Mysterious red rain in Kerala. Could it be extra-terrestrial

Five years ago, parts of a district in Kerala went from green to red and stayed red for two months. It was thought at the time that dust from Arabia had turned the rain red but sometimes fact is stranger than science fiction.

When Godfrey Louis, a scientist at the Mahatma Gandhi University put a sample of Kerala's red rain under the microscope, he found something he wasn't looking for - life.

Godfrey believes the cells are from a meteor that broke up over Earth.

"Once we found the particles have similarity with the biological cells then anybody would think it is a biological cell and the electron microscopy also shows very clear indication regarding the fine cell structure of this material," physicist at Mahatma Gandhi University Godfrey Louis said.

Godfrey thinks a fragment broke away from a comet passing the Earth. This fragment disintegrated as it entered the earth's atmosphere and became part of rain-bearing clouds.

And when it rained, it rained comet dust and the dust has the remains of cells similar to bacteria.

That several people heard a loud boom in the skies hours before the red rain, supports Godfrey's theory.

But the absence of DNA in these cells have given Godfrey's critics reasons to believe that they are not biological. But, the scientist says that alien life may have alternate bio-molecules and genetics.

"Nobody has identified these particles. These particles have a cell structure and a very thick cell envelope and this kind of a structure is not familiar to any microbiologist to my knowledge. So far nobody has identified it," Godfrey said.

While many in the scientific community have ridiculed his theory, Godfrey is now on the cover of the magazine The New Scientist and internationally reputed journal Astrophysics and Space Science has accepted his paper and there are some who think that he may have a valid theory.

"It (theory) is very exciting and we're working hard on it. The excitement of it all is keeping me out of bed," microbiologist at Sheffield University, Milton Wainwright said.

However, unless conclusive evidence is found, that this might be alien life, it is hard to believe that aliens had allegedly visited Earth.