NASA Discovers Alien Life?

NASA scientist Richard B. Hoover claims he’s found alien life. Within nine extremely rare meteorites called CI1 carbonaceous chondrites, he claims to have discovered the fossils of worm-like bacteria that is both similar to and nothing like what exists on our planet.

The findings were published late Friday, March 4th in the Journal of Cosmology. Dr. Hoover has been very open with his findings--he asked 100 experts to begin critiquing his work prior to its publication.

The scientific community has been stirred up by the findings. Critics claim that this is similar to Dr. Hoover’s previous claims of finding extraterrestrial life in meteorites, which was not accepted by mainstream science. The possibility of the bacteria being terrestrial and mistaken for alien has been put on the table by quite a few scientists.

Other scientists refute Dr. Hoover’s claims based on the judgment of the Journal of Cosmology, claiming it has promoted panspermia, “the hypothesis that life exists throughout the universe, and is distributed through ‘seeds’ carried on meteorites and the like.” Biologist P.Z. Myer castigated the Journal as “the ginned-up website of a small group of crank academics.”

But considering alien life itself is pretty far out, it can only be hoped that the scientific community will seriously consider these findings. NASA has distanced itself, and some scientists refuse to even read the article.

Should the findings hold up against scrutiny, we can finally say it: we are not alone. And considering that the bacteria found is similar to that on earth, we may even be ordinary.

Image by worker 101 on Flickr courtesy of Creative Commons Licensing