Before becoming full time folk musicians, one of us worked for NASA on the Viking project which was the first (and second) successful landing of a spacecraft on the planet Mars. We changed careers for the money!

With all the BS we hear about ancient civilizations on Mars, two points are always overlooked.

First, the Viking project involved literally thousands of individuals (most of whom worked for one of dozens of contractors) from top scientists to grunt labor. Keeping anything a secret would have been totally impossible. News of every event that occurred spread like wild fire throughout the project.

Second, why would NASA keep it a secret? If any sign of life, past or present, no matter how insignificant were to be discovered, NASA would broadcast it to the world as loudly as possible since this would increasd their funding immensely.

During the first few days after the first landing, one of the life detection (chemistry) experiments began to show positive results. In spite of efforts to keep this quiet for even a few days until further analysis could confirm the results (which it didn't) the media was claiming that life was discovered on Mars.

Bev and Jerry