From: Jeff Davis (jrd1415@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Dec 20 2002 - 16:22:09 MST
What can one say about the following article?
http://www.ex.ac.uk/nlo/news/nlonews/1997-01/9701-14.htm
It seems to provoke that odd scary wariness that
generates the characterization "kooky". Yet the tone
of the writer is all "sensible shoes". Odd. The
whole business.
More an more I get the feeling that there is a
protective human reflex that defends against the
discredit associated with 'flakiness'. Anything too
weird is labelled kooky and then kept at a safe
distance. Then, the evidence can/must mount quite
high before surmounting the kookiness barrier.
The earth is, in fact, round, not flat. Tectonic
plates roam the surface of the planet. Little
invisible bugs saturate the planet. Etc.
The article:
NLO News: January 1997
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Living MicroOrganisms From Space
Real or Apparent?
The recent announcement by the American spaceagency,
NASA that a team of scientists have found evidence for
primitive fossil life on the planet Mars reminded me
of an article, which I wrote in 1963, that described a
sequence of unusual events at the Norman Lockyer
Observatory, Sidmouth, in the period 1936 to 1961.
During the summer months of 1936 the Observatory's
springwater supply, used in the routine processing of
photographic material, was found to contain a very
high concentration of ultrarapid gelatineliquefying
bacteria, whose characteristics were markedly
different from those of B. fluoroscens liquefaciens,
normally present in the local supply. The invading
organisms disappeared in the ensuing winter, only to
reappear during the summer of 1937 indicative of a
sporeforming microorganism.
Following the 1937 outbreak, water samples were sent
to the bacteriological department of the SealeHayne
College, Newton Abbot, and tissue cultures were
obtained. It was, however, found to be impossible to
match these with any known strains of indigenous
liquefying bacteria. The result was later
independently confirmed by tests carried out at the
Lister Institute.
Between 1937 and 1963 five more major outbreaks of the
invading microorganism were recorded, and in one
event (1956) the appearance of the ultrarapid
liquefyers in the water supply was preceded by
approximately 4 days by an extremely rapid airborne
strain of liquefying organisms having a yeastlike
structure.
At the height of each major 'invasion' irreparable
damage to freshly processed spectrographic plates was
caused by numerous quasicircular craterlike defects
(0.05 0.25 mm in diameter) from the centre of which
the silver deposit had been eroded, and transferred to
the perimeter. In a badly affected 1/4plate negative
some 5100 of these craters could be seen at low
magnification (x15). In several instances the
photographic film was completely liquefied and was
seen to slide off the glass base intact. By contrast,
the indigenous strains of F. fluorescens were quite
incapable of completely liquefying the gelatine layer
even at high concentrations.
Two outstanding features of the invading
microorganisms that differentiated them from the
local springwater liquefiers were:
its phenomenally rapid liquefaction property; and
its complete toleration of the highly toxic
concentration of silver and silver halide salts in the
processed photographic film.
On some tests made with pure cultures on unexposed and
unprocessed plates rapid liquefaction was not
impaired.
When confronted by such unusual properties of the
bacterial organism as those just described, it is
natural to pose the questions:
Is the observed activity of the invading bacterium
wholly consistent with that expected from terrestrial
strains?
Why do these microorganisms show such high tolerances
to toxic silver halide salts in sharp contrast to the
reactions of indigenous types?
If the 'invaders' are indeed extraterrestrial, what
is the likely source?
In an attempt to answer these questions, all the
available data between 1936 and 1961 were analysed in
conjunction with solar (geomagnetic storm) activity
and planetary (Venusian) configurations.
The results were completely unexpected and clearly
indicated that (with one doubtful exception in a total
of nine bacterial events) each recorded presence of
the abnormal liquefying microorganisms in the local
water supply coincided closely in date with an
inferior conjunction of Venus and a concurrent major
geomagnetic storm.
Furthermore, an examination of the local weather
conditions preceding each of the six major events
exhibited a similar pattern marked by a period of
rainfall immediately prior to the bacterial invasion
and a wind direction remaining predominantly northerly
during the timeinterval between the geomagnetic
storms and the bacterial events.
The latter observation suggests that a northerly
surface airstream is required to transport the
airborne microorganisms to the locality of the
Observatory where they are brought to the ground by
the local rainfall. Indeed this is what might be
expected if the foreign particles are initially
injected into the upper atmosphere by the solar wind
entering the auroral belt some 500 miles north of
Sidmouth. Moreover, the observed mean interval of 55
days between geomagnetic storm and bacterial invasion
of the local water supply is consistent with a cloud
velocity of some 15 miles/day, a speed sufficiently
realistic to support the above hypothesis.
If indeed this is a valid one, we have presumptive
evidence that the events occurring at the Norman
Lockyer Observatory were caused by the
extraterrestrial strain of gelatineliquefying
bacteria which had originated in the upper atmosphere
of Venus and then been transported to Earth by the
solar wind associated with major geomagnetic storms.
Granted that the arguments presented above are highly
speculative, the support provided by the totem of
observational evidence appears sufficiently strong to
justify a valid speculation.
We may, therefore, presume that the facts as observed
are consistent with an extraterrestrial origin for
the invading organisms and that they are brought to
Earth in the solar wind from the upper atmosphere of
Venus where the temperature is similar to the summer
temperature at the Earth's surface.
Consequently, the fact that the observed invading
bacteria were living may well make their discovery of
even greater importance than the recent claim that
fossilised microorganisms in a meteorite had come
initially from the planet Mars.
Donald R. Barber (Director Emeritus).
----------------------
Best, Jeff Davis
"That's the whole problem with science. You've got a
bunch of empiricists trying to describe things of
unimaginable wonder."
--Calvin (& Hobbes)
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