The Phoenix probe, which successfully landed in the Martian artic yesterday on a mission to confirm the presence of water and (the building blocks of life?), looks eerily like a sketch of a UFO done by a British citizen in the early 60's - sans the skis. This continues to fuel speculation that our government has routinely been visiting Mars, and long ago colonized the Red Planet as part of a Top Secret secret mission.
OK. Not Really.
But there are plenty of folks who apparently believe so. You can find them in the same place on the internet where 911-truther's and Ron Paul conspiracy theorists hang out. They post videos on youtube with an interesting mixture of German and English and what purports to be a manned Martian landing that took place in 1962. It looks surprising like it was shot from the passenger window of a Ford Fairlane which for me makes it all the more interesting. It's never clear in these videos why "The Government" would be keep such triumphs from us, why the Martian atmosphere would be blue, and why in the midst of the cold war we are collaborating with our arch enemies. But when viewed as an experimental art film, they are pretty compelling.
Anyway. In the coming months, NASA's martian probe will attempt to make mud pies and snowcones for the space-exploration obsessed.
Regardless. I think everyone would agree that things would be a lot more interesting and our space program would ramp up like never before if one of the first images sent back to the Jet Propulsion Lab from terra igcognito were of an angry creature rising out of the Martian dust. And if the dusty blob then proceeded to pummel our little bitty science station on another planet into smithereens we'd be fixing that broken-down space station in a hurry. And stop complaining about $4 a gallon gasoline.
Image: Sketch from National Archives, Mars artic landscape from NASA/JPL