Vulture Central recently predicted that conspiracy theorists would soon be scanning Mars rover snaps for evidence of extra-terrestrial life such as mountains in the form of Kylie Minogue's buttocks and rockfaces carved into iconic representations of Sir Bill Gates of Seattle.

The truth has turned out to be almost as terrifying with the discovery of the number "19" clearly etched into a Martian rock, and captured by the fearless Spirit rover:

But what does it mean? Chillingly, according to numerologists, the numbers 1 and 9 transpose into the letters AI. Co-incidence? We think not.

We can now say with absolute certainty that Mars was previously inhabited by super-intelligent machine beings which, for reasons unknown but probably related to a lack of any decent nightlife on that distant world, came to Earth where they are now running the UK's rail network and teaching cybernetics at Reading University.

While we wait with bated breath the humanity-rocking impact of this bombshell, we'd like to offer NASA a suggestion regarding its poorly Spirit rover.

Reports suggest a full file system is to blame for its current malaise. Reader Paul Jaggard thinks that if the ailing dune buggy can crawl to the PC World we previously located, the helpful staff there could - after checking the flash memory for any net porn the rover may have downloaded for "research purposes" during the last couple of weeks - give it a scrub and shave and send it on its way.

We agree. Every minute Sprit spends dossing about on far-flung reaches of the galaxy is a minute lost to the breathless pursuit of Martian simulacra. ®

Bootnote

Reader Shawn s, aka Plasmahawk, tells us the original rover picture can be found here. It may not stay there for long, though, once the black helicopters move in, remove the photograph and kill anyone who has ever seen it.