(Entertainment-NewsWire.com, February 27, 2013 ) San Francisco, CA -- In November of last year a strange phenomenon occurred in Sri Lanka. The rain was falling in a variety of colors. The appearance of colored rain has scientists divided on where and why this is happening. Some scientists say that the rain has been generated from outer space, while others say that this is not an “alien” phenomenon but that the rain is being generated in our atmosphere.
In November of 2012 “red” rain started falling in Moneragala and Polonnaruwa. In December of the same year “yellow” rain was seen in the areas of Polonnaruwa, Medirigiriya, Welikanda, Minneriya, Kekirawa and Magul Pokuna. Soon after that “blue” rain fell in Saliyapura and Anuradhapura. There have also been reports of “green” rain in Matale, and most recently “black” rain has been falling in Mahiyanganaya and areas in the Uva province.
If the oddly colored rain was not strange enough, on December 29 a rock that had meteorite characteristics fell from the sky and landed in a rice field near Aralaganwila.
Director of the Buckingham Center for Astrobiology, University of Buckingham, in the United Kingdom, Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe, stated “The combination of red rain and a meteor is unique. It is possible the red rain cells were dispersed into the troposphere by the disintegrating meteorite and seeded the rain clouds.”
Dr. Wickramasinghe and Dr. Anil Samaranayake, director of the Medical Research Institute, have written two papers on the subject which stated that the red algal-type cell that was identified in the red rain may have come from a small piece comet entering the Earth’s atmosphere.
The fragment of rock was sent to NASA where it was examined by scientists. Professor Wickremasinghe stated that, “Professor Hoover examined the sample, using the most sophisticated equipment at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. He has confirmed the presence of a large number of diatom types, some of which are not recognized as terrestrial forms.”
The other side of the argument is that the reason for the variety of colors in the rain can be explained not as extraterrestrial, but as a cell that can be found here on Earth. Professor Jayaratne, a consultant on Astronomy and Space Applications at the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Modern Technologies said, When Kerala experienced red rain, there were no falling meteors. We tested some of the so-called meteorite fragments that were found in Sri Lanka recently and we concluded that these are rock particles caused by lightning strikes.”
Pieces of the rock that was discovered Aralaganwila were transported to the Geology Department of the University of Peradeniya for further testing. Rohana Chandrajith, a professor of geology, stated, “This is the material that results when a piece of rock is subjected to a lightning strike. The high-temperature lightning strike causes the meteorite look.” After further testing of the samples it was confirmed that the rock that was found contained quartz. This mineral is very common on Earth in rocks and soil, but never in meteorites.
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