Red Snow in Edmonton - evidence of an alien invasion?

Black Mud Creek and a patch of "Watermelon snow."

If you have read my blogs at all, you would remember me mentioning a type of "red snow" which sometimes occurs.  I mentioned it at that point as I was vaguely aware of it and thought it would make a good addition to my text.  Little did I know that, less a week later, I would come across something of that nature.

I was hiking along Black Mud Creek in a preserved wild area called MacTaggart Sanctuary today and came across numerous patches of red snow.  The patches mostly appeared in sunny areas in deep, melting snow that had not been compressed or turned to ice.  Each patch was no more than 20 cm across but fluctuated wildly in shape and spatter distribution.  It occurred to me that this may very well be an example of "watermelon snow."

According to my research, watermelon snow is the result of a kind of green algae called Chlamydomonas, of which there are over three hundred species.  Although it is an alga, it also is a protist in the sense that it has two flagella which allow it to move.  Although normally green, some algae contain photosynthetic pigments such as xanthophylls which are other colours.  It is these colours you see in leaves during the fall when the green shades disappear. 

The weird part here is that this type of microbe occurs in polar regions and on some glaciers.  I could not find any evidence online of it being present in the Edmonton area where I was hiking.  My guess is someone out there knows what it is, but at this point, it certainly isn't me.  So, on the one hand, I seem to have discovered real evidence of this red or pink snow I wrote about earlier.  On the other hand, maybe it is evidence of alien invaders which have come to dominate our planet.  If it is an alien invasion, I can only hope that they do a better job of taking care of this planet than we have.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/artful-amoeba/wonderful-things-dont-eat-the-pink-snow/