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NASA Mars Announcement: Water, Alien Life, Or Something Else?

By Toni Matthews
Published on: 01:09 PST, Sep 27, 2015

NASA intends to make a big announcement on Monday about a major Mars “mystery” that’s been solved.

What mystery exactly? No one seems to know, but there’s certainly a lot of speculation about possibilities. Of course, when NASA says it has big news about another planet, the first thing that some think about is the discovery of alien life.

It wouldn’t come as a surprised to self-described UFO experts. It seems that almost daily someone is posting images taken by Mars rover Curiosity, which they allege proves that there was (or currently is) life on the red planet. After months of “mysterious” photos being posted, some have wondered if NASA now has irrefutable proof that their claims are right.

Well, here’s the thing: NASA might already have discovered life on Mars — just not the kind that one would recognize. According to a 2012 National Geographic article, it was argued that NASA’s Viking 2 lander might have discovered evidence of life in 1976. Granted, that theorized form of life on Mars was microscopic, not “little green men.” Some wonder if NASA will make a similar announcement tomorrow, or if perhaps the announcement will reveal life similar to us.

Meanwhile, others believe the NASA announcement will be big news, but not because of supposed life signs on Mars. For instance, Heavy mentioned that some believe that NASA discovered running water or possibly an ocean beneath the desert-like surface of the planet.

Heavy also insisted that the persons leading the NASA press conference may provide clues as to what “mystery” the space agency solved. These people are, “Lujendra Ojha of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Jim Green the director of planetary science at NASA, Michael Meyer the lead scientist of the Mars Exploration Program, Mary Beth Wilhelm of Georgia IT and NASA’s Ames Research Center, and Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona in Tucson.”

These persons, according to Heavy, all have ties to previous water-related discoveries.

But there are some who believe that no major announcement is coming on Monday. Reddit users referenced a similar event in 2012 where NASA said it had big news, but nothing major ever came out. Some wonder if it will be the same, where NASA promises to make a “historic claim” only to play it down or not say anything Earth-shattering at all.

Even that 180-degree turn-around is an ongoing subject of speculation. Some feel that NASA did have big news a few years ago, but for whatever reason refused to reveal the truth about an important Mars finding. Are we getting our hopes up for nothing? The only way to find out is to tune into the NASA news conference at 11:30 a.m. EST, live from the agency’s Washington headquarters.

There are a couple different ways to view the event live: Either watch the press announcement on NASA’s TV stations (NTV-1, NTV-2, and NTV-3) or may also catch the presser via the official Ustream channel.

[Image Credit: Photo by NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS via Getty Images]

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