In his 1950 book, The Riddle Of The Flying Saucers (previously blogged here), Gerald Heard argued, using an inexorable chain of logic based on the available evidence, that the then-newly-reported phenomena of "flying saucers" were actually vehicles from Mars piloted by super-intelligent Martian bees, come to Earth to observe Humanity and possibly warn us of our impending doom.
Most at the time scoffed at this idea. Little green men were one thing, but Marsbees? Nonsense! Even today, Heard's theories are given little credence, or even note, by mainstream Ufologists.
However, Heard may have the last laugh, as NASA has recently announced a new Mars exploration proposal using robotic Marsbees:
The objective of the proposed work is to increase the set of possible exploration and science missions on Mars by investigating thefeasibility of flapping wing aerospace architectures in a Martian environment. The proposed architecture consists of a Mars rover that serves as a mobile base and a swarm of Marsbees. Marsbees are robotic flapping wing flyers of a bumblebee size with cicada sized wings. The Marsbees are integrated with sensors and wireless communication devices. The mobile base can act as a recharging station and main communication center. The swarm of Marsbee can significantly enhance the Mars exploration mission with the following benefits: i) Facilitating reconfigurable sensor networks; ii) Creation of resilient systems; iii) Sample or data collection using single or collaborative Marsbees.