'There are no humans on Mars': Nasa's droll response to InfoWars' 'child slaves on Mars' theory

Nasa has denied outrageous allegations of children being kidnapped and sent to a colony on Mars. The allegations were made on Thursday (29 June) by a guest on American radio talk show InfoWars, hosted by Alex Jones. The guest, Robert David Steele reportedly claimed that children were kidnapped and sent to a Mars colony as "slaves."

"There are no humans on Mars. There are active rovers on Mars. There was a rumour going around last week that there weren't. There are," Guy Webster, a spokesperson for Mars exploration at Nasa, told The Daily Beast. "But there are no humans."

Although Nasa aims to send manned missions to the Red Planet by the 2030's, the mission to put humans on Mars is slated to cost the space agency well over a staggering $450bn (£359bn). Given the Trump administration's recent budget cuts, it still remains unclear if such an ambitious mission could be made a reality.

However, during the InfoWars show, Steele reportedly claimed that an active Mars colony already existed. "We actually believe that there is a colony on Mars that is populated by children who were kidnapped and sent into space on a 20-year ride," said Steele. "So that once they get to Mars, they have no alternative but to be slaves on the Mars colony."

When reached for comment about the statements made by the InfoWars guest, Nasa's Webster responded, "There's only one stupid rumour on the Internet? Now that's news."

Meanwhile, SpaceX founder Elon Musk recently detailed his plans to colonise Mars. Earlier in the year, SpaceX confirmed that it was working with Nasa to scout potential landing spots on the Red Planet.

The delays that both SpaceX and Nasa have experienced relating to their respective manned missions to Mars only goes to show what an ambitious project it is to put a human on the Red Planet, indicating that it may be decades before such a scenario could be made possible.