Several of us checked it out before determining that it's a YASAC*, and I think that you need to factor in the enjoyment we get from doing the research. It's not really about an agenda like proving/disproving the claim--the journey is the reward, if you'll forgive the cliche. Curious people, even skeptics, are like that. Anomalists present puzzles, we solve them.

If you google my name plus "mars", you'll find that my name is mentioned on a number of anomalist Web pages. Once upon a time somebody made the mistake of claiming that that made me an anomalist, but the truth is rather the opposite: I spent several years engaging them as a skeptic, and I did so without the gratuitous insults and offensiveness that have created so much enmity elsewhere between the two camps. As a result, I had some influence, particularly in the area of image processing, and what I learned while educating myself was the basis for my later efforts with image processing software. That was certainly rewarding, as was the opportunity to improve the skills of a handful of anomalists, at least one of whom went on to help NASA clean up MGS images for MER landing site selection, using some of my software.

It's a mistake to write off an entire group of people and hold them in permanent contempt. Is that really so rational? Digging into the logic of the proposition, does the fact that the first 10,000 anomalist claims prove false guarantee that 10,001th claim will also prove false? The odds may be a notional 1 in 10,000, but that's not the same as zero. As a gambling proposition, the payoff versus the odds plus the fact that the game itself is fun makes it worthwhile to continue to play the game.

* YASAC: Yet Another Specious Anomalist Claim