PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
In the autumn of 1996, the sci-fi movie Independence Day gripped all of America, breaking box office records with the story of an heroic US President who saves the world from alien invasion. Coincidentally, beleaguered President Bill Clinton was at the same time fighting a campaign for reelection on the basis of his youthful, energetic leadership style. As the nation prepared to go to the polls, fact began to mirror fiction as American scientists claimed to have discovered the first conclusive proof that life can exist beyond Earth. But the aliens that gave Clinton's reelection prospects a timely boost were not of the slimy, bug - eyed variety, but the fossilized remains of Martian bacteria, discovered in a rock scavenged from the frozen wastes of Antarctica.

Aliens From Mars tells the extraordinary detective story of Meteorite ALH84001, tracing a remarkable and controversial chain of events that links the rock to the possibility of life 3.5 billion years ago on the surface of Mars. That the rock is indeed a meteorite from the Red Planet is supported by persuasive scientific argument. But whether the worm-like objects found by NASA scientist David Mc Kay and his team were ever alive is far from established. Horizon talks to scientists on both sides of the debate as, exactly twenty years after Viking probes seemed to eliminate any hope of discovering life on Mars, scientists from America and Russia embark on a series of launches of fossil-seeking probes towards the planet.

PRODUCTION INFORMATION
Producers Danielle Peck and Max Whitby
Series Editor John Lynch
A BBC/A&E co-production

DURATION
1x50'