So far the martian soil has yielded little glimmers of hope that there may "have" been some surface liquid water at some distant time (sol). But, that's gone now and it's so cold that the only lakes or rivers on the planet may contain liquid carbon dioxide rather than water.

There doesn't appear to be any living things on Mars and one can wonder if there could be anything alive on any of the other planets. Nowhere else in our solar system is there the necessary conditions for life as we know it.

Even still, the push at NASA to prove its worth by maximizing the significance of an otherwise rather vain effort to find even rudimentary signs of possible life comes to us as a barrage of rocks, boulders and outcroppings with cute names to give the bored public some comic relief.

So far the only martians we know of are the adorable robots, themselves. As far as we can see, the only animate "living" things on the planet were introduced by intelligent design. Perhaps, that's the only way it COULD have happened.

Would the brilliant engineers behind the automatons appreciate us forbidding science teachers from mentioning their role? Would it be more "scientific" to explain the robot's presence on Mars as being the result of some elaborate "natural" process?

Ah, but you say, "We know how they got there!!!". All i can say is, "it's a good thing".

To answer the original question, "Are we alone?". Just the fact that we exist here tells us, "No!" we can't be. Someone put us here along with a lot of other critters and stuff. Who is responsible, then? Someone who must not be limited to living on some planet as we are. Who can design wonderful things beyond our understanding and can even make someone born blind see again. For that story you'll need to grab a Bible and read John chapter 9.

Wayne Hollyoak