linuxmafia.com 2016/linuxmafia.com.tar/linuxmafia.com/pub/skeptic/files-to-classify/marsface.txt

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From: [e-mail]
Subject:      Face on Mars  ( overkill? :)
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date:         Thu, 17 Dec 1992 05:20:17 PST
   Hi!
   Here's an excerpt of the USENET sci.skeptic FAQ I picked up from
   the mail server at MIT.  The address is below, along with the message
   body of my request for this FAQ.  It's very interesting and has many
   Answered Questions ( with details :)

From: [e-mail]  10-DEC-1992 03:19:13.09
Mesg: send usenet/sci.skeptic/sci.skeptic:_The_Frequently_Questioned_Answers.Z

3.10: What is the face on Mars?
-------------------------------

One of the Mars orbiters took a photograph of a part of Mars (Cydonia)
when the sun was very low on the horizon.  The picture shows a "face"
and some nearby pyramids.  Both these structures are seen more by
their shadows than their actual shape.  The pyramid shadows appear
regular because their size is close to the limit of resolution of the
camera, and the "face" is just a chance arrangement of shadow over a
couple of hills.  The human brain is very good at picking out familiar
patterns in random noise, so it is not surprising that a couple of
Martian surface features (out of thousands photographed) vaugely
resemble a face when seen in the right light.

Richard Hoagland has championed the idea that the Face is artificial,
intended to resemble a human, and erected by an extraterrestrial
civilization. Most other analysts concede that the resemblance is most
likely accidental. Other Viking images show a smiley-faced crater and
a lava flow resembling Kermit the Frog elsewhere on Mars. There exists
a Mars Anomalies Research Society (sorry, don't know the address) to
study the Face.

The Mars Observe spacecraft, scheduled for launch September 25 has a
camera that can give 1.5m per pixel resolution.  More details of the
Cydonia formations should become available when it arrives.

Anyone who wants to learn some more about this should look up "Image
Processing", volume 4 issue 3, which includes enhanced images of the
"face".  Hoagland has written "The Monuments of Mars: A City on the
Edge of Forever", North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, California, USA,
1987.

[Some of this is from the sci.space FAQs]



From: Paul Carr <[e-mail]>
Subject:      Mars Surface Anomalies - One Fencesitter
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date:         Thu, 17 Dec 1992 14:25:16 EST
>The arguments against there being real artifacts in these photos include:

Probably the best book on the Mars Face and other phenomena is Dr. Mark
Carlotto's _The Martian Enigmas_.  He doesn't flatly claim that the surface
anomalies observed by viking are artificial, but rather that they have very
interesting properties which may indicate an artifical origin.  I'm not
an image processing expert, so I refere you to the book, however, the arguments
advanced against the artificiality of the anomalous features strike me as
rather feeble in light of what I've read.

>1. the artifacts are apparent only at certain lighting angles - under other
>angles, it is clear that the "features" are non-uniform, and non-purposeful.
>They are accidents, not designed.

I'm sorry, but that's not at all clear.  Carlotto shows us ALL the
available images of the 'face', and they ALL look like a face.
The highest resolution image looks most like a face.  Of course,
that doesn't mean it _is_ a face, but the claim that it's
sun angle dependent is spurious.
>
>2. the photos used for these debates are not always the best available; the
>"noise" and lesser detail allows someone to advance claims that sharper
>photos would disprove. There have been better pictures available, and in all
>cases, these artifacts become terrain again.
>
Well, the photos are the best available.  No one has orbited a camera around
Mars for any length of time since the Viking mission.  If all goes well,
there will be much better images available when Mars Observer arrives at Mars
in August '93.  Besides, how do you know that sharper images 'would disprove'
any claim put forth?  They may well provide stronger evidence for some
claims.

It's true that the Viking images are far from perfect.  See Carlotto's book.

>3. Humans have a strong tendency to see faces and patterns in _anything_.
>There are photos in the "Fringes" article, taken from the Mars set, which
>show a silhouette of Kermit the Frog and a meteor crater that is plainly
>The Happy Face.
>
I don't see how this is relevant.  The argument is that if a natural formation
can be interpreted as artificial (trivially true), then if something is
interpreted as artificial, then it is natural.  This doesn't strike me as
very careful reasoning.

>4. as artificial images, they have the severe problem that there are not more
>of them, that they are not extended, as a city on earth is extended with
>supporting features, and that they offer no more evidence of purpose than
>that which a teenager with a straightedge and a head full of Edgar Rice
>Burroughs could extract in an afternoon. I've read some of the descriptions
>of these "features", and they bear a much greater resemblance to an article
>on pyramidology than archeology, architecture or any of the scientific
>fields of photo interpretation.

The Viking images have a resolution of about 100 meters or worse.  Fine
features, eroded by hundreds of thousands, or perhaps millions of Martian
years of sand storms could well be indiscernable at that resolution.

Not everyone is making claims as exotic as Dick Hoagland does in _The
Monuments of Mars_.  In my opinion, he's off the deep end with some of
his claims.  Carlotto and others are far more cautious.

However, with the arrival of MO next year, any claims, including Hoagland's,
about the nature of these images will be falsifiable, so no point
in arguing over obsolescent data.

Some skeptics are far to quick to _assume_ that there could not be any
artifacts on Mars (other than the Viking lander).  Could this be because
it might rock their tidy little world?