Paranormal
The USA, Europe and Japan have recently sent a flurry of probes towards the alluring red planet for the purpose of gathering more information on it including soil and air composition, traces of subterranean water, microbial life, and whether theentities referred to as 'ice caps' are in fact, dandruff.
History of the Red Planet
We are all well aware that Mars, being our closest planetary neighbor, has been a point of mystery and speculation for hundreds of years. The name "Mars" was given to this planet by the ancient Greeks, who were quite an advanced civilization for their period of time. The Greeks had a well established culture which patronized arts, mathematics, science and astronomy. However, not much funding was ever provided to their space program, most of it being diverted at the last minute, all due to a woman named "Helena," whose face was so horribly ugly, that a thousand ships were launched to escape the place. The space agency, not wanting to lose future funding, in an attempt to show progress, claimed that the red planet in the sky was in fact the God of War, who had a strong affection for a particular chocolate bar, and was thus appropriately named "Mars." They had even unveiled plans of building a large chariot to be sent out to meet the God Mars, and exchange olive branches. Apparently, the only things the Greeks ever gave to other people were olive branches, it being the only thing available in the stores at the last minute. It is a known fact that birthdays were very boring events for Grecians back then.
A lot of time went by before any further progress was made. This is because all the people born in between were extremely stupid, and could think of nothing better to do than to burn people at the stake and write annoying poetry.
Then one fine day, a famous astronomer named Schiaparelli was taking very important observations using his telescope by pointing it at the window of the female undressing in the building across, when he suddenly remembered that he had to submit some scientific observation to the Committee of People Who Pay Money for Scientific Observations, within an hour. In the mix-up that followed, he ended up submitting his drawings of the undressing female to the Committee. The committee of course, questioned him.
Committee: "What are these?"
Schiaparelli: "Mars. I made drawings of Mars."
Committee: "And what's this?"
Schiaparelli: "Uhm... that's her cleavage... er... I mean, those are canals."
Committee: "And this?" (pointing at a nipple)
Schiaparelli: "More canals, in all shapes and sizes. Mars has a lot of canals like that, don't you know?"
Committee: (Trying not to look stupid) "Oh yeah, of course. For amoment, these looked like drawings of a lady undressing in the building across from you."
Schiaparelli: "HA HA HA! That's preposterous."
Committee: "Yes! Jolly funny!"
Then they all went to drink tea and eat crumpets.
The news of this discovery spread like wildfire, and some people applied some logic to conclude that the presence of canals implied that life existed on the planet. But nobody bothered to point their telescope back again at the red planet until very recent times. Equipped with the latest scientific instruments, we have revealed a lot of information about the red planet. The canals, of course, were never found, but astronomers did observe that the north and south poles were coated with dandruff. Well, some call it ice caps, but this debate cannot be settled unless we send over a probe to examine the area.
Which is exactly what has been done!
Nozomi
Good for mating with dragonflies, but that's about it
The Nozomi was an endeavor of the Japanese Space Agency. It faced a lot of delays in reaching Mars, mostly because of the toll booths and long queues at customs in the airports along the way, and a particularly nasty encounter with a 38-eyed alien dragonfly that had attempted to mate with it. Looking at a picture of the Nozomi, one can easily see why a 38-eyed alien dragonfly would find it an attractive mate. As a result, the electrical systems failed and the mission was doomed. It is now the proud and joyous mother of a clutch of 300.
Beagle
The Beagle was the ESA's (European Space Agency) costliest and most ambitious project to put itself in the papers, because nobody knows or has ever heard of the ESA (European Space Agency), much more so because every time ESA (European Space Agency) is mentioned, its full form has to be written along with it, and it, unfortunately, contains the word "Europe".
The Beagle consisted of parts contributed by several nations, so that when it failed, they could blame each other instead of themselves. The hairy armpits were provided by the French, the slick oily exterior by the Italians, and the tea and crumpets by the British. It is rumored that the Germans were excluded from this project because they kept talking about "performing corrective calibrations on the equipment and instruments to prevent failure," and nobody could understand what those huge words meant.
90% of the cost of the project went into paying the British pop band "Blur" for composing a nine-note musical tone that the Beagle would play once it landed on the surface. One can only surmise that no record company in its senses was accepting its dismal music at the time.
On Christmas Day, 2003, the Beagle lost contact with the ESA (European Space Agency), and everyone wondered why. I have performed some research into this and have been able to determine what happened:
Dude, it was supposed to open up...
The software used for the Beagle's decision making was based on a Linux platform, and that of the Airbags was on a Windows platform. While plummeting towards the Martian surface, the command to open up the airbags was sent. Windows, in its helpfulness decided to ask, "Are you sure?" and Linux, in all its defiance, refused to talk to it. The airbags never went off, and the Beagle fell into one of Mars' cleavages.
Or perhaps the Beagle did land on the surface, and started playing Blur's music, but the little green men in the little green neighborhood nearby didn't like having their peace disturbed, so they bashed it to pieces with their little green baseball bats and little green feet.
Beagle Haiku
The beagle plays Blur,
Fateful seconds before it
Is smashed to pieces
The Rovers
NASA has sent out two probes towards Mars, which were to arrive on Mars at about the same time as the Beagle. Both of them look exactly the same. But that doesn't matter to NASA, because it is famous and doesn't need its name explained to people, unlike the ESA (European Space Agency).
Despite what they tell you though, these have failed too. Nothing unusual or interesting happened. They just did.
The Rovers... both equally equipped...
Both equally boring.
And so, we, as humans have achieved the previously unachievable! We have now proven to the other alien races monitoring us, and to ourselves, that there is indeed, no intelligent life on this planet.
