Who subscribes to this notion? Personally I think it's a little far fetched, and I really don't see why people believe it.. Why would shrooms come from outer space? What's the point? They were made by an alien to seed our intelligence? People really believe this over the much more obvious notion that God (for lack of a better word) is the alien, and that they came from right here? He clearly made all of the plants for us, so why not the mushroom? Which he loaded with information to help us on our journey, but made it so that we don't have to always be in that state by making mushrooms so we can eat them when we would like to.

I very much believe that they helped seed our intelligence, have invaluable information to be gathered from using them, and may very well open up contact within with beings from other planets and other realities and timelines, but I think they grew right here. It just seems pointless to me that God would go through all the trouble of pollinating space with mushrooms spores when he can just as easily grow them within the atmosphere of a planet spontaneously.. If not easier, wouldn't you think?

Anyway, I'm sure there is something I'm missing if someone would like to enlighten me or just share their thoughts on the matter.

I don't claim to be an expert on this subject as I've only ever mildly entertained the idea that shrooms came from outer space but from Terence McKenna's lectures I believe the theory goes a little like this (doing this from memory so someone jump in if I left anything out):

Terence postulates that if we use our own species as an example (which we have to having no other reference point), then we are just now at the age in our development where we have mapped the human genome and have begun toying with the genetics of the very thing that makes us human which is our DNA. A highly advanced civilization we can presuppose would come to the same conclusions about their own genetic make-up and we can imagine a scenario where a very advanced society would be able to control their very genetics.

If such an advanced civilization decided it wanted to go out and explore the cosmos but didn't know where to start or how to look would want two things just based on logic: 1.) an affordable and energy efficient solution that can cross the vastness of interstellar space and 2.) a way in which to branch out and explore as much of the universe as possible. We as humans may very well have the wrong approach with spending billions of dollars making high tech tin cans to carry our fleshy mammalian bodies through the vastness of space, a truly intelligent civilization would find a much more efficient means of exploration.

When one examines the chemical makeup of the mushroom spore, it seems like, in theory, the spore could survive the harshness of intergalactic travel. In fact, if your trying to store mushroom spores, you actually WANT to create an environment that is as close to a vacuum as you can to preserve them. The casing of the spore is one of the most electron dense organic materials we have found in nature, a denseness that actually approaches the consistency of a metal and apparently has an ability to reflect certain levels of radiation.

One thing about the mushroom that he talks about (and as far as I know he's the originator of this theory) is that they are a strange combination of artifact and entity. Mushrooms are the lowest of the low on the foodchain, absorbing their energy from decomposing matter. In his scenario the mushroom is like an ultra buddhist vegetarian, able to adopt a karma-free lifestyle of feeding only on the junk nothing else will feed on. From a scientific standpoint we can view this as mushrooms needs a food source that nothing else wants in order to grow which gives them their own place on the food chain of any ecosystem they might encounter.

When the conditions are right, mushrooms can form vast colonies and networks of underground mycelium which he postulates is like a neural network of information relaying circuits, similar to our human brain. It's a curious observation that when one ingests a psychedelic mushroom an 'entity' like voice appears to communicate strange and universal concepts telepathically to you.

It's sort of a long mental leap to make the claim that mushrooms came from space just based upon the loose evidence given. However, it's an interesting theory and we can imagine a scenario in our own development where we might adopt this approach. For instance, if today we figured out how to manipulate our DNA to a point where we could condense the entire human intellect into the size of a spore (imagine some great nanotechnological breakthrough that could make this possible) and then coded into that spore a program that would allow it to replicate itself at regular intervals, what you would have would be humanity branching out of it's home planet in a cloud of human intellect-spores. Over billions of years, these spores would land on planetary bodies in interstellar space, and on some of these planets the conditions might allow the spores to begin their growth process. Our spore nano machines would be programmed to begin developing a neural network of human intellect underground to avoid harmful radiation and predation, and at a certain phase a program would execute the development of recievers or antenna possibly to communicate back to us that they had found a suitable environment to carry out its programs. If we can imagine this much, it's not too far of a stretch to think if the planet our human spores had begun to colonize on had an indigenous life form, and if this life form found our mycelium human neural network and decided to ingest our 'recievers' (the mushroom itself, which sort of looks like an antenna), then it is entirely possible that would be able to open up a direct communication line in the neural network of the creature that found our organic space probe. Indeed if we had the forethought to make sure we had setup our nano spore machines with a direct two way communication, I can see a scenario where this would be a highly effective means of communicating across the vast distance of space.

It's been a while and I could be wrong here; but IIRC, Terence also mentions that the mushroom contains the only 4-phospholated chemical that occurs in all of nature (psilocybin, 4-po-dmt). His terminology was something like "if you want the finger print of an extra terrestrial that's it right there"

Thanks Dreamer! It's been awhile since I've listened to that lecture, I appreciate your contribution. Fascinating stuff!

It's such a cool and beautiful concept I love it .

Well if you think that the spores can survive in outer space, then why the heck not?
But in similar manner, why is there DMT in so many places, and especially places where few "pioneer" people would have guessed to look, such as mimosa hostilis root bark? Nature is such a mystery... Us included

Hmmm.. Those are some pretty interesting facts..

Who says it was god? I think the idea of a god who is a "he" is far far far more far fetched than mushrooms that origionated off of planet earth..

Mushroom spores are the hardest organic material on the planet. They can withstand millions of years in deep space and are known to drift into space on wind currants at times...those facts alone make for a strong theory of mushroom-panspermia and it would also serve as an evolutionary advantage for fungi to be able to do such things. Of course we have no evidence of spores reaching other planets and germinating but is it really THAT far fetched?

Well since I just said those are some interesting facts, and also asked if there was something I'm missing, I think that implies I'm willing to change my beliefs in light of those facts.

And no need to take my calling God he so literally. Do you really think that I think God is some man up in the sky? Cmon bro, I'm not that primitive.

In addition to the erudite responses preceeding, I have heard that a mushroom spore is uniquely suited to withstand the ultraviolet radiation encountered in space.

It seems so natural to me: they are verrry tiny; virtually weightless comparatively; they can abide in stasis a long, long time; they occur in vast numbers, thus increasing their statistical probability of finding hospitable surroundings --- I think there is an interesting truth in: "Excuse me. I require a mammalian nervous system. Have you got one handy?"

I like your sig.

While the notion that mushrooms came from outer space might be aesthetically pleasing, it is also almost certainly false.

Consider the genetics of mushrooms. Their DNA uses the same triplet code as all life on this planet. It is nearly certain that the first extant lifeforms to use this triplet code on the planet earth were bacteria, or more precisely archaebacteria. The evidence for this lies in mitochondria, and in the nonconserved regions of ribosomal DNA. To craft a conceivable scenario for mushrooms coming from outer space, we would have to postulate an extraterrestrial entity familiar with the genomes of earthly lifeforms who engineered the genome of the mushroom so that it would have every appearance of having originated organically on Earth. While that scenario is not technically impossible, it seems to make more sense to take the evidence at face value (that mushrooms arose on earth through the same sorts of evolutionary processes as other multicellular life).

It seems possible that spores could travel from the earth and colonize other planets that meet the nutritional requirements of the mushroom... though I'm not sure how sustainable that might be, considering that mushrooms thrive on decomposing biological matter, which would only be present on planets already sustaining life.

Why don't you just ask the mushroom?

Aren't mushrooms the only species with 4-thingamalated-tryptamine structures? Curiouser and curiouser...

I don't know about mushrooms, but the theory of panspermia is not considered an outrageous theory.

If it's the same DNA structure as all other life on this planet, then why would it be so implausible to assume that such DNA is practically necessary for most multicellular life from elsewhere in the universe? Correct me if I'm wrong, but we haven't found any alien life form with DNA to the contrary. Going on the "universe as a hologram" theory, it could make sense that some of the pre-requisites for life on earth would be mirrored elsewhere or that it was able to nonlocally determine genetics of life on earth.

They are the only lifeforms on earth to synth and contain 4-phosphorylated alkaloids.

I'm battling to find the right link, but I read somewhere that mushroom spores tend to gravitate towards the outer atmosphere of Earth through brownian motion. they also have one of the most resistant outer layers (UV resitant etc...) its not a huge step to then assume thats how they leave a planet, make the journey to another and then get rained down on the surface. Of course I think the article was speculative, and I can't find it to back up anything I've said.
I tend to believe that there is a possibilty that this is the case. I mean they clearly defy all of the laws governing our current set of flora and fauna.

I know there are plenty of other synthetic tryptamines, but aren't mushrooms the only 4-hydroxylated tryptamine (that we know of) that exists naturally in nature as well? It's well known that mushrooms will 4-hydroxylate a tryptamine if the mushrooms are allowed to grow with said tryptamine in them. I've often wondered if mushrooms naturally produce 4-HO-DMT or if they just 4-hydroxylate naturally produced DMT/surrounding DMT. A little off topic, but food for thought.

Just in case you haven't seen it, here is the relevant moment from "Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventure."

One of my favorite movies of all time.

Certainly not natural, but we have 4-HO-MET and 4-HO-MIPT. Probably there are others as well.