Peer Reviewed Study: Extra-terrestrial Origin Theory for Cephalopods (Tentacled sea creatures including Octopi)

[EricW]

A group of scientists have seriously proposed that Cephalopods (tentacled sea creatures like octopi) may have originated on another planet - but we all knew this already 😉.

International group of scientists suggest octopuses might be aliens

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We review the salient evidence consistent with or predicted by the Hoyle-Wickramasinghe (H-W) thesis of Cometary (Cosmic) Biology. Much of this physical and biological evidence is multifactorial. One particular focus are the recent studies which date the emergence of the complex retroviruses of vertebrate lines at or just before the Cambrian Explosion of ∼500 Ma. Such viruses are known to be plausibly associated with major evolutionary genomic processes. We believe this coincidence is not fortuitous but is consistent with a key prediction of H-W theory whereby major extinction-diversification evolutionary boundaries coincide with virus-bearing cometary-bolide bombardment events. A second focus is the remarkable evolution of intelligent complexity (Cephalopods) culminating in the emergence of the Octopus. A third focus concerns the micro-organism fossil evidence contained within meteorites as well as the detection in the upper atmosphere of apparent incoming life-bearing particles from space. In our view the totality of the multifactorial data and critical analyses assembled by Fred Hoyle, Chandra Wickramasinghe and their many colleagues since the 1960s leads to a very plausible conclusion – life may have been seeded here on Earth by life-bearing comets as soon as conditions on Earth allowed it to flourish (about or just before 4.1 Billion years ago); and living organisms such as space-resistant and space-hardy bacteria, viruses, more complex eukaryotic cells, fertilised ova and seeds have been continuously delivered ever since to Earth so being one important driver of further terrestrial evolution which has resulted in considerable genetic diversity and which has led to the emergence of mankind.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0079610718300798?via%3Dihub

The truth is sometimes stranger than fiction;

Quote

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

Opening paragraph of The Call of Cthulhu

[klecser]

Great find Eric!

[Jack Tar]

We had a good laugh about this paper at the Milner Centre for Evolution

[Conrad]

One of the buffoons that wrote that paper has been butthurt because of the amount of criticism he has faced. He wrote a hilarious letter to one of his detractors, squidmaster PZ Myers. https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2018/05/19/i-just-had-an-idea-for-a-movie-squidnado/#more-50910

[EricW]

14 hours ago, Conrad said:

One of the buffoons that wrote that paper has been butthurt because of the amount of criticism he has faced. He wrote a hilarious letter to one of his detractors, squidmaster PZ Myers. https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2018/05/19/i-just-had-an-idea-for-a-movie-squidnado/#more-50910

Oh I agree, the idea of Earth compatible biological material making its way to Earth from another star system by chance and still being viable by the time it landed is just too silly to consider.

The only way something like this could have happened is if the material was deliberately transported to Earth by agencies unknown. Barring discovery of an alien transport Occam's Razor suggests this idea belongs in the circular filing cabinet with other ID theories.

But it makes a great post for a COC forum 😉

[Conrad]

It would explain why Great Cthulhu looks like a squiddly diddly, because he's the grandpappy of all those betentacled cephalopods. 😮😲🐙

[klecser]

The transport concept is possible but the paper reads as if they just anthropomorphically selected their favorite alien-lookin' creature and cherry-picked some reasoning. Makes me doubt the efficacy of that journal.

 

[Jack Tar]

Many years back I was at a NASA conference at Woods Hole on astrobiology. People like Carl Woese and Craig Venter were there. Most agreed that panspermia was possible and not far fetched. But I don't think they were envisaging the Great Old Ones. In any case, it just moves the big question, origins of life, to a different location(s).

[clarence]

Yes, that's what I've found too researching astrobiology for M-Space. Complex organic molecules have been found in the most unlikely places. Going from that to actual life is of course a big step. But many astrobiologists expect simple lifeforms to be quite common in the universe. A lot of speculation comes with the subject though.