Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from

Radiotopia. My name is Jody Avergan.

This day August 7th, 1996, President Bill Clinton addressed the nation about the findings

by a group of NASA and Stanford scientists.

These scientists had looked deep into outer space by looking deep into a rock here on Earth, one rock that was found in Antarctica.

The scientists had determined that that rock came from Mars, and moreover, they had determined that that rock came from Mars and moreover they had

determined that they found what they believed to be signs of microbial life.

In other words say it with me folks life on Mars I repeat life on Mars it's a pretty big deal and everyone kind of stopped and paid attention in this moment

But both at the time and in the year since the context around this finding has gotten a little obscured or spun intentionally

and maybe even Clinton himself in that moment was a little eager to play up the

idea that maybe we'd found capital L capital O capital M life on Mars. So let's talk about this announcement

the political and cultural and media moment it created and maybe we'll dip our

toes a little astrology

astrobiology I guess in this case

maybe a little astrology

that maybe I'm going to get in our backgrounds

but here as always Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley.

Hello there. Hello from a proud Virgo.

Ah there you go, great. Hey there from a Gemini.

Well, our scientific minds are really working on overdrive already.

People can tell.

We'll talk a little bit about what was in this rock and kind of what the scientists found.

...