A few weeks ago, the rover Perseverance found potential signs of life on Mars. Again.

I’m getting tired of scientists getting so worked up about potential life on Mars. First, it was potential signs of water on Mars. Next, it was potential gases in the atmosphere.

This time, did they find a potential E. T., or at least a single potential Reese’s Piece?

No. Of course they didn’t. Perseverance discovered two special rocks, vivianite and greigite. Apparently, those minerals could be byproducts of the metabolic processes of microorganisms.

In other words, space germs might poop rocks. These rocks, specifically. Or, you know, not.

While NASA scientists might be screaming “Wow!” all I can come up with is a lackluster “That’s it?”

If microorganism excrement is what we pay NASA billions of dollars to discover, I suggest we demand our tax money be spent on other purposes.

For example, on buying me a lifetime supply of Reese’s Pieces. It’d be significantly cheaper than funding interplanetary exploration, and I could even dress up as E. T. from time to time.

Vivianite and greigite are significantly less tasty than Reese’s Pieces. At least, I think they are. I wouldn’t know that for sure, since no one’s been on Mars to taste them.

Regardless of how Martian soil tastes, it’s something that Perseverance samples a lot of.

Perseverance, or Percy, drills into lots of rocks in Martian soil. Some of these rocks even have names, like Rochette.

Again, I don’t know why we’re paying NASA to name a bunch of space rocks. I could name them just as well: Rocky. Rocky II. Rocky III. Rocky Balboa. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

Simple. Memorable. And I’d do it for half the cost NASA pays its astrologers. But will NASA offer me a potential position as a namer of space things? That’s a definite no.

Percy digs up a lot of dusty treasures and rich dirt. Or maybe it’s the other way around. It’s found signs of gold, opals, and regular run-of-the-mill soil.

But it has never yet dug up definitive proof of life on Mars, like a T. rex skeleton or even a McDonald’s receipt.

I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty certain that if McDonald’s can open a restaurant in the Arctic (they have a location in Tromsø, Norway), then they could open one on Mars.

If there’s no Mars McDonald’s, then it probably stands to reason that there’s no life on Mars. At that point, what would aliens visit for?

So I propose that NASA stop announcing it has found potential proof of life on Mars. I propose they announce it when they really, finally, definitely find it.

In the meantime, we might as well pay attention to life on Earth. What a wonderful, beautiful, and strange form of life it is.

Not only do we have bacteria that can poop vivianite and greigite (okay, so maybe I’m simplifying a bit here), but we have stingrays and lemurs and all kinds of animals and insects.

Most incredibly, we have people. People are astounding, amazing, awesome creatures. They’re also disgusting, destructive, and dangerous. And many of them like alliteration.

No matter how much I pick on them, NASA scientists are people, too. People who get excited about life on planets other than our own.

All I want is to tamp down that excitement just a little, to save it for a time when it really counts.

And when there are really signs of life discovered on Mars, we’ll have that much more of a reason to smile.

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Copyright 2025 Alexandra Paskhaver, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Alexandra Paskhaver is a software engineer and writer. Both jobs require knowing where to stick semicolons, but she’s never quite; figured; it; out. For more information, check out her website at https://apaskhaver.github.io.