Ah, so are we all Martians anyway?

Not many know and even less believe that ‘Martians’ already landed on earth 13,000 years ago on a meteorite that had been on a 16-million-year joyride through our solar system. Fragments of that space rock recovered in 1984 from Antarctica — a mere two years after the release of Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster ET: the Extra-Terrestrial! — were declared to contain signs of wormlike fossils in 1996 but did not create a Martian mania. Nor did the discovery of traces of amino acids — one of the main ingredients of life — in meteorites recovered from Australia and the US a century ago establish the presence of ETs in popular consciousness.

Now that researchers at University of Edinburgh say ‘Martians’ have been landing in droves via space dust constantly raining down on earth, will we finally acknowledge aliens have been around for a while? After all, ETs are not obliged to look like Hollywood versions.

The latest contention, of course, bolsters the panspermia theory that comet-borne primitive life forms fell on Earth four billion years ago, sparking life here. Some cultures done of bacteria and microfungus recovered from meteorites have proved to be similar to earthly organisms. So, are minute Martians and other space life whizzing round pollinating planets across the universe? That would make us all Martians.