From Bill Hamilton -

Announcement

Exclusive: NASA Researchers Claim Evidence of Present Life on Mars
By Brian Berger
Space News Staff Writer
posted: 16 February 2005
02:09 pm ET


WASHINGTON -- A pair of NASA scientists told a group of space officials at a private meeting here Sunday that they have found strong evidence that life may exist today on Mars, hidden away in caves and sustained by pockets of water.


Read the press release:

www.space.com...

However they missed seeing the entrances to the underground cities and
transit system and the giant movie theater the Martians spend their weekends
at watching imports from Hollywood. Oh well, this is a baby step toward
acknowledging the possible existence of life elsewhere and if validated
will go along way toward showing that the earth is not the only place in the
universe with life.

Bill Hamilton
AstroScience Research Network
www.astrosciences.info...
"I don't see the logic of rejecting data just because they seem incredible." Fred Hoyle

[edit on 16-2-2005 by meshuggah1324]

Yep, one step at a time, but this is quite a major leap for NASA, id say we might see something special when ESAs underground radar gives us images of mars in May. Could this be a precursor to further revelations they've known all along?

Great find!!! But, just to make sure we all stay calm and keep from sounding the martian blow horn, I think the following paragragh taken from the article should be noted...

What Stoker and Lemke have found, according to several attendees of the private meeting, is not direct proof of life on Mars, but methane signatures and other signs of possible biological activity remarkably similar to those recently discovered in caves here on Earth.

The caves on earth that are being compared to the mars caves are the Rio Tinto caves in Spain...

Stoker said that below Mars’ surface, bacteria may dwell beneath the surface, eating minerals derived from subsurface rocks that contain iron and sulfur.

By studying the very acidic Rio Tinto, scientists hope to characterize the potential for a "chemical bioreactor" in the subsurface – an underground microbial biosphere might well control the chemistry of the topside environment. These organisms live on chemical energy and they appear to do that without the presence of oxygen.

Making that discovery at Rio Tinto, Stoker said, would mean uncovering a new, previously uncharacterized metabolic strategy for living in the subsurface. "For that reason, the search for life in the Rio Tinto is a good analog for searching for life on Mars," she said.


"The Rio Tinto region of Spain features sulfide minerals on the surface of ponded water. Researchers see the site as offering clues in the search for life on Mars. CREDIT: Carol Stoker, NASA Ames Research Center"
www.space.com...

Very interesting stuff!!!

[edit on 16-2-2005 by mpeake]

Hate to be the one to burst the bubble, but it looks like NASA has retracted the findings:

NASA on Friday issued an unusual denial of a report that its researchers found strong evidence for life's existence on present-day Mars.

Link to the news Space agency denies report about Red Planet life

From Nasa's WebSite:

NASA does not have any observational data from any current Mars missions that supports this claim. The work by the scientists mentioned in the reports cannot be used to directly infer anything about life on Mars, but may help formulate the strategy for how to search for martian life. Their research concerns extreme environments on Earth as analogs of possible environments on Mars. No research paper has been submitted by them to any scientific journal asserting martian life.

NASA Statement on False Claim of Evidence of Life on Mars

Wonder how many times it will be repeated (as in Nasa finding signs of life then blatantly ignore or deny it)

Originally posted by kenshiro2012
Hate to be the one to burst the bubble, but it looks like NASA has retracted the findings:

NASA on Friday issued an unusual denial of a report that its researchers found strong evidence for life's existence on present-day Mars.

Link to the news Space agency denies report about Red Planet life

From Nasa's WebSite:

NASA does not have any observational data from any current Mars missions that supports this claim. The work by the scientists mentioned in the reports cannot be used to directly infer anything about life on Mars, but may help formulate the strategy for how to search for martian life. Their research concerns extreme environments on Earth as analogs of possible environments on Mars. No research paper has been submitted by them to any scientific journal asserting martian life.

NASA Statement on False Claim of Evidence of Life on Mars

Just sounds like a disclaimer from NASA covering their asses. No surprise there.

It was perfectly obvious to me what the researchers were saying. I clearly understood that they did not find life on Mars, but were searching for life in environments here on Earth that could be compared to environments on Mars. Sounds like the statement from NASA was intended for idiots.

[edit on 18/2/05 by Meteor_of_War]