So it turns out maybe we found life on Mars. And killed it:

Two NASA space probes that visited Mars 30 years ago may have found alien microbes on the red planet and inadvertently killed them, a scientist is theorizing.

The Viking space probes of 1976-77 were looking for the wrong kind of life, so they didn't recognize it, a geology professor at Washington State University said.

The Viking probes were looking for salt-water based life such as we have here on Earth. The theory is that life on Mars is actually based on a water / hydrogen peroxide mix. The tests would not only have missed finding such life, they would have killed it.

Live and learn, I guess. I certainly hope we don't make any similar mistakes in our search for intelligent life.

Via GeekPress.