Martian Genesis

THE FACE ON MARS IN JUNE 1976, NASA space probe, Viking I, went into orbit around the planet Mars. Just under two months later, a second probe--Viking II--was put in place. These two craft undertook a massive photographic survey of the Martian surface. Among some 60,000 pictures returned by the orbiters, eighteen were taken at 40.9 degrees North latitude, 9.45 degrees West longitude, a region known as Cydonia Mensae. Five of the eighteen showed a curious rock formation that looked like a human face. The best of these photographs received widespread press coverage. The rock formation was dubbed the "Face on Mars." Three years after the pictures were returned, independent experts began seriously to analyze the NASA images of the Cydonia region. They were interested not only in the "Face" but in several other nearby features of an unusual nature. In 1993, a group of highly respected academics from the United States and Sweden endorsed a report by Professor Stanley V. McDaniel on the Martian anomalies. The report presented evidence that the "Face" was artificial. 2 Inis Tuaisceart, the northernmost of the Blasket Islands off the southwest coast of Ireland, is colloquially known as An Fear Marbh, the Dead Man. The reason for this curious name is that the island's rock formations give it the appearance of a corpse laid out for burial. Although the resemblance is striking, there has yet to be any suggestion it is artificial. The Dead Man is nothing more than the result of natural weathering and erosion. The distinguished astronomer and expert in extraterrestrial intelligence, Professor Frank Drake, thinks the "Face on Mars" is something of that sort. Like the "Man in the Moon," it's "just an accident of topography and photography." NASA took much the same view when the images were first released. Official statements dismissed the "Face" as a trick of light and shade created by the way sunlight struck a natural rock formation. But Professor McDaniel isn't so sure. He has problems with the fact that the two best Viking images of the "Face" were taken at different angles of the sun (10 degrees and 27 degrees). They were also taken with different camera angles, satellite altitude and orbital inclination. He argues that if the "Face" was a trick of the light, it should have disappeared--or at least distorted--when the light changed. Professor McDaniel doesn't think the "Face" is a trick of the light. He thinks it's a face and he believes it may be artificial. There are other experts who agree with him. 3 Photoclinometry is a technique developed by astronomers to help analyze the topography of the moon. Essentially it estimates the shape of an object from the relative degrees of light and shade in a photograph--shape from shading. Dr. Mark Carlotto, an authority on digital image processing based at the Analytic Sciences Corporation in Boston, Massachusetts, applied the technique to the Viking photographs. Not only was he able to work out a consistent three-dimensional structure from both the main images of the "Face," but he was able to predict the appearance of each image (at their differing sun angles) by analyzing the other. He concluded: The features are present in the underlying topography and do seem to reflect recognizably facial characteristics over a wide range of illumination conditions and perspectives. In other words, what seems to be a face in the photographs is actually a face on the ground. It's not, as Professor Drake claims, an illusion like the "Man in the Moon." 4 This doesn't mean it can't be a natural formation like Inis Tuaisceart, or the Old Man of the Mountain, a face-like rock in New Hampshire. But both Inis Tuaisceart and the Old Man of the Mountain have human features in profile. To achieBrennan, Herbie is the author of 'Martian Genesis' with ISBN 9780440235576 and ISBN 044023557X.