Paper: http://journalofcosmology.com/JOC22/milton_diatom.pdf
The journal of Cosmology is regarded as a low-quality publication by many scientists. I can't judge the assertions in the paper but the methodology seems good.
The journal of Cosmology is regarded as a low-quality publication by many scientists. I can't judge the assertions in the paper but the methodology seems good.
They even mention a test they could run, but they did not wait to run the test before announcing. Not a good sign. Especially since that is not a lengthy test to run, compared to the speed of publication....
I of course reserve the right to change my mind based on more evidence; I have no problem with the idea that our stratosphere models may be wrong, for instance, and if extraterrestrial really is raining down on our stratosphere, so be it. Let facts be the judge. But some sort of biochemical or isotope evidence this is not just another extremophile would be nice.
The paper contains almost no detail about the methods used, and lacks involvement of a diverse group of authors. This indicates that the authors are not thinking hard enough about alternative theories to explain what they have found.
For instance, the paper contains this sentence:
"It is also unlikely that the fragment could have come from commercial aircraft, which fly below well below our stratospheric sampling height."
And goes no further. Completely unacceptable.
NASA had a satellite that was sent up to collect samples of debris along a particular orbital belt and worked like this. They were doing tests to see how much space junk had accumulated and would open one of the compartments for a fixed period of time, then re-seal it before switching to another.
That is exactly their claim (with detailed method), and they did a control as well, in which the container was not opened, to validate their anti-contamination protocols. I'm all for critiques of the paper, but I do think you might have gone to the bother of looking at it first.