Is There Life After Mars?
Ernest Samuel Llime - 1985, Lindenwood
Intro - This is a
research paper that I wrote for my English class, while attending Queens
College. I also handed it to my Physics professor because it seemed that he
might enjoy it. He actually graded it A+ though I explained to him that this was
kind of extra-curricular. The English grade was A- which was not bad at all. I
was quite flattered and showed it to a few friends, one of whom was so impressed
that he made 100 copies and handed them out everywhere. It is still
quite cute even after all this time, ergo - here it is (minus footnotes.)
The Viking mission, having landed on
Mars quite some time ago, has shattered the dream of millions; all the people
fond of Percival Lowell's vision of "networks of canals" and Martians living on
the red planet. Alas, the probe's evidence, " . . . seems to weigh against
finding even microbes there. "Nevertheless, the possibilities seem endless;
after all, Mars is just a stone's throw away from Earth. The Universe however,
though perhaps not infinite, is of an almost incomprehensible size. So what else
could be out there? And is it intelligent?
There seem to be three different groups with three seemingly different answers
to these questions, involving three very dissimilar ideologies. Interestingly
enough, they are all affirmative in spite of their unequal and contradictory
nature of their basic assumptions. Even though this paper is concerned mainly
with the scientific point of view, it is only fair as well as a part of the
scientific process of investigation, to dwell somewhat on the other views. It is
also fair to point out that the Scientific Method is going to be employed in
looking at the evidence, since it is the only one that can prove its
workability.
The first group that is going to be discussed can justifiably be called the UFO-logian
group because of its association with those kinds of phenomena. The UFO
(Unidentified Flying Object) is a generally accepted acronym for a series of
(thus far) scientifically unexplainable events. In most cases the (photographic)
evidence is of very bad or (written
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