British scientists claim to have found proof of alien life

[Tyrannical]

Who knows how high up some simple bacteria could live, especially if they go into suspended animation? Maybe bacteria could survive in small specs of dust hundreds of miles up if thrown up by something big for a long time and slowly rain down. Maybe some bacteria can survive and reproduce up there getting nutrients and water from dust they could attach to.
Too many unanswered questions to make wild claims I think

If you check the bottom of page three of the link I provided, you'll find those calculations have been done in 1968. Diatom fructules of the size found with the balloon at 22 - 27 km altitude would have come down in about six hours.

What about for things much higher, maybe several hundred kms up or even higher? Could anything get it that high besides a large meteor impact? A meteor impact of a certain size could propel rocks even past Earth's orbit. So there should be some Earth materiel in stable or near stable orbits. The questions is how long could that stuff rain down vs the occurrence of events that can get stuff up super high.

[Brian Peacock]

[Skepticus]

Well that might explain Miley Cyrus, I guess.

Obviously another member of the Miley Cyrus appreciation society.
Of course, you realize by talking about her we are only helping her popularity, It's like a viral meme. An infection of sorts. Hmmmm... a Miley Vyrus?

[That Alien Guy.]

Panspermia theory is popular amongst the rodent offshoot mammals on a dozen worlds. It is true that certain fungal spores and constituents of the Great Insect Consensus have been known to colonise worlds using cosmic drift but there is no evidence that you are anything other than local. The main reason for this kind of theory tends to be the need for outcasts within your packs to belong to a bigger more important pack. It is also why you create fictional leaders and then let them enslave you.

Miley Cyrus is a young ape in bloom.

[tattuchu]

Yeah, I don't understand this desire to suggest that life didn't originate on Earth. It's like saying life had to be created, therefore God. But then who created God? Same with life on Earth. Okay so it didn't originate on Earth. Okay well then where? And then so how did it originate there? And then there, etc, ad infinitum

[rainbow]

Hmmmm... a Miley Vyrus?

[mistermack]

Yeah, I don't understand this desire to suggest that life didn't originate on Earth. It's like saying life had to be created, therefore God. But then who created God? Same with life on Earth. Okay so it didn't originate on Earth. Okay well then where? And then so how did it originate there? And then there, etc, ad infinitum

When you think that the universe was roughly ten billion years old, when our own Earth first formed, it's entirely possible that there was life long before our solar system formed. So there could easily have been small bacteria floating around deep frozen in space, from some collision involving previous planets. Just one, or even part of one, might be enough to seed life on Earth.
That's what I think anyway.
Any watery planet or moon that existed before Earth formed could have evolved life.
As evolution on Earth took about four and a half billion years to produce something with our level of intelligence, you would expect it to take that kind of timescale anywhere else too.
So there might be lots of life about in the Milky Way, but intelligent life is far less likely.
It would only take one full extinction event every two billion years to ensure that nothing much more advanced than bacteria ever evolved.