My answer has two parts. Please read both parts all the way to the end. I promise I’ll try not to bore you to death.

Part One

You won’t like the answer, but this is the answer with which most scientists would agree. What we know about Mars is not a secret to anyone except conspiracy theorists. Here it is in a nutshell:

  1. There is no life on Mars. It’s a dead planet.
  2. Over a billion years ago the planet was warmer and had salty water in some of the craters.
  3. Single celled microbes might have evolved in those waters much like it did on Earth. However, even on Earth billions of years ago there were no plants or vegetation or animals. That only happened recently. It takes life a long time to develop life and billions of years ago neither Mars nor Earth had advanced life.
  4. Mars dried up billions of years ago.
  5. Multicellular life would not have had enough time to evolve on Mars before the planet died, just as on Earth, billions of years ago, there was no multicellular life. Mars just never had enough time to have anything more than microbes.
  6. There is a crater on Mars where we just landed the Perseverance Rover. We know this crater once had a lake inside it way back in prehistoric times. The rover will search for signs that single celled microbes might have once lived there.

We don’t hope to find fossils of bones on Mars or ancient structures built by extinct civilizations. We know that Mars never had vegetation. There will be no fossils of leaves or fish. There might be some chemicals that would indicate microbes lived in that lake.

Part Two

That’s the simple truth of what we know about Mars and if you’re still reading, let me next address the idea that our government is somehow involved in a conspiracy to cover-up any sign of life on other planets. It is not. In fact, our government just spent billions of dollars to conduct a public search for life on Mars with the Perseverance Rover. You can follow the Perseverance on Facebook and YouTube and on the NASA website, links provided. It’s public knowledge. No secrets.

There are other governments that would love to expose the United States if it somehow lied to the rest of the world.

Final Thoughts

What’s happening on Mars is cool. For example, we just flew an unmanned helicopter on Mars! That’s exciting stuff. Why not join the world and watch along with all of us? Watch the videos, follow the news (link provided).