Diseases from Space

Diseases From Space

Author	Chandra Wickramasinghe,Fred Hoyle
Language	English
Genre	Space medicine
Published	1979
Publication place	Great Britain
ISBN	978-0060119379

Diseases from Space was a highly controversial book when it first came out in 1979. Its challenge to the whole concept of where diseases originate still makes it controversial in 2014.^{[citation needed]} The book develops the hypothesis that many of the most common diseases which afflict mankind, such as influenza, the common cold and whooping cough, have their origins in extraterrestrial sources. The two authors argue the case for outer space being the main source for these pathogens- or at least their causative agents.^[1][2][3]

Sir Fred Hoyle and Professor Nadine Chandra Wickramasinghe spent over 20 years investigating the nature and composition of interstellar dust. Though many theories regarding this dust had been postulated by various astronomers since the middle of the 19th century, all were found to be wanting as and when new data on the gas and dust clouds became available. While Hoyle and Wickramasinghe never set out to be controversial, but rather, to explain the phenomenon they were investigating within the boundaries of conventional theory, their research led them to the astonishing but inevitable conclusion that, as the spectroscopic data of the gas clouds matched those for desiccated bacteria, the core component of interstellar dust was indeed just that - desiccated bacteria. This led the two scientists in the direction of explaining the spread of diseases in ways which challenged the mainstream human-to-human transmission process of diseases, substituting it with an alternative theory which postulated that diseases such as influenza and the common cold are incident from space and fall upon the Earth in what they term "pathogenic patches." Hoyle and Wickramasinghe found themselves compelled to understand the process of evolution in a manner at variance with the standard Darwinian model. They averred that genetic material in the form of incoming pathogens from the cosmos provided the mechanism for driving the evolutionary engine.^[1][4]

In their opening chapter, Hoyle and Wickramasinghe argue that the idea of bacteria and viruses descending upon the Earth from outer space at first may seem strange, but that they intend to demonstrate by reasoned argument in succeeding chapters that the hypothesis is quite plausible.^[5]

Hoyle and Wickramasinghe aver that the pathogens from space are brought to Earth by comets. As the comet, on its highly elliptical orbit around the solar system passes close to the sun, the heat from the sun causes the comet to shed some of its outer layers. These layers contain dormant bacteria and viruses which are released by the peeling effect as the comet gains close proximity to the sun. A more detailed analysis of this process is dealt with in the two authors' book Lifecloud: The Origin of Life in the Universe. If a bacteria should fall on a body such as the moon it will immediately be gasified as there is no atmosphere to slow down its descent. The Earth's atmosphere serves to slow down the descent of the bacterium or virus particle and so afford it a fair degree of protection.^[6] However the descent of the virus through the Earth's atmosphere may itself prove to be a hazard for the incoming pathogen due to heating caused by descent. Hoyle and Wickramasinghe demonstrate that the size of bacteria are small enough to avoid being "cooked" on their descent from the stratosphere to the troposphere. Once at the base of the stratosphere (9 miles over the tropics and 6 miles over the Earth's temperate zones), the pathogens can be carried down to the lower atmosphere by rain and snow in as short a time as days and weeks. The distribution patterns of the incoming pathogens as they fall on the Earth will be greatly determined by meteorological factors such as wind, storms on the sun, terrestrial thunderstorms and interaction between storms in the lower atmosphere and the air currents moving around the jet streams which circle the Earth. The two authors refer to these distributional patterns as "pathogenic patches" and argue that one's risk of contracting a disease from a space incident pathogen will be determined by the mere chance of whether or not one is within the boundaries of a "patch." When these pathogens hit ground level, they establish a reservoir for themselves in host plants, animals and humans. These reservoirs may last as short as a few weeks (as in the case of the influenza virus in humans) or for thousands of years (as in the case of the virus herpes simplex). Hoyle and Wickramasinghe contend that movement of people and animals (especially birds) from one pathogenic patch to another causes the illusion of diseases being spread by people. They also controversially argue that medical authorities (such as the World Health Organisation are similarly operating under an illusion in setting up projects to rid the world of various diseases. From an historical perspective, Hoyle and Wickramasinghe have observed that many diseases which exist now did not exist at various times in the past; also they have found descriptions of diseases by Thucydides which defy any kind of comparison with known diseases in the modern period.^[7][8] Hoyle and Wickramasinghe site Thucydides "The Peloponesian Wars.^[9]"

Hoyle and Wickramasinghe challenge what is basically seen as a "fact" in the scientific medical community - the human-to-human and animal-to-human transmission process for the spreading of diseases. The two scientists point out that the influenza virus exists in various types and subtypes and that the subtypes which use animals as reservoirs are not of the type that would infect humans. Hoyle and Wickramasinghe argue that these viruses must be renewed from space on a frequent basis, otherwise they would become extinct. It is at this point in their book that the two authors start to present their evidence in the process of building up their case that so-called contagious diseases are in fact incident from space. The two authors contend that if the spread of diseases is not by the human-to-human transmission process, it necessarily follows the bacteria causing the diseases fall on humans from the atmosphere. They note the difficulties involved in obtaining viral particles from the atmosphere due to their sparsity over a wide area. While most of the incoming micrometeorites will fall on the polar regions, the chances of finding viral particles from random core samples in the vast swathes of ice sheets of Greenland and the Arctic are extremely slim. According to Hoyle and Wickramasinghe, person to person transmission would not contradict a cometary origin for respiratory diseases for the reason that there are no known reservoirs for the influenza and common cold viruses. This fact tends to lend support to their theory of these virus particles having an extra-terrestrial origin.

If two people happen to be in the way of a pathogenic patch, then both will develop clinical symptoms of the disease simultaneously. One of the problems with the person to person mode of transmission would be the slow rate of infection involved in such a transmission process. The time lapse involved in the process would be the incubation period of the virus which is generally a day and a half, after which clinical symptoms emerge.It would therefore take about ten days to two weeks to affect fifty persons; such a slow rate is inconsistent with the general rapidity in the spread of colds and influenza. Furthermore, it would be impossible for any susceptible person to escape the disease if there were any person carrying a load of 10,000 million viral particles per cubic meter - however, most susceptible persons do escape. Yet the persistence in the common cold is shown by the high rates of infection; adults on average contrat two to three colds per annum with children contracting anything from between six and twelve per annum.

In demonstrating the weakness of the human-to-human transmission hypothesis, it would be well worthwhile to focus in closely on the experiments conducted by Sir Christopher Andrewes and published in his book "The Common Cold" Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1965 ). A great deal of the work done by Sir Christopher Andrewes is made use of in Diseases from Space. In a 1947 experiment, three pairs of volunteers were given hot baths after which they were left to stand in a cool corridor clad only in bathing attire. Three other pairs were given a shot of a cold virus and were subjected to chilling as per the first three pairs. Another three pairs were given the virus alone but without the chilling. The groups with the virus alone produced two colds. The group with the chilling plus inoculation with the dilute virus produced four colds; however, the groups with the chilling and wetting alone did not produce any colds. The conclusion from the experiment is that chilling and wetting do not produce colds. Actual weather conditions may be a different story however as rain tends to form around micrometeoritic particles, many of which may contain viruses.

Hoyle and Wickramasinghe point out that colds are more frequent when the grounds is cold and less frequent when it is warm. The temperature differences between the sea and the land are produced by the heating and cooling of the land. The coldest temperature difference between sea and land is in February. This is when a thermodynamic engine carrying heat from the sea to the land comes into operation thus bringing storms landward. These storms produce eddy transfers into the stratosphere. The electrical fields generated by these transfers pull down micro-meteorites which otherwise would take five years to reach down to the troposphere. Hoyle and Wickramasinghe explain that this process would require the particles to be of the size of around 5 millionths of a centimeter - which is about the size of viral particles.

Another of Sir Christopher Andrewes' experiments cited in Diseases from Space involved eight people being exposed for ten hours to others infected with the common cold virus. Between twenty four and thirty six hours later, some of those inoculated with the virus remained symptom free. Eleven other people were exposed to those with fully developed colds. Only one person, who had been exposed to the symptom free group, caught a cold. As in the case of the aforementioned experiment, there appears to be low occurrence of spread by contact. Hoyle and Wickramasinghe discount the suggestion that this phenomenon could be explained by immunity due to the large numbers of viral types and subtypes of the common cold.

Hoyle and Wickramasinghe examine the incidences of common cold outbreaks in the island of Tristan Da Cunha. Boats frequently call at the island without there being any epidemics present. However, between 1964 and 1967, four out of eight epidemics appeared to be associated with boats. The authors cite three reason as to why the person to person mode of transmission does not hold up in this particular case. First of all, four of the eight epidemics remain unexplained. Secondly, owing to a volcanic eruption on the island in 1961, the islanders spent 1962/3 in Britain, and so had plenty time to develop an immunity from the cold. Thirdly, boats call at the island frequently enough to maintain the immunity. The most viable explanation given by the authors is that boats moving from one pathogenic patch to another are more vulnerable than the island itself, and that should a pathogenic patch hit the island itself, boats in the vicinity will likely be hit ahead of time.

Another of Sir Christopher Andrewes' experiments cited in Diseases from Space involved groups of volunteers being "marooned" on the Scottish island of Eilean Nan Ron in an unspecified year in the 1960's. The volunteers remained on the island for approximately three months - July to September. The island was completely deserted - the inhabitants having left twelve years previously mainly for economic reasons. On July 8th, one man had a cold, on July 9th another one succumbed to a cold, and on July 11th, three more men contracted one. No more colds were reported until the termination of the isolation period on September 19th. The final part of the experiment involved sending landing parties whose members had been given shots of the cold virus. The original volunteers were then divided into three groups of four and sent to different parts of the island. The members of the landing party stayed in a room for three hours, during which time they spent coughing and sneezing oral and nasal discharge all over various objects in the room. At the end of the three hour period, Party A ( of the original volunteers ) entered the room. The members of the landing party then went into a room which separated them from Party B with a blanket which reached a few inches from the ceiling and a few inches from the floor. This blanket was of a weave which permitted droplet nuclei from coughing and sneezing discharge to pass through but prevented the passage of coarser particles. Party C were completely exposed to the members of the landing party, fraternising, eating and drinking with them in close proximity. The astonishing result of this experiment was that no-one in either of the three groups developed a cold.

Hoyle and Wickramasinghe examined the incidence of colds in the island of Spitzbergen for the year 1931. Reports of incidences of the common cold were co-incident with the arrival of the first boats during the spring thaw. It was therefore extrapolated that the cold virus had been brought to the island by infected seamen on the boats. The authors of Diseases from Space offer an alternative explanation for this co-incidence: they argue that the melting of the ice in spring causes disturbances in the atmosphere which pull down micrometeorites to ground level. As the melting of the ice allows for open water for the entry of ships, the false impression is given that it is the ships that are responsible for the bringing of the disease into the island. The three seamen who had come down with colds were blamed for spreading the disease throughout the island. Yet their names were never released, nor was there any record of the traces of their movement. Hoyle and Wickramasinghe observe that in all cases where colds and influenza are brought to isolated communities, there are no details released of the contacts responsible for allegedly bringing the diseases. They are generally, nameless, faceless and shadowy individuals who, without trace, consistently remain in obscurity. The two authors interestingly equate this strange phenomenon with the medieval figure of death - the Grim Reaper.

Human to human transmission of influenza.

Influenza was first mentioned by Hippocrates in the year 412BC. Although there is no known human reservoir for the influenza virus, it has been consistently affecting the human species since the earliest of times. Hoyle and Wickramasinghe provide some notable facts concerning the patterns of spread of the various influenza epidemics which occurred in the 19th and 20th centuries. The most lethal of all influenza epidemics of recent times was undoubtedly the 1917 - 1919 outbreak of the so-called Spanish Flu. Between 1917 and 1919, Australia was mainly free of the disease, the first death from it being reported there as late on as 1919. The Australian authorities credited this to their strict quarantine policy; however, quarantining has never proven to be effective. Hoyle and Wickramasinghe claim that the emphasis on the quarantining argument was mainly due to the bureaucracy protecting itself from criticism. While Australia remained free of the disease, there had been many reports of attacks on ships which subsequently called in at Australian ports but without causing any spread of the disease. When the pandemic broke out in 1917, Boston and Bombay were affected on the same day. Yet it took three weeks before the disease spread to New York. After Joliet in Illinois was hit, the disease was not detected in Chicago until one full month later - a distance of only thirty eight miles.

First published in 1979 by J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd. Published in 1980 by Harper & Row. Published in 1981 by Sphere Books Ltd.

• Directed panspermia