Life on Mars: More Insights from Users Post (IUFO)

Life on Mars

More Insights from
Users Posts (IUFO - 8/96)

On this page we share a few additional posted messages to the IUFO mailing list that offers some different perspectives on the August 6th announcement of life on Mars or various articles ...

ILLINOIS

Life on Mars Page Index

CNN Report about Life on Mars

Geometry on Mars with Dr. Stan McDaniel

NBC News Story on Mars

Federation of American Scientist Mars Report

Comment from South Africa - Mervyn Kotzé

Mars Meteorite Images on the Internet

Hoagland Interview on CNN & Web Site

Reuters Article About Mars

New York Times Article about Mars

Dr. Richard Boylan's Comments About Mars Findings

CNN Report about Life on Mars

Date: Tue, 6 Aug 1996 17:08:08 -0400 (EDT)
To: iufo@alterzone.com
From: Goro Adachi {adachi@cris.com}
Subject: LIFE ON MARS likely acc. to CNN!
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I couldn't believe my ears!! CNN (yes, CNN) just reported (8/6/96) that there likely WAS life on MARS!!
When I was just casually watching CNN, suddenly the anchor woman started talking about life on Mars with a nervous face. I was like "what the hell? This must be a dream. God, Hoagland was right, NOW it's finally happening!"
CNN did short interviews with Michael Bennett (Edu. Officer, Astronomical Society of the Pacific) and Lon Rain (Editor of Space News) and these guys basically said that there is now a strong circumstantial evidence that there WAS life on Mars at one point. This evidence is said to be found in the meteorite that came from Mars. There also is a rumor that a fossil has been found in the meteorite. When asked about the possibility of life on Mars at the persent time, Lon Rain said he wasn't sure.
Can you see what's happening here? This is no coincidnece that this is becoming news at this precise time. It's part of a bigger plan that Hoagland very recently talked about. According to Richard Hoagland, NASA was about to announce that there IS life on Europa, one Jupiter's moons within few weeks when the spacecraft Galileo again approaches Europa. The first time Galileo was close to Europe (late last year), NASA mysteriously cancelled its scheduled report regarding the probing of Europa. Then just recently, one of NASA scientists suddenly discussed the possibility of life on Europa USING HOAGLAND'S LOGIC (i.e. "Europa Concept") from more than a decade ago. Richard Hoagland speculated that this weird move was connected to NASA's attempt to get Hoagland out of the picture when they soon announce that there is, as Hoagland originally theorized, life on Europa. NASA probably found the evidence of life when Galileo first probed the moon of Jupiter, but withheld the information... which isn't surprisng. Life outside of Earth is big, big news. They need to treat it very carefully. However, the bigger problem for NASA here is that the concept of life on Europa is closely associated with Richard Hoagland who strongly accuses NASA of withholding information regarding artificial structures on Mars and the Moon. If they announced that there is life on Europa, the media would certainly focus on Hoagland and probably praise him. And this would lead their attention to the possible structures on Mars and the moon, Hoagalnd's more recent claims. Obviously, this is not good for NASA / gov't. They can't let the public know about the big conspiracies surrounding Mars and the moon. So do they do? They tried to let one of THEIR (NASA) people steal Hoagland's idea regarding life on Europa and give one of _their_ people credit for the theory. However, Hoagland is already aware of this situation and trying to spread the word, and since Hoagland's Europa Conecpt was published in a magazine and used in one of Authur Clark's books, "2010"(?), so this plan by NASA likely will not work.
(It is also woth noting IMO that on April Fool's day this year, America Online did a well-done fake news that reported Galileo found life on Jupiter. It created quite a buzz in cyberspace. It probably was designed to check the reaction of the general public to the idea of life outside of earth, and also to let the population get more used to the idea of ET life.)
And now, came the announcement regarding life on Mars. This could be the final stage of preparation before the announcement of life on Europa. I think the plan is to let the general public know that there once was life on Mars in the past, before they announce that there IS life on Europa NOW. Because it is less shocking to be told that there was, IN THE PAST, life on another planet than to be told that there is life, RIGHT NOW, in other parts of our solar system.
And after all this, we'll look back at Mars and "find out" that there are Martians (living under the surface) waiting for the right moment to make a offical contact with us earth-humans as described in Courtney Browns book, Cosmic Voyage (remote viewed info).
In a way, Augus 6, 1996 was probably a historic day.
--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+-

GORO ADACHI		E-Mail:	adachi@cris.com  
			URL:	http://www.concentric.net/~adachi/


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->  Posted by: Goro Adachi 
Geometry on Mars with Dr. Stan McDaniel

From: Phikent@aol.com
Date: Tue, 6 Aug 1996 19:04:16 -0400
To: iufo@alterzone.com
Subject: Re: Life on Mars? YES DEFINATELY!
Sender: iufo-approval@alterzone.com

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Perfect time to brag about my website, "ANIMATED EXPLORATORY" featuring Wondrous Geometry on Mars."
The page has been up for about two months and was coached regarding correct geometry by Dr. Stan McDaniel through email correspondence.
Kent Steadman
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NBC News Story on Mars

Date: Tue, 06 Aug 1996 19:31:27
From: newspirit@gnn.com (Ignatius Graffeo)
To: iufo@alterzone.com
Subject: NASA Discovers Life on Mars
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LIFE ON MARS? NASA REPORT TO BE RELEASED TOMORROW
A late breaking report at the top of NBC-TV news tonight says NASA will release information about a form of microscopic life more than 3 billion years old. Examination of a meteor from Mars which fell to earth thousands of years ago found minute fossilized remains of bacteria.
The tiny single cell structures NASA says it found in the sample is not evidence or suggestion of any 'higher' life forms ever existing. NASA wants "all to know that it is not talking about anything remotely resembling little green men."
This report is so full of ridiculous statements and suspicious disclaimers. It sounds more like a description of the brains and type of environment found at NASA today than on the meteor sample. They find the lowest possible life form and they make it the lead story on prime time evening news. Geeesh! Give us all a break!
Ignatius Graffeo
http://members.gnn.com/newspirit/cydonia.htm
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-> Posted by: newspirit@gnn.com (Ignatius Graffeo)

Federation of American Scientist Mars Report

Date: Tue, 6 Aug 1996 18:44:03 -0700 (PDT)
From: James Shannon {jamesjs@unixg.ubc.ca}
X-Sender: jamesjs@interchg.ubc.ca
To: snetnews@alterzone.com
cc: iufo@alterzone.com
Subject: AAASes Finally Prove Hoagland Right

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From: John Pike 
Newsgroups: sci.space.policy,sci.astro,alt.sci.planetary,sci.astro.amateur,
sci.bio,sci.bio.paleontology
Subject: AAAS News Release! The Details!! Signs of Past Life on Mars
Date: Tue, 06 Aug 1996 19:25:12 -0400
Organization: Federation of American Scientists
FWD
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

American Association for the Advancement of Science News Release
Signs of Past Life on Mars?
Organic Compounds and Possible Biological Features
Found in Martian Meteorite,
Featured in 16 August 1996 Science
Washington, DC - Ever since scientists learned that water once flowed on Mars, they've wondered whether life might also have flourished on the apparently now-dead planet. In the 16 August issue of Science, McKay et al report the first identification of organic compounds in a Martian meteorite. The authors further suggest that these compounds, in conjunction with a number of other mineralogical features observed in the rock, may be evidence of ancient Martian microorganisms.
The paper's authors are David S. McKay and Everett K. Gibson, Jr., of NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX; Kathie L. Thomas-Keprta of Lockheed Martin in Houston, TX; Hojatollah Vali of McGill University in Montreal, Quebec; Christopher S. Romanek of the University of Georgia's Savannah River Ecology Laboratory in Aiken, SC; and Simon J. Clemett, Xavier D.F. Chllier, Claude R. Maechlin, and Richard N. Zare of Stanford University in Stanford, CA.
Organic (complex, carbon-based) molecules are the requisite building blocks of life on Earth. The authors looked for signs of such molecules and other mineralogical and textural indications of past life within the pore space and fractures of meteorite Allan Hills 84001 (ALH84001), one of only 12 meteorites identified as having come from Mars. ALH84001 is the oldest of the Martian dozen, having crystallized from molten rock about 4.5 billion years ago, early in the planet's evolution, and it is the only Martian meteorite to contain significant carbonate minerals. (The carbonates formed sometime after the rock, perhaps about 3.6 billion years ago.)
About 15 million years ago, a major asteroid impact on Mars threw ALH84001 into space, where it eventually fell onto an ice field in Antarctica about 13,000 years ago. ALH84001, which shows little evidence of terrestrial weathering, was discovered by meteorite-hunting scientists in 1984 and only recently identified at Martian.
ALH84001 is riven with tiny fractures resulting primarily from impacts that occurred while the rock was on Mars. The secondary carbonates formed along with some of these fractures. The *Science* authors prepared thin sample sections that included these pre-existing fractures, and found on their surfaces a clear and distinct distribution of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), organic molecules containing multiple connected rings of carbon atoms -- the first organic molecules ever seen in a Martian rock. A variety of contamination checks and control experiments indicated that the organic material was indigenous to the rock and was not the result of terrestrial contamination. For example, the authors noted that the concentration of PAHs increases inward, whereas terrestrial contamination likely would have resulted in more PAHs on the exterior of the rock.
The big question is: where did the PAHs come from?
It is thought that PAHs can form one of two ways: non-biologically, during early star formation; or biologically, through the activity of bacteria or other living organisms, or their degradation (fossilization). On Earth, PAHs are abundant as fossil molecules in ancient sedimentary rocks, coal and petroleum, the result of chemical changes that occurred to the remains of dead marine plankton and early plant life. They also occur during partial combustion, such as when a candle burns or food is grilled.
To address the origin of these PAHs, the authors examined the chemistry, mineralogy, and texture of carbonates associated with PAHs in the Martian meteorite. Under the transmission electron microscope, the carbonate globules were seen to contain fine-grained magnetite and iron-sulfide particles. From these and other analyses, the authors developed a list of observations about the carbonates and PAHs that, taken individually, could be explained by non-biological means. However, as they write in their *Science* article, "when considered collectively ... we conclude that [these phenomena] are evidence for primitive life on early Mars." Some of their observations are as follows:

* The higher concentrations of PAHs were found associated with the carbonates.
* The carbonates formed within the rock fissures, about 3.6 billion years ago, and are younger than the rock itself.
* The magnetite and iron-sulfide particles inside the carbonate globules are chemically, structurally and morphologically similar to magnetosome particles produced by bacteria on Earth.
* High-resolution scanning electron microscopy revealed on the surface of the carbonates small (100 nanometers) ovoids and elongated features. Similar textures have been found on the surface of calcite concretions grown from Pleistocene groundwater in southern Italy, which have been interpreted as representing nanobacteria.
* Some earlier reports had suggested that the temperature at which the ALH84001 carbonates formed was as high as 700' C -- much too hot for any kind of life. However, the isotopic composition of the carbonates, and the new data on the magnetite and iron-sulfide particles, imply a temperature range of 0' to 80'C, cool enough for life.
* The magnetite -- a mineral which contains some ferric (Fe3+) iron, perhaps indicating formation by oxidation (the addition of oxygen) -- and iron sulfide -- a mineral that can be formed by reduction (the loss of oxygen) -- were found in close proximity in the Martian meteorite. On Earth, closely associated mineralogical features involving both oxidation and reduction are characteristic of biological activity.
"Science" is the official journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Washington, DC, the world's largest general science organization.

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--
John Pike

Federation of American Scientists -- http://www.fas.org/
Life on Mars ----- http://www.fas.org/mars/

---------------------------------

From: John Pike {johnpike@fas.org}
Newsgroups: sci.space.policy,sci.astro,alt.sci.planetary,sci.astro.amateur, sci.bio,sci.bio.paleontology
Subject: !! Life On Mars Special WWW Online!!
Date: Tue, 06 Aug 1996 21:12:43 -0400
Organization: Federation of American Scientists

Given the clear and present possibility that this whole thing might turn out to be the biggest thing since the discovery of gravity, we are building a web resource dedicated to this whole matter at

http://www.fas.org/mars/
We will be adding documents, links and just about anything else that comes our way, so shop early and often. {of course, it could turn out to be cold fusion all over again -- ie, ambiguous results that can't be replicated, but, what the heck, it is sure more interesting to contemplate than cold fusion].

--
John Pike

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Comment from South Africa - Mervyn Kotzé

Date: Wed, 07 Aug 1996 21:02:17 +0200
From: mkotzé {mkotze@travel.rennies.co.za}
To: rshapiro@interaccess.com
Subject: Life on Mars?

Reported on CNN today (August 6 1996)was the discovery of 3 billion year old micro-organisms found in a piece of meteorite from Mars.
Interesting that the rock was found twelve years ago and was only "examined properly" two years ago. One wonders if the life form wasn't discovered immediately and kept under wraps (as usual). If a government was faced with the dilemma of how to announce to the public at large that, yes - there are aliens out there, then what better way to do it than to start with "small" discoveries like this and therby condition the population into accepting the final truth. At this stage of the game, showing off a 3 billion year old fossil is less likely to cause mass hysteria than producing a fully-grown alien!
Remember how the world held its breath when the first manned space-flight took place; the first space-walk; the first step on the moon? Today the launching of a space-shuttle is almost common-place. How quickly we humans adjust! (Or should that be "earthlings"?)
Perhaps the governments who may be concealing truths about ET are finding themselves with their backs against the wall, faced with mounting pressure and evidence from interested groups. It wouldn't surprise me if more and more of these "startling" discoveries are announced in the future.
Regards

Mervyn Kotzé
South Africa

Mars Meteorite Images on the Internet

Date: Wed, 7 Aug 1996 18:20:33 -0400 (EDT)
From: Paul Burrell {pburrell@freenet.columbus.oh.us}
Subject: Mars Meteorite Images Available via Internet (fwd)
To: iufo {iufo@alterzone.com}
Sender: iufo-approval@alterzone.com

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 -------------------------------------------------- 
| Paul Burrell   (pburrell@freenet.columbus.oh.us) | 
|        Mid-Ohio Research Associates              |
| (http://users1.ee.net/pmason/mora_index.html)    |
---------- Forwarded message ----------

Date: Wed, 7 Aug 1996 12:57:37 -0400
From: NASA HQ Public Affairs Office {NASANews@luna.osf.hq.nasa.gov}
To: press-release-other3@venus.hq.nasa.gov
Subject: Mars Meteorite Images Available via Internet
David E. Steitz
Headquarters, Washington, DC              August 7, 1996
(Phone:  202/358-1730)


RELEASE: I96-6

MARS METEORITE IMAGES AVAILABLE VIA THE INTERNET

     Photographs that support today's briefing at which a team 
of NASA and Stanford scientists will discuss their findings 
showing strong circumstantial evidence of possible early 
Martian life, including microfossil ramains found in a Martian 
meteorite, are available via the Internet.  Real time audio of 
today's briefing also will be available from these sites.

The Internet World Wide Web URLs are:


http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/pao/flash


http://cu-ames.arc.nasa.gov/marslife


http://rsd.gsfc.nasa.gov/marslife


                       --end--


NASA press releases and other information are available 
automatically by  sending an Internet electronic mail message 
to domo@hq.nasa.gov.  In the body of the message (not the 
subject line) users should type the words "subscribe
press-release" (no quotes).  The system will reply with a 
confirmation via  E-mail of each subscription.  A second 
automatic message will include  additional information on the 
service.  NASA releases also are available via  CompuServe 
using the command GO NASA.
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Hoagland Interview on CNN & Web Site

From: "Steve Wingate" {steve@linex.com}
To: iufo@alterzone.com
Date: Wed, 7 Aug 1996 15:59:51 -0700
Subject: (Fwd) RE: NASA LIFE ON MARS ANNOUNCEMENT
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------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- Date: Tue, 6 Aug 1996 22:34:25 -0700 (MST) To: snetnews@alterzone.com From: pmurray@AZStarNet.com (Peter J. Murray) Subject: RE: NASA LIFE ON MARS ANNOUNCEMENT Reply-to: snetnews@alterzone.com

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Gang,
Hoagland to be interviewed on CNN TalkBack Live Wednesday at 3 p.m. eastern, 12 noon pacific time. CNN this hour just showed photos of Enterprise Mission Web Site, photo of face on Mars, and several other web sites dealing with MARS studies.....Including Stanford University site on proposed private manned mission to Red Planet in early next decade!
For those who have access to Enterprise Mission site on web, lots of info there on Nasa announcement, including picture of Fossilized Meteorite fragment, leaked from NASA today to Hoagland. That was also shown on CNN with other info above.
For those who only have e-mail access to internet, I repost Hoagland's Open Letter to President Clinton today. It really puts the questions to the President on NASA's secrecy policy! This is one helluva day for those of us wanting to force the truth on extraterrestrial life.
The Tucson Kid.
pmurray@azstarnet.com

Reuters Article About Mars

Date: Thu, 08 Aug 1996 06:01:13 -0400 (EDT)
From: Peter Pflaum {pflaump@worldnet.att.net}
Subject: Life on Mars
To: pflaump@msn.com

The Universe is covered in life, and life transfers from one place to another. Our life forms may have come from Mars and we should return the favor. http://cu-ames.arc.nasa.gov/marslife/discovry.htm and http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/NewsRoom/today.html
The discovery that life apparently existed on Mars was hailed Wednesday as the greatest discovery of this century, one that could have far-reaching effects on philosophy, religion and science. http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/NASA_homepage.html
Ares ( life on mars project )is the brother of the Gaia theory, the mega theory of James Lovelock's about understanding climate and life. Global warming, and other changes in our prospective of plant earth are important results of seeing our home from a great distance. Gaia theory was a direct result of the science program at NASA where Lovelock worked on the "life on Mars" program in the 1960's. Great changes in human prospective about our place in creation have happened when Galileo made the sun stand still, Darwin reconstructed our place in nature, Quanta Mechanics transfigured the idea of matter, current ideas of cosmostology and relativity alter our way of thinking about space and time, and the Apollo program gave us an innovative prospective on mother earth. The life on Mars may be another historic review - Another case of think again - METANOIA - repentance = change of mind = reformation = acceptance for who we really are - beyond pretence, more grounding, centered, physically alive being in reality - as it really is.

ares.txt http://www.edna.edu.au/messages/mail/JEI-L/960413/
James Lovelock's proposal to transform the nature of Mars so that the atmosphere will again support water and life forms is a wonderful challenge. We don't know how to do it. A global project to turn Mars from a dead and unfriendly rock into a place that again supports life stirs the imagination. It also impacts on the most critical issues of planet Earth - management of a global biosphere and the atmospheric climate.

lifeform.txt
Matter is only a temporary form of information, energy and matter are forces in some organized shape or form before they becomes disorganized and random again. From a random nothing there was a "big bang" and the system has been using this energy to organize itself, expand and run, until it runs down again. Life forms take shape on the back of this free energy - from bacteria, plants and on up the food chain. The problem is we exist at the top of the chain and have a hard time with prospective - seeing the forest for the trees.
Niles Eldredge along with Stephen Jay Gould describe the history of life on this planet as evolving with "Punctuated Equilibria". Long periods of boredom with sudden extinctions and bursts of tumult and change.

Debate on Evidence of Ancient Life on Mars
HOUSTON (Reuter) - The discovery that life apparently existed on Mars was hailed Wednesday as the greatest discovery of this century, one that could have far-reaching effects on philosophy, religion and science.
``This changes our view of ourselves, it changes our view of the universe,'' Louis Friedman of The Planetary Society said.
Planetary scientists were unusually enthusiastic about the evidence, laboriously put together by electron microscopic analysis of fossils dating back billions of years. One scientist called the discovery ``unequivocal'' and another said it was the most stunning scientific find in decades.

-----------------------------

NASA Says Mars Findings to Spur New Mission
WASHINGTON (Reuter) - The first potentially historic evidence of extraterrestrial life -- possible microscopic life-forms from Mars -- will likely spur ``a worldwide mission'' to explore the red planet, the head of the U.S. space agency said Wednesday.
``I think we may have to accelerate some activities'' with regard to collecting more samples from Mars, NASA chief Dan Goldin said at a packed news briefing to discuss scientists' contention that tiny fossils of Martian organisms are present in a meteorite that landed in Antarctica 13,000 years ago.
(Real Audio at http://cu-ames.arc.nasa.gov/marslife/discovry.htm)
After talking with members of the world's space agencies, Goldin said, ``I believe it will be a worldwide mission.''
But he added that the mission would be driven by scientific concerns, ``not a rush to go to Mars.''

A golf-ball-sized chunk of the meteorite was on display at the news conference, cradled in midnight-blue velvet and contained in a clear plastic case labeled ALH84001, its scientific designation.
President Clinton said U.S. scientific prowess would be poured into followup investigation of possible life on Mars, include an agressive unmanned space-probe program and a bipartisan White House summit on future U.S. space policy. Goldin said the summit would occur in November.
``If this discovery is confirmed it will surely be one of the most stunning insights into our universe that science has ever uncovered,'' Clinton said. ``Its implications are as far-reaching and awe-inspiring as can be imagined.''

For the past two years, a team of scientists from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Stanford University has been examining the 4.2 pound, meteorite for traces of organic molecules and carbon compounds, the building blocks of life on Earth.
The scientists said the rock formed under the surface of Mars about 4.5 billion years ago. Between 3.6 billion and 4 billion years ago, water penetrated fractures in the rock and deposited carbonate materials.
The scientists said they believe living organisms may have been involved in the formation of the carbonate and some of the microscopic organisms may have fossilized in the rock.
Inside the microscopic globs of carbonate, the scientists said they found polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons -- or PAHs -- which are mineral compounds associated with microscopic organisms and possible microscopic fossils. Photographic images show the carbonate as orange-brown in color with black-and-white rims, which are composed of extremely fine-grained mineral compounds containing either iron and oxygen or iron and sulfur, Kathie Thomas-Keprta of Lockheed-Martin said at the briefing.
The compounds in these rims are very similar to those produced on Earth by bacteria, Keprta said.
``The simplest explanation is that these are products of micro-organisms on Mars,'' she said.
Even some of those on the investigative team were skeptical.

Stanford University's Richard Zare noted that PAHs are present on Earth in non-organic substances such as diesel exhaust, candle soot or even charred meat.
But David McKay of NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston showed extremely high-resolution photographs of the alleged fossils, which looked like tiny worms on the rock surface.
He acknowledged that these worm-like structures could be dried-up mud, or microfossils from Antarctica, but his team's best interpretation was that they were microfossils from Mars.
McKay conceded more research was needed to confirm that these were remnants of living things.
Zare noted the possibility that life on Earth might have been ``seeded'' by a meteorite crashing in from Mars and added: ''Who is to say that we are not all Martians?''
The meteorite was probably blasted off the surface of Mars 16 million years ago after a massive comet or asteroid struck the now-dead planet, the researchers said in a draft article of their findings to be published in Science magazine.
After floating in space for millions of years it plunged to Earth, where it was discovered in Antarctica in 1984. McKay's team got the rock in August 1994, and for the first six months of their study saw little of interest.
``About a year ago is when we started to get excited about the rock,'' McKay said.

The metorite's make-up matches the chemical composition of the surface of Mars measured by the Viking spacecraft that landed on the planet in 1976, the scientists said. Another unstaffed U.S. probe will head for Mars late this year.
NASA scientists planned to disclose at a press conference in Washington at 1 p.m. EDT Wednesday more details of their discovery of evidence of single-cell, bacteria-like organisms inside an ancient Martian meteorite that plunged to Earth more than 13,000 years ago.
For the past two years, a team of NASA and Stanford University scientists has been examining a 4.2 pound, potato-sized meteorite for traces of organic molecules and carbon compounds, the building blocks of life on Earth.
The rock formed under the surface of Mars about 4.5 billion years ago, the scientists said. Between 3.6 billion and 4 billion years ago, water penetrated fractures in the rock and deposited carbonate materials.
The scientists said they believe living organisms may have been involved in the formation of the carbonate and some of the microscopic organisms may have fossilized in the rock.
Inside the microscopic globs of carbonate, the scientists said they found detectable amounts of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, mineral compounds associated with microscopic organisms and possible microscopic fossils.

``It is not any one finding that leads us to believe that this is evidence of past life on Mars. Rather, it is a combination of many things that we have found,'' NASA scientist David McKay said. ``The relationship of all these things in terms of location -- within a few hundred thousandths of an inch of one another -- is the most compelling evidence.''
The scientists said they expected their startling findings to come under attack by the international scientific community and they welcomed the controversy.
``We don't claim that we have conclusively proven it. We are putting this evidence out to the scientific community for other investigators to verify, enhance, attack -- disprove if they can,'' planetary scientist Everett Gibson said in a statement released by Stanford University.

NASA administrator Daniel Goldin made it clear the discovery bore no relation to science fiction or Hollywood versions of life's beginnings in space.
``I want everybody to know that we are not talking about 'little green men,''' he said. ``These are extremely small, single-cell structures that somewhat resemble bacteria on Earth. There is no evidence or suggestion that any higher life form ever existed on Mars.''
The possible fossils included egg-shaped and tubular structures so small they can be seen only under an electron microscope. ``The structures are strikingly similar to microscopic fossils of the tiniest bacteria found on Earth,'' the Stanford statement said.
The meteorite was probably blasted off the surface of Mars 16 million years ago after a massive comet or asteroid struck the now-dead planet, the NASA researchers said in a draft article of their findings to be published in Science magazine.
After floating in space for (b)millions of years the meteorite plunged to Earth, where it was discovered in a frozen field in Antarctica in 1984. The make-up of the meteorite known as ALH84001 matches the chemical compositions of the surface of Mars measured by the Viking spacecraft that landed on the planet in 1976, the scientists said.

The NASA researchers said it was unlikely the evidence of living organisms was deposited deep inside fissures of the rock after it entered the Earth's atmosphere but they expected that and other facets of their research to be challenged.
``It is very difficult to prove life existed 3.6 billion years ago on Earth, let alone on Mars,'' said Stanford chemist Richard Zare, a member of the NASA research team.
The scientists plan to publish their findings in the Aug. 16 issue of Science magazine and will discuss their findings publicly for the first time Wednesday.

Copyright 1996 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

SYNERGY-NET on http://metro.turnpike.net/~pflaum http://synergy.trevista.com ** Peter E. Pflaum Ph.D. , Headmaster GLOBAL_VILLAGE_SCHOOLHOUSE 225 Robinson Road, New Smyrna Beach, FL 32169-2176 (904) 428-9609 pflaump@MSN.COM

New York Times Article about Mars

Date: Tue, 06 Aug 1996 22:09:00 EST5EDT
From: Joe Schultz {joe.schultz%f262.n114.z1@xbn.shore.net}
Organization: SearchNet HeadQuarters
To: IUFO@alterzone.com
Subject: Life On Mars!

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PID: JCQWK 2.02 Rev A
August 7, 1996
Signs of Primitive Life on Mars Found in Meteorite
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
Scientists studying a meteorite that fell to Earth from Mars have identified organic compounds and certain minerals that they conclude "are evidence for primitive life on early Mars."
The discovery of the first organic molecules ever seen in a Martian rock is being hailed as startling and compelling evidence that at least microbial life existed on Mars long ago, when the planet was warmer and wetter. The molecules found in the rock, which left Mars some 15 million years ago, are being described as the fossil trace of past biological activity.
In a statement issued Tuesday, as unofficial word of the discovery spread, NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin confirmed that scientists had "made a startling discovery that points to the possibility that a primitive form of microscopic life may have existed on Mars more than three billion years ago."

A detailed description of the research, conducted at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, is to be given at a NASA news conference at 1 p.m. Wednesday in Washington. The journal Science is publishing a full report on the work in its Aug. 16 issue.
A draft of the Science paper, written by a team led by Dr. David S. McKay of the Johnson Space Center, identified the telltale compounds as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, called PAHs, which often have biological origins and are associated with coal and diesel exhaust, and the minerals magnetite and iron sulfide, both of which are related to bacterial action on Earth. In addition, they found some carbonate globules that are similar in texture and size to materials produced by bacteria on Earth.
"The PAHs, the carbonate globules and their associated secondary mineral phases and textures could thus be fossil remains of a past Martian biota," the researchers concluded.
Although the authors of the paper were under orders from NASA not to talk before the news conference, scientists familiar with the research spoke in unusually enthusiastic terms about the work.
One scientist called the results "unequivocal." Another said it was one of the most stunning discoveries in the solar system in recent decades. But they cautioned that it would take more research to assess the full implications of the discovery for the longtime quest for extraterrestrial life.

Dr. David C. Black, director of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, praised the research as being "very, very cautious" work that would not have been possible two or three years ago, before new analytical instruments for electron microscopy were available.
"The signs are all consistent with biological activity," Black said. "But what makes the case much more interesting is that the compounds are found all together in proximity within the meteorite. That is really suggestive."
Reservations about the interpretation of the discovery were expressed by Dr. Jack D. Farmer, a geologist and paleobiologist at the Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif. He said the meteorite, as one of the oldest rocks ever identified in the solar system, contained evidence that Mars had water early in its history and that this environment, with liquid water and organic molecules, was one where life could have existed.
"We didn't know this about Mars until now," Farmer said. "It gives us a lot of compelling reasons to go back to Mars. But it doesn't tell us anything definite about life. It's interesting, but not convincing."

Because of its possible scientific and philosophical ramifications, Goldin briefed President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore last week about the discovery. They were reported to be "excited" about the research.
After the space agency makes its formal announcement, White House officials said, Clinton is likely to call for more study of the question of fossil life on Mars and may propose adding resources to ongoing NASA projects to place unmanned spacecraft and roving vehicles on the planet.
The last major thrust of Mars exploration by the United States was the Viking project, which landed two robotic craft on the cold, arid surface and conducted weeks of tests, sampling the soil for any trace of biological activity.
The results appeared to rule out any lingering hope of Martian life in some microbial form, though other investigations showed that water must have flooded the Martian surface in the distant past, raising the possibility that life existed there soon after the planet's formation 4.5 billion years ago and then disappeared.

The scientific plans for future missions call for focusing on searches for fossils in regions where water once stood and might still be present in a kind of subsurface permafrost.
The meteorite bearing the organic molecules is one of only 12 identified as having come from Mars, based on analyses of their chemistry, compared with that of Martian surface materials examined by the Viking instruments. It is the oldest, having crystallized from molten rock about 4.5 billion years ago, in the planet's infancy. The carbonates, chemicals closely associated with the PAH molecules, dated from 3.6 billion years ago.
About 15 million years ago, scientists estimate, a huge asteroid collided with Mars, gouging many pieces of rock from beneath the surface and scattering them into space. One of them eventually fell on the icy Allan Hills in Antarctica about 13,000 years ago.
Scientists found the meteorite in 1984 and named it Allan Hills 84001, but identified it as Martian only recently. Experts believe that many other fragments of Mars probably lie unrecognized in meteorite collections.
As soon as the meteorite was found to be Martian, McKay and his colleagues began investigating its pitted and fractured dark surfaces, making thin slices of the rock where they detected the organic molecules. The work involved scientists from the Johnson center, Stanford University, the University of Georgia and McGill University in Montreal.

The scientists described the PAH molecules, which contain multiple connected rings of carbon atoms, were clear and distinct. They studied the samples further to make sure the organic molecules had originated on Mars, not as the result of terrestrial contamination.
One telling piece of evidence was the fact that the concentration of the molecules increased as the analysis moved inward; if those molecules had been contamination, they would have been concentrated on the surface.
These PAH molecules are common on Earth, and many of them have biological origins related to bacteria. They are abundant, for example, in ancient sedimentary rocks, coal and petroleum, the residue of the chemical changes that occurred to the dead marine plankton and plant life that were the source of these rocks and so-called fossil fuels. The PAHs also occur during partial combustion, as when a candle burns and when a steak is grilled on charcoal.
The scientists began to sense they might be approaching a big discovery when they noted other characteristics of the rock's chemistry and mineralogy. The highest concentrations of PAHs were associated with carbonates. The carbonates, found in the rock fissures, were younger than the rock itself. The magnetite and iron-sulfide particles inside the carbonate globules are in many ways similar to particles produced by bacteria on Earth.

In their planned journal report, the scientists wrote: "None of these observations is in itself conclusive for the existence of past life. Although there are alternative explanations for each of these phenomena taken individually, when considered collectively, particularly in view of their spatial association, we conclude that they are evidence for primitive life on early Mars."
The authors of the report, other than McKay, were Dr. Everett K. Gibson Jr., of the Johnson Space Center; Dr. Kathie L. Thomas-Keprta, of Lockheed Martin in Houston; Dr. Hojatollah Vali, of McGill University; Dr. Christopher S. Romanek, of the University of Georgia's Savannah River Ecology Laboratory in Aiken, S.C.; and Dr. Simon J. Clemett, Dr. Xavier D.F. Chillier, Dr. Claude R. Maechling and Dr. Richard N. Zare, of Stanford University in California.
Dr. Ray Arvidson, a planetary geologist at Washington University in St. Louis, said that McKay had a reputation as an extremely careful scientist and that his findings could be trusted. "If this holds up," Arvidson remarked, "this is pretty darned exciting."
Goldin said NASA "is ready to assist the process of rigorous scientific investigation and lively scientific debate that will follow this discovery."

With the recent detections of planets around other stars and the planned return of robotic spacecraft to Mars, with launchings beginning late this fall, the space agency has stepped up efforts to explore the possibilities of life elsewhere in the universe.
In Goldin's statement about the Martian meteorite, he emphasized that the discovery had nothing to do with the "little green men" of past Martian lore.
"These are extremely small, single-cell structures that somewhat resemble bacteria on Earth," he said. "There is no evidence or suggestion that any higher life form ever existed on Mars."
One member of the discovery team, Zare, a professor of chemistry at Stanford University, said this could be a first step in answering the ages-old question of whether people are alone in the universe and to what extent life is unique to Earth. The meteorite and the recent discoveries of planets around other stars, he said, are changing thinking "from life being special to life being ubiquitous."

Copyright 1996 The New York Times Company
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Reposted by:
Joe (joeschultz@inficad.com)
--- JCQWK [NR!]
* WR 1.31 [NR] * UNREGISTERED EVALUATION COPY

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Dr. Richard Boylan's Comments About Mars Findings

From: rich.boylan@24stex.com
Organization: 24th Street Exchange
Date: Thu, 08 Aug 96 09:49:12 -0800
Subject: Sagan Folds
To: iufo@alterzone.com

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Establishment Science Discovers Extraterrestrial Life (on Mars)
The above should have been the actual headline news at August 7th's NASA press conference. While some might say that the above headline is essentially what NASA said, let's analyze it further.
Dr. Carl Sagan, carefully nurtured as THE spokesman for Science by the intelligence agencies involved in managing Official Denial of UFO reality, yesterday tellingly folded his cards, and made the significant statement that the NASA "discovery" of life on Mars represents "the most significant development in human history." President Clinton in a formal Presidential press conference also underscored for the public the importance the Administration was placing on the NASA life-on-Mars announcement.
Such hyperbole from top spokespersons for a scientific finding (fossilized organic compounds) which the NASA scientists themselves conceded was capable of other interpretations, suggests that the _real story_ underlying yesterday's news conference is not microbes-on-Mars, but the the official start of the Ending of the UFO/ET by the official government.
[The other, rogue, unauthorized, savage UFO Cover-Up, conducted by a private/rogue intelligence compartments consortium, replete with UFO shoot-downs and drugged interrogations of kidnapped civilian experiencers, unfortunately continues.]

The real import (and Administration intent) of yesterday's NASA announcement of at least ancient microbial life on Mars is to soften up the public for further revelations and announcements about extraterrestrial life. Such plans have been in the works for many months, according to reliable sources in contact with Washington insiders in the know. Some opine that the upcoming NASA press conference set for August 13 will reveal that space probe cameras have photographed evidence of _current_ extraterrestrial microbial lifeforms on/under the chilly seas of the moon Europa. Such an announcement further conditions the minds of the uncritical public to accept that extraterrestrial life not only once lived on Mars but actually is alive today.
Further conditioning exercises to be conducted in the near future may well go like the following scenario.

a) NASA announces that extraterrestrial virus lifeforms are bombarding Earth's atmosphere on a daily basis, carried in by meteorites and comets. (Already true, as presented in the sneak Disney Corporation 1995 TV documentary, "Alien Encounter", itself a public conditioning exercise.)
b) NASA, after careful reexamination of several frames from astronaut film of the Moon, determines that "anomalous structures", clearly not natural formations (i.e., ET-made), have been detected. (Naturally this will require NASA to go back to the Moon to see what these darn things are.)
c) NASA's fly-by of Mars rephotographs the Cydonia complex. Careful examination of these new, clear photographs "establishes" that the Face on Mars is not a "trick of light and shadows" as NASA previously thought, but is a weathered and presumably ancient non-natural (i.e., ET-made) monument.
d) Scientists of the federal National Wildlife Service Department, in cooperation with authorities from the Department of Natural Resources of Puerto Rico, announce that DNA analysis of a recently-captured chupacabras reveals that the creature has a genetic structure unlile anything on Earth, and by exclusion is deemed to have arrived from extraterrestrial origin.
e) The Secretary of Defense announcers at a press conference that during routine base-closing inventory procedures at a previously-undisclosed inter-service military installation, a locked storage room was breached and a cryonic preservation unit was discovered to contain a mostly-intact extraterrestrial cadaver, as determined by non-terrestrial DNA. No records can be found as to how the cadaver found its way into this previously-undisclosed military reservation, which had been closed since 1989.
f) A grim-faced second-term President Clinton, flanked by his visibly-shaken wife, announces at a hastily-called Presidential press conference that two extraterrestrial emissaries breached Secret Service security at the White House last night, entered the Presidential bedroom, and communicated to the President that an extraterrestrial flagship carrying Inter-Stellar Federation ambassadors, would be landing within two months at a remote location in the American Southwest, and that the President should convene a group of world leaders to meet with the ET ambassadors, and that he must announce this to the world at once.

A process has clearly begun. It is a Washington truism that by the time the public sees the Government move into action, months if not years of planning have already taken place, and the public can be sure that additional developments, long in planning, will follow.
How close the above admittedly-specualtive scenario will play to the actual unfolding of events we will all have to wait to see.

- Richard Boylan, Ph.D.

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