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Until a single, exact, indubitable scientific proof of the phenomenon—and many others—is produced, no one has the right to discard an explanation within the bounds of credibility without giving his reasons. Our knowledge of the planets in our solar system is pretty comprehensive; Mars is the only planet where 'life' in our sense of the word might exist and then only in limited quantities. Man has set the theoretical boundary to the possibility of life in his sense; this boundary is called the ecosphere. In our solar system only Venus, the Earth and Mars lie within the limits of the ecosphere. Nevertheless, we should remember that the determination of the ecosphere is based on our conception of life and that unknown life is by no means necessarily bound to our premises for life. Until 1962 Venus was considered as a possible home for life, that is until Mariner II got within about 21,000 miles of Venus. According to the information it transmitted, Venus can now be ruled out as a supporter of life. It emerged from Mariner II's reports that the average surface temperature on both light and dark sides was 420 (deg) C. Such a temperature means that there could be no water, but only lakes of molten metal on the surface. The popular idea of Venus as the twin sister of the earth is over and done with, even though the carburetted hydrogen present could be a culture-medium for all kinds of bacteria. become ‘is scarcely conceivable’. For after the successful reconnaissance mission by Mariner IV we must concede, even if reluctantly, that the possibility of life on Mars is not unlikely. It is also within the bounds of possibility that our neighbour Mars had its own civilisation untold millennia ago. In any case the Martian moon Phobos deserves special attention. Mars has two moons: Phobos and Deimos (in Greek, Fear and Terror). They were known long before the American astronomer Asaph Hall discovered them in 1877. As early as 1610 Johannes Kepler suspected that Mars was accompanied by two satellites. Although the Capucine monk Schyrl may have claimed to have seen the Martian moons a few years earlier, he must have been mistaken, for the tiny Martian moons could not possibly be seen with the optical instruments of his day. A fascinating description of them is given by Jonathan Swift in A Voyage to Laputa and Japan, which forms Part III of Gulliver's Travels. Not only does he describe the two Martian moons, but he also gives their size ‘(The Laputan astronomers) spend the greatest part of their lives in observing the celestial bodies, which they do by the assistance of glasses far excelling ours in goodness. For although their largest telescopes do not exceed three feet, they magnify much more than those of a hundred yards among us and at the same time show the stars with greater clearness. This advantage hath enabled them to extend their discoveries much further than our astronomers in Europe for they have made a catalogue of ten thousand fixed stars, whereas the largest of ours do not contain above one third part of that number. They have likewise discovered two lesser stars, or satellites, which revolve about Mars, whereof the innermost is distant from the centre of the primary planet exactly three of the diameters, and the outermost five; the former revolves in the space of ten hours, and the later in twenty one and a high—even today—as elsewhere. Careful investigation of trees and their annual rings confirm an appreciable increase in radioactivity since 1908. It is not long since scientists claimed that life on Mars is inconceivable. For some time now that has and orbits. This quotation comes from Chapter 3: