Alleged Volcanic Eruption on Mars Sparks NASA Cover-Up Conspiracy
![Alleged Volcanic Eruption on Mars Sparks NASA Cover-Up Conspiracy](/wp-content/uploads/Mars_volcano-768x432.jpg)
Conspiracy and speculation erupted across the internet yesterday over an alleged volcanic plume stretching roughly 1,200 miles across the Martian atmosphere. The plume appears to originate from the planet’s supposedly dormant Arsia Mons volcano.
Images of the activity were taken on Sept. 24 by the Mars Express orbiter and later published by the European Space Agency.
According to NASA, volcanic activity on the red planet ceased some 50 million years ago after Earth’s Cretaceous-Paleogene event that killed off the dinosaurs, but some believe this latest imaging shows otherwise.
Spurred by conjecture from a popular YouTube conspiracy channel, claims of volcanic activity on Mars reignited theories of government cover-ups and strange happenings within NASA, the FBI and other controversial government agencies.
Many are pointing to last month’s Sunspot National Observatory shutdown, the switch to a limited “safe mode” on the Hubble and Chandra telescopes, and the sudden failure of NASA’s Mars Curiosity Rover as evidence that strange events occurring on the planet may be intentionally obfuscated.
Arsia Mons is located within a tightly situated line of volcanoes on Mars, collectively known as Tharsis Montes, which lie in the shadow of Olympus Mons – the largest volcano in our solar system (more than twice the size of Mt. Everest).
Arsia Mons happens to be the planet’s second largest volcano in terms of volume and is home to a series of caves NASA has studied as the best places to situate research and habitation modules. Could there be something already underway?
“This project developed a revolutionary system to exploit the novel idea of extraterrestrial cave use” stated a project summary published in 2004, further explaining that two “missions” were tested to gather data.
Arsia Mons is known to have an annual whether phenomenon in which sunlight warms the area around the volcano, bringing small amounts of dust into the air. Rising air currents bring this dust and other fine sediment above the volcano’s caldera into a thick, spiraling cloud that is big enough to be seen by a probe orbiting the planet.
But the latest plume looks nothing like the spiraling cloud recorded from this phenomenon in the past. Instead it appears as more of a streaking trail that’s persisted over the course of weeks.
NASA has attributed the plume to water ice clouds that are gathering over the volcano. The agency says that at certain times of year, the small amounts of water in the atmosphere freeze and condense near areas of high altitude, notably above this volcanic region.
If this is the case, then maybe there’s significantly more water on the red planet than previously believed and we should study the areas it’s sublimating from.
But then again, there’s always some simple explanation from NASA that seems to make everyone’s concerns seem trivial. Is this really just a storm or are they covering up something far greater?
For more on the drips of disclosure coming from NASA’s Mars operations, check out this episode of Deep Space:
The Alternative 3-Secret Space Program Connection
![The Alternative 3-Secret Space Program Connection](/wp-content/uploads/article-migration-image-alternative-3-secret-space-program-connection-768x432.jpg)
In 1977, a British television program titled Science Report: Alternative 3, part of an Anglia TV documentary series, aired and planted the seed of fear about an alien invasion in society at large. The program focuses on the disappearances of prominent scientists, engineers, and astronomers. The speculation is that the Earth is collapsing and will soon be unable to support human life, so these people have been taken by several governments acting together in an intergovernmental Secret Space Program (SSP) with the goal of developing colonies on other planets, using the moon as a way-station.
If you ever have a chance to view the program, it is so convincing that you will want to volunteer for the SSP, pack up your family, and head for Mars. However, there is only one known copy: it is in the possession of Alternative 3’s director. It is thought to be fading and grainy due to the passage of time. All other copies of the program were destroyed as were all contracts and any paperwork referencing the show as if the program never existed.
Although the TV program aired in June of 1977, the producers claimed it was originally intended to air on April Fool’s Day. Workers in the industry were striking, so the air date was postponed. When it did air, the reaction of viewers was reminiscent of the 1938 radio broadcast by Orson Wells of “The War of the Worlds,” which created civil unrest and havoc. The broadcast was meant to be a joke, but thousands of people in the U.S. thought the Earth was being invaded by Martians. They hit the streets in panic, not knowing what to do next or how to escape.
The program was so disturbing it was only shown once in England and once in Australia. The U.S. refused to air the program. It was never shown anywhere again. Even though the directors and producers of Alternative 3 were adamant that it was fiction, questions still abound. Is there some truth to the Alternative 3 theory?
Are there three alternatives for Earth inhabitants in case there is a catastrophic event that threatens the habitability of the planet? Thousands of people disappear every year, never to be heard from again. Could these people have been abducted to develop a Breakaway Civilization on the moon or another planet, like Mars?
Fact or Fiction?
Immediately after it aired, the producers of the program announced it had been fiction. The slot where Alternative 3 aired was one that routinely ran documentary episodes. The title of the series was Science Reports and Alternative 3 was the title of just one segment; it was the last program of the season of the Science Reports.
The program was created by reputable reporters and researchers who were well respected for their documentaries. Why would they risk their reputation by airing such a hoax? Was it really a hoax or was it a disguised message to the public about a secret space program?
A book with the same title, Alternative 3, was subsequently written by Leslie Watkins. It presented some of the theories of the alleged hoax as truth. The book and the television program promoted the idea that astronauts had landed on Mars in 1962 in a joint U.S./U.S.S.R. effort and definitively identified intelligent extraterrestrial life. It also promoted the idea that climate change was just one thing that could soon make the Earth uninhabitable.