Purity Control

Y’know how on The X-Files they found a Martian meterorite (like the one in real life) that seemed to have traces of life in it?

The life lived in pores in the rock and was bound up with black oil. It later turned out to be an extraterrestrial life form inhabiting oil all over the Earth that was the reduced essence of an alien civilization bent on re-colonizing the Earth and wiping out the human race, which is in fact descended from the black oil life form, so we’ve all got its DNA in our DNA.

The name of the black oil life stuff was "Purity." And the human project to control it was called "Purity Control."

Purity was found on Earth but, as the Martian meteorite in an early episode showed, it was also found on Mars, and presumably other planets.

Earlier today we examined Thomas Gold’s theory that oil does not derive from decayed living matter but is instead a substance left over from the formation fo the Earth. We also looked at his theory that there are microbial life forms deep in the Earth feeding off the oil and forming a "deep, hot biosphere" that is the origin of the life living on the Earth’s surface, including us.

Kinder similar to what happened on the X-Files except that this is only here on Earth, not other planets.

FREAKY IDEA #4

Gold thinks this happens all over the place, including seemingly lifeless celestial bodies such as (possibly) the Moon.

From his WIRED interview (link forthcoming):

As I understand it, you think that any planetary body that’s warm enough for liquid water at some depth, and that has hydrocarbons in it, will have a deep biosphere. So there could be life inside the moon.

What we know about the moon is quite remarkable. The astronauts of the Apollo program left behind a gadget that measures molecular weights. There were a few deep earthquakes measured, and in association with those earthquakes there was always a molecular mass of 16 recorded by the instrument. Now the people who don’t know any chemistry then responded saying, Well, that’s oxygen. But it’s no good telling me it was oxygen atoms because an oxygen atom could not go a centimeter through cracks in the rock. What fairly stable molecule have we got that has mass 16? Methane.

So it is warm enough for life in the moon. Mars is undoubtedly a better candidate because it’s larger and has more internal heat. Then there are the satellites of the major planets, also Triton, Pluto, Charon, and the larger asteroids that have big black markings on them. Not Venus or Mercury – there the water would disappear altogether.

In my first paper on the subject I advised that one should go down the deep valley on Mars and to the landslides that have come off its walls in the hope of finding solid material residue that we have identified as coming from microbial action.


The current Mars program is focused on what are taken to be previously wet environments – lake beds and the like.

That is complete nonsense.


How did you feel when you first heard the claims about ALH 84001, the meteorite from Mars in which some people saw signs of life?

I think immediately the first information was that there were small grains of magnetite in there, and sulfides, and there was oil in there.


What they called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons?

That’s oil. Sulfides and magnetite were immediately reported, all close together. And there was a calcite cement. All these things are typical of what you find down boreholes. To my mind they have a much stronger case than the one they made for saying this is biological.

Okay, one last freaky shoe to drop.

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

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