Yesterday, The New York Times published a story with the headline, "Fields of Watermelons Found On Mars, Police Say." The story was quickly deleted, and was replaced with a headline reading, "This article was published in error." Which begs the question: What does the New York Times know, and why can't we know it?

What's happening at the NYT pic.twitter.com/Ff5L24zZNk

— Jon Christian (follow for chaos) (@Jon_Christian) June 8, 2021

While the headline was extraordinary, the article featured no worthwhile information. In its entirety, it read:

The FBI declined to comment onreports of watermelons raining down, but confirmed that kiwis have been intercepted. This story is terribly boring.

So what the heck was going on? The watermelon article was later updated by the Times to clarify that "A mock article intended for a testing system was inadvertently published on this page earlier." Futurism received a statement to the same effect.

Unfortunately, it appears that scientists have not found watermelons or any other fruit on Mars at this time, to the disappointment of many.

I wanted to believe, too.https://t.co/ZjlaY0TK08

— Bill Kole (@billkole) June 9, 2021

Honestly a bit disappointed it's not a 10k word feature complete with interactive visuals. https://t.co/YL6yQGZSUw

— Tony Ho Tran (@TonyHoWasHere) June 8, 2021

Give me the forbidden mars melonhttps://t.co/E1hUGDEiLo

— Madison Hall (@byMadisonHall) June 8, 2021

It seems unlikely there will be melons on Mars anytime soon, at least until Elon Musk gets there.