Saw this on another board... thought you might enjoy it.

Martian Air Force Denies stories of UFO crash

Gusev Crater(AP) A spokesman for the Martian Air Force said today that rumors of a crashed alien spacecraft said to have come down in the Gusev Crater were entirely false and had been grossly exaggerated by the Martian news media.

Appearing at a press conference today, Col. Carter stated that "the object was, in fact, a harmless high-altitude weather balloon, not an alien spacecraft."

The story broke last week when a major stationed at nearby Gursev Crater Air Force base contacted the Gusev Crater Daily News with a story about a strange, balloon-shaped object with allegedly came down in the nearby desert, "bouncing" several times before coming to a stop, and "deflating in a sudden explosion of alien gases."

Minutes later, General Carter contacted the Daily News to contradict the earlier report. General Carter stated that hysterical stories of a detachable vehicle roaming across the Martian desert were blatant fiction, provoked by incidences involving swamp gas. But conspiracy theorists have condemmed the general's statement as evidence of an obvious government cover-up, "pointing out that Mars no longer has any swamps."

Astronomers interviewed by the Daily News scoffed at the notion that exterrestrial vistors would land in one of the least interesting regions of Mars. "Why wouldn't they land near something obviously important, like the Great Stone Head, instead of in the middle of a vast desert?" one asked. "No form of advanced intelligence would land where there's nothing of interest to observe but rocks."

However local residents were unperturbed by such rational arguments. contending that evidence of alien vistors must have been taken into custody by military personnel.

We'll never win this debate, "Col Carter remarked. "The true believers out there just aren't willing to accept that we're alone in the universe. Nothing we can say or do will ever convince them otherwise."


Keep'em flying



[This message was edited by Migflanker on January 23, 2004 at 12:03 PM.]