British scientists is convinced it has found proof of alien life

[Yosty22]

I stumbled upon this article and was wondering what others think of it?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/s...o-have-found-proof-of-alien-life-8826690.html

A team of British scientists is convinced it has found proof of alien life, after it harvested strange particles from the edge of space.

The scientists sent a balloon 27km into the stratosphere, which came back carrying small biological organisms which they believe can only have originated from space.

 

[Evo]

The "Journal of Cosmology" is not a recognized journal by Thompson Reuters Master Journal list, so it is not accepted by PF. This is where they posted their unsubstantiated claims.

As the article you posted even states

the Journal of Cosmology has had its reputation called into question more than once by other members of the scientific community.

More on it's crackpottery

Reliability

The quality of peer review at the journal has been questioned.[2][3][4][5][6][7] The journal has also been accused of promoting fringe viewpoints and speculative viewpoints on astrobiology, astrophysics, and quantum physics. Skeptical blogger and biologist PZ Myers said of the journal "... it isn't a real science journal at all, but is the... website of a small group... obsessed with the idea of Hoyle and Wickramasinghe that life originated in outer space and simply rained down on Earth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_of_Cosmology#Reliability

I think we can dismiss the findings claimed in the article for now.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

This is nonsense, the university of Sheffield should take a strong look at its departments. At a time when universities across the country are struggling with budget cuts poor quality research like this published in a non-peer reviewed journal (the journal of cosmology is a crackpot, non credible website) is unacceptable.

Their ideas are riddled with errors but the biggest one is that high altitude organisms must come from space. We have known about high altitude bacteria for a long time, here's a far more reputable reputable article on the subject
http://www.nature.com/news/high-flying-bacteria-spark-interest-in-possible-climate-effects-1.12310

 

[Office_Shredder]

My favorite part is that they say there is no known mechanism by which these organisms could have achieved that height from earth, so they must have blasted off from another planet

 

[Ryan_m_b]

The part about comets being aquatic environments was the icing on the cake for me.