Well, we really started to wonder when the 2:30 (Eastern Standard Time) mission briefing, a very critical briefing which occurred shortly after the landing and just before the first pictures were supposed to be provided to the public, was inexplicably delayed until about 2:36. The TV screen went blank, then the mission briefing message was updated with the new time. Well, we were really suspicious at this point, and well, you know we're pretty good buddies with the Colonel's jeep driver, so we asked him. He told was what really happened.

You see, the Colonel knows somebody who's got a friend at NASA and he says that what happened was just what we suspected! Some kind of Martian creature popped up in front of the camera as it was looking over this strange vehicle that just dropped out of the sky. NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory just barely avoided putting this image up on the Internet and the NASA channel. Boy, some government agent guy who was planted at JPL to keep an eye on things saw this Martian creature thing and immediately put in effect a secret plan that was produced just for this very contingency! Remember that attractive blonde lady with the headset who seemed to be running things? Well, according to the Colonel's jeep driver, "she" was really a "he" in drag. Part of the disguise, you see!

Anyway, the first thing they did was to preplace the live feed with a tape of the control room that they had taken earlier in the day. You can tell, because the pizza box on the table in the center of the room suddenly was replaced by a box of doughnuts! And instead of drinking sodas, all of sudden, everyone is holding a cup of coffee! They kept this recording going until some secret government agents were able to seal off the building so that an emergency meeting could be held to tell everyone to act like nothing happened! And they also had simulated pictures that they produced in a joint project with the producers of Capricorn One! These pictures were all ready to be displayed from a secret section of the NASA computers, just in case they needed them! That's what they started showing once they came back to the live feed from the control room.

It was close. One of those dippy scientists almost gave it away at one of the press conferences, answering questions for reporters. He explained how it took something like 100 little explosions to fire the bolts and cable cutters to do things like deploy the parachute, inflate the balloons, open the panels, etc. He then said that the Martian watching it come out of the sky saw something that sounded like a bunch of firecrackers going off. He sort of muffled this to cover up his mistake. He later claimed that he said that a Martian would have seen something that sounded like a bunch of firecrackers going off. The Colonel's jeep driver says this guy no longer works at JPL!

And get this! The Colonel's jeep driver says that the guy who's got a friend at NASA also knows somebody in the JPL image processing section. You see, they were hoping that once the Martian went away, they could switch back to the live pictures. Well, guess what! That dumb old Martian, picked up the rover vehicle and walked off with the freakin' thing!! So now, NASA and JPL were really up the creek without a rover!! They had to use all those pictures in the secret section of the government computers in order to keep the public happy. This guy in the JPL image processing section says that they are working like madmen, 20 hour shifts, to produce new pictures fast enough to make the public think they are all live!

And that's not all! He says that they tracked the rover for about 20 minutes until they lost the tracking signal. You see, this rover thing has got all kinds of electronic radars and tracking devices. Well, this Martian thing took off cross country with the rover and they were able to track it. When they lost the signal, the rover was approximately 30 miles from the lander! I mean, do the math. 30 miles in 20 minutes. That is 90 miles per hour! This goddam Martian was traveling on foot, or whatever the hell those Martians use for feet, at 90 miles per hour! That's going to make it pretty hard to fight these Martians if we ever have to go to war against them to get our rover back! The Colonel's jeep driver says that the Army has already started work on a secret project to come up with some sort of jetpack for soldiers to wear on Mars in order to put them on even footing with these Martians in a ground war!

And as if that isn't enough, the Colonel's jeep driver says something else is up. Remember those producers of Capricorn One that he says helped NASA fake the original photos that were stored away in that secret section of NASA's computers? Well, the Colonel knows a guy in some really secret department of the National Security Agency. Well, I'm not supposed to tell, but you see, this guy in the NSA overheard someone say that "those Capricorn guys are history!" And he heard that the producers of Capricorn One have moved to some South American country, and they haven't been seen since! It's like their houses are suddenly empty, the cars are gone, the dogs are gone, the newspapers are collecting in the driveway, and their neighbors haven't seen them since. He says one neighbor claims to have heard trucks pull up in the night, there was a lot of muffled shouting, banging and other loading noises. The next morning, nada. Nothing. Gone. Outta here!

So, the Colonel's friend at NASA says that all the bigwigs in NASA, JPL and the government are just about ready to pop a gasket. They've been telling the public that every two years they are going to send another lander to Mars. They don't know what they're going to do now since it looks like there really are Martians out there, and they don't know if they can keep it covered up, especially once we go to war with these no good Martians to get that rover back! You see, the Colonel's friend at NASA says that rover thing cost plenty and President Clinton is really pissed that the Martians have got it! At least, that's what the guy at NASA thinks.

But, you see, here comes the really good part. You see, the Colonel has, well, let's just call her a "lady friend". Well, this lady friend knows Paula Jones, and she says that Paula Jone's lawyers have discovered that critical damning evidence in her lawsuit against President Clinton has disappeared! That's right! According to this lady friend, the evidence disappeared right before this Pathfinder thing was launched! Well, this all seemed pretty suspicious so the Colonel's jeep driver checked with the Colonel's friend at NASA, and sure enough, there seems to be a connection!

Remember at the press conference how they said that the retro-rockets didn't fire exactly when they expected them to and how they speculated that this was an indication that they didn't know as much as they thought about the strength of Martian gravity and the density of the Martian atmosphere. Well the guy at NASA says that's the public story, but in actuality, it turns out that the Pathfinder was heavier than what was programmed into its computers. So, the computers had the weight wrong and they computed a bad fire time for the retro-rocket! The NASA guy says they don't know why the Pathfinder was over-weight.

Well, here's the clincher! It seems that secret government agent who was in drag in the control room had stolen this evidence that's missing under direct orders from the White House! The Colonel's buddy over at NSA says that the agent was then put on the Pathfinder project and he/she needed a place to stash this evidence until he/she could get it to the White House lawyers. Well, he/she stashed in that rover vehicle, but then couldn't get it back before the launch! Yep, you got it! That incriminating evidence is now in the hands of some freakin' 90 mile an hour Martian bastard, and the President wants it back! So you see, that's why we're going to be going to war against the Martians!