Life forms so alien that scientists may simply not have recognised
evidence of their existence could inhabit the Earth, according to a
leading scientist.
Dr Tom Gold, emeritus professor of astronomy at Cornell University in
America, believes that organisms based on silicon - completely unrelated
to all the carbon-based life man has encountered so far - may live at
great depths.

In a forthcoming book he will suggest that scientists should take the
possibility more seriously. Gold, who is a member of the Royal Society,
previously predicted that vast amounts of more conventional bacteria
live miles down within the Earth's crust. Scientists initially dismissed
the idea, but many now agree with him.

"So long as nobody suspects there could be silicon-based life, we may
just not be clever enough to identify it," he said last week.

Rocks bearing signs of silicon-based organisms may already be sitting in
laboratories, he believes, with their significance overlooked.

Every known living organism, from bacteria to mankind, is based on the
chemistry of carbon, which forms the complex molecules such as DNA that
are central to our existence. Scientists believe that if
extraterrestrial life is found, the chances are that it, too, will be
carbon-based.

Silicon has many chemical similarities to carbon, prompting scholars and
science fiction writers to dream up new life forms. Huge "space slugs"
that can swallow space ships appear in the film The Empire Strikes Back;
in an episode of Star Trek a rock-like alien attacked Captain Kirk's
crew; and killer parasites based on silicon surfaced in The X-Files when
scientists explored the interior of a volcano.

Gold's life forms, if they exist, would most likely be micro-organisms
capable of withstanding enormous pressures and temperatures, living in
tiny pores inside rock deep within the Earth's crust. They could draw
energy from dissolved gases and surrounding minerals.

Gold's ideas, which centre on an alternative explanation for oil and
mineral deposits, will be published in his book, The Deep Hot Biosphere,
in January.

"It is speculative but logical that there could be a large bio-chemical
system very deep down which works better at high temperatures and
pressures," he said.

Others are sceptical. Dr Harold Klein, who headed the Viking lander
project team that searched for signs of life on Mars in the 1970s,
pointed out that silicon was far inferior to carbon at forming the
complex polymers crucial for life.

"I personally doubt the idea of silicon-based life. If we do find
organisms far down inside the Earth, I'd bet they'd be carbon-based," he
said.

Nevertheless, he urges future missions to Mars to carry an instrument to
test for non-carbon-based organisms - just in case. It is possible that
the chemistry of silicon is altered sufficiently by the great
temperatures and pressures deep in the Earth to make it more suited to
forming complex molecules, according to David Noever, a research
scientist at Nasa's new Astrobiology Institute.

He said some scientists at the American space agency were treating the
idea of silicon-based organisms seriously, particularly with a view to
searching for extraterrestrial life.

"It's almost naive to assume all life must be carbon-based; I could
possibly make good cases for life based on both silicon and phosphorus,"
he said.

Silicon is used by some carbon-based single-cell organisms called
diatoms to form protective shells, according to Dr David Williams, a
diatom researcher at the Natural History Museum in London. But diatoms
are still fundamentally carbon-based.

However, bizarre organisms have been found in recent years deep in the
Earth's crust. Steve Jones, professor of genetics at University College
London, said: "There's an unknown universe down there that has already
produced organisms with metabolisms so strange that, by comparison, man
and mushrooms are almost identical, so God knows what else they'll
find."

Microbes have been found living on the ocean floor at depths and
temperatures where life was previously thought unsustainable.

Without knowing what silicon-based life forms might be like, said Dr
Harry Elderfield, an earth scientist at Cambridge University, it is
almost impossible to predict how scientists could even test for them.

Yet Gold has been described by Stephen Jay Gould, president of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science, as one of the most
iconoclastic scientists - but one who is often right.

shadoweagle I somehow don't believe you have to worry about that even if
they do exist and are braineaters. lol

I'm sure glad I decided not to go to college!

fedman i know you are patriotic toward this some-what great country of
ours . I am just saying to be objectional but, then again time and
history has proven that there are some faults within our political
structure of our government and sometimes curiosity and question need to
be examine. Just by posting whatever research i have done and posted
isn't a state on my beliefs but, rather a way to see if we are really
open-minded people as we say we are.

As if you noticed I posted them but, didn't state in them i believed in
them.. No where did it say i agreed with these theorectical conspiracy
theories. All I did was merely post them.

yes i do believe in aliens...dey invadin da U.S. jk people....

Blondie mentioned aliens eating our brains in the song "Rapture." Did
she know something?

I don't know about eating our brains, but according to the Drake
equation, it is mathematically impossible for aliens not to exist.
Thanks for the info ShadowEagle.
We know that just our galaxy alone has about a billion stars, and it is
our galaxy alone that this equation drives from. According to the
equation 1% of our galaxy has some form of life on it. That's 10,000
planets just in our galaxy. It gives a person something to think about.
THE DRAKE EQUATION........ N=R*_Fs_Fp_Ne_Fl_Fi_Fc_L

i dont beleive in any of that crap
lol

Both thumbs up to FedMan and 70lookin4u2. The
coffee's on me