9-10-00

Peculiarities in "Eden"

If the Cydonia features are artificial, we'll likely stumble across additional artifacts elsewhere on Mars. The previous page listed several features that would appear to fall into this category. I would remiss in not mentioning the following region, known as "Eden," that has attracted considerable online attention.

The most striking feature here (to me) is the apparent stepped pyramid, pictured below.

The "steps" visible in this image appear to be real features well within the limit of the Mars Orbiter Camera's resolution. What geological mechanism can produce such architectural-looking terraces?

The "Stepped Pyramid" in stereo.

The Stepped Pyramid is part of a complex of unusual, angular features. There is no "smoking gun" for artificial design here. But there are enough suggestions of unusual topography that we would be well served by additional high-resolution photos of this region, preferably taken at different sun-angles.

The "T"-shaped Formation Revisited

Efrain Palermo has provided a second, disconfirming image of the T-shaped formation discussed on an earlier page. This image shows out that the "T" is a depression and not a convex feature, as Palermo and many others had originally thought. Better views of this landform suggest it is quite natural, forming one of a network of cracks at the base of the shield volcano Olympus Mons. The two images are shown below, the revised version on the bottom.

9-19-00

Feline Resemblance?

Richard Hoagland first proposed that the right-hand side of the Face looked "feline." While his mirrored reconstruction suggested feline attributes, the Viking resolution was too grainy to make any definitive comments.

Mark Kelly's orthorectified image of the Face might help us assess this claim. I proposed doing a "mirrored" version of the Face to Efrain Palermo, predicting that the left-hand side would appear more humanoid than the right. This observation was based on results obtained by early, improperly rectified MGS data (T.J. Parker's "Picasso" enhancement) as well as early Viking images, available in Hoagland's "The Monuments of Mars."

Here are the results:

Characteristics of the Face's two sides suggest a deliberate "feline" representation. Note the "decorative" properties of the "headdress."

While the "double-image" concept is perhaps wishful thinking or an attempt to rationalize the Face's not-quite-perfect symmetry (or at least what can be seen of this in Kelly's processed image), I think there is enough of a feline impression to make this possibility worth a closer look. Palermo admits being forced to semi-arbitrarily locate the Face's centerline (the left- and right-hand "flip-flops" are not of equal width), although to my mind he appears to have done this fairly successfully.

Author David Jinks ("The Monkey and the Tetrahedron") followed up on Palermo's graphic with a comparison between the Face's "feline" half and a picture of a known lion (below). Some of the similarities (i.e., "brow," "nose" and "mouth") conform rather well.

What are we to make of this, assuming the resemblance is not completely spurious? If the Face is an artifact, we can reasonably expect its builders to have invested considerable time and effort in it. Civilizations (or at least terrestrial civilizations) don't construct mile-long faces in deserts for no reason. If the Face on Mars is a true "double-image" (the likes of which are not unknown among ancient Mayan art), then the humanoid/feline attributes may have once served a mythological or aesthetic purpose. (Remember that the Great Sphinx at Giza is a combination of lionine and humanoid elements.)

The apparent cat-like aspect also begs the identity of the Face's builders. Extrasolar aliens wouldn't have been aware of humans or cats unless they had visited Earth prior to constructing the Face. We're left with the possibility that the Face might be the artifact of an unknown terrestrial culture or the handiwork of a very close common ancestor.

9-21-00

NASA's "Enhancement" of the Face on Mars: Deliberate Fraud

When NASA revealed its first picture of the Face on Mars in April of 1998, we knew it looked bad. How bad we didn't know until Mark Carlotto and others produced proper rectifications that showed that the flat, wavy-looking rendition (known as the "catbox") actually conformed to the Viking data. The Face, newscasters and condescending headlines to the contrary, was still a face, boasting apparent ornamentation on the "headdress," anatomically correct "nostrils" and lip-like structures around the broad, stoic "mouth."

NASA's 1998 release was the first attempt to resolve a potential extraterrestrial artifact on the surface of another world, leaving the substandard "catbox" treatment something of a mystery; Mars-watchers know all-too-well that JPL's press releases do their best to make Mars look like a temptingly detailed world, with resolution so fine one can often make out individual boulders. And well they should; funding for continued exploration hinges significantly on the public's interest in space science. The Mars Observer, the Global Surveyor's failed predecessor, carried a high-resolution camera included largely for PR interests; after all, what good are Martian canyons and volcanoes when the public can't even see them?

NASA sub-contractor Lan Fleming immediately noted the "catbox's" deceiving format. He duplicated JPL's "enhancement" process on a Mississippian Indian Mound, reducing it to a vague, grainy caricature familiar from NASA's press release. His recent attempts to replicate NASA's "enhancement" procedure yielded the following graphic, which shows the spurious un-face-like image for what it has to be: either gross incompetence on the part of NASA's otherwise capable image processors or a deliberately substandard image designed to kill interest in an issue that, of the space agency's own admission, is considered scientifically dubious.

Click on graphic above to jump to Lan Fleming's analysis.

In 1976, publicly dismissed the Face as a "trick of light and shadow" -- presumably because the Face failed to register in a second image taken of the Cydonia region "a couple hours later." Later sleuthing revealed that this allegedly disconfirming image couldn't posibly exist; the Viking orbiter was in no position to take a second photo "a couple hours later" because it was on the other side of the planet at the time. Indeed, a second confirming frame, 70A13, was later tracked down by independent researchers Vincent DiPietro and Gregory Molenaar, forever ruining the "trick of light" explanation.

In my considered opinion the botched "catbox" image of the Face was a deliberate scam to nullify public interest in an object NASA never considered worth investigating. The evidence for this position is a matter of record, as is the fact that Mike Malin, the contractor in charge of the Mars Global Surveyor's camera, has vented not a little disgust at being "forced" into taking the allegedly disconfirming photo in 1998.

Granted that the "catbox" was a lie, where do we stand? The public largely swallowed NASA's conclusion that the Face was a false alarm, despite meaningless reassurances that the agency held no official opinion on the Face's origin. NASA has forfeited its chance to engage in research that may ultimately prove the existence of a previous technological civilization on Mars. After twenty-five years, the ball is back in the court of the independent researchers.

In the words of one NASA employee upon eyeing JPL's haphazard photograph, "I hope we've scotched this thing for good."

We can only hope he doesn't speak for all of us.

Analysis of "Fort" Suggests Architectural Origin

I've traced a "platform" around three quarters of the "Fort" while comparing it to Carlotto's shape-from-shading rendition. The depth of this platform can be seen by the well-preserved crater along the Fort's right side. Also notable are the meteor strikes prevalent around the Fort. Many of these can be seen stippling the northwest quadrant almost like bullet-holes. (One of these is the ice-floored crater discovered by SPSR and rephotographed by the MGS some months ago.) The bombarded area corresponds to the least defined portion of the Fort, although there is a vestige of a line (continuation of the "platform"?) visible.

To the southeast is a lozenge-shaped "buildup." This feature lies next to the central, sunken area. I'm reminded of a structural implosion. The "buildup" might be material ejected from the Fort's interior or sand from the east that's become trapped against the lozenge's crest. The apparent buildup is reminescent of the "domed uplift" on the D&M Pyramid, thought by some to represent internal deformation caused by hypothetical "explosive penetration."

Note, too, the odd groove radiating from the Fort's main edge in the general direction of the Face: remnants of an infrastructure of some sort or just a fortuitous crack in the terrain?

I propose that the Fort is an architectural morphology possibly hewn from a preexisting "knob." The Fort may have collapsed due to the concentrated meteor strikes noted above, or from environmental wear and tear.

10-18-00

Pyramidal Structure on Top of "Tholus" is Aligned Towards "Face"

When MSSS released the first portion of its now-historic 75,000+ catalogue of Mars imagery, Cydonia-watchers were quick to concentrate attention on the "Fort" and the "Tholus," the only hoped-for Cydonia photos taken. Interest in the Fort, a feature which had seemed exceptionally promising in the Viking images, faded quickly when the supposed "courtyard" turned out to be a large shadow. The Tholus dropped from the scene shortly thereafter since it appeared essentially as it had in the 1970s.

The Tholus as reconstructed by Mark Carlotto. The Mars Global Surveyor image suggests that the "groove" visible here is in fact an eroded ramp.

Richard Hoagland immediately posted a piece on the Tholus' alleged "tetrahedral" apex, soon forgotten as new discoveries were unearthed from the MSSS online catalogue. While I wasn't convinced by Hoagland's claim that the top of the Tholus boasted a decomposed "tetrahedron," I did notice the rough triangular formation to which he referred. Close inspection leads me to suspect that this peculiarity might be artificial.

1.) Formation

A close look at the dome-shaped Tholus reveals a blunt central peak oriented on a conspicuously five-sided "platform." Both the peak and the apparent platform display reasonable bilateral symmetry and are similarly aligned.

Notice eroded triangular peak and underlying five-sided "platform." Visible to the right are several dark "cells" indicative of possible structural erosion.

This thumbnail graphic from The Enterprise Mission shows Hoagland's reconstructed apex "tetrahedron." While the existence of a tetrahedral formation is doubtful, there appears to be a triangular peak that roughly corresponds to the overlay pictured here.

2.) Orientation

Upon noticing the alignment described above, I immediately wondered if there was a reason for such a seemingly deliberate layout. If the Tholus was built to function as some sort of "lookout point" (from which to view the "Cliff," as speculated by Daniel Drasin), then the peak's orientation would almost certainly not be arbitrary.

The Cliff, bearing a resemblance to a bisymmetrical, elongated human face (note eyes, lids, mouth, and cheekbones). To the right is the tetrahedral (?) "crater rim pyramid." The Tholus appears to have intentional correlations with both of these objects, as discussed below.

With a map and compass, I drew a straight line extending from the "arrow" formed by the Tholus' apex across the Cydonia desert. Interestingly, it precisely intersected the "Face."

3.) Conjecture

If we're indeed examining millennia-old ruins built by a civilization with a penchant for visual metaphor, then the discovery of a specifically oriented feature atop the Tholus forces us to readdress the Artificiality Hypothesis. If the Tholus was indeed a "lookout," then at some point an observer could have stood at its center and seen the angularly foreshortened Cliff to the north while the architecture of the Tholus itself directed attention to the Face far to the northwest.

Perhaps the Tholus was designed to reinforce a specific "facial" motif by simultaneously corresponding to the only anthropomorphic features on the landscape (discounting, for the moment, the arguably humanoid proportions of the D&M Pyramid and City Pyramid). Such a relationship reaffirms the hypothesis that specific formations at Cydonia were intentionally designed.

4.) Conclusion

While spurious relationships can be made to arise between almost any landforms seen from above, the Tholus exhibits a number of correspondences that are more difficult to ascribe to fanciful thinking. This is compounded by the Tholus' internal anomalies, which tend to reinforce the more general correspondences outlined in this essay. The Tholus, Cliff and Face appear to be part of self-referential architectural system that can't be explained in geological terms.

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