documents from the British

 

[Remus]

Yeah, because if anyone knows how to separate fact from fiction, it's the media.

The only thing the mainstream media is good at, is scaremongering about anything it can find.

 

[StarBob]

The only thing the mainstream media is good at, is scaremongering about anything it can find.

The most glaringly obvious fact of this thread has been identified. Nothing left to be said.

 

[morgs]

 

[Bad^Hat]

Fox posted a follow-up article covering the response from various scientific parties.

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/03/07/alien-life-meteorites-skeptics-believers-weigh/

Salient points: people think the journal/site it was published on is garbage and that alone is enough to be skeptical about it. Others say this attitude is akin to "school-yard taunts by jealous children." Yet others post encouraging and "open-minded" comments to the Cosmology site itself. Also this choice soundbite:

David Morrison, senior scientist at the NASA Astrobiology Institute at Ames Research Center, told MSNBC he felt the choice of scientific journal was enough to call the report into question.

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. At a bare minimum this would require publication in a prestigious peer-refereed scientific journal -- which this is not."

"Perhaps the publication came out too soon; more appropriate would have been on April 1," Morrison added.

A couple key responses that are referenced in that article, for posterity - firstly, one from NASA, which is left until the very end and not even given a link to the full statement. They basically try to distance themselves from the paper as much as possible without outright denying it. http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=32928.

Of particular interest is this point:

This paper was submitted in 2007 to the International Journal of Astrobiology. However, the peer review process was not completed for that submission.

[later...]

Keith's 4:25 pm EST update: Just posted on NASA Watch in the comments section: "The statement "This paper was submitted in 2007 to the International Journal of Astrobiology. However, the peer review process was not completed for that submission."Is not true, The paper was rejected, after peer review. Rocco Mancinelli, Ph.D., Editor, International Journal of Astrobiology."

So, there you have it. The paper has, in fact, already been submitted and rejected years ago. To another not entire scrupulous journal, no less. Nice of them to leave that out.

Lastly, a skeptical (if not in-depth) analysis of the paper itself. http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/03/did_scientists_discover_bacter.php

Key point I took away from this is the way the author's claim that this may indicate life on earth originating elsewhere aligns a little too well with the Cosmology journal's MO (edit: wait, it may have been someone else making that claim). Just scrolling to the bottom of the page the paper is hosted on reveals this:

Of course, none of this directly refutes the evidence at hand, but it seems especially difficult for the author to retain any credibility after this unless the peer review is successful. I won't hold my breath.

 

[Ennui]

It's also published in a journal that has about the credibility of a Geocities site.

;( RIP Geocities

 

[No Limit]

Never was a fan of Geocities, tripod was way better. From what I remember they even had front page extensions!

 

[Mogi67]

Yeah, because if anyone knows how to separate fact from fiction, it's the media.

Nice try at being a dick. It didn't work. I mentioned that fox news literally fabricates their own news in a previous post in this thread. Way to read.

 

[Sheepo]

Mild sarcasm on the internet? What a dick.

 

[JUL3]

Nice try at being a dick. It didn't work. I mentioned that fox news literally fabricates their own news in a previous post in this thread. Way to read.

 

[Bad^Hat]

Nice try at being a dick. It didn't work. I mentioned that fox news literally fabricates their own news in a previous post in this thread. Way to read.

There is no try, there is only do.

Anyway, the implication of your post was that the media is in any way involved with determining what is true simply by reporting on it, that's what I responding to. The paper has yet to successfully pass through scientific peer review, so saying something like "it's obviously false because no one is reporting on it" is kind of silly.