The alien ship had a living organism inside it. That was the conclusion of the analysis by the medical team, and it gave them their first solid clue as to what they were dealing with.
The creature's biology was based on molecular biology, but its genome was much larger than anything that could have been generated naturally.
It wasn't even close: in fact, when compared to any known terrestrial or extraterrestrial life form, it was more like a genome from another planet entirely.
