My friend Charles M. Shults III has been poring over the data from Spirit and Opportunity, particularly the pictures of the "blueberries" returned by Opportunity. What he has discovered is nothing short of astounding - clear evidence that the blueberries are in fact fossils of animals much like starfish, trilobites, and sea urchins.

There are markings all over the blueberries, just as one would find on any rocks. However, these markings are the same and in the same relative positions on numerous blueberries. No geological process could form such markings, all in identical positions, orientations, and sizes (relative to the size of the individual blueberry). Only Life could do that. The markings are the surface features of organisms which have rolled themselves into balls (probably a sessile state; some creatures on earth do something similar when the water they inhabit dries up, waiting for the next rainfall).

NASA will be taking a closer look at the blueberries when Opportunity visits the "berry bowl", a depression in the rock into which a great many of these have rolled over time. The bottom of the berry bowl is completely covered in these berries. By analyzing the bowl with a Mossbauer spectrometer and then subtracting data obtained by looking at non-berry-covered soil, the composition of these berries may be inferred. That, and further pictures will be taken of the berries; if even one more berry exhibits the surface markings seen in earlier images, then my friend Charles will be pretty darn famous in a few weeks, as the discoverer of extraterrestrial life.