UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN

Among the many contentious sub-fields of phenomena associated with UFO research, perhaps none is quite so baffling as animal mutilation. Many of these apparent “mutilations” have been casually dismissed as the simple interventions of scavenging beasts, following the natural or otherwise mundane death of cattle or other livestock. Undoubtedly, this is true in some cases, although there are other instances where physical evidence points to a more complex phenomenon behind the mysterious deaths and mutilations.

The situation is complex enough that, during the 1970s, the FBI became involved in studies aimed at determining the possible factors underlying some of these incidents, although the depth to which they investigated the matter at the time has come under scrutiny. Writing for Skeptoid in 2015, Allison Hudson noted that, “[The FBI’s] investigation amounted to little more than collections of newspaper clippings because of jurisdictional issues, but they concluded that nothing seemed to be amiss in the deaths other than natural causes. This was a conclusion shared by other investigations.”

In a memorandum dated January 21, 1975, sent to the FBI Laboratory by the Special Agent in Charge of the Minneapolis Division, the mutilations were described thusly:

“For the information of the Bureau, animals, mostly livestock, have been reported as mutilated in the three-state area of this division and parts of their bodies missing. The parts listed as missing have been the sexual organs, ears, lips and udders, and in some instances, the blood from the animals was considered ‘completely drained.’ No evidence of value ever located at the scene.”

The briefing goes on to note that state veterinarians who examined the remains “contend dead animals were eaten by other animals or varmints, believed to be foxes due to their sharp side teeth.” However, the notion that “no evidence of value” was ever collected at the scene of such mutilations is particularly curious, as it appears to contrast sharply with some of the law enforcement investigations and lab work conducted on the State and municipal level over the years.

Around the same time the briefing above was issued, mutilations were occurring in other parts of the country, and were under investigation by law enforcement. In his Alien Contact: Top Secret UFO Files Revealed, researcher Timothy Good recounted such an investigation that was underway in early 1975, under the supervision of the Coryell County deputy sheriff and Department of Public Safety. The incident involved the remains of a calf that was discovered at Copperas Cove, Texas, bearing many of what would become staples of the mutilation cases: sex organs had been “bloodlessly” removed with surgical precision, and peculiar impressions were found in the soil approximately forty yards from the calf that formed concentric circles, approximately 30 feet in diameter. Similar markings were found elsewhere in the same field, along with circular dispersals of dried grass which appeared to have been depressed by some object using “tremendous force,” along with the apparent removal of surface soil and stones in some areas.

“The DPS officials speculated that an aerial vehicle had been used in the operation,” Good wrote. “It was later learned that several residents near Copperas Cove and Killeen had observed a yellowish-orange light hovering over the farmland at around the same time as the mutilation.”

As Good notes of the Texas mutilations, the FBI initially was hesitant to become involved (despite memorandums that show Agents in some regions were looking into the matter around the same time, as outlined earlier). With the FBI maintaining a low profile in relation to the mutilations in the mid-1970s, local law enforcement was left to carry out most of the investigations at that time.

Officer Gabriel Valdez of the New Mexico State Police participated in the investigation of a similar incident that transpired on June 13, 1976, at the ranch of Manuel Gomez near Duke, New Mexico. FBI documents pertaining to this incident were later released by the FBI, and detail the incident as follows:

At the scene, writer examined carcass of a three-year-old black White-Faced cow which was lying on its right side. The left ear, the tongue, the udder, and the rectum had been removed with what appeared to be a sharp precise instrument. No traces of blood were left on the skin of the cow. .. . Other evidence on the cow was a small puncture on the brisket. No other evidence was available as to cause of death.

Investigations continued around the area and revealed that a suspected aircraft of some type had landed twice, leaving pod marks positioned in a triangular shape. The diameter of each pod part was 14″. The perimeter around the three pods was 16 1/2′

(6′ x 5′ x 5 1/2′). Emanating from the two landings were smaller triangular-shaped tripods 26″ apart and 4″ in diameter Investigation at the scene showed that these small tripods had followed the cow for approximately 600 feet. Tracks of the cow showed where she had struggled and fallen. The small tripod tracks were all around the cow. Other evidence showed that grass around the tripods, as they followed the cow, had been scorched. Also a yellow oily substance was located in two places under the small tripods. This substance was submitted to the State Police Lab. The Lab was unable to detect the content of the substance. . . .

The details given thus far are interesting, to say the least, in that a very detailed account is given of the appearance and measurements of the “tripods” which Valdez believed had followed the mutilated cow for 600 feet, whereafter forensic evidence apparently indicates she had “struggled and fallen.” The recovery of the oily substance beneath the tripods was also of interest, in that physical traces were left at the scene, despite the State Police Lab’s inability to identify it.

The report continues:

On 06-17-76 writer contacted a Mr. Howard Burgess from Albuquerque, N.M., to proceed to the scene and conduct a radiation test. This was three days after the incident had occurred. His findings were that around the tripod marks and in the immediate tracks, the radiation level was twice the normal background reading. Mr. Burgess’s qualifications may be checked as he is a retired scientist from Sandia Lab, Albuquerque. It is the opinion of this writer that radiation findings are deliberately being left at the scene to confuse investigators. . . .

The above statement is particularly interesting, and little has been said of the assessment Valdez makes in the final sentence: that the presence of radiation, rather than being some hallmark or indicator of the phenomenon itself, had instead been intended to confuse or misdirect any ensuing investigation. This is merely Valdez’s personal opinion; however, it is important to consider its implications on those grounds, since there is an obvious stereotype that often becomes associated with such mutilation reports. This, simply put, is the tried and true assumption that either 1) extraterrestrials did it, or that 2) anyone who suggests that forensic evidence in such cases points to something more complex than simple, natural deaths and predation by scavengers must, therefore, also buy the alien explanation. Neither assumption is valid, although plenty of people—skeptics and believers alike—are guilty of falling into such traps, which are based on bias and presumption, rather than logic.

There were other very important clues obtained during Valdez’s investigation, as Good points out. “Officer Valdez noted that in all the cattle mutilations that had occurred in New Mexico and surrounding states at that time, ‘the object of the mutilations has been the lymph node system’.” This is quite in contrast to the preoccupation many researchers seem to have on the removal of sexual organs and soft tissues in cattle mutilation cases and strongly suggests that the focus of the mutilations (supposing there had been a medical basis for such procedures) had been on the immune system.

The emphasis on lymphatic functions was not all that Valdez noticed. In one instance, a mutilated specimen in New Mexico was examined and found to have high concentrations of a specific chemical agent in the bloodstream. “[A] high dosage of Atropine insecticide was analyzed in the blood system,” Good wrote. “Since Atropine is a tranquilizing drug, this would imply that either government agents or private individuals were responsible in this case, yet the presence of the drug need not necessarily be related to the mutilation, and investigations into later cases failed to confirm the presence of such drugs.”

The significance of this bizarre twist seems obvious, and as Good has already outlined for us, “this would imply that either government agents or private individuals were responsible in this case.” The problem, of course, is that atropine is not necessarily a common feature of cattle mutilations. However, my colleague Nick Redfern, who has looked into such cases for a long time (point in case, his work is referenced by Timothy Good in the aforementioned book, which was published in 1991), notes that the presence of Atropine at least appears to have been discovered in a few other instances of cattle mutilations.

“What are the chances,” Nick asks, “of aliens from some far-away galaxy utilizing atropine to sedate cattle before systematically butchering them? Personally, I’d say the chances are practically zero.”

He further notes:

“In other words, while it is unlikely to satisfy those who so desperately wish to believe that the mutilations are the work of bug-eyed aliens from distant worlds, the presence of atropine in a significant number of the reports coming out of Dulce suggests we may be looking at a definitively home-grown operation – but one that utilizes the alien-motif as a convenient cover – focused on matters relative to biological-warfare and, perhaps, concerns about such worrying, and growing, issues as Creutzfeldt-Jacob-Disease, or Mad-Cow Disease, as it is more commonly known.”

It would be interesting to look through available resource literature and see if similar reports of Atropine in the bloodstream of these cattle might have been noted elsewhere, although there could be simple reasons why, even if it had been present, it may not have been detected in all cases. As Valdez noted in a separate investigative report pertaining to one of the Dulce cattle mutilations from around this time, “Investigation of these strange mutilations has been hampered by an inability to find laboratories which will perform tests and report accurate findings.” Had resources not been so limited to the state and municipal agencies that were investigating the deaths, there indeed might have been more relevant information about the mutilations that could have been obtained.

On a final unsettling note, according to Dr. Howard Burgess, a retired Sandia Laboratories scientist who was investigating cattle mutilations around the same time, splotches of fluorescent material had been found on the backs of some of the live cattle in the region, which was only visible under ultraviolet light.

Burgess wrote:

“To our amazement, three four-year-old cows and two young heifers had bright fluorescent splashes on their backs or top sides, fitting the pattern of animal types being mutilated in that area at that period. No markings were found on their sides, underneath, or lower parts. We were not able to find any liquid or solid in the corral or pasture that glowed with the same color or brilliance as the marks on the animals. The fluorescent marking was not from material picked up locally. If the animals were marked in advance, how was it done? When? By whom?”

The implications of Burgess’s views discussed here are indeed pretty disturbing, especially when compared to the final thoughts of Officer Gabriel Valdez on the subject:

“It is writer’s opinion that these animals have been marked for some time before they are mutilated. . . . It is writer’s theory that these animals are picked up by aircraft, mutilated elsewhere, and returned and dropped from aircraft. This is indicated from bruised marks and broken bones on cattle. Identical mutilations have been taking place all over the Southwest. . . no eye witnesses to these incidents have come forward. . . . One has to admit that whoever is responsible for the mutilations is very well organized, with boundless technology and financing and secrecy.”

As Allison Hudson, writing for Skeptoid noted in 2015, “For many, [the cattle mutilation] scenario is all too believable. They fear that extraterrestrial spaceships are kidnapping unsuspecting ungulates, conducting horrid vivisections, and then dumping the bodies.”

It’s a fair criticism since there are certainly plenty of people in the UFO community who wholeheartedly believe in an “alien” presence behind such reports; if anything, they wouldn’t have it any other way, and remain unwilling to look at other, more down-to-earth explanations. However, to assume that there may be more to some of these cases than mundane predation does not have to equate to belief in extraterrestrial visitation; nor does it require further sad conflagrations between the idea of unconventional aerial technologies that may be involved, and extraterrestrial visits to our planet, which remain unproven.

Whatever was really going on behind those cattle mutilations during the 1970s (and even still today), was probably far from being anything as unusual or “paranormal” as popular literature on the subject would suggest–although that’s not to say that some of the mutilations aren’t downright bizarre. On the other hand, popular skeptical interpretations that chalk the entire affair up to willfully ignorant “UFOlogists” and credulous farmers, who overlooked the telltale signs of foxes, insects, and other natural means by which the mutilations could be explained, fall equally short of the mark. And for all their hours spent clipping articles from newspapers in order to get around jurisdictional constraints, the FBI didn’t seem to notice fluorescent splotches, atropine insecticide in cattle blood, soil disturbances, radiation, and other physical data when they lamented about “no evidence of value ever located at the scene.”

There does seem to be more to some of the cattle mutilations, although getting to the bottom of what that might be would require ideological researchers learning to put aside their own “sacred cows,” and look at what the evidence actually says.

Contacts

Terry Collins, +1-416-878-8712; tc@tca.tc
Katie Pratt, +1-401-536-8813; katie_pratt@uri.edu

Deep Carbon Observatory collaborators, exploring the ‘Galapagos of the deep,’ add to what’s known, unknown, and unknowable about Earth’s most pristine ecosystem

Bacteria, archaea, and other microbes—some of them zombies—exist even in deepest known subsurface, and they’re weirder than their surface counterparts

~70% of Earth's bacteria and archaea live underground

Earth’s deep life suggests microbes might inhabit the subsurface of other planets

Barely living “zombie” bacteria and other forms of life constitute an immense amount of carbon deep within Earth’s subsurface—245 to 385 times greater than the carbon mass of all humans on the surface, according to scientists nearing the end of a 10-year international collaboration to reveal Earth’s innermost secrets.

On the eve of the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting, scientists with the Deep Carbon Observatory today reported several transformational discoveries, including how much and what kinds of life exist in the deep subsurface under the greatest extremes of pressure, temperature, and low energy and nutrient availability.

Drilling 2.5 kilometers into the seafloor, and sampling microbes from continental mines and boreholes more than 5 km deep, the team has used the results to construct models of the ecosystem deep within the planet.

With insights from now hundreds of sites under the continents and seas, they have approximated the size of the deep biosphere—2 to 2.3 billion cubic km (almost twice the volume of all oceans)—as well as the carbon mass of deep life: 15 to 23^[1] billion tonnes (an average of at least 7.5 tonnes of carbon per cu km subsurface).

The work also helps determine types of extraterrestrial environments that could support life.

Among many key discoveries and insights:

The deep biosphere constitutes a world that can be viewed as a sort of “subterranean Galapagos” and includes members of all three domains of life: bacteria and archaea (microbes with no membrane-bound nucleus), and eukarya (microbes or multicellular organisms with cells that contain a nucleus as well as membrane-bound organelles)
Two types of microbes—bacteria and archaea—dominate Deep Earth. Among them are millions of distinct types, most yet to be discovered or characterized. This so-called microbial “dark matter” dramatically expands our perspective on the tree of life. Deep Life scientists say about 70% of Earth's bacteria and archaea live in the subsurface
Deep microbes are often very different from their surface cousins, with life cycles on near-geologic timescales, dining in some cases on nothing more than energy from rocks
The genetic diversity of life below the surface is comparable to or exceeds that above the surface
While subsurface microbial communities differ greatly between environments, certain genera and higher taxonomic groups are ubiquitous - they appear planet-wide
Microbial community richness relates to the age of marine sediments where cells are found—suggesting that in older sediments, food energy has declined over time, reducing the microbial community
The absolute limits of life on Earth in terms of temperature, pressure, and energy availability have yet to be found. The records continually get broken. A frontrunner for Earth’s hottest organism in the natural world is Geogemma barossii, a single-celled organism thriving in hydrothermal vents on the seafloor. Its cells, tiny microscopic spheres, grow and replicate at 121 degrees Celsius (21 degrees hotter than the boiling point of water)
Microbial life can survive up to 122°C, the record achieved in a lab culture (by comparison, the record-holding hottest place on Earth’s surface, in an uninhabited Iranian desert, is about 71°C—the temperature of well-done steak)
The record depth at which life has been found in the continental subsurface is approximately 5 km; the record in marine waters is 10.5 km from the ocean surface, a depth of extreme pressure; at 4000 meters depth, for example, the pressure is approximately 400 times greater than at sea level
Scientists have a better understanding of the impact on life in subsurface locations manipulated by humans (e.g., fracked shales, carbon capture and storage)

Ever-increasing accuracy and the declining cost of DNA sequencing, coupled with breakthroughs in deep ocean drilling technologies (pioneered on the Japanese scientific vessel Chikyu, designed to ultimately drill far beneath the seabed in some of the planet’s most seismically-active regions) made it possible for researchers to take their first detailed look at the composition of the deep biosphere.

There are comparable efforts to drill ever deeper beneath continental environments, using sampling devices that maintain pressure to preserve microbial life (none thought to pose any threat or benefit to human health).

To estimate the total mass of Earth’s subcontinental deep life, for example, the team compiled data on cell concentration and microbial diversity from locations around the globe.

Led by Cara Magnabosco of the Flatiron Institute Center for Computational Biology, New York, the scientists factored in a suite of considerations, including global heat flow, surface temperature, depth and lithology—the physical characteristics of rocks in each location—to estimate that the continental subsurface hosts 2 to 6 × 10²⁹ cells.

Combined with estimates of subsurface life under the oceans, total global Deep Earth biomass is approximately 15 to 23 petagrams (15 to 23 billion tonnes) of carbon.

Says Mitch Sogin of the Marine Biological Laboratory Woods Hole, USA, co-chair of DCO’s Deep Life community of more than 300 researchers in 34 countries: “Exploring the deep subsurface is akin to exploring the Amazon rainforest. There is life everywhere, and everywhere there’s an awe-inspiring abundance of unexpected and unusual organisms.

“Molecular studies raise the likelihood that microbial dark matter is much more diverse than what we currently know it to be, and the deepest branching lineages challenge the three-domain concept introduced by Carl Woese in 1977. Perhaps we are approaching a nexus where the earliest possible branching patterns might be accessible through deep life investigation.”

“Ten years ago, we knew far less about the physiologies of the bacteria and microbes that dominate the subsurface biosphere,” says Karen Lloyd, University of Tennessee at Knoxville, USA. “Today, we know that, in many places, they invest most of their energy to simply maintaining their existence and little into growth, which is a fascinating way to live.

“Today too, we know that subsurface life is common. Ten years ago, we had sampled only a few sites—the kinds of places we'd expect to find life. Now, thanks to ultra-deep sampling, we know we can find them pretty much everywhere, albeit the sampling has obviously reached only an infinitesimally tiny part of the deep biosphere.”

“Our studies of deep biosphere microbes have produced much new knowledge, but also a realization and far greater appreciation of how much we have yet to learn about subsurface life,” says Rick Colwell, Oregon State University, USA. “For example, scientists do not yet know all the ways in which deep subsurface life affects surface life and vice versa. And, for now, we can only marvel at the nature of the metabolisms that allow life to survive under the extremely impoverished and forbidding conditions for life in deep Earth.”

Among the many remaining enigmas of deep life on Earth:

Movement: How does deep life spread—laterally through cracks in rocks? Up, down? How can deep life be so similar in South Africa and Seattle, Washington? Did they have similar origins and were separated by plate tectonics, for example? Or do the communities themselves move? What roles do big geological events (such as plate tectonics, earthquakes; creation of large igneous provinces; meteoritic bombardments) play in deep life movements?
Origins: Did life start deep in Earth (either within the crust, near hydrothermal vents, or in subduction zones) then migrate up, toward the sun? Or did life start in a warm little surface pond and migrate down? How do subsurface microbial zombies reproduce, or live without dividing for millions to tens of millions of years?
Energy: Is methane, hydrogen, or natural radiation (from uranium and other elements) the most important energy source for deep life? Which sources of deep energy are most important in different settings? How do the absence of nutrients, and extreme temperatures and pressure, impact microbial distribution and diversity in the subsurface?

Comments

“Discoveries regarding the nature and extent of the deep microbial biosphere are among the crowning achievements of the Deep Carbon Observatory. Deep life researchers have opened our eyes to remarkable vistas – emerging views of life that we never knew existed.”
- Robert Hazen, Senior Staff Scientist, Geophysical Laboratory, Carnegie Institution for Science, and DCO Executive Director

“They are not Christmas ornaments, but the tiny balls and tinsel of deep life look they could decorate a tree as well as Swarovski glass. Why would nature make deep life beautiful when there is no light, no mirrors?”
- Jesse Ausubel, The Rockefeller University, a founder of the DCO

“Deep life probably has an important impact on global biogeochemical cycles, and thus on the surface world. However, we are still far from quantifying this impact.”
- Kai-Uwe Hinrichs, MARUM University of Bremen, Germany

“Even in dark and energetically challenging conditions, intraterrestrial ecosystems have uniquely evolved and persisted over millions of years. Expanding our knowledge of deep life will inspire new insights into planetary habitability, leading us to understand why life emerged on our planet and whether life persists in the Martian subsurface and other celestial bodies.”
- Fumio Inagaki, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology

"While we are far from being able to quantify it, we believe Deep Life has an important impact on global biogeochemical cycles and chemical equilibria in habitable rocks. Deep Life plays a role in aquifer quality, for example, or carbon capture and storage (CCS). Unfortunately, the deep biosphere is very poorly considered in engineering operations carried out in the subsurface. We recently demonstrated the high reactivity of deep biota to CO₂ injections (CCS), which ultimately led to the bioclogging of the injection well, and surrounding reservoir."
- Bénédicte Ménez, Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, France

“A decade ago, we had no idea that the rocks beneath our feet could be so vastly inhabited. Experimental investigations told us that microbes could potentially survive to great depth; at that time, we had no evidence, and this has become real ten years later. This is simply fascinating and will surely foster enthusiasm to look for the biotic-abiotic fringe on Earth and elsewhere.”
- Isabelle Daniel, University of Lyon 1, France

Appendix

Links to selected Deep Life papers:

The biomass and biodiversity of the continental subsurface. (2018) Nature Geoscience Magnabosco C, Lin L-H, Dong H, Bomberg M, Ghiorse W, Stan-Lotter H, Pedersen K, Kieft TL, van Heerden E, Onstott TC
Global distribution of microbial abundance and biomass in subseafloor sediment. (2012) PNAS Kallmeyer J, Pockalny R, Adhikari RR, Smith DC, D'Hondt S
Exploring deep microbial life in coal-bearing sediment down to ~2.5 km below the ocean floor. (2015) Science Inagaki F, Hinrichs K-U, Kubo Y, Bowles MW, Heuer VB, Hong W-L, Hoshino T, Ijiri A, Imachi H, Ito M, Kaneko M, Lever MA, Lin Y-S, Methé BA, Morita S, Morono Y, Tanikawa W, Bihan M, Bowden SA, Elvert M, Glombitza C, Gross D, Harrington GJ, Hori T, Li K, Limmer D, Liu C-H, Murayama M, Ohkouchi N, Ono S, Park Y-S, Phillips SC, Prieto-Mollar X, Purkey M, Riedinger N, Sanada Y, Sauvage J, Snyder G, Susilawati R, Takano Y, Tasumi E, Terada T, Tomaru H, Trembath-Reichert E, Wang DT, Yamada Y
Dissolved organic matter compositions in 0.6–3.4 km deep fracture waters, Kaapvaal Craton, South Africa. (2018) Organic Geochemistry Kieft TL, Walters CC, Higgins MB, Mennito AS, Clewett CFM, Heuer V, Pullin MJ, Hendrickson S, van Heerden E, Sherwood Lollar B, Lau MCY, Onstott TC
Phylogenetically novel uncultured microbial cells dominate Earth microbiomes (2018) mSystems Lloyd KG, Steen AD, Ladau J, Yin J, Crosby L
A new view of the tree of life (2016) Nature Microbiology Hug LA, Baker BJ, Anantharaman K, Brown CT, Probst AJ, Castelle CJ, Butterfield CN, Hernsdorf AW, Amano Y, Ise K, Suzuki Y, Dudek N, Relman DA, Finstad KM, Amundson R, Thomas BC, Banfield JF
Survival of the fewest: Microbial dormancy and maintenance in marine sediments through deep time (2018) Geobiology Bradley JA, Amend JP, LaRowe DE
Methyl-compound use and slow growth characterize microbial life in 2-km-deep subseafloor coal and shale beds. (2017) PNAS Trembath-Reichert E, Morono Y, Ijiri A, Hoshino T, Dawson KS, Inagaki F, Orphan VJ
Nature and extent of the deep biosphere. (2013) Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry, Volume 75, Carbon in Earth Colwell, F, D'Hondt S
High reactivity of deep biota under anthropogenic CO₂ injection into basalt.(2017) Nature Communications Trias R, Ménez B, le Campion P, Zivanovic Y, Lecourt L, Lecoeuvre A, Schmitt-Kopplin P, Uhl J, Gíslason SR, Alfreðsson HA, Mesfin KG, Snæbjörnsdóttir SA, Aradóttir ES, Gunnarsson I, Matter JM, Stute M, Oelkers EH, Gérard E

Illustrations

Note: High resolution version of most of the images below can be accessed by simply clicking on the images.

A nematode (eukaryote) in a biofilm of microorganisms. This unidentified nematode (Poikilolaimus sp.) from Kopanang gold mine in South Africa, lives 1.4 km below the surface.

Image courtesy of Gaetan Borgonie (Extreme Life Isyensya, Belgium).

Cells in this cluster of archaea (the ANME-2 cells, red) and bacteria (Desulfosarcina / Desulfococcus species, green) work together to harvest energy from methane at seafloor seeps. These organisms have very slow growth rates with a minimum doubling time of a few months, making them very difficult to cultivate and study in the lab.

Image courtesy Katrin Knittel (MPI Bremen)

Candidatus Desulforudis audaxviator (the purplish, blue rod-shaped cells straddling orange carbon spheres) is a species of bacteria that survives on hydrogen (H₂₎ from radiolysis of water and sulfate derived from oxidation of pyrite by radolytically produced oxygen and hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂₎, and fixes carbon dioxide (CO₂₎ and nitrogen (N₂₎. Scientists originally found Ca. Desulforudis living within a fluid and gas-filled fracture 2.8 km beneath Earth’s surface at Mponeng Gold Mine near Johannesburg, South Africa. Surprisingly, scientists found no other organisms in their samples, making this deep ecosystem the first found on Earth with only one species. The genus name Desulforudis comes from the Latin for "from sulfur" and "rod," noting its shape and its ability to get energy from sulfates. And audaxviator? From Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth, and a message in Latin deciphered by Verne's protagonist, Professor Lidenbrock, which read in part: "descend, bold traveler, and attain the center of the Earth."

Image courtesy of Greg Wanger (California Institute of Technology, USA) and Gordon Southam (The University of Queensland, Australia)

Methanobacterium

This is a species of Methanobacterium, which produces methane. Found in samples from a buried coal bed 2 km below the Pacific Ocean floor off the coast of Japan, this specimen was retrieved during an Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (now the International Ocean Discovery Program) expedition in 2012 aboard the Drilling Vessel Chikyu. Bar represents 10 µm.

Image courtesy of Hiroyuki Imachi (Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), Japan). Please note that a high-resolution version of this image is available by contacting images@jamstec.go.jp

These archaea, Altiarchaeales, were originally found living in sulfidic springs in Germany. Scientists collected water samples from a 30m-deep borehole, however the cells they analyzed could be living at much greater depths. Each cell is surrounded by a fuzzy coat of “hami,” hair-like appendages with “grappling hooks” at the end and barb-wire-like prickles along their length. These surface structures help the cells stick to surfaces.

Image courtesy of Christine Moissl-Eichinger (Medical University of Graz, Austria)

Cara Magnabosco and colleagues collect ancient water samples 1.3 km deep within the Beatrix Gold Mine, South Africa to investigate the diversity and abundance of deep microbes.

Image courtesy of Gaetan Borgonie (Extreme Life Isyensya, Belgium) and Barbara Sherwood Lollar (University of Toronto, Canada)

Chikyu

The Japanese scientific drilling vessel Chikyu has made it possible for scientists to access microbial life in the deep subsurface. The ship is designed to ultimately drill 7 km beneath the seabed in some of the planet’s most seismically-active regions. DCO researchers were onboard the vessel for an expedition to the Nankai Trough in 2016 to determine the temperature and pressure limits of microbial life at temps above 120°C.

Photo copyright JAMSTEC. Please note that a high-resolution version of this image is available by contacting images@jamstec.go.jp

The D/V Chikyu is one of the most advanced scientific drilling ships available today. Coring operations take place 24 hours a day.

Image courtesy of Luc Riolon/JAMSTEC

Scientists look for signs of life in cores like this one. The cores on International Ocean Discovery Program's (IODP) Expedition 337 were taken to depths down to 2.5 km below the seafloor, where temperature increases from 30°C to 60°C, spanning the predicted temperature limit for life on Earth.

Image courtesy of Luc Riolon/JAMSTEC

IODP Expedition 357 to the Atlantis Massif pioneered the use of seabed rockdrills, MeBo (left) and RockDrill2 (right), equipped with sensors capable of monitoring in-situ fluid conditions during drilling, and with the potential to "plug" a borehole. Such technology is enhancing scientists’ ability to understand conditions of the deep subsurface encountered by microbial life. Images courtesy of ECORD/IODP

[1] 15,000,000,000 to 23,000,000,000