Since childhood I have heard tales of little green men, flying in exotic saucer-shaped vehicles, who have landed at random on the earth. They have "captured" some earth-people, spirited them into their spacecraft, scared the daylights out of them and let them go to tell a trembling world of its impending doom at the hands of Martian forces. These UFO's have been sighted in numerous areas of the country and the stories told receive wide circulation.

For many years the scientific community has contributed to this phenomenon by asserting that Mars, of all the planets in our solar system, is capable of sustaining life. At no time were more scientists making these claims than around the middle of July, 1976. This nation was about to land its first camera bearing craft on the surface of Mars. Few newspapers or newscasts did not include some information on the speculative claims of those scientists in charge of the mission. The Amarillo Daily News was no different than your local newspaper.

It was not many years ago, when missions were undertaken to land men on the moon, that the public was told we could expect to find evidences of life and the answers to the origin of our universe when men explored the surface of the moon. However, after landing and failing to find evidence of life on the lunar surface, space scientists reacted quickly. They explained that life could certainly be found on Mars. So, off we go to explore the Martian surface.

The Associated Press quoted one scientist who praised "the thousands of persons involved in the eight year project." It took eleven months of flight to get the craft to the surface of Mars. The distance was 213 million miles. The pictures that were taken of Mars, traveling at the speed of light (186,000 miles per second), took 19 minutes to reach the earth. In anxious expectancy, a world awaited the historic event. Would life be found? Would we see little men running in terror as they were being invaded by earthlings? Would there be trees, grass and water? The cameras were activated, pictures were printed line-by-line at the Pasadena Jet Propulsion Laboratory, engineers whooped, cheered and cried, and the proud announcement was made that we had pictures of a "landscape which looks like the Arizona desert without plants or animals" (my emphasis--LW). The national press was persistent. They asked scientist Thomas Mutch if, not seeing any signs of life -there, he still believed that it would be found. Apparently with straight face, he replied, "The odds (of Martian life) certainly haven't gone down since the Viking landing." Another scientist said that simply because we have not seen life, does not mean that it is not there! Is that not wonderful?

i was impressed by the fact that Martian deserts are certainly different from Earth deserts. One can occasionally see a prairie dog or a jackrabbit out here on the Texas desert. Non-Scientist Lewis Willis of Amarillo, Texas conjectures, however, that Martian prairie dogs and jackrabbits are probably more intelligent than Earth prairie dogs, jackrabbits, and, possibly, space scientists. Thus, these Martian creatures likely only come out at tunes when cameras are turned off. The only other possibility is that they do not exist, but to the scientific mind this is utterly unthinkable! I am disappointed: I hoped to see a Martian desert cactus!

I do not know about you, but I am getting tired of looking at space rocks. It is beyond being funny that millions of tax dollars are being spent in efforts to prove the hypotheses of godless, atheistic scientists whose aim it is to gafher any remote shred of information which might be used to discredit the inspiration of the Bible and the affirmations of religionists. Explorations to enhance the well-being of humanity have a definite place in society. Very few, if any, religionists oppose such efforts. But, we should all cry out against such efforts when the aim is to sustain the presuppositions of infidels!

Men have spent their lives searching the depths of this earth to sustain their contentions that the race evolved. The only difference now is that we have gained the technology to examine the far reaches of space. And, the search remains the same: An Explanation For Evolutionary Life. I recently read several quotations from the pen of R. L. Whiteside which seem appropriate just here. He wrote, "A confessed missing link in any theory proves it to be a guess" (Doctrinal Discourses, p. 63). "It may not amount to much but it is my opinion that the man who sprang from an ape should not have landed in a professor's chair" (p. 26). "If man did come from the lower animals, and there is such a thing as reversion to original species, then we have incontestible evidence that some men came by way of the donkey family" (p. 68).

Perhaps Whiteside had some pertinent advice for the intellectuals of our day. Though he wrote several years ago, he cautioned: "Every person should so cultivate his mind that when he takes off his hat there will still be some real value above his ears" (p. 73). Let the space scientists take note. Some of us are becoming suspicious!!

As the patriarch David said, "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork" (Psa. 19:1). God placed Mars 213 million miles out in space and so ordered its state that men could launch a probe of its surface, after flying eleven months just to get there. Not wanting to be difficult but I wonder what these scientists would have said to the taxpaying American if, before 11 months had expired, Mars had decided by evolutionary processes to move a few billion miles to the west. This did not happen because the power of God kept Mars in its proper place. The heavens do declare the glory of God and the foolishness of men! Gentlemen, your desperation is showing!

Truth Magazine XXI: 16, pp. 248-249
April 21, 1977