A caller to the popular paranormal radio show, Coast To Coast, had a truly strange story to tell. She claimed to have been employed by NASA in the late 1970s, under the Mars Viking program. She told the radio host that her job was monitoring the feeds and telemetry links from the Viking Landers. The mysterious woman claimed that she and several others witnessed two human figures walking on the surface of the Red Planet while at their station. The spacemen wore sleek looking suits and were seen approaching the monitored Viking Lander.

The caller’s story created some buzz in various UFO and conspiracy blogs, eventually leaking out to major news sources. The highly read Daily Mail posted the story with the following highlights:

‘I saw men walking on Mars in 1979’: ‘Former Nasa employee’ claims there was a secret manned mission to the red planet
Woman, named ‘Jackie’, called in to US radio station, Coast to Coast AM
Jackie said she was downloading telemetry from a Nasa Viking Lander
She claims that’s when she saw two humans walking on Martian surface
According to Jackie, six other Nasa employees witnessed the same thing
Conspiracy theorists say this is evidence of a ‘secret space programme’
–Source: Daily Mail

Is NASA covering up past missions to Mars that sent humans to the Red Planet? No, not likely. Are people getting loaded nightly on cocktails of Nyquil and downers while binge watching  Ancient Aliens on Netflix? Yes, most likely.