Yesterday I wrote about the announcement that two NASA scientists were ready to publish a paper claiming live may currently exist on Mars. Today, it’s a different story. From MSNBC:
Earlier this week, sources told the weekly Space News that NASA scientists Carol Stoker and Larry Lemke had submitted a paper to the journal Nature outlining the evidence for biological activity on the Red Planet, based on the signature of methane found in the Martian atmosphere.
However, NASA’s newly issued statement claims that’s not the case:
If this were a ‘real’ news site, I’d never say this. But, since this is nothing more than a venue for my opinions, I’ll say it. This so smells of politics!
Friends, closer to NASA than I am, say they’ve already heard chatter from others that this speculation was quashed from above. Again, in real news this third hand info should never see the light of day… and I’m telling you know I have this on very shaky authority.
Still, based on whatever experience I have, something doesn’t smell right.
I always wondered what NASA would do if they did actually find anything up there – Let’s put aside for a minute that they think they may have found some low level form of life (or, that they didn’t find it).. Let’s say they dropped that rover up there and it started returning pictures of the sci-fi classic little green men. Do you think they would tell us? I don’t. Imagine the FUD that would spread.