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    Martian Voices
    Martian Voices
    Martian Voices
    Ebook120 pages1 hour

    Martian Voices

    By Nelson Ancalmo

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    About this ebook

    While surveying the Martian landscape for future manned missions, the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit stumbles on a race of martians that live underground. To everybody’s amazement, this well developed society is made of tiny individuals who desperately try to communicate with the rover. This discovery has a profound effect on the plans for Mars colonization by humans.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNelson Ancalmo
    Release dateMay 19, 2014
    ISBN9781311261786
    Martian Voices
    Author

    Nelson Ancalmo

    Nelson Ancalmo M.D. was born in San Salvador, El Salvador, Central America. After finishing his Medical School, he traveled to the United States to complete his training in Cardio-Vascular Surgery. Presently he is retired and lives in Austin, Texas where he devotes his free time to writing, graphic design, astronomy and music. e-mail: nancalmo@yahoo.com

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      Book preview

      Martian Voices - Nelson Ancalmo

      PROLOGUE

      We, the homo sapiens, the so called modern humans, have lived on this planet for the last two hundred thousand years. During this short period of evolution, we have been transformed from nomads wandering in search of food, to hunters stalking their prey; from discoverers in quest of the unknown, to conquerers in pursue of power and wealth; from passive observers of the wonders of nature, to scientists and investigators attempting to unravel its mysteries. But during all this wonderful time of transformation, we have been bounded to live together in this small planet of ours. Earth has been mankind only place of abode.

      On October 4, 1957, the Russians launched Sputnik-1, the first man-made object that orbited around the Earth. A new frontier had been discovered, the highway to the Heavens was opened and there was nothing that could stop the human desire for adventure and discovery. Since that date, in the span of only fifty-seven years, we have sent robotic spacecrafts to explore every planet in our solar system, and also their most interesting moons, and we have done this not once, but multiple times. We have also surveyed other extraordinary worlds, like comets and asteroids. And in very place we have visited, we have found alien landscapes that in the past, were only the product of the imagination of science-fiction writers. With each new finding, the thirst for knowledge grew more intense and stimulated even more the desire to go beyond our present limits.

      On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin Jr, landed their fragile lunar module, called the Eagle, on the moon. They became the first humans to walk on the surface of another planet, and if only for a brief period of two and a half hours, Man was no longer bounded to this Earth.

      Then, after severals visits to our satellite, that spirit of exploration implanted eons ago in our genes, made us feel unsatisfied, and so, we began looking for our next target, well beyond our moon.

      Mars, has captured the imagination of sky-watchers, astronomers, scientists and science-fiction writers since the first time man lifted his eyes to the sky and saw this red object moving across the Heavens.

      As the reader knows, Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, it’s about half the size of the Earth. It was named after the Roman God of war and it is nicknamed the Red Planet because the iron oxide prevalent on the surface gives it a reddish appearance.

      In several features it is very similar to Earth. It is a rocky planet, it has an atmosphere, polar caps, seasons, climate changes, impact craters, volcanoes, etc. But it lacks one important thing that has allowed humans to survive on this Earth: Mars doesn’t have a magnetic shield to protect it from the deadly solar radiation, and as a result, the solar wind has stripped most of the atmosphere from the planet. What is left, consists of about ninety-six per cent carbon dioxide, the rest is a mixture of argon, nitrogen and traces of oxygen.

      From the various surveyors and rovers sent, we know that Mars is not inhabited, at least that is the current thinking, but so far, all our explorations have been limited to the surface of the planet. What if there were large caverns inside the Martian crust? Recent high resolution photographs taken, have shown the existence of lava tubes that seem to communicate with caves deep under the Martian surface.

      Could it be possible for life to find a way to develop in an underground environment seeking protection from the solar radiation? And where is it written that oxygen is an absolute requirement for life? We know from various examples of extremophiles found here on Earth, that life can evolve in the most extreme conditions. Some microorganisms called capnophiles are known to thrive in the presence of high concentrations of carbon dioxide.

      So why should Mars be any different? What can prevent some forms of life to evolve and develop four or five hundred feet under the Martian surface? At such depths, they would be protected from the solar radiation, with a climate fairly stable, and evolution, the master of all creations, can very easily find a way that allow them to breathe carbon dioxide, it is all a matter of using a different metabolic pathway.

      We also know that there is water in Mars, most of it in the polar caps. It is estimated that if the volume of water-ice in the South polar cap, were to be melted, it would be sufficient to cover the entire planet to a depth of thirty feet. But water also has been found in different areas just under the Martian soil, and there is clear geological evidence that in the past, water was flowing in large quantities on the planet’s surface. Also a permafrost mantle has been found to stretch from the poles to a latitude of about 60 degrees. It is then reasonable to assume that a race living underground should have easy access to liquid water, the universal requirement for life.

      The picture on the cover of this book, is a photo montage. The original, taken by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit on November 2007, is a mosaic of multiple photographs re-assembled to create a panoramic view of that section of the Martian landscape. When the entire panoramic photograph is observed, it is easy to overlook a small figure sitting on a Martian rock on the left margin of the landscape. It appears diminutive, almost imperceptible. But when this portion of the photograph is enlarged, the image becomes clear. It is a humanoid figure with the right arm raised like it is pointing towards something.

      Several explanations have been given trying to convince the public that the figure seen in the picture, is just a tiny rocky formation with a humanoid appearance. It has been said that this is just another example of pareidolia, the human propensity to see patterns in random shapes, like finding the image of Jesus Christ in the clouds or seeing the Virgin Mary on the trunk of a tree.

      Maybe it is as they claim, and the figure in question, is nothing but a rock that the Martian wind throughout the ages has managed to sculpt in that particular shape. But what is difficult to explain is that a sequence of photographs taken at a later date from the same perspective, failed to show the humanoid figure. Was it swept away by the Martian wind? Was it covered with Martian soil after a sudden dust storm? Or maybe it simply ran away in panic, after being confronted with a gigantic alien form, the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit.

      This is the story, told for the first time, of the tiny Little Green People of Mars.

      Lakeway, Texas, April 2014.

      Chapter 1

      I have never seen your mother so uptight, Moki. She hardly touched her food, then she got up and went to her room without saying a word, very strange of her.

      I know, father, she’s been that way since she came from, oh, oh…

      Come on, finish what you were going to say, since she came from where?

      Moki realized that he had made a mistake and that there was no way he was going to fool his father, so he lower his head and almost in a whisper told him what he saw.

      I was collecting seeds in the upper level garden, when I saw her coming down one of the top-side tunnels. She looked just as you see her now, nervous, almost scared.

      Did she see you? Did she say anything to you?

      No, father, I was almost hidden behind one of the large rocks and I was a good distance from her. Do you think she went outside? Oh my Most Holy Spirit!

      Don’t say that, you know she wouldn’t dare to do it, she has no reason to risk her life outside.

      I guess you have no choice but to ask her, only she can tell you.

      Kaifa walked up to their bedroom and found it almost in

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