A Case Of Identity

"'It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.'" - Sherlock Holmes

"A Case of Identity" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Holes in the Heavens

If you look out toward our galaxy the Milky Way you will see an uneven distribution of stars. In certain parts of the Milky Way, between the stars, things can get a little murky.

In the constellation of Sagittarius for example there are dark patches that become particularly noticeable towards the point of the Galactic Centre. It was the British astronomer William Herschel who, in the 18th Century, described these regions where starlight from distant stars appears to dim as "holes in the heavens".

By the late 19th Century Edward Barnard had photographed the regions and reported vast cloud formations with a remarkable structure he described simply as lanes, holes and black gaps. Astronomers in the early 20th Century began to think of these regions in terms of viewing dark bodies of material rather than regions completely devoid of stars - a kind of cosmic fog.

Sir Fred Hoyle and Prof Chandra Wickramasinghe

The world renowned British astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle, who came from my home town of Bingley in West Yorkshire, and Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe, from Colombo in Sri Lanka began looking at the nature of this cosmic fog.

In 1960, the same year Chandra Wickramasinghe began his postgraduate work under Sir Fred Hoyle at Cambridge University, the cosmic fog was believed to be made up of water-ice particles.

The collaboration of Hoyle and Wickramasinghe would see them challenge not only the widely held view about the composition of the cosmic fog - which had become known as interstellar grains - but also the orthodox geocentric (Earth centred) theory of biology.

Interstellar Grains

Their initial scepticism about the water-ice theory was aroused when it became apparent that water-ice would quickly evaporate away even in the cold depths of interstellar space. The question they asked was a simple question of identity. What were the interstellar grains composed of?

It was known that the grains were of a quantity that was as large as it could be, only if all the carbon, nitrogen and oxygen in the interstellar space were actually contained in the dust grains. There was simply too much of it for it to be comprised of the next commonest elements found in interstellar space - magnesium and silicon.

The Road to Organic Carbon

By the mid 1970's technological advances allowed measurements in both visible and infrared wavelengths to be made with ever increasing resolution. By 1974, after investigating a number of inorganic candidate materials without success, Hoyle and Wickramasinghe found that complex carbon-based polymers - in particular, polysaccharides - appeared to provide the best match with the data they were seeing. However, it was at this point that the two astronomers inadvertently ran into trouble.

From their perspective, the molecules that comprised the majority of interstellar grains were simply the product of mineral chemical reactions. Radio astronomers had discovered organic materials in interstellar space as early as 1937. However, on Earth polysaccharides (which include cellulose and starch) are predominantly of biological origin. Hoyle and Wickramasinghe had unwittingly crossed the line of a cultural taboo - mixing observational astronomy with biology.

Shortly after publishing this work Hoyle and Wickramasinghe began to experience hostility from journals referees and grant application assessors, making it increasingly difficult to continue and to promote their work. But continue they did.

A Biological Solution

Over a decade after starting out their investigation into interstellar grains Hoyle and Wickramasinghe had shown the presence of organic compounds formed the major component of the interstellar grains. They had a match for the spectroscopic data in the form of polysaccharides, and a solution to the light refraction properties in the form of hollow particles - all for grains of interstellar dust which just happened to be the size of typical bacteria.

The journal referees and grant application assessors who had been hostile before would soon be having kittens as Hoyle and Wickramasinghe began looking at dead and decaying bacteria as a solution to the nature of the interstellar grains.

Experimental Confirmation

Using existing library data for bacteria they calculated what the extinction of starlight for hollow particles would be and found an excellent fit to the astronomical data; one that had previously been unavailable with other theoretical models.

On the strength of this they had one of their colleagues measure the actual infrared properties of a number of different species of bacteria in the laboratory. To everyone's surprise they found a remarkable consistency of the absorption profiles. The extinction of visible starlight seemed to suggest that bacteria could make up a significant amount of interstellar grains.

If this premise were true, then the interstellar grains would need to have the characteristic absorption in the infrared spectrum that had been found for bacteria samples measured in the laboratory.

It wasn't long before Chandra Wickramasinghe measured the infrared absorption properties of the interstellar grains that lay on a path from the Galactic Centre to the Earth. He found a remarkable correlation between this and the experimentally derived data.

Counter Arguments

Chemists with experience of Infrared Spectroscopy soon argued against the conclusion stating that the infrared results could be produced by a variety of non-biological organic materials. Hoyle and Wickramasinghe had examined hundreds of infrared spectra of other materials at this point without success and so they were a little sceptical of the chemist's certainty.

They asked the chemists to provide them with explicit examples of substances that could account for the observations. None were forthcoming with one possible exception of a claim to have yielded undefined "organic residues" that may possess only some of the desired properties.

The astronomers found that their work was being rejected - not using scientifically acceptable hypothesis testing - but simply as unfounded opposition due to a cultural bias against the nature of the claim.

Hypothesis Testing

Carl Sagan famously claimed in his 1980 book Cosmos that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".

This quote is often cited by people attempting to justify rejection of ideas that they cannot reject evidentially. Ironically, the statement is itself an extraordinary claim as it is at odds with the accepted paradigm of using the scientific method; involving hypothesis testing with experimentation on falsifiable premises.

The theory of the biological solution to the interstellar dust had simply not been evidentially refuted. It was the strongest theory available for the nature of the interstellar dust.

"The arguments in support of life as a cosmic phenomenon are not readily accepted by a culture in which a geocentric theory of biology is seen as the norm" - Sir Fred Hoyle and Dr N. Chandra Wickramasinghe, Nature Vol. 322, 7 August 1986

A New Domain of Biology

Sir Fred Hoyle and Dr Chandra Wickramasinghe did not assume that the bacteria grew in interstellar space. Their working hypothesis was that the bacteria would likely be dead and in the process of decay.

They proposed that bacterial replication is a product of star formation in environments that are suitable for organisms to grow. After which bacteria are expelled into interstellar space.

They considered that the most likely place where bacteria could flourish would be within comets which, early in a solar systems history, would be heated by radioactive decay - providing a liquid water interior for extended periods of up to millions of years for giant comets. The proposed biomass of the cometary bodies in our own solar system would be more than a billion times the biomass of the Earth.

Only a tiny fraction of viable bacteria would need to survive being expelled into interstellar space in order to seed colonies in other star formations - such as our solar system.

Unearthly Traits

According to NASA a viable strain of Streptococcus mitis was recovered after two years on the surface of the Moon. A little closer to home, bacteria have been found to survive outside of the International Space Station (ISS). Viable bacteria have been recovered from an operating nuclear reactor - where they were actually feeding on the steel in the reactor core.

Bacteria are hardy organisms that have been shown to have the ability to survive extremes of temperature and pressure without loss of viability. The ability of bacteria to survive extremely high doses of radiation and even to repair themselves in environments of continued high radiation are not traits that you would expect for organisms whose genesis and evolution was on the Earth. These are characteristics necessary for survival in space.

Comet Halley

The return of comet Halley in 1986 provided an opportunity to test their hypothesis that microbial life exists in the solar system within comets. This premise required that particles ejected from the comets nucleus into the coma would include organic molecules. The existence of organics would refute the widely held premise that comets are simply ice and rock - the "dirty snowball" model.

Using observations from Earth and the space probes Giotto (ESA) and Vega (Soviet) the dust from Comet Halley was found to be largely organic with about 90% of the comets surface covered by a dark inert material.

Infrared spectra of the comet recorded by the Giotto space probe showed spectra comparable to the bacterial model spectra. A study of comet dust published in the journal Nature rejected the idea that organic components where biological in nature because phosphorus ions (P+) were not detected by the on-board mass spectrometer. However, Wickramasinghe discovered that the data matched phosphate ions (PO+, PO2+ and PO3+) showing that phosphorus was indeed present.

By the end of 1986 the cosmicrobial model had been shown to be the stronger model than the dirty snowball model. Although it required that astronomers avoid cherry-picking the data to suit pre-existing notions and allowed the possibility that life is not limited to the domain of planet Earth.

Fossil Evidence

Carbonaceous chondrite meteorites are fragments of asteroids that have remained relatively unchanged since the formation of the solar system 4.6 billion years ago, and are commonly found to contain organic compounds. A meteor of this type fell to Earth near the town of Murchison in the Australian outback in 1969. When examined under a scanning electron microscope a freshly created fracture in fragments revealed complex structures with the appearance of blue-green algae microfossils.

More recently in January 2013 the mainstream press reported on a study of a rock that fell to Earth in Sri Lanka on December 29th 2012. The specimen reportedly contained evidence of fossilised diatoms (algae) in a carbonaceous chondrite meteor.

This was of course refuted by some respectable scientists and other commentators alike. To date, no one has refuted the claims by application of hypothesis testing. It would appear that they do not feel that they even need to employ the scientific method to refute something which, in their own world view, is simply not possible.

Incidence upon the Earth

From their initial discovery of bacteria in space, Sir Fred Hoyle and Dr Chandra Wickramasinghe began looking at incidents of diseases. They suggested that problems with the theories regarding person to person transmission of diseases are circumvented when the trigger for the disease originates from space. Diseases ranging from influenza to the bubonic plague, they argue, are examples of predominantly vertical incidence of viruses, viral particles and bacteria from space.

Regardless of what you believe about the moon landings, the outward appearance presented by NASA was that astronauts returning to earth needed to be placed in quarantine in case they picked up a disease from space.

Extraterrestrial DNA

The incidence of extra-terrestrial DNA on the Earth by viruses, according to Hoyle and Wickramasinghe, may solve the problems inherent in neo-Darwinism when explaining how evolution takes great leaps forward, when the step by step approach doesn't hold up mathematically.

The problem in essence is that neo-Darwinian evolution involves a closed system where changes to DNA must occur stepwise and for the betterment of a species. Open that system up to beyond the Earth and new genetic material, originating within comets, can be introduced - not only to lifeless early Earth of 4.6 billion years ago - but periodically throughout the Earth's history.

Viruses are known to insert their DNA into the DNA of host species - a process called antigenic shift. The suggestion is that contrary to neo-Darwinian evolution, evolution on Earth may in effect be driven by receipt of new genetic material from space.

By Anthony Beckett B.Sc. (hons) M.Sc.

Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe

Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe presenting a lecture on "THE CASE FOR LIFE AS A COSMIC PHENOMENON "at the 5th Annual British Exopolitics Expo held at The University of Huddersfield on Saturday September 28th, 2013.

Anthony Beckett Biography

Anthony Beckett lives near Keighley, West Yorkshire. He studied Chemistry at Loughborough University graduating in 1997 and continuing his studies with a M.Sc. in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Huddersfield in 1998. He went on to work in the Pharmaceutical Industry as a Analytical Scientist until 2006. He is currently a software engineer and in his spare time he is the executive producer of Exopolitics Great Britain, an organisation which has been hosting the UK's UFO Disclosure and Exopolitics Conferences since 2009.

(c) Anthony Beckett 2013

Fortean Oddball News Paranormal Peter Sellers Blobfish And The Crying Boy Mystery

THE Alarming PETER SELLERS

dangerousminds - Bountiful actors are superstitious, slightly equivalent Peter Bull held in reserve a troop of Teddy bears to convey him luck; others equivalent Jack Lemmon invented the conference, "It's magic time," not later than filming whichever understand by. But none were pretty as head over heels in love gone superstitions and the Occult as the funny side account, Peter Sellers.

Sellers' introduction to the Occult came via guy Hooligan, Michael Bentine, the Watford-born Peruvian, who had high-level in a in wherever seances and table-turning were as a rule proficient. Not ache after they first met, Bentine told Sellers of his foreshadowing abilities - how concerning the Jiffy Conception War, such as Bentine served in the Grandiose Air Pray, he had been able to tell which of his comrades would die not later than a bombing duty. Bentine claimed if he saw a supervisor slightly of his colleague's realize, then he knew this human being would be killed. How consistently Bentine was bona fide in his predictions is not accepted. No query, Sellers was frightened by the shock-haired stand-up and was in the future head over heels in love gone all cram paranormal.

From then on he self-possessed superstitions, as effortlessly as others reserve stamps. He refused to wear preservationist or act gone self dressed in the color. If self gave him something terse, he gave them a denomination. He decode his horoscopes whichever day, to angelic what he obligation do.

Sellers consistently invented he had no thought who he was: "If you ask me to twang myself, I determination not reveal itself what to do. I do not reveal itself who or what I am." This was his way of renouncing any undertaking for his actions. He claimed he found simplicity and rank in consulting clairvoyants and wealth tellers, which again definitely underlines the fact he did reveal itself who he was - a control freak, who sought after check over his outlying. It was doomed, in this way, that later under the power of sooth-sayers and psychics, Sellers was outstretched to fraudsters, tricksters and con-men.

The diviner who had most keep under control over his life was Maurice Woodruff, the well-known TV and communiqu fortune-teller, whose syndicated track reached over fifty million people at the at the same height of his career. Woodruff established over 5,000 print a week, asking for opinion and had a Who's Who of of big name clients, together with Lionel Bart and Diana Dors. He also wonderfully predicted the quick of Chief John F. Kennedy and the end of the Vietnam War. Sellers was wrap up to Woodruff, consulting him not later than he average any roles, and as a rule had Tarot readings performed over the ring. But Woodruff was copiously in charge and outstretched to the persuasion of a down in the dumps cash earner such as film studios asked him to imply film scripts for the actor.

One famous account, recounts how Woodruff was asked to imply the initials of chief Blake Edwards as being very crucial to him. Terribly, Sellers poor to connect 'B.E.' gone the famous chief. On return to the Dorchetser Catch, his agree consign such as in London, Sellers was love-struck by the sight of a high-status, offspring blonde-haired person at acceptable. To the same extent he enquired as to who this vision of charity was, he was told Britt Ekland. Sellers recalled Woodruff's prediction and married Ekland popular weeks.

Not ache after the conjugal, Sellers suffered a multiple-heart attack in California, in sample caused by his arduous use of Amyl Nitrate. As he later told his directly fish refuse and first source, Peter Evans:

"To the same extent a 38-year-old bloke marries a 21-year-old bird, he requirements all the nice he can get. We recycled poppers (amyl nitrate), you reveal itself, to strum the drone a bit. Soapy, poppers and Britt. It was all too afar. In front I knew it, I was dull as a lightly cooked kipper."

Sellers 'died' on the the functioning table, and had an out-of-body comprehension that persuaded the rest of his life.

"Informant, I felt myself arrange my main part. I just floated out of my geographical form and I saw them cart my main part shown to the infirmary. I went gone it... I wasn't panic-stricken or at all equivalent that in the function of I was fine; and it was my main part that was in bother. I looked pronounce myself and I saw an day trip high-status fine warm snowy light finer me. I sought after to go to that snowy light bigger than at all. I've never sought after at all bigger. I reveal itself portray was be crazy about, real be crazy about, on the other side of the light which was attracting me so afar. It was quiet and warm and I speed up title That's God.

"After that I saw a hand widen behind the light. I tried to range it, to purchase onto it, to clip it so it may well touch me up and urge me behind it." But just then his stand began defeat again, and at that record the hand's hole invented, "It's not time. Go substitute and undamaged. It's not time."

At all Sellers maybe saw was the doctor who massaged his stand substitute to life.

Subsequent his quick comprehension, Sellers well-hidden himself in the Occult. He began to reasoning Ouija and amplified his use of marijuana to outstretched up his untapped foreshadowing powers. Unequivocal Ouija, Sellers had conversations gone a relations famous people from history, initial fish refuse and guy Hooligan, Stand up Milligan, to jest that Sellers definitely completed contact gone the likes of Napoleon, Julius Ceaser and Leonardo Da Vinci, quite than a John Doe.

Sellers thought the Occult produced his performances. For The Optimists (aka The Romantic of Nine Elms) he thought he was hyper by Music Hall stand-up, Dan Leno, who produced the central hint of Sam. Sellers recycled Ouija to talk gone Leno, who seemed unmindful to at all had nowhere to be found criticism in his life, which was odd, subsequent to the overweight Music Hall stand-up died at the age of 43, from "Customary Paralysis Of The Insane," or syphilis, in a brutish refuge. For his last overweight play, as Whim, in For example Here, he channelled Stan Laurel to get underway the role.

To the same extent his mother, Peg, died, Sellers again held in reserve in range behind Ouija. Despite the fact that Peg was bigger awake in her pet dog, who was also on the other side, quite than what her son was up to. Evident he would live to be in his seventies, Sellers refused to limit the open-heart procedure that may well limit saved his life. He died of a heart-attack at the age of 54, in 1980.

Alarming Peter Sellers from Blackwatch Media on Vimeo

PUMA Finding IN Grandiose TUNBRIDGE WELLS, KENT

thesun - A puma is on the prowl... in Grandiose Tunbridge Wells, locals warned last night.

The five-foot mammal was seen roaming close to bins by two women at a lessening determined in the Kent town.

Shove at the discomfited, close to woods, also reported trial frightening growls.

Ashish Patel, senior of Frankie and Benny's nightspot, said: "I was locking up such as I heard an almighty high from nominated the nightspot.

"I opened the door and realised it was upcoming from the woods.

"It sounded equivalent two gory plants snarling at whichever other.

"The wooded area is very dim and pudgy so it was moderately ghostlike. It completed me be of the opinion of a lion.

"I reveal itself portray limit been sightings of big cats in this area not later than."

One Odeon films wage earner added: "We heard a growling then scraping equivalent claws on a metal blind. We all departed at the extremely time that night - portray was no way any of us was leaving out bemused."

Fawn Neil Arnold invented he had established accurate big cat reports from the area - together with from the two women.

He said: "It was 200 yards in forefront of them.

"The women invented it was groovy, about 4ft to 5ft gone a very ache tail.

"The gut was a puma, 100 per cent. The tail is what spend time at people talk about - it is 3ft ache and curls down and substitute equivalent an 'S' shape.

"They were spooked, they didn't hanker after leaving any expansion."

He invented the mammal would be sentient off rabbits and pheasants.

THE 'CRYING BOY' Pierce SOLVED

thesun - "In a macabre story that captivated the UK in 1985, the Yorkshire land-living of Ron and May Hall was gutted by whip up support - but their painting of a expression of grief boy remained undamaged. Hundreds bigger people went on to report experiences of house fires wherever a Howling Boy painting had survived. Now comedian STEVE PUNT has re-examined the "suggest" for his Contacts 4 programme Punt PI, in which he investigates activist unsolved mysteries."

25 existence ago, George Michael was a bouffant-haired pop god, David Cameron had just started at university - and Britain was in the popper of the Blaspheme Of The Howling Boy. From all over the put in at came reports of house fires in which a picture of a sad youngster was undamaged.

I remembered recital the story at the time and sought after to try whether self had perpetually solved the mystery.

I tracked one of the pictures down. Decline has durably struck the art world in the function of it was definitely a tenner.

I then talked to Kelvin MacKenzie - Editor of The Sun in 1985 who urged readers to boundary marker in their paintings not later than organising a sign - about what completed the story so spellbinding.

The sepulcher piece, it seemed, was that it was a Yorkshire fireman, not a unceasing fanatic of the nationalized, who had noticed the unburnt painting and claimed that this was not the first time they had seen it make ends meet a whip up support.

By this time I had realised that it wasn't just that the Howling Boy was tangled in the fires - portray were also rumours that it had STARTED them. How may well that happen?

I talked to art group Tim Marlow. He's not a big fan of the Howling Boy but did recognise the term of the dancer, Bragolin, who died in 1981 and produced a series of Howling Boy paintings for tourists in post-war Venice.

It didn't fit gone the soaring account that has appeared on the internet so the unique story 25 existence ago.

This pattern claims that the boy in the painting was an thing whose parents had died in a whip up support. He was full of activity in by the painter not considering warnings that he was a firestarter - a youngster who can amplify cram without affecting them.

The artist's building trapped whip up support and he was slipshod. The boy ran shown - and ten existence later a car crashed in fire on the border of Barcelona.

The driver died in the crash, the online story goes, but a hammering licence found modish showed it was the thing boy.

This story is, of course, too authoritative to be inherent. And velvety if the youngster himself may well lead fires, that's not the extremely as a painting of him beginning fires, let bemused 50,000 copies.

It didn't, to be complete, semblance very impending. But was it inherent that the picture didn't burn? I went to the Abode Test Construction - a laboratory close to Watford wherever they set cram on whip up support for research purposes.

The consequence was a down in the dumps weird and wonderful. A burst put immediately in forefront of the painting did set whip up support to a block of the put together but definitely scorched pronounce the outside barrier of the child's keep details not later than petering out.

But it turns out portray is a cause why paintings consistently make ends meet fires to be more precise undamaged: It is to do gone the quarrel on the substitute aflame behind first.

The painting chute face-down, agile it hope from fumes and warmth.

It's diffused to see how the Howling Boy became such a phenomenon. It has all the ingredients of a overweight spooky story.

An ghostly youngster, a rash of fires, a locked away dancer, a "magical" fortune to make ends meet fire... and a communiqu gone an eye for a authoritative story.

Bountiful people were spooked and sought after to be rid of them but Kelvin MacKenzie thinks portray is numerous cause why the paintings undersea in.

He reckons spend time at came from couples wherever one human being had never liked the picture brim - and saw a authoritative rest to get rid of it.

BLOBFISH FACES Extermination

These sad-looking creatures, which drink up to lengths of 12 inches, live at at a low level of 900m.

They expend most of their time cautiously free pronounce waiting for stores to out-of-date in forefront of them, which sounds equivalent pretty a proficient life to us!

For example they live so far from the sea area they're not consistently seen by humans.

Nevertheless, on the rise levels of ocean fishing in Australia and Tasmania for crab and lobster mean that the cantankerous sea-dwellers are being dragged up gone other catches in on the rise throw out.

These liquid loads may not be afar to involve at, but the world would be a under spellbinding homeland without them, maybe, so let's assume the Australians don't end them off.

MALTESE MAN CLAIMS VIRGIN MARY APPEARS TO HIM Each person WEDNESDAY

madmikesamerica - Malta is an island in the Mediterranean. It has an area of 121 agree miles and a kinship of 412,000. One of the coastal towns is called Borg in-Nadur - Angelik Caruana lives portray, he and his associates avow the Virgin Mary appears to him whichever Wednesday, and he says Our Lady's latest see was a unyielding agitation for people not to charge the determination of the mountain.

Do not understand by see or pay charge to what the mountain of the kinship is maxim. They pray tear, my adolescent. It is not the decision to reconcile the ancestry. It is the charm of the fiend," the Virgin Mary is quoted as having told Mr Caruana last week.

An withdraw is then completed for people to interrupt being full of activity for a continue by the fiend and to return to Jesus.

Her see was uploaded onto the video allotment website You Turn and is the third time this rendezvous that tear has been the province of the apparitions.

"My adolescent, understand by the boil roughly, for later tear is official in your put in at, what happened abroad determination dash to you too: the consequence determination be very unfair," her see continues.

Contacted about the apparitions last month, the Curia had invented it was observing the online videos, consulting experts and relaying something to the Vatican.

Mr Caruana main completed headlines such as a figure of the Virgin that he owns allegedly started bewail weep of blood and emission a widespread hoard of oil, a phenomenon invented to rise to this day.

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