JANUARY 24, 2014

      The miracle, if you subscribe to the Washington Post, was shown on page 3 this week. It consists of two black and white photographs of snippets of the planet Mars--of the same snippet, in fact, maybe two feet or so square.  One shows a jelly doughnut sized rock that wasn't there for photo 1, shot twelve days ago. It's there now.

      Did Martians put it there?  We haven't found any Martians yet and the camera that sent back these pictures has been poking around on Mars for about ten years now.  Was it accidentally kicked into the frame by one of us humans?  Oh, no--we've never set foot on Mars--only our machines have.

     The humans here on Earth who specialize in space, in Mars, have theories, of course. This mysterious rock has a name among these scientists--Pinnacle Island. How did it get where it is?  Well, they think, a nearby impact might have flung a piece of debris into the picture or, more likely, they think, one of Opportunity's six wheels could have flicked it up. Certainly possible, though I'd love to believe in phantom Martians lurking about unseen by our machines.

     The U.S. manned space program is on pause just now.  Too expensive.  We need the money for other things.  Like wars?