The first rain of scarlet color was in India over Kerala in 2001 in the summer. The inhabitants of the country, like local scientists, were extremely surprised by such an unusual and previously unseen natural phenomenon. And research began immediately. As a result, several explanations for the red rain arose at once: from rare lichen plants and a meteorite explosion to the cells of extraterrestrial civilizations.
This amazing, as it was later called - bloody Indian rain - fell more than once. The first such rain fell on July 25, 2001, the last - on September 23 of the same year. Interestingly, he was dropped out all the time only in the same Indian state. They began to study this phenomenon more actively in 2006 after the assumption of the extraterrestrial origin of the blood rain microparticles.
The first shocking discovery was the calculation of the amount of as yet unidentified red dust, which fell with only one first rain - about 50 tons. And immediately scientists began to look for an answer to the question - what is the origin of this red substance. The first more or less plausible assumption was the mention of light sand that could be carried by the wind. Indeed, in Britain, for example, once it rained with sand from the Sahara. However, this assumption was rejected. It turned out that during the period of time when there were bloody rains in India, the direction of the wind changed several times.
The next assumption was an attempt to explain the bloody rains by a meteorite explosion over the state of Kerala. This conclusion was also supported by the memories of eyewitnesses of the phenomenon. They talked about a loud bang that thundered several hours before the first rain. The sound was so strong that the windows of the people in the windows trembled. Then another possible explanation for such an unusual rain appeared by extraterrestrial microorganisms, which, after a meteor explosion, ended up in the lower layers of the atmosphere and fell to the Earth along with the first rain. But this assumption was rejected by science.
Then they began to study more closely the microparticles of red rain. They looked more like not grains of sand, but some kind of biological formations: cells or spores. The particles had a rounded shape, a thick wall, and a bent center. As a result of the chemical analysis, it was found that the red rain particles were half carbon and almost half of oxygen with a small amount of silicon, calcium, magnesium, sodium, iron and some other elements. This composition is very similar to living cells. Then the suggestion arose that the rain could consist of some living microorganisms. For example, mushrooms or lichens.
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This was the official scientific explanation for the red rain. Microparticles of rain were declared spores of lichens common in the area - symbiotic associations of fungi and algae. These algae are microscopic in size and can form a powdery coating of red or yellow on the bark of trees. But then why did the wind only raise lichens, while there were no leaves, no pieces of branches or bark in the rain? Scientists could not find an answer to this question. The official report did not indicate the mechanism of dispersion of these microscopic spores and their accumulation in the clouds.