Mars Invades

"They seemed amazingly busy. I began to ask myself what they could be. Were they intelligent mechanisms? Such a thing I felt was impossible. Or did a Martian sit within each, ruling, directing, using, much as a man's brain sits and rules in his body? I began to compare the things to human machines, to ask myself for the first time in my life how an iron-clad or a steam engine would seem to an intelligent lower animal."

So wrote H.G. Wells in the "War of the Worlds".

NASA has announced the discovery of evidence of flowing water on Mars. It matters because it's one more piece of the puzzle as to whether there is or ever was life on Mars. The conspiracy theorists among us are having none of it. They claim it's a lie and they find it strange that the announcement has come just before the release of the new Matt Damon film, "The Martian". I suppose it's of no use to point out that Hollywood has made many films about Mars not to mention all those science fiction books.
No it's of no use.

Rush Limbaugh is among those crying foul. He says NASA is corrupt and this discovery is all a lie to be used in some grand left wing plan to prove climate change. Oh Rush. I would suggest putting Limbaugh on the first mission to Mars but I don't want him polluting their airwaves by bashing the Grand Chancellor of the Martian Senate for being too liberal.

These deniers are also among those who don't believe the findings of New Horizons and Pluto. For that matter they probably don't believe we ever landed on the moon. It was all done on a sound stage in Hollywood. In fact there are no other planets. It's just Earth and a buttload of darkness. The Sun is just a heat lamp.

From Presidential assassination to space we just love our conspiracies. It's exciting to find intrigue at every corner and to explain away everything we don't understand with a clever plot twist. Shadowy figures in the halls of power are manipulating us for their own purposes. Now that's probably true, in fact I'm certain of it but don't tell anyone I told you because I would be kicked out of S.A.D. (Shadow Agents Directorate)

I've said too much, must go, they're...