“By all known information that science has, we know that they must be coming in from space,” he told the Herald Sun. “There is no known mechanism by which these life forms can achieve that height. As far as we can tell from known physics, they must be incoming.”

A balloon returning from the stratosphere is where the organisms were discovered and they probably contain DNA. He says if the organisms came from Earth, than the particles should be stuff found commonly on the planet like pollen.

Wainwright says some of the samples that were captured were covered with cosmic dust.

“The particles are very clean,” Wainwright added. “[Cosmic] dust isn’t stuck to them, so we think they came from an aquatic environment, and the most obvious aquatic environment in space is a comet.”

Comets are large balls of ice travelling through space at high speeds.

Scientists collected the samples during a meteorite show in which a comet melted and released the organisms as it broke down.

“If we’re right, it means that there’s life in space, and it’s coming to Earth. It means that life on Earth probably originated in space,” Wainwright explained to the newspaper.

On July 31 the scientists involved originally launched the balloon in the United Kingdom. It carried microscopic studs that acted as a kind of “fly paper” to capture particles when they were exposed above the Earth’s surface.

Another balloon will be sent up in October to confirm the findings. It will coincide with the passage of Earth through a meteorite shower associated with the orbit of Halley’s Comet.