I came across an entry on a
website about
life in the
clouds. When I started to research it I came across many more entries. It is an apparently recent discovery that there is
life in the clouds.
Birgitt Sattler of the University of Innsbruck says "...that although bacteria are known to be blown high into the atmosphere and dispersed around the Earth, no one knew if they could actually grow and divide in clouds" and that "We were astonished to find actively growing bacteria,..."
What they found were about 1500 living bacteria per milliliter of rain water.
Sattler says "We have so far just proved that there is life up there and that it can reproduce. Now we want to know who is up there."
sources:
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?s=958769a6b30ca834c37bcda0d8644408&threadid=2721
http://www.newscientist.com/nl/0826/clouds.html