I went to a MUFON meeting tonight -- my first. Local researcher Vince White (with whom I'd previously communicated with only via email and phone) presented a fascinating, articulate overview of the possibility that Mars hosts large forms of life. (While I've been highly skeptical of related claims, there is a case to be made. But until NASA/JPL engages the media in a forthcoming dialogue, we'll only see a perpetuation of the contemporary "conspiracy" mythos.)





Of course, one must concede that perhaps there really is a conspiracy to downplay evidence of life on Mars. As I've pointed out elsewhere, the admission of life probably wouldn't benefit JPL, who controls the US' robotic presence on Mars. And if the UFO phenomenon represents a form of nonhuman intelligence, suddenly revealing Mars as a world capable of harboring "forests" of tenacious plantlife would invite uncomfortable questions, many beyond the scope of established authority.





Fortunately, unlike the endless pontificating that surrounds the issue of extraterrestrial intelligence, the reality of Martian flora is readily testable. But will JPL's geologists -- conditioned to accept Mars as a dead planet -- be able to discern biological processes from geophysical phenomena?





The prospect of large-scale organic structures on Mars is decidedly fringe, especially for initiates. Armed only with black-and-white imagery, it may be surprisingly easy for analysts to misinterpret surface formations according to comfortable geological assumptions -- even if reconciling the "explanation" with the data means groping for credibility and straining "skepticism" into a particularly fragile caricature.