Scientists discover European microbe behind “blood rain”
A group of scientists from India and Austria have discovered that the red colored “blood” rain phenomenon sporadically happened at various locations across South India and Sri Lanka was due to the spores of terrestrial microscopic green alga, Trentepohlia annulata . Spells of weird red colored rain –the so-called “blood rain”- across South India had been reported since 1896; the latest one happened in Kerala during December, 2013. Rain droplets were so red that the sun-dried white laundry turns dark-red after drenching in the rain. Since then a number of purported causes for this mysterious phenomenon have been circulating, including divine spell and alien involvement. For example, an American newspaper The Huffington Post reported in 2012 that this was caused by extraterrestrial life (aliens). The present study compared microscopic morphology and DNA sequence data of locally abundant microalgae of the area where the red rain phenomenon happened and confirmed that it was a European s