A few days ago, we published an article where a former NASA scientist, Gilbert Lavin, claimed that NASA had found unequivocal signs of life on Mars in 1976.

Levin explains in an article published in Scientific American, that data curves pointed to the detection of microbial respiration on the red planet. “The curves of Mars were similar to those produced by the LR tests of soils on Earth. It seemed that we had finally answered the ultimate question,” he revealed.

The LR experiment was led by Levine. Surprisingly, it turned out with four positive results supported by five varied controlled, streamed down from the twin Viking spacecraft which had landed on the surface of Mars around 4,000 miles apart. The LR took samples of the Martian soil that contained organic compounds and then looked for carbon dioxide.

Amazingly, the results showed that the carbon dioxide was being regenerated “possibly by microorganisms similar to those on Earth.” In other words, it seemed that Mars was not the desolate planet we thought it was, and some kind of life was there waiting for us to identify it.

Despite the astonishing evidence the Viking landers had discovered, for reasons, we are not able to comprehend, over the 43 years since the Viking landers set foot on Mars, none of NASA’s subsequent Mars missions carried a life-detection instrument in order to follow up with the results gathered by the Viking landers.

Instead of searching for life on the planet now, the agency decided it would be more prudent to determine whether Mars had a habitat suitable for life as we know it.

Now a spokesman for the US space agency has presented the agency’s side of the story.

Speaking to Fox News, NASA spokesman Allard Beutel explained how “the general opinion of the vast majority of the scientific community is that the results of the Viking mission experiments alone do not reach the level of extraordinary evidence.”

As noted by Beutel in an email to Fox News, one of the agency’s main objectives remains the search for life in the universe. “Although we have yet to find signs of extraterrestrial life, NASA is exploring the solar system and beyond to help us answer fundamental questions, including whether we are alone in the universe. From studying water on Mars, probing promising ‘oceans worlds,’ such as Enceladus and Europa, to looking for biosignatures in the atmospheres of planets outside our solar system, NASA’s science missions are working together with a goal to find unmistakable signs of life beyond Earth.”

But the answer presented by NASA is deceiving in a way.

Just because “something is not believed by the majority of the scientific community” does not mean its falser, and nor does it take away the importance of the discovery made by the Viking Landers.

In fact, many things that were not accepted by the bulk of the scientific society in the past turned out to be true and are now accepted as realities.