The first images beamed back by NASA's Phoenix probe revealed more than the scientists were expecting. Analysis of the first images show a Holy Bible buried in the Martian surface!

"It came as a real shock," said Buck Uranus, the Inquisitor's space correspondent who was at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory when the images came in.

"Normally, when a spacecraft lands, the team call other scientists to invite them to join in the celebrations," he added. "This time, they were calling for a priest." 

Evangelical preacher Pastor Joshua LaVista, whose religious community is based close to NASA's headquarters in Houston, Texas, made a special TV broadcast just moments after the revelations were made public. "I have always said that NASA's true mission was to reveal the glory of God," he said. "It's time we replaced atheist heathens in science labs with those who are faithful to the hidden truths. This is a sign that wherever we go, whatever we seek, we will always find God."

The presence of the Holy Book was noticed only after the images were treated to special digital enhancement.

It was Pastor LaVista's own imaging specialists, on secondment to NASA, who first realised what Phoenix had found. They used special image enhancement tools to repeatedly improve the image until they were satisified that - in the words of one evangelical technician - it, "showed what it should show".