The Untold Truth: How The NASA Viking Mission Found Life On Mars DVD is now available on Amazon.com for both purchase and rent. Former NASA Viking Lander astrobiologist Gilbert V. Levin describes in detail how his biology instrument flown on NASA's twin Viking Lander mission found living microbes in the soil of Mars. A new supporting scientific paper supports his conclusion.

NASA/JPL Press Release: Missing Piece Inspires New Look at Mars Puzzle

September 03, 2010 - PASADENA, Calif. -- Experiments prompted by a 2008 surprise from NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander suggest that soil examined by NASA's Viking Mars landers in 1976 may have contained carbon-based chemical building blocks of life.
Read the full story here.

A new paper being published in the Journal of Geophysical Research with the title "Reanalysis of the Viking results suggests perchlorate and organics at mid-latitudes on Mars" by Rafael Navarro-Gonzalez et al shows that the Viking gas chromatograph mass spectrometer (GCMS) actually found a surprisingly significant amount of organic material in Martian soil at both the Viking 1 and Viking 2 landing sites on Mars. This now reopens the door to the results obtained by the Viking biology experiments - a door that has been largely closed for 34 years due to the misinterpretation of the Viking organic analysis by the GCMS. The authors of the new paper conclude sending a life detection instrument to Mars on a future mission should be a high priority.

Another 10 years before NASA send a life detection experiment to Mars?

The prospect of 10 more years without in-situ life detection attempts on Mars, in the face of enthusiasm raised by recent advances in the field of astrobiology, impelled many members of the scientific community to join the authors of this article in formulating a petition to the NASA Decadal Survey calling for inclusion of a life detection mission as one of its priorities for the coming decade. Within a few days, more than 130 cosigners endorsed the petition, which was sent to the NASA Decadal Survey steering committee on 11 May 2010. The text of that petition is presented here (used by permission).

Since going online January 2000 ICAMSR has served as the people's astroenvironmental awareness organization respecting Article IX of the United Nations Outer Space Treaty.

It is likely that life on Mars was discovered by the Viking Labeled Release experiment in 1976 by Gilbert V. Levin and Patricia A. Straat two former NASA astrobiologists. Recent findings of methane plumes on Mars by NASA scientists now seem to confirm this discovery.

"There is no conceivable risk of BSE being transmitted from cows to people"

The Rt. Hon. Stephen Dorrell, Minister of State for
Health Her Majesty's Government 3rd December 1995

The above quote exemplifies the arrogance of how modern science underestimates the power of the tiny microbe and also typifies the views of many in the planetary science community regarding Mars Sample Return.