Diseases from Space and the Giggle Factor

The “giggle factor” is an acute human behavioral reaction in response to mention of a certain kind of idea that makes people uneasy, such as the idea of pathogens invading the Earth from space, or comets or asteroids striking Earth. (1) The eyebrows of listeners go askew, and public or private chuckles break out—“behavior considered unthinkable when discussing means to avert or mitigate catastrophic epidemics, wars of aggression and genocide, and terrestrial natural disasters that have peppered man’s history on Earth.” (1)

Scanning electron microscopy image of an interplanetary dust particle collected in the stratosphere. The cluster-of-grapes morphology and composition of this type of particle are consistent with a cometary origin. The particle measures around 10 microns. Source: http://wwwscielo.isciii.es/img/im/v8n1/02LlorcaFig2.jpg; accessed August 26, 2007.

Astronomers Sir Fred Hoyle and Dr. N. Chandra Wickramasinghe wrote Diseases from Space in 1981 along their steep climb to notoriety among elite scientists for proposing the scientific heresy that interstellar dust particles may well be desiccated bacteria, as described elsewhere. (2) They did not come to their ideas light-heartedly; between 1971 and 1981 astronomers discovered more than thirty organic substances present in the gas that exists between stars, particularly in the huge gas clouds out of which new stars are continually born. (2) Hoyle and Wickramasinghe, both prolific writers, followed up with a clutch of books bearing on the topic, including Our Place in the Cosmos, published in 1988 and A Journey with Fred Hoyle in 2005 (chapter 11).

In their well-written and persuasive books, Hoyle and Wickramasinghe present arguments and facts that support the concept that the viruses and bacteria responsible for the infectious diseases of plants and animals arrive at the Earth from space. [Turn off giggle factor here.] Furthermore, they argue that apart from their harmful effect, these same viruses and bacteria have been responsible in the past for the origin and evolution of life on the Earth. In their view, all aspects of the basic biochemistry of life come from outside the Earth, which is also the idea of panspermia. (3) Hoyle and Wickramasinghe are part of a long line of ardent panspermists dating back to 4th century B.C. Greek philosopher Anaxagoras, as described elsewhere. (4)

Before Hoyle and Wickramasinghe, few people linked the fields of microbiology and astronomy. Indeed, once Hoyle remarked in a packed-house lecture,

“Microbiology may be said to have had its beginnings in the nineteen forties. A new world of the most astonishing complexity began then to be revealed. In retrospect I find it remarkable that microbiologists did not at once recognize that the world into which they had penetrated had of necessity to be of a cosmic order. I suspect that the cosmic quality of microbiology will seem as obvious to future generations as the Sun being the centre of or our solar system seems obvious to the present generation.” (5)

Hoyle first described the role of biology in astronomical phenomena and processes in his 1981 book titled Space Travelers: the Bringers of Life.

Challenging Charles Darwin’s Theory as the Orthodox Theory

British naturalist and aristocrat Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882) and his long line of disciples propose a now-famous theory of evolution, which has remained the orthodox version, through, as Hoyle says, a “sustained campaign of propaganda on the part of biologists, and by a blind eye being turned to every fact to emerge in later years that appeared to go against the theory.” (6) Darwin’s theory asserts the earliest living cell assembled from inorganic molecules in “a warm little pond” on Earth when a bolt of lightning or other source of energy struck the water. “Subsequent mistakes of copying (mutations) and occasional doublings of genes, together with a continual sieving out of the ‘unfit’ in relation to every terrestrial environment, led to the products of evolution that are seen today,” according to this 19th century theory. (6-8)

Distinguished physicists who were contemporaneous with Darwin, including Lord Kelvin, Helmholtz and Arrhenius, questioned the “earthbound theory and attempted to point the way towards a cosmic view of life,” as described elsewhere. (4,6) Biologist Ferdinand Cohn (1828-1898), the gentle founder of bacteriology and an ardent panspermist, wrote in a neglected seminal treatise titled Bacteria: The Smallest Living Organism (1872), the following stunning and prescient words:

“We know that the numberless meteoric stones which have fallen to the earth, were once independent bodies or parts of such. In certain meteorites carbon, and certain combinations containing carbon, have been found, which points to organic formation. It is possible to think, that at some time a germ, with life and capacity for development, could have survived the glowing heat which generally accompanies the entrance of a new comer from space into our atmosphere, and that from such a germ all living beings might have descended. Thus, some time the commencement of life may have descended from Heaven upon this lifeless earth; as according to the myth, the living spark was brought down by Prometheus from Olympia. (9)

Cohn even posited that some of the infinitely small bodies of terrestrial bacteria could be carried by the winds to extraordinary heights, even reaching space, to effect a reverse panspermia (Earth animals seeding other celestial bodies). (9)

In addition to challenging Darwinian theory, Hoyle and Wickramasinghe assert that panspermia challenges the Christian Church belief that “nothing that happens in the heavens could have any conceivable effect on the Earth. The heavens were merely an adornment that was of no practical importance in day-to-day life (except for the Sun, whose beneficial effects were not denied)”. (10) Panspermia is a continuous process involving the entire Universe.

A discussion of how scientists arrived at the concept of bacteria as interstellar dust grains is available elsewhere. (2) What is the evidence to support the hypothesis that microbes enter into the Earth’s atmosphere, and exactly how do they accomplish this, according to Hoyle and Wickramasinghe?

Evidence that Microbes Reach in to the Earth’s Atmosphere

Microbes exist inside of comets, according to Hoyle and Wickramasinghe, which originated within our solar system as a by-product of the formation of the outer planets Uranus and Neptune, as described in Lifecloud: The Origin of Life (1978). “A soft landing of a comet on the Earth about 4 billion years ago then could have started life”. Earth continued to pick up debris from comets that have long periods and short periods of revolution around the sun as they pass by Earth, resulting in micrometeorite showers, which leads to the “injection of disease-causing bacteria and viruses on to the Earth.” (11)

By studying the historical pattern of the appearance of diseases, Hoyle and Wickramasinghe discovered what they believe is strong prima facie evidence in support of their contention that pathogens come from space. For example, “the rather sudden appearance in the literature of references to particular diseases is significant in that it probably points to times of specific ‘invasions’. Thus the first clear description of a disease resembling influenza is early in the 17th century A.D. The common cold has no mention until about the 15th century A.D. Descriptions of small pox and measles do not appear in a clearly recognizable form until about the 9th century A.D. Furthermore, certain early plagues such as the plague of Athens of 429 B.C., which is vividly detailed by the Greek historian Thucydides, do not seem to have an easily recognizable modern counterpart,” they say. (11)

Wickramasinghe continues:

“We noticed that epidemics and pandemics of fresh diseases, both in historical times as well as more recently, have almost without exception appeared suddenly and spread with phenomenal swiftness. The influenza pandemics of 1889-1890 and 1918-1919 both swept over vast areas of the globe in a matter of weeks. Such swiftness of spread, particularly in days prior to air travel, is difficult to understand if infection can pass only from person to person. Rather it is strongly suggestive of an extraterrestrial invasion over a global scale. We argued now that it is the primary cometary dust infection that is the most lethal, and that secondary person-to-person transmissions have a progressively reduced virulence, so resulting in a diminishing incidence of disease over a limited timescale. (11)

Indeed, “one of the most striking features in this whole story is that the technology of human travel has had no effect whatsoever on the way that influenza spreads, argue Hoyle and Wickramasinghe. “If influenza is indeed spread by contact between people [the contagion theory], one would expect the advent of air travel to have heralded great changes in the way the disease spreads across the world. Yet the spread of influenza in 1918, before air travel, was no faster, and no different from its spread in more recent times.” (12)

The influenza pandemic in 1918-1919 caused about 30 million deaths and it remains in many aspects an enigma. Physician Louis Weinstein studied the information about the spread of this influenza epidemic and concluded the following:

“Although person-to-person spread occurred in local areas, the disease appeared on the same day in widely separated parts of the world on the one hand, but on the other hand, took days to weeks to spread relatively short distances. It was detected in Boston and Bombay on the same day, but took three weeks before it reached New York City, despite the fact that there was considerable travel between the two cities. It was present for the first time at Joliet in the State of Illinois four weeks after it was first detected in Chicago, the distance between those areas being only 38 miles…” (12,13)

SARS

Wickramasinghe, et al., estimate that a ton of bacteria fall to Earth each day, which calculates to 20,000 bacteria per square meter of the Earth’s surface. (14) “With respect to the SARS outbreak,” notes Wickramasinghe, “a prima facie case for a possible space incidence can already be made. First, the virus is unexpectedly novel, and appeared without warning in mainland China. A small amount of the culprit virus introduced into the stratosphere could make a first tentative fall out East of the great mountain range of the Himalayas, where the stratosphere is thinnest, followed by sporadic deposits in neighbouring areas.

“If the virus is only minimally infective, as it seems to be, the subsequent course of its global progress will depend on stratospheric transport and mixing, leading to a fall out continuing seasonally over a few years. Although all reasonable attempts to contain the infective spread of SARS should be continued, we should remain vigilant for the appearance of new foci (unconnected with infective contacts of with China) almost anywhere on the planet. New cases might continue to appear until the stratospheric supply of the causative agent becomes exhausted.” (14)

Bird Flu Epidemic

“As new cases of bird flu continue to turn up at our doorstep, the appearance of streams of migrating birds in our autumn skies must fill us with a sense of foreboding,” notes Wickramasinghe. (15) “Flight paths that extend across thousands of miles, several billion migrating birds inhale and recycle large volumes of air at a height of about a kilometer above the ground. If the birds are incubating the dreaded H5N1 virus, it is possible that vast numbers of viral particles will be discharged into the atmosphere, some of which would serve to nucleate raindrops, others which rise in updrafts into the stratosphere and are carried around the world. (15)

Planning for the next pandemic includes measures to minimize unprotected exposure to mist and weather, as soon as cases are detected in any locality. “The use of face masks could possibly reduce attack rates, as well as a general reduction of non-essential travel. It might also be profitable to explore the feasibility of deploying modern techniques of molecular biology to indentify viruses in the environment (air and rainwater samples), with a view to preparing vaccines ahead of major infective outbreaks. Such measures should of course to be considered in addition to the other precautions currently in train.” (15)

Testing for Bacteria in the Stratosphere

One way to test the hypothesis that bacteria and viruses are continuously falling into the Earth’s atmosphere is to sample the Earth’s upper atmosphere for these microbes. Balloon flights into the stratosphere, up to heights of about 40 kilometers, made in the early 1960s, obtained viable microorganisms that could be cultured by relatively simple means. “The equipment was sterilized before each flight, and two similar experimental packages were flown, one package being exposed to the atmosphere and the other not, the unexposed package serving as a control. Since viable microorganisms were not obtained in the control package, those obtained in the exposed package would appear to have been genuinely atmospheric,” explain Hoyle and Wickramasinghe. (16)  

Diagram of divisions of Earth’s atmosphere. Source: http://www.eduspace.esa.int/subdocument/images/image3.gif; accessed August 26, 2007.

“The results showed that there were 0.01-0.1 viable bacteria per cubic meter…Taking a viable bacterial density of 0.1 cubic meter as representative of the whole stratosphere, it is easily calculated that the total number of bacteria resident in the stratosphere at any moment should be about 1018, and since bacteria fall to ground-level from the stratosphere in about a year, the annual incidence at ground-level of viable bacteria culturable by rather simple means should be 1018.” (16)

Additional experiments with balloons at 41 kilometers (well above the troposphere where contamination might be a problem) with results published in the early 2000s demonstrated viable bacteria in air sampled from the stratosphere, including Bacillus simplex and Staphylococcus pasteuri and a fungus called Engyodontium album. (17)

The issue with experiments such as those cited above is that when researchers find viable microorganisms at great heights in the stratosphere and mesosphere (above the stratosphere), critics then maintain that the microbes have been carried upwards from ground-level. Thus, conducting such experiments appears to be wasted because “no positive result is possible, and one has to accept the position that the theory can only be falsified but not proved in this way, a somewhat less than satisfactory position”, observes Hoyle and Wickramasinghe gloomily. (18)

How DO Microbes Get into the Earth’s Atmosphere?

The Earth moves at an extremely high speed (about six miles per second) with respect to the halo of debris from long- and short-period comets in which she is continuously embedded. (19) Microbes in cometary debris would explode on hitting the surface of the Moon, which has no atmosphere, but would have their speeds checked much more slowly in the Earth’s upper atmosphere because the gas density there is very low. (19) “In effect, by being slowed right down over 100 kilometers above the Earth’s surface, the microorganisms would secure a soft landing, and not be destroyed like insects on a car windscreen,” assert Hoyle and Wickramasinghe. (19).

Bacteria are very small and would be heated to about 500 degrees Centigrade on their way through the Earth’s atmosphere nevertheless. (20) Dr. Shirwan Al-Mufti, the astronomer son of an Iraqi general, who is on staff at the University of Wales, College of Cardiff, conducted an experiment in which he stuck tubes of bacteria into hot ovens (between 300 and 700 degrees). “After withdrawal from the furnace, each tube was broken open and its contents transferred to a nutrient broth...In all cases up to the highest temperatures for which the furnace was accurately calibrated, growth occurred, eventually back to normality.”

Interestingly, Al-Mufti was able to rule out contamination from the laboratory because of the way in which the bacteria cells grew after leaving the furnace. “E. coli bacteria normally replicates by binary fission, each cell dividing to form two daughter cells. Growth following flash heating occurred in clusters, with a bacterial cell usually dividing to form more than two daughter cells, commonly a cluster of four. This is a known property to happen with many species of bacteria after they have been subjected to severe stress, and so provides a useful verification that growth has not been due to stray contaminant bacteria.” (21)

The Earth’s atmosphere has three divisions: a lower region called the troposphere, a middle region called the stratosphere, and an upper region called the mesosphere. The troposphere has an upper limit of about 18 kilometers in the tropics, 10 kilometers in temperate latitudes and 7 kilometers in polar regions. The Earth is not smooth, which causes marked differences in the times of descent of incoming particles, especially in tall mountains (more below).

Microbes land from space in the mesosphere at a height of about 120 kilometers above the Earth’s surface where solar heat is constantly mixing the air, according to Hoyle and Wickramasinghe. (22) The mesosphere protects Earth from x-rays while the ozone layer, which extends to the top of the stratosphere (middle layer) protects against ultraviolet radiation. Thus microbes that successfully reach the stratosphere alive are probably safe from further radiation damage.

Vertical air movements carry water vapor from the Earth’s surface to the top of the troposphere. “As the temperature falls with increasing height the water vapour becomes supersaturated, but the temperature is not usually so low that supersaturated water vapour condenses spontaneously into ice crystals. Ice requires something to condense around—a nucleus [of some small particle].” Drum roll: here comes the great Hoyle-Wickramasinghe hypothesis described elsewhere (23): “Small particles falling from the stratosphere, and in particular microorganisms falling from above, would provide such nuclei around which much larger ice crystals could form.

“Because larger ice crystals are less impeded by air resistance than the original small nuclei, they fall much faster. As the ice crystals descend into warmer air, they melt and the resulting water droplets may fall to the surface of the Earth as rain, or only partially evaporate,” with the resulting smaller droplets remaining as an aerosol (mist) in the air. Unsuspecting animals, including humans, can inhale such aerosolized droplets containing microbes from space, posit Hoyle and Wickramasinghe. (24) 

Thus parents who admonish their children: “Don’t go out into the rain or in evening mists or you’ll get ill!” and ancient cultures that strongly believed comets were harbingers of pestilence and death are “myths” that may have a basis in fact, according to Wickramasinghe. (25)  

Himalayas and China/Southeast Asia as Origins of Exotic Diseases

The Himalayas are the Earth’s tallest mountains, which project upwards through about one-half of the height of the troposphere at latitudes of about 30 degrees North. The high peaks of this mountain range effectively introduce easy downward routes at the base of the stratosphere for the descent of incoming particles.

Relief map showing Himalaya Mountain Range with China on downdraft side, vulnerable to dust from space. Source: http://www.nepalvista.com/features/himalayas/himalayas.jpg; accessed August 26, 2007.

Hoyle and Wickramasinghe note: “We would thus expect floods of microorganisms to fall downwind of mountain ranges such as the Himalayas”, affecting the very large human populations of China and Southeast Asia. (26)

Conclusion

Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe have been geysers of provocative hypotheses with supporting evidence about the origin and continuity of life on Earth and throughout the cosmos. The space origin of disease on Earth is one more piece of their architectonic. Even though they have said they have felt underappreciated and attacked with vitriol by mainstream scientists over the decades for their stunningly original contributions, their ideas now permeate science. Many scientists, especially younger ones, do not giggle about the idea of panspermia or pathogens from space because relevant concepts, which they take for granted, are no longer viewed as scientific heresies.

Notes:

1. Martin E. France: “Planetary defense: Eliminating the giggle factor”. National Defense University, 2000. Available at http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA430995; accessed August 25, 2007.
2. See Biot Report #455: “Interstellar Dust Grains as Freeze-Dried Bacterial Cells: Hoyle and Wickramasinghe’s Fantastic Journey”. Available at http://www.semp.us/publications/biot.php; accessed August 25, 2007.
3. Fred Hoyle and N.C. Wickramasinghe: Diseases from Space. Sphere Books, 1981, p. 1.
4. SEMP Biot Report #450: “Theory of Panspermia: An Idea that Will Not Die.” August 7, 2007. Available online at http://www.semp.us/publications/biot_reader.php?BiotID=450; accessed August 25, 2007.
5. Chandra Wickramasinghe: A Journey with Fred Hoyle: The Search for Cosmic Life.  World Scientific, 2005, p. 122.
6. Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe: Our Place in the Cosmos: Life Did Not Begin on Earth—It Arrived from Space and Is Still Arriving. Phoenix, 1988, p. 2.
7. Hoyle in his autobiography speaks to Darwin’s “being accorded priority in 1859 with the theory that bears his name [Darwin’s theory of evolution], despite the same theory being stated by Patrick Matthew in 1831, by Charles Naudin in France in 1852, and by Alfred Russel Wallace from the East Indies in 1855 and 1858. This was done on Darwin’s assurance that the theory had lain unpublished for many years in his escritoire, despite there having been no independent witness to that effect.” Source: Fred Hoyle: Home Is Where the Wind Blows: Chapters from a Cosmologist’s Life. University Science Books, 1994, p. 272.
8. Author Arnold C. Brackman has explored Darwin’s dubious ethics in A Delicate Arrangement: The Strange Case of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. Source:  Arnold C. Brackman: A Delicate Arrangement: The Strange Case of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. Times Books, 1980.
9. Dr. Ferdinand Cohn: Bacteria: The Smallest Living Organisms. Translated by Charles S. Dolley (1881). The Johns Hopkins Press, 1939, p. 36.
10. Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe: Our Place in the Cosmos: Life Did Not Begin on Earth—It Arrived from Space and Is Still Arriving. Phoenix, 1988, p. 3.
11. Chandra Wickramasinghe: A Journey with Fred Hoyle: The Search for Cosmic Life.  World Scientific, 2005, p. 98.
12. Ibid, p. 101.
13. Louis Weinstein: “Influenza—1918, a revisit? New England Journal of Medicine, May 6, 1976, Volume 294, p. 1058-1060.
14. N.C. Wickramasinghe, M. Wainwright, and J. Nalikar: SARS: A clue to its origins” The Lancet, May 24, 2003. Volume 361, p. 1832. Available online at  http://www.astrobiology.cf.ac.uk/Lancet.pdf; accessed August 26, 2007.
15. Chandra Wickramasinghe: “Bird flu from the sky? Lessons from 1918. Source: http://www.astrobiology.cf.ac.uk/newsD.htm; accessed August 25, 2007.
16. Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe: Our Place in the Cosmos: Life Did Not Begin on Earth—It Arrived from Space and Is Still Arriving. Phoenix, 1988, p. 95.
17. M. Wainwright, N.C. Wickramasinghe, J.V. Narlikar, P. Rajaratnam, and Joy Perkins: “Confirmation of the presence of viable but non-culturable bacteria in the stratosphere. International Journal of Astrobiology, January 2004. Available at http://www.astrobiology.cf.ac.uk/newsD.htm; accessed August 25, 2007.
18. Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe: Our Place in the Cosmos: Life Did Not Begin on Earth—It Arrived from Space and Is Still Arriving. Phoenix, 1988, p. 94.
19. Ibid, p. 77.
20. Ibid, p. 78.
21. Ibid, p. 79.
22. Ibid, p. 80.
23. SEMP Biot Report #455: “Interstellar Dust Grains as Freeze-Dried Bacterial Cells: Hoyle and Wickramasinghe’s Fantastic Journey”. Available at http://www.semp.us/publications/biot.php; accessed August 26, 2007.
24. Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe: Our Place in the Cosmos: Life Did Not Begin on Earth—It Arrived from Space and Is Still Arriving. Phoenix, 1988, p. 81.
25. Chandra Wickramasinghe: A Journey with Fred Hoyle: The Search for Cosmic Life.  World Scientific, 2005, p. 95.
26. Ibid, p. 82.