posted 08-06-2001 09:00 AM            

NATIONAL NETWORK Monday, August 6, 2001

‘Red rain was fungus, not meteor’

KAMAL GOPINATH NAIR

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, AUGUST 5: The red rain that lashed parts of Kerala last month is eluding explanations as the days go by.
The Centre for Earth Science Studies (CESS) here on Saturday retracted its hypothesis that a streaking meteor triggered the rain.

Everybody had taken that explanation with a pinch of salt because other researchers had spoken of biological contents in the water samples. Yet, the retraction has raised eyebrows about a premier research body’s prudence in making a hurried announcement.

CESS has not only retracted, but tagged a confession: ‘‘This leaves several questions unanswered.’’ The CESS press release was triggered by the chemical analysis of the water samples that showed these were largely biological. Biological studies have identified organic material such as fungal spores in them.

CESS director M. Baba said: ‘‘The exact species is yet to be identified. But how such a large quantity of spores could appear over a small region is as yet unknown.’’

On July 25, Changanacherry town had received the coloured showers overnight that continued into the morning and on till sunset. Some residents collected samples of the rain. They said the shower was accompanied by thunder and lightning.

CESS then collected the samples and tested them. The water was found to be neutral and contained some amount of dissolved salts.

The filtered precipitate was fine and powdery, and this, said Baba, was chemically and biologically analysed.

The chemical analysis showed various elements — including carbon, silicon, calcium, magnesium, aluminum, iron, sodium and potassium. It contained significant traces (in parts per million) of phosphorus, titanium, chromium, manganese, copper and nickel.

The biological study — partly conducted at CESS and at the Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute (TBGRI), Pacha Palode — revealed a red coloured cell structure.

This has been tentatively identified as spores of some fungus species and are now being cultured by the TBGRI. ‘‘The red colour of the rain appears to be mainly because of the spores,’’ Baba said.

These findings, say CESS, raise doubts on whether the explosive sound reported by residents and the red rain were independent events. There are other posers too which remain unanswered:

What produced the huge quantity of spores ? Is the source local or distant?
How were the spores injected into the clouds?

If the source is not local, how was the mass transported without getting distributed over a large area?
By way of an answer, CESS has only this to say : ‘‘While the cause of the colour in the rainfall has been identified, finding the answers to these questions is a challenge.’’

posted 08-06-2001 06:09 PM            

I've got something growing in there that I've never seen before... oh sure I've got a few of those big puff ball mushrooms, the kind you step on and they spew out some powder but this is totally different.

I'm almost sure they're a fungus. The thing that first caught my attention is the way they looked like they've been dropped a distance from the air. At first I thought I was looking at bird droppings cause they had that splattered look. Upon closer inspection I noticed they weren't from birds. So I picked one of the bigger ones up (yes, with my bare hands.. bad idea maybe) and broke it in two.

I'll try to explain this as detailed as I can so you can understand why I'm perplexed. These roundish somewhat flat mounds were white (mostly) on the outside which had the consistency of a latex paint and when I broke them they were like breaking a stick of chalk or a delicate chocolate candy. The insides of these fungus were a very fine textured chocolate color that broke up into a powder that felt exactly like talcum powder. I thought maybe they were some baby puff ball mushrooms but I compared them and the puff balls have a lot more structure inside them and have a green color to their spores. The puff ball powder also has that talcum powder feel.

I've looked all over my gardens (they're both rather big) for more of these things but they seem to favor the pumpkin and squash patch since that's the only place I've found them. Believe me I'm keeping a close eye on these to see what develops. I might even have to take a sample in to some agriculture place to see if they can be identified.

If I can figure out how to upload a picture here I'll get my digital camera out and take some pictures.

posted 08-06-2001 08:12 PM            

Last night we had a light rain with lots of lightening...and it was red. I'm not kidding, it was night time and the lightening was The color RED. Now, what would cause us to see lightening as red being that it didn't have a light source other than itself?

posted 08-07-2001 08:17 AM            

The only thing that was different was that the rain and lightening storm was apart of Barry. When Barry was hitting land around 9:30pm in the Florida panhandle we (mid-state, Gulf side) were getting the back feeder bands.

Oh, forgot another odd thing...When Barry was out in the Gulf Waters prior to heading north, when it rained, the water was freezing cold. I've NEVER known freezing cold rain in July/August. Steam rolled off the roads and sidewalks for HOURS. It was eerie. Made the temperature drop so drastic everyone turned of the air. After Barry passed things went back to normal, with the exception of seeing red lightening!!

posted 08-07-2001 11:19 PM            

I also looked thru my book for the type of fungus I've got growing in my garden... the only thing that even faintly resembles the ones I have are the puff balls since they seem to pop up out of the ground in the same manner as puff balls, more or less, and both species have a talcum powder consistancy to their spores.
We've had puff balls in the lawn before so that really isn't unusual.

posted 08-09-2001 03:20 PM            

"Catnip, I can't take credit away from Thermit on that one...the lil black lichen turd-like pic was supplied by Thermit...no, I mean, not literally his turds, I mean, he found the pic"

Thank you