What's Mars without Bowie?

“Get David Bowie on the line and let him know that life on Mars just became a little more plausible…”

So begins an article on Slate.  The text is actually in regard to the discovery of new microbial forms of life right here on Earth.  These microbes in question were found in South America, existing in regions previously thought to be inhospitable to life; areas of rocky terrain, thin atmosphere, and high amounts of solar radiation. 

In other words, pretty much just like Mars.

Ah, the “life on Mars” meme arises once more.  More than any other planet, humanity has placed its bets for extraterrestrial life as most likely being on Mars.  The notion has been around for…well a long time.  In searching for another pensee or two on this topic, I came across a pretty nifty hub.  It collects the work of many who have speculated about life on Mars, including a few obscurities both familiar and unfamiliar to me.

In the familiar category, there were early claims that Nikola Tesla had received signals from Martians and then there is Alternative 3.  Related to that latter subject is Alfred Lambremont Webre, an author and lawyer who runs the web site Exopolitics.  The site contains reference to testimony by two men who assert that they were in a "Mars training class" with now-President Barack Obama.  In fact, they claimed to have bumped into Obama in 1981 and then in 1983 while at the American base on Mars.  Good stuff, eh?

And of course there's Richard Hoagland.  Hoagland is an author and conspiracy theorist whose platform states that there were once civilizations on both Mars and our Moon.  In fact, we are descendants of refugees from Mars.  He points to the obligatory "structure" formations in the Cydonia region, such as the so-called pyramids and the face.  I'm rather saddened that Hoagland is cited on this matter while the hub contained a startling absence of the work of the late, great Mac Tonnies.

I was surprised yet again that the list of material ended with David Bowie.  Of course Bowie had the song "Life On Mars," one of my favorites, off of Hunky Dory and then the whole Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars business, but there is apparently more to it than just those aspects.  Woody Woodmansey, drummer for the Spiders From Mars, joined Scientology in the early 1970s.  Scientologists apparently believe that we go to Mars when we die.  For processing, or...something like that.  There you go.  It's a forced connection between Bowie and Mars but it's another connection.

Forget going there after you die, can I get there now?  Set myself up a hut in Cydonia?  Wonder if DishNetwork can beam signals out that far?



Follow me on Twitter: @Jntweets