Its a pair of dicks, the first being the science guys which by their on admission are still looking at data, the second is the media that make an entire story about speculation.
At the same time, they're cautious because no one likes to make a big announcement and then have to say "never mind."
Um but making a big announcement about a big announcement is OK?
Breaking news, NASA is going to have a press conference! Which they do all the time!
Nothing to see here, move along. Last time NASA said they had some earth-shattering announcement to make, it turned out to be nothing important.
EDIT: In other words, everybody is hyping this up, but NASA never said anything about what they're going to announce, so everybody's imagination is running wild.
(Realistically tho, it's another let's make a big deal out of something inconsequential to justify the $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$. If it isn't the monolith, a Martian Club Med or a big-ass telescope pointed at Earth, then they ought to keep it to themselves.)
Even the most optimistic guesses seem to be things like "found methane" or "found organic (contains carbon) mineral". These things don't confirm the former existence of life, simply that it may have been possible.
In other words, the absolute most important news we might get out of this is "NASA found some rock that may have at one point possibly contained life."
AKA, status quo, and they get to make a big deal out of it.
Even the most optimistic guesses seem to be things like "found methane" or "found organic (contains carbon) mineral". These things don't confirm the former existence of life, simply that it may have been possible.
In other words, the absolute most important news we might get out of this is "NASA found some rock that may have at one point possibly contained life."
AKA, status quo, and they get to make a big deal out of it.
You mean the face on Cydonia is just an illusion after all... LOL
... Last week Curiosity was able to use its SAM (Sample Analysis at Mars) device to confirm the discovery. A robotic arm with a complex system of Spectral Analysis devices was able to vaporize and identify gasses from the sample, concluding that it is in fact plastic. How plastic formed or ended up on the Martian surface is quite an exciting mystery that sparks many questions. The type of plastic sampled as we know so far can only be formed using petrochemicals, meaning not only that there could possibly be a source of oil on the Red Planet, but that somehow it got turned into plastic. Even more interesting is that oil or petrochemicals used to create this type of plastic are only known to come from ancient fossilized organic materials, such as zooplankton and algae, which geochemical processes convert into oil pointing to the earthshaking evidence that there was once life on mars. ...
Thus there was life on Mars! That is, to our limited understanding of how oil is formed.