  We make the case for the existence of a, hitherto unknown and unobserved,
hierarchy of ever more compact cosmic objects in the universe. This hypothesis
is based on i) the assumption of "elementary" particle sub-constituents on
several levels below the presently known, inspired by Glashow's "blooming
desert", ii) the existence of nearly scale-invariant density fluctuations in
the early universe, e.g. as predicted by inflationary models, iii) our own
previous theoretical work showing that a class of objects considerably more
compact than previously thought possible in astrophysics can exist. We also
give several independent arguments strongly pointing towards the non-existence
of black holes. Some brief suggestions on observational signals due to the
hierarchy, both in collected astronomical data and in possible future
observations, concludes the paper.
