  (Abridged) A close scrutiny of the microlensing results towards the
Magellanic clouds reveals that the stars within the Magellanic clouds are major
contributors as lenses, and the contribution of MACHOs to dark matter is 0 to
5%. The principal results which lead to this conclusion are the following.
  (i) Out of the ~17 events detected so far towards the Magellanic Clouds, the
lens locations have been determined for four events where the lenses are most
likely within the Magellanic clouds.
  (ii) If caused by MACHOs, the event timescales would imply that the MACHOs in
the direction of the LMC and the SMC have masses of the order of 0.5 and 2
solar masses, respectively. This is inconsistent with even the most flattened
model of the Galaxy. If caused by stars within the Magellanic Clouds, the
masses of the lenses are of the order of 0.2 solar mass for both the LMC as
well as the SMC.
  (iii) The fact that the two observed binary events are caused by lenses
within the Magellanic Clouds would suggest that there should be a total of ~20
events caused by lenses within the Magellanic Clouds. This implies that most of
the microlensing events observed so far are probably caused by stars within the
Magellanic Clouds.
  (iv) If the microlensing events are caused by MACHOs of 0.5 solar mass, ~15
events should have been detected by now towards the SMC, with timescales of ~40
days. The fact that both the events detected towards the SMC have been shown to
be due to self-lensing places severe constraints on the MACHO contribution and
suggests that the contribution of MACHOs to dark matter is consistent with
zero, with an upper limit of 5%.
