Shuttle Road Kill

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Just to give you an example of how a mind can be influenced (i'll use my mind so I don't offend anybody), I was watching the Space Channel the other day and they had this show about strange phenomena. One of the stories had some guy who's been up in space twice on the shuttle I believe, don't remember his name but he said on two trips he managed to observe the spacecraft being followed by what he called a rubberlike snake(6 feet long no less). It got me to thinking whether it is possible for a lifeform(s) to have evolved to the point where they inhabit the upper regions of the atmosphere. I know most of the Earth's breathable atmoshere is probably below the summit level of Mount Everest but there exists many a strange critter in regions of the Earth that many wouldn't expect. Take the blue whale, the largest creature to have ever lived on Earth, it spends most of its life below the gaseous atmosphere. Lichens grow below the ice in Antarctica. Micro-organisms exist deep below the Earth's surface...anyway whether those are poor examples of what I'm trying to put forward isn't important. Its been said that life arrived here on the backs of comets and meteorites that have crashed into the Earth. If life can withstand years of travel through space then why isn't it possible for life to exist in the upper regions of the atmosphere. Maybe it did and they hitched a ride on the incoming space boulders. *Afterthought: Could life have evolved in the atmosphere first? Whenever mankind discovers unexpected life there is usually much excitement in the scientific community. The main thing is that we usually investigate the hows and whys and then we marvel at the adaptability of life. So the question is....do you think it possible for life to have evolved to the point where it can exist in the shuttle traffic lane or in outer space itself, free of an atmosphere??