OLD REAL LIFE NEWS: NASA SUED OVER OWNERSHIP OF MARS
by Hazed
Someone on Facebook posted a link to an old, old, old news story from 1997 which I found amusing enough I thought I would share it with you.
CNN reported that NASA was being sued by three Yemeni men over their missions to Mars. Prompted by the explorations of the planet by the Pathfinder ship and the Sojourner rover, the three men said that they were the rightful owners of the planet. What’s more, they claimed to have documents to prove their assertion that they inherited the planet.
“We inherited the planet from our ancestors 3,000 years ago,” they said, as they filed the lawsuit in Yemen. “Sojourner and Pathfinder, which are owned by the United States government, landed on Mars and began exploring it without informing us or seeking our approval.”
They demanded that NASA suspend all operations on Mars immediately and refrain from disclosing any information about the planet without their approval.
I’m not sure how their ancestors came to be in possession of the planet in the first place, but needless to say, NASA lost no sleep over this claim, and carried on with the mission.
Meanwhile, I have documents to show that actually I am the owner of all the planets in the Solar System – at least, I wrote most of the locations!
