Alien from Innerspace
In over five years of exploring flooded mines Michael Sandone and I had never given much attention to the bacterial life within these spaces. With the low oxygen content of the water, and saturation of a variety of minerals from the hundreds of years the mine has been flooded, we never really considered what might flourish in an environment like this.
It wasn’t until May 2021 that what was right in front of us all this time, really got our attention. We were exploring a flooded section of a 1644 lead(graphite) mine in New England. As we were admiring the amazing number of wooden structures and artifact preserved in the mine, we came upon a strange wall of something we couldn’t identify. It had a very organic appearance, and Sandone said that he thought it looked alien. Later when we were able to view the video in full 4k, we realized we had found a wall of bio-film blocking our passage. With further examination of the video, we saw that the film was rampant deep within this mine. With the low oxygen content of the water, and no know source of light, we were not sure what this mysterious film could be consuming. After spending weeks researching the subject, I soon found that there were many more options for this peculiar lifeform to consume, than we could imagine. One that surprised me is that some bio-films consume graphite through a chemical process. The most amazing of the possible explanations I found was that some microorganism found in mines can leech electron directly from minerals like graphite.
“ But who shall dwell in these worlds if they be inhabited? … Are we or they Lords of the World? ~ Christiaan Huygens 1722 ”
With this new knowledge I began reviewing older videos of mine exploration that Sandone and I had done. In everyone I found bio slimes of all kinds. Each one visually different from the other. I suspected that the mineral content of the mines is what was controlling which microorganisms could thrive within it.
In May 2022 I was fortunate to have crossed paths with Bernie Chowdery, a world class cave diver, and his wife Dr. Nasreen Haque, a cellular and molecular biologist. I met them while speaking at a regional caving event about my underground/underwater exploration using ROUVs. They were very interested in what Sandone and I had uncovered in these old mines and are interested in partnering with us to explore these alien like bio-films that live in those darker corners of inner space.