Stanley Miller and his prof. Urey, made the famous experiment of 
introducing methane, hydrogen gas, ammonia and water vapor in a closed
glass system, heated it, made an electrical discharge, cooled it and
placed a trap so that the product would not return to the original
mixture.

I have heard and read that they made a "red goo", tar, up to 19
different amino acids and other stuff.

This was first done in the 1950īs. Can anyone find out an honest
report of what they really made and maybe a percentage breakdown?

The original paper describing the experiment was published in Science
(Miller, S. 1953. A production of amino acids under possible primitive
earth conditions. Science 117:528-529.)  The paper is available on the
web at http://www.issol.org/miller/miller1953.pdf.

A follow-up paper was published in 1959 in Science (Miller, S. and H.
Urey. 1959. Organic compound synthesis on the primitive earth. Science
130:245-251).  I do not know of a free version of this on the web, but
there is probably one somewhere.

Miller started with a mixture of methane (CH4), water (H2O), ammonia
(NH3), and hydrogen (H2) and ran an electric discharge through the
mixture for something like a week.  The solution had turned pink by
the end of the first day, and was reddish by the end of the week.

Miller positively identified two amino acids, one of which was present
in two isomers, in his experiment:  glycene and alanine (alpha and
beta forms).  He was pretty sure he also formed aspartic acid and
amino-buteric acid.  Other amino acids were also present, but not
positively identified.  The techniques available for doing chemical
assays in those days were a far cry from what can be done today!

Numerous versions of this experiment have been conducted since 1953,
some using different mixtures of starting materials, and others using
energy sources other than a spark discharge.  The basic findings have
been replicated many times (see Rode, B. M., 1999. Peptides and the
origin of life. Peptides 20: 773-786, for a summary.  Abstract
available at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=10477135,
but you probably need a subscription to access the full article.)

There is an interesting report of the reception Miller (who was only a
second-year graduate student) received when he first presented his
results at a Univ. of Chicago seminar at http://www.issol.org/miller/

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the publication of the
results, Bada and Lazcano published a good summary of the history
leading up to the experiment in Science (Bada and Lazcano, Science,
Vol 300, Issue 5620, 745-746 , 2 May 2003 [DOI:
10.1126/science.1085145] ).  A freely available copy of this article
is available at:  http://astrobiology.berkeley.edu/PDFs_articles/Bada_Science2003.pdf.
 A similar, but less "scholarly" amd more "chatty"  article by the
sams authors is also available at
http://www.issol.org/miller/70thB-Day.pdf

Miller is still active as an emeritus professor in the chemistry
department of UC San Diego.

Dear hfshaw-ga. Your comment is excellent. Pleaes post it as the
answer and I will most gladly give you a 5-star rating, which is what
you rightly deserve.

Blessings.
John

I'm not an official Google researcher, and so cannot post my comment as an answer.

Just glad to have been of assistance.