Mars—At certain intervals the red planet is spewing plumes of smoke into the air that can be seen from space. Baffled by this occurrence, NASA has shifted resources to get to the bottom of these strange atmospheric anomalies. The scientific community grew suspicious, however, when a correlation became apparent.

NASA’s representative Dr. John Dean explains, “We started seeing a pattern between the mysterious plumes of smoke and the last known coordinates of the inactive rover, Spirit. In fact, the smoke was always directly above the droid. Then we thought, hey, maybe that’s why this thing stopped working in the first place. We also noted the time of these events, 4:20 PM each afternoon. That’s when I said ‘Houston we have a pothead.’”

NASA remains unsure if marijuana is plentiful and/or legal on Mars. They suspect the rover smuggled the substance onto the red planet in its alpha-particle manifold. The first communication in nearly a year from the rover, asking NASA to “send chips”, further supports their reefer-rover theory.

“Is there weed on Mars?” said Dr. Johnson. “We need to find this out. If Spirit did bring the stuff from Earth will some cyborg addiction counseling help? Maybe that could get this rover off the couch-shaped rock it stalled on and get it to do something with its life.”

When asked about the amounts of marijuana needed to create a plume of smoke that can be seen from space, Dr. Johnson said, “Such an event is not without precedent. We have been monitoring atmospheric conditions above Discord Tower for many years, suffice to say it takes a lot.”