Valles Marineris (MPI) – A spokesthing for Mars Air Force denounced as false rumors that an alien space craft crashed in the desert, outside of Ares Vallis on Friday. Appearing at a press conference today, General Rgrmrmy The Lesser, stated that the object was, in fact, a harmless high-altitude weather balloon, not an alien spacecraft.

The story broke late Friday night when a major stationed at nearby Ares Vallis Air Force Base contacted the Valles Marineris Daily Record with a story about a strange, balloon-shaped object which allegedly came down in the nearby desert, bouncing several times before coming to a stop, deflating in a sudden explosion of alien gases. Minutes later, General Rgrmrmy The Lesser contacted the Daily Record telepathically to contradict the earlier report.

General Rgrmrmy The Lesser stated that hysterical stories of a detachable vehicle roaming across the Martian desert were blatant fiction, provoked by incidences involving swamp gas. But the general public has been slow to accept the Air Forces explanation of recent events, preferring to speculate on the other-worldly nature of the crash debris. Conspiracy theorists have condemned Rgrmrmys statements as evidence of an obvious government cover-up, pointing out that Mars has no swamps.