Mars May Contain Rocks! – Investigative Journalism 101

After years and millions of dollars of research covert NASA operatives have come to the conclusion that Mars, planet 4 in our solar system, may actually contain rocks. Initial NASA findings after the Mars Lander touched down on the red planet suggested that the planet was entire constructed out of metal, composites and “space-aged” plastics in an almost organized and exact layout but forensic analysis by stalwart grad-students, skeptics and nay-sayers revealed a seemingly random scattering of rock and other inorganic natural material.

Gordon Clancy, a post-graduate student at Barnard College for Women stirred the pot last week when he theorized that Mars may have been visited by stellar travelers with huge spaceships made out of rocks and those “ships crashed, and shit like that. And they, like, scattered their rock-parts all over when they, like, blew up and shit. And then their buddies in rock ships came to rescue them and they crashed and then more rock-ships came and crashed and oh man!” He was then restrained.

NASA officials were quick to silence these theories. Astrophysics guy Bernard Saint was quoted as saying, “What? Rock-ships? No. We’re quite sure that the planet is a giant geodesic dome made by some greater being or race of planet building titans. Any other idea is ludicrous. There are no rocks on Mars. Period. And shit.”

Ex-Russian cosmonaut Yuri Demlananovakovski was quoted in Popular Scientists as quoting “I drove an armored personnel carrier into Hungary in 1956 and a tank into Czechoslovakia in 1968. There were no rocks in those places. What makes you think there are rocks on Mars?” He was then sedated.

This reporter made the trip to a back alley telescope shop to visit a shadowy group of amateur astronomers calling themselves “Shadowy Amateur Astronomers” but was turned away when I found out they had made the trek to my house and were waiting in the driveway. A quick check revealed that these people were a waste of my time and I asked them to leave but not before replacing the coffee-maker one of them had not so covertly stolen.

This reporter then traveled to Houston after this reporter received an email telling how to extend the length of this reporters’ penis. On the way I ran into an ex-NASA “scientist” at a “Strip-o-Rama” just outside of “Nashville” and after a few Zombies and good-times he revealed to me that NASA had been hiding the true nature of the “Red Planet”. He borrowed $20 from me for “Smokes” and then informed me that there was a time 8 to 15 months after the initial Mars Lander “Landing” when questions arose as to the true nature of Mars (and this reporters reputed “over-use” of “quotation marks”.) Close ups of several seemingly random trapezoidal structures revealed a rough, textured surface with pieces broken off and scattered nearby, almost as though the structure was really natural, weathered and wind-battered. The man then removed an envelope from his natural, weathered and wind-battered golf jacket, handed it (the envelope, not the golf jacket) to me then passed out. He was then robbed by some youths as I cowered behind a car. I waited until the youths left the scene then opened the envelope. A match book with “If you can draw this turtle you could have a career as an artist!” written on the inside cover. I questioned the sanity of using a large manila envelope to carry a match book then continued on to Houston.

NASA officials granted this reporter an interview where it was revealed to this reporter that the man I had gotten the matchbook from was not an ex-NASA scientist but in fact “the weird guy who used to push the snack cart around.” An official with the PR department of NASA revealed “We at NASA try to dig deep into the vast array of data that our probes send back to us every second of every minute of every hour of every day of…..” This reporter interrupted him and scolded him for being overly dramatic and he launched back with “Someone who refers to himself as this reporter has no business scolding me for anything!” He continued on after this reporter apologized.

“Our probes have revealed many fantastic things about our solar system. Things that would have gone unknown forever if it wasn’t for our complete waste of taxpayer’s money. For example, did you know that there are approximately two Tim Horton’s doughnut franchises for 10 square kilometers in Southern Ontario? Also, Paris Hilton likes sunbathing topless on the roof of her Manhattan condo? Amazing stuff!”

I left his office with a much clearer understanding of how these things work. On my way back home from Houston I hypothesized about the Red Planet (or Le Grande Roc Rouge as it is known at the bowling alley) and how it might actually be made entirely of rock. And that rock might have been shaped by millions of years of solar winds, passing celestial bodies and the mighty gravitational pull of Sol, our sun. How it was unlikely that it was metal, composites, space aged plastic or Lego ™ for that matter. How Mars was a beautiful, mysterious and wonderful embodiment of all that the universe had to offer if we just went out and looked. But then the peyote wore off and I threw up.