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[LordBucket]

So imagine that Curiosity rover returns a set of pictures. The first one shows what is very obviously just a rock. The next one shows what is very obviously just the same rock, but strangely it seems to have moved several feet closer to the rover relative to its position in the previous picture. Clearly, it's just an optical illusion. The rover itself was moving when the pictures were taken, and obviously it's difficult to precisely judge distance. The next picture shows the thing that is very obviously just a rock, having latched onto one of the rover's leg, biting it.

These pictures are leaked to the internet.

Over the next several weeks, we're bombarded with "I told you so's!" as various scientists go over all the "inconclusive" test results indicating possible microbial life and respiration activities in the soil that just weren't quite good enough for anybody to say that yes, there are microbes in the soil. Now they start saying that well, maybe those mixed positive results actually were positive, but hey...they just wanted to be sure.

The following day Curiosity sends a picture of what is very obviously a rock. A smooth, flat vertical rectangular rock with a vertical slit down the middle, recessed into the side of a small hill, and what looks like an electronic keypad to one side.

This picture is also leaked to the internet.

What happens?

[Loud Whispers]

The Hollywood studio that faked the Mars landing is fired for going too far

[Graknorke]

So Mars is inhabited by alive rocks?
Probably not much happens to be honest. People try to study them but we're already doing as much as we can reasonably do with Mars anyway. Return journeys are way out of the scale of anything that's been done before or there is even the infrastructure for. People try to study the rockthings as best they can but otherwise life goes on as normal.

[Loud Whispers]

So Mars is inhabited by alive rocks?
Probably not much happens to be honest. People try to study them but we're already doing as much as we can reasonably do with Mars anyway. Return journeys are way out of the scale of anything that's been done before or there is even the infrastructure for. People try to study the rockthings as best they can but otherwise life goes on as normal.

Breeding the rocklings on planet earth and selling them for massive profit would be awesome, imagine taking the most significant finding in human history and trivializing it into a more optimal facebook machine
I could think of no better way to spite human development

Someone convinces the US government that the lifeforms have formed oil millions of years ago. NASA's funding increase a millionfold.

space taliban cannot be destroyed with mars rover laser beams

[ChairmanPoo]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[werty892]

If there was life on mars more intelligent than us we would already be dead.

[LordBucket]

If there was life on mars more intelligent than us we would already be dead.

Why?

[itisnotlogical]

If the hypothetical population of Mars were vastly, noticeably more intelligent than humanity, chances are they would have found better ways to solve problems than by blowing up the other person.

I mean, there's virtually no risk of us bringing our stupid to them; not for many, many generations. Private spaceflight is still a bucket-list item for millionaires; there's little chance of a large number of dumbass Earthlings bringing Terran problems to Martian soil.

[Frumple]

... what part of the scenario given posits a more intelligent species being on mars, anyway? Nothing described is notably advanced. You've got what might be an entrance and a keypad. That... we have lots of those. Hell, the scenario given doesn't even necessarily posit intelligent species being alive at all, unless the rock chomp is it. All the smart ones could be dead, or chilling on pluto while robots maintain whatever's on mars or who knows what. It could alternately be the discovery that time travel is in fact possible, or that we're a splinter colony for a much more wide spread empire.

As for the actual OP's question, can only imagine communication attempts would ratchet up, as well as a sudden and concentrated effort to make sure our nukes can reach orbit and be aimed afterwards. Maybe the unveiling of a handful of previously unmentioned orbital weaponry systems, too. You'd see hella' paranoia, but also pretty immediate attempts at diplomatic overtures, assuming there's anything there to be diplomanced at. Maybe even actual global funding for a better equipped martian mission to go try to knock or somethin'. We probably want to get our paws on the technology base that's managed to stay maintained in martian conditions :V

[That Wolf]

The Martian Golems obviously know of our species and they all stand around in groups to make face shapes.
After years of this behavour they realise that we break rocks and we mine. How else did we get a metal rover?
Humans not understanding Rockite miss the diplomatic meeting with the Martians and the Golems decide to send their own "rover" called impact and thats how the dinosaurs became extinct!

[Eric Blank]

There are rocks sticking to our rover. I go to mars to poke at the rocks until they reveal their secrets because that's what a good stupid scientist does.

In all serious, what might look like a doorway could be a really weird rock formation with some neat new mineral crystals growing on it. The correct course of action is for Curiosity to poke it and everything around it until we do know what it actually is. Photographs make for shitty data points often times. Martian rock beasts could be some sort of nonsapient chemoautotroph gently slithers towards any concentration of unoxidized metal particles, like huge globs of robot, in order to oxidize them and do some living stuff like reproduce before going back into hibernation, waiting for the next meteorite. What you should care about is why such an organism bothers to camouflage itself as an ordinary rock, or if that's a result of it collecting iron oxide on its exterior and being otherwise funny looking as a result of a lack of selection pressures towards a more refined form.

[LordBucket]

There are rocks sticking to our rover. I go to mars to poke at the rocks until they reveal their secrets because that's what a good stupid scientist does.

In all serious, what might look like a doorway could be a really weird rock formation

I'm not claiming that Mars is inhabited.

With that context provided, I sometimes suspect that if a spaceship landed on the white house lawn and a 40 foot tall translucent amoeba got out and went door to door slapping people on the side of their head with a formal solution to P=NP lithographed on an unknown material while shouting "DUDE! I'm an ALIEN!!!" some people would still think it was rocks and weather balloons.

[IronyOwl]

If there was life on mars more intelligent than us we would already be dead.

Why?

Spoiler: I have (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: My suspicions (click to show/hide)

[Morrigi]

If there was life on mars more intelligent than us we would already be dead.

Why?

It would not be unreasonable to carry out a preemptive strike against a species that is extremely hostile to itself, and would likely carry that potential hostility into inter-species contact. It's simply self-preservation, something that any technologically-advanced species would have. Also, wimps don't become top dogs. Any species that managed to become technologically dominant on its planet is likely to have done so by being organized, intelligent, and violent enough to drive off any threats to its people, from within and without. It is therefore not unreasonable to apply the logic of a predator to theoretical alien actions until it is proven otherwise, and predators don't like competition or fair fights.

All that said, the construction of a relativistic kill vehicle capable of wiping out a civilization would take significant industrial capacity and technology, and there is no activity on Mars to suggest the presence of any of it.

As for civilizations more advanced than us being capable of putting aside their instincts for violence and so on, humanity could have a Mars colony right now, and look at the state of us.  It would be totally irresponsible to assume that an alien race is incapable of or unwilling to commit violence in order to preserve itself, as that goes against the most basic concepts of evolution.

[ChairmanPoo]

If there was life on mars more intelligent than us we would already be dead.

Why?