Tony mentioned at http://www.fivedoves.com/letters/oct2015/tonye104-2.htm that perhaps "At some point I highly suspect we will be told that we are from Mars, or that we have Martians among us."  It's already started.

NASA has announced it wants to colonize the planet by 2030.  Click here to read the story.  But some claim the government has already done that secretly.  In an article in the New York (click to read), one NASA official claims the government has already sent life to Mars, but did not get into any specifics.  Did he mean a person, a colony, or a squirrel perhaps?

Check out the alleged "Squirrel on Mars" photo from the rover at http://io9.com/nasa-totally-found-a-squirrel-on-mars-and-didnt-tell-a-510490870 . One squirrel is encircled, and at 5 oclock on the circle there appears to be another one with its back to the camera.  Is this a case of pareidolia, or is it actual life on Mars? Well until we actually get VIDEO coming back from Mars and see stuff moving around, I wouldn't jump to too many conclusions just yet.  Maybe NASA put it on the probe to see if it would survive, and perhaps that is what John Grunsfield was talking about in the above NASA article.

But some of the other images make me wonder.  There's a photo of what looks like a woman on the surface of Mars at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/space/11794864/Shadow-on-Mars-appears-to-be-a-woman.html .  Again, this was taken from the rover and is as NASA posted it - not doctored.  The coloration doesn't necessarily blend in with the background, but it is also too blurry and too far away to conclude it is definitely a human figure.  There's a human like figure at http://checkonline4you.com/director-nasa-life-mars-planet-identical-earth/ , but the coloration is nearly identical to the surroundings; the same color as the rocks in the area.  I believe that photo is a rock formation, although some people might claim it is a statue.  But I don't think it is a live person.

I once heard a radio interview with 3 people who claimed that the government transported them to Mars and back.  They said the government has sent people there and that they live underground, not on the surface.  They claimed Mars had an atmosphere, but it was thinner than earth's.  Not sure if I believe them or not, but they had some interesting stories they told of their alleged trip there.  Overall, I don't plan to be a pioneer to go there.  I'll wait until we actually publicly send people there and news comes back before I form too much of an opinion.

However, the photos that have come back from the rover don't show a crater filled surface like the moon.  The moon has craters everywhere because there is no atmosphere to cause asteroids heading towards it to burn up.  Most space debris that fall into the earth's atmosphere burn up before they hit the ground.  The comparative lack of craters on Mars might suggest there is something of an atmosphere there.  In a few decades, we might have a more accurate answer.  For now, I wish we had video instead of just still pictures to better assess the images we are seeing from the rover and weed out the possibility it is just a case of pareidolia - the tendency to see animated figures in rock formations, clouds, water, etc.

Shalom,

Joe