Dirk Schulze-Makuch - How The “Face On Mars” And Other False Positives Impact The Search For Alien Life

Dirk Schulze-Makuch - How The “Face On Mars” And Other False Positives Impact The Search For Alien LifeWe may have discovered alien life already but rejected the evidence too quickly because it seemed false at first glance. Key TakeawaysPerhaps the most famous "evidence" of life on Mars came from a photograph that supposedly depicted a face on the Red Planet. It was subsequently shown to be nothing but a mountain.The Viking Life Detection experiments and Martian meteorite ALH84001 were both thought to prove the existence of life on Mars, but these were also false positives.Once a claim is judged to be a false positive, it’s difficult to change people’s minds, even if new evidence comes along.