The 1976 Viking 1 Lander seemed to find life on Mars. Scientists
quickly dismissed the data, and seldom mentioned it in later
years. But thirty six years later an article appeared that
claimed Viking was rightÂ—and it was roundly ignored... for
about six weeks. Then the story first appeared in Discovery News
April 12, and since then respected news outlets have carried it
around the world. Small resurgences have happened before, but
have barely broken the surface of 'real' news outlets. What made
this one different? View from Viking 1 on Mars - 1976 To begin
with, the scientists who did this study weren't analyzing the
data itself. The great knock originally had been that other
experiments did not support the results that the radiation
labeled gases experiment showed, because they also showed
Perchlorates, for which no one could find a mechanism other than
contamination. The scientists involved in this study did a
multivariate analysis that focused on the number and
complexities of reactions that occurred with