Attention Boaters: Beware The Alien Red Tide

A ten-mile long red ribbon is wrapping New York City’s waterways, and the Coast Guard is warning boaters to keep away.

The red tide was spotted in New York Harbor yesterday, from the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum in the Hudson River out to Hoffman Island, near Staten Island. It’s spurred on by the sudden bloom of red algae, known as phytoplankton, which contains toxins that sometimes deprive fish and shellfish of oxygen. The substance is known to cause eye and respiratory problems.

“It gives us something to study, but it’s not much fun for anyone else. You don’t want to get near the water until it clears up,” Karl Askins, a marine biology student, told the Daily News. “This is not something I expected to see in New York.”

And scientists sure do have fun with this kind of stuff. Over in India, some renegade researchers are still looking for answers to what caused a red rain over the country in 2001. Well, look no further, said physicist Godfrey Louis; it’s alien love-goo that might have also been responsible for seeding the Earth with life all those millions of years ago.

So maybe Indian rain, the Hudson River and my cat have something in common: they’re all in heat. If this spreads, we may have a new reason to talk about Sheepshead Bay’s “canal.”