In the Dec. 12 2000 Mailbag letter, the conclusion is made that there is no face on Mars, at least not one artificially created.
This could possibly be a partial truth. In the book “The Mars Mystery” by Graham Kennedy, there seems to be a lot of potentially artificial structures in the Cydonia area besides the face – most of them are apparent pyramids or buildings whose arrangements remind us of ancient Egyptian cities. In addition to that, some of the structures seem to line up with each other and/or the face in ways that appear to be much more than mere coincidences. The arrangements would appear to be showing several significant numbers or mathematical concepts, such as the trtrahedral angle 19.5 degrees, the polar diameter of Mars, and the Golden Section.
Even if the face itself cannot be determined as an artificial structure, it looks like there’s so many significant structures and examples of geometry and mathematics in the area that perhaps ancient alien civilization would be more logical than writing them off as one seemingly impossible example of multiple coincidences.
Perhaps at one time the face could have been distinguished clearly from orbit, but through the millenia has been eroded down to the point that it can only be recognized from a few change angles; now the only remaining evidence of prior civilization is the secondhand observation of other structures in the Cydonia plain. It’s a long shot to be sure, but maybe not so long as to be impossible, given the other evidence involved.
I’m going to have to disagree with you, Sir Christopher. You seem to be saying: “There are a number of structures scattered about an area on Mars. If you measure the relative positions and orientations of these structures and/or features on the structures, and compare them, some interesting numbers emerge.”
So what? Suppose I take look at a photograph, and identify, say, fifty features on that photo. That means there are 49 different distances from any one feature to all the others, and (if I’ve done my math correctly) 1225 different ratios among these distances (greater than one). Multiply by fifty features, and that’s ~60,000 different ratios. It’s reasonable to suppose that nearly all these ratios would be in the range of 1 to, say, 20. Looks to me like the chances of one of those ratios being within three significant figures of any number I choose that’s around one (say, e, or pi, or sqrt(2), or the golden mean, or what have you) is pretty good. There should be the same number (~60,000) of angles formed by any three features.
Since there are all sorts of significant numbers and angles to choose from, and any measurements made can only be as good as the resolution of the photo, and lots of photos, and no lack of features to pick out, I wouldn’t be surprised if you could identify thousands of significant mathematical relationships.
No, this is clearly not the case. In the more recent photos of the face taken by the (hmmmm, brain cramp) Mars Polar Explorer (is that right?) you can clearly see that there is no face to be seen, not from any angle. The original “face” was only there because of a combination of comparatively low resolution, the particular angle, the light, and the human brain’s propensity to see patterns (and particularly faces) in random images. The new photos, at a much higher resolution, show just a worn out mesa with dunes built up along two sides. A reasonably good shot can be seen here: http://www.csicop.org/articles/face-on-mars/index2.html
on the CSICOP site.
If by evidence you mean over-enhanced and heavily processed image files, and data-mining for every conceivable coincidental number having anything to do with the size and placement of the imagined objects, I guess you could say evidence. A long shot to be sure. I’ll bet on the snowball first.
Thanks for the info, guys. Basically, I was just parroting the claims in the book to check their validity with professional sources. While interesting they’re interesting to entertain, these are from the same person who gives better than “yeah, right” odds that these ancient Martians somehow influenced ancient human civilzation.
This is about currently viable possibilities for terraforming Mars into a world capable of supporting life, starting at microorganisms and working up to humanity. Near the bottom they briefly discuss trees; I’ll clip out the most relevant quote here –
“‘The problem is you’ve got to change Mars dramatically to support trees,’ he [Martin Heath, an Earth scientist] said.”
If these are the chlorophyll-and-CO2 style plants that we’re familiar with, then it’s a pretty sure bet they aren’t down there right now. Mars has virtually no surface water (vapor or liquid), no nitrogen fixation/recycling system, much harsher solar radiation levels, freezing temperatures most of the year, few if any organic nutrients in the soil, and apocalyptic dust storms that can cover the entire planet in nuclear winter-style darkness for months at a time. Doesn’t look like we’re gonna find any leafy brothers in life there anytime soon.
My personal best bet for extraterrestrial life (though probably not intelligent) is Europa: if there’s a liquid ocean underneath that icy crust, there very well could be life as well.
The human brain tends to try to interpret patterns that it receives from the eye. A purely random collection of dots and spots and lines and wiggles that are seen by the eye, and the brain tries to find (unconsciously) a pattern.
This is the principle on which those three-dimensionsal pictures (I forget what they were called) were based, that were so popular a few years back.
This is the principle on which any number of magic tricks and slight of hand tricks are based as well.
Not surprising at all that people would look at aerial photographs (especially the black and white ones) and see “patterns” in the patternless shapes.
Dex, I think you’re referring to “Magic Eye” pictures or Single Image Random Dot Stereograms (SIRDS). But I disagree about the principle involved because a specific pattern is physically in a SIRDS.
Today NASA released yet another picture of the so-called “Face”, showing even more detail than before.
I think zgystardst is right about this. Those stereograms (or whatever they are called) are specifically designed with a particular pattern “encoded” into them. There is, however, a psychological term for finding patterns or recognisable structures in random patterns, however; I just ca’n’t find it right now. Faces in particular are a big one, which is thought to be a result (or an artifact) of our brains being wired/trained to recognise them. Faces are, after all, where we learn as infants that sustenance comes from. Plus, they (and most macroscopic life) have one thing in common: structural symmetry (especially along a vertical axis).
What this results in is a phenomenon wherein you can take nearly any random pattern of sufficient complexity, reflect it along a vertical axis, and you will get what look like faces (if not entire creatures). Given the fact that until this new picture came along we were mostly working with half of the mesa, reflecting it made it very facelike, which it isn’t so much anymore…but still kinda.
Another image which was all the buzz on the “paranormal” websites was the “demon” at the Democratic debate between Gore and Bradley. The backdrop was made from a star pattern, and where they converged along the central axis, a devilish face was produced. You can see it here, right between the two candidates, with its eyes about elbow level and two cutesy horns. People were freaking about this for months.
<< But I disagree about the principle involved because a specific pattern is physically in a SIRDS. >>
Yes, I understand that, but the specific pattern emerges only because of the brain’s attempt to make sense of a seemingly random pattern. I agree, it was a bad example to use because there IS a pattern underlying.
Perhaps a better example is the well-known studies where a baby is shown various arrangements of dots and a line, and reactss favorably to the “smily face” type arrangement – two dots like eyes, line like mouth – much much more so than to any other arrangement. Our brains are wired to look for faces.
I’ve seen those studies, too, Dex, and I’m a little suspicious of them. In the write-ups I saw, there were a crescent, two circles, a triangle, and two irregular ovals. Babies were shown them arranged as mouth/eyes/nose/ears, and also in a few different random arrnagements, and they always seemed to find the “face” more appealing. I noticed, though, that none of the random arrangements shown were symmetrical: Perhaps the babies aren’t recognizing a face per se, but just like symmetry?
Has anyone else ever watched Encounters with the Unexplained on PAX? I was channel-surfing Sunday night and came upon this stupid show and it was devoted to the Mars “Face”. They had Richard C. Hoagland as a guest! That alone should tell you how low the show’s quality is. He and others tried to link the Mars “face” to the Bible and claimed that NASA is either hiding or distorting the evidence that there was once a civilization on Mars. They claim some photos show a glass-tube transportation network on and just underneath the surface. It’s ridiculous!
I wonder if the producers are gullible or if they know better, but they’re exploiting their viewers’ gullibility?
Remember the Fox “Moon-landing hoax” show? Encounters is just like that, and it’s on every week.
Mangetout, those pictures are very interesting. Unfortunately, there is nothing indicating the scale of the picture. Are those features 1 km across? I think they might be some sort of lava flow feature, but I don’t really know and don’t have a geology background, so of course I’m speculating. I haven’t seen anyone offer an explanation yet - well, not any reputable scientists, anyway. I think they’re waiting for more information - like even better pictures, or landing a rover to explore them.
jab1, I saw an episode of that show on crop circles. They managed to insist there was something mysterious involved, postulating it could be tests by the government using secret Star Wars satellites to see if they can pinpoint microwave lasers on the surface. Thus the complex patterns. Or maybe it’s aliens, leaving odd radioisotopes in the region. It doesn’t surprise me they backed Hoagland.
