by Mac Tonnies
Ventures such as this highlight the need for hands-on research. Orbital data is essential, but inadequate for addressing archaeological inquiries with the required rigor. Likewise, anything a rover can do, an astronaut can do more quickly, more fastidiously, and more intelligently.
Extraterrestrial ruins or not, future exploration of Mars will be a stilted and clumsy affair until humans are sent.
The Fort:
Evidence of Structural Collapse?
Several miles to the west of the Face is a wedge-shaped mesa with angled edges known as the Fort. Its broadest side runs parallel to the Face, even though the Fort’s geomorphology is quite unlike the Face, which features gentle curves imposed on a rectilinear platform. In contrast, the Fort is angular, more suggestive of artificial structure. Relatively few buildings on Earth are rounded or biomorphic. Ancient and contemporary terrestrial structures are typically characterized by right angles. Exceptions to this rule are highly functionalized structures such as stadiums, observatories, and air traffic control towers.
To be sure, there are several angular mesas in Cydonia that appear completely natural. But close inspection of the Fort reveals a number of arresting details consistent with artificiality.
The Fort probably wouldn’t have been noticed had it not been for an apparent shadowed “courtyard” seen in the Viking images. Anomalists seized on the seemingly exposed interior as virtual proof that the Fort had to be an enormous artificial structure, and high-resolution photos were eagerly awaited. After the first substandard image of the Face was released in 1998, the nascent Mars anomaly community argued that images of the Fort would assist in the hunt for alien relics.
Mark Carlotto noted that while the Face’s rounded topology made demonstrating artificiality effectively impossible (debunkers could always resort to the tendency for people to see faces), the Fort’s more geometric appearance appeared more in line with terrestrial architecture.
Years passed before the Surveyor photographed the Fort. Malin Space Science Systems published the image on its website after a delay of half a year, eliciting tremors of conspiracy theory on the Net. Disappointingly, the new image of the Fort lacked the interesting courtyard prevalent in the Viking photos. The unique enclosed interior that had lent the Fort its moniker had been a shadow, complicated by the Viking image’s relatively low resolution. While the Fort remained an object of interest, hopes of its being a “smoking gun” for extraterrestrial architecture were dashed.
But the Fort remained the focus of interest. Mark Carlotto produced an animated perspective rotation of the Fort, as processed by “shape-from-shading” topological rendering. In the rotation (although unfortunately not in the two-dimensional photo), it’s obvious that the Fort has collapsed inward. Its lowest point is roughly in the center of the formation, leaving a skirt of jagged debris emerging from the fringe.
The best image yet of the enigmatic Fort, which seems to have imploded toward its center. The Fort forms the eastern border of the City complex and its prominent “wall” parallels both the Face and Cliff many miles away. Courtesy of NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology/Malin Space Science Systems.
Ascribing this most unusual effect to erosion violates basic geological principles—surface features don’t erode from the inside out. Rather, they are sculpted from the outside in—the same mechanism NASA geologists attribute to the Face and other “knobs” in the Cydonia Mensae region.
A similar platform mesa located near the Cliff mirrors this oddly hollowed-out aspect. This feature has a sunken rectangular area near one edge, lined by exposed “cubicles.” The Fort-like object shows no signs of having imploded, but the unusually recessed area defies erosion and suggests intelligent design. If the Cliff served a practical purpose, then perhaps the inhabitants of the nearby platform were involved in its construction.
The same question (i.e., where did the Face-builders live?) led to Hoagland’s discovery of the City. Perhaps, unable or unwilling to travel significant distances, the Martians set up bases of operation on site. As the platform next to the Cliff shows no clear indications of geometric placement, it can be argued that it wasn’t intended to serve any particular aesthetic agenda.
If the features in Cydonia were constructed after an environmental disaster, it makes sense that the builders would have sought refuge wherever possible. A diminished atmosphere would have posed a significant threat to surface dwellers, as demonstrated by the various impact craters that pock the landscape. Additionally, ultraviolet radiation and lethal cosmic rays would have hastened efforts to seek shelter below the surface. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that our own plans for building bases on the Moon and Mars require burying life-support modules beneath a protective casing of native rock.
Proposed lunar bases house perhaps a dozen astronauts for specific intervals; if Cydonia was once a habitat, then it seems large enough to have contained hundreds of thousands of individuals and possibly more if the Martians extended their facilities far underground. Features such as the “tunnel” leading into the D&M Pyramid and the deep crevasse alongside the Face argue that the visible formations seen in orbiter photos may be relatively superficial. The enigma of Cydonia may literally be deeper.
Controversy over presumed underground features reached a head in late 2002, after NASA associate Keith Laney leaked an infrared (IR) image of Cydonia to Richard Hoagland. Laney claimed that he had downloaded the IR image from the Arizona State University Mars Thermal Imaging System website, acting on an insider tip. According to Laney and Hoagland, the downloaded image was hastily replaced by a less interesting (and purposefully substandard) counterpart on the Arizona State University THEMIS website.
Processed by Laney, the image revealed a labyrinthine subterranean complex. While the majority of image processors considered the underground city a hoax or misrepresentation, there remained a residue of staunch defenders. But without an original image with which to establish provenance, Laney’s heavily processed image joined the Enterprise Mission’s file of improvable claims. In a very real sense, there are no originals in digital imaging; by the time NASA, or an independent agency, has released an image to the public, it has likely undergone a variety of enhancement procedures to render the raw digital data into an intelligible picture. Gaining access to raw, untainted data is of particular concern to anomalists afraid that NASA might erase or disguise potentially controversial surface features, whether intentionally or inadvertently.
Predictably, the Arizona State University THEMIS team scoffed at the alleged structures visible in Laney’s image, and the project leader attributed the seemingly geometric profusion of subsurface features to the imaginative application of digital image filtering. For example, an application known as BUMP mapping can give a Mars surface image an appearance very much like that of Laney’s city.
Characteristically undeterred, Hoagland set out to prove that Laney’s image was authentic and undoctored. Realizing that it was impossible to prove he had the “real” image, he attempted to reconcile the IR detail with visible surface features. This proved difficult, as the assumed underground structures didn’t appear to follow any sort of consistent plan, let alone conform to known features such as the Face and D&M Pyramid.
While this is precisely the sort of detail one would expect from an over-processed, filtered image, it isn’t consistent with urban planning. But then again, if the subsurface features were real, who’s to say what alien architects might have come up with?
Attempting to locate a correspondence between the controversial image and known surface features, Hoagland directed his Web-based audience to the short “tube” extending from the Fort’s eastern wall and pointed out that the tube was represented in Laney’s IR image as well.
While there is indeed an overlap, this comes as no surprise. The IR anomalies are numerous and varied, a demented patchwork quilt of rectilinear forms. That one such line happens to correspond with a known surface feature is all but ine
vitable.
Alien Architecture?
The Fort’s topology is chaotic, unlike many of the rounded mesas that characterize the Cydonia region. If this is the result of an internal collapse, then what caused the collapse? From an archaeological standpoint, it’s reasonable to conclude that the Cydonia anomalies were built to withstand vast stretches of time.
That we are able to make out the Face at all, not to mention secondary details, is evidence that the formations under investigation were built to last, probably serving a dual functional/cultural purpose. Impact craters in the Fort’s immediate vicinity suggest that a volley of meteors toppled the Fort. It is, of course, unknown if this event occurred while Cydonia was occupied or long after the Martian civilization had died off or moved on.
The Surveyor images of the Fort met with disillusionment. Many expected high-resolution views to illuminate the interior, or courtyard, seemingly promised by Viking photos. Similarly, evident notched walls would help vindicate the Artificiality Hypothesis by confronting the Mars community with undeniable architectural detail.
We now know that the courtyard was a trick of light and shadow. The Fort’s seeming walls are actually defiles in an elevated platform and the courtyard appears to have been a triangular shadow. Nonetheless, the Fort is far from out of the running as a potential artifact. The Fort sports several peculiarities that seem quite Cydonian in their uniqueness and placement on the Martian surface. Not the least of these details is the aforementioned platform, an element we see clearly exhibited in the Face (both Viking and Mars Global Surveyor resolutions) as well as the “Rounded Formation” (alternately known as the “Platform Pyramid”) to the far west of the City complex.
Mark Carlotto, in The Martian Enigmas: A Closer Look, presents a revealing look at the Rounded Formation, Fort, and Face, all of which exhibit identical alignment and near-identical size. This could represent three geological anomalies conforming to a fortuitous architectural motif or it could indicate deliberate placement.
The Fort’s perimeter has six main facets. While those to the bottom and far left are relatively difficult to make out, the defiles along the right side of the Fort are quite clear. The longest of these gave the appearance of a structured wall in the Viking images.
The only portion of the Fort lacking clear delineation from the surrounding terrain is the lower left, illustratively compared to “rocket fins” by Richard Hoagland. Evident in Carlotto’s three-dimensional rotation, these fins are located at the Fort’s highest elevation; the rest of the Fort is sunken, consistent with the original impression of a collapsed structure. If this is indeed a collapsed structure, then the remainder of the faceted perimeter platform would have provided an expansive “terrace” upon which a population could have looked across the Cydonian desert to the Face. Incidentally, “terraces” are nothing new in Cydonia. We see them adorning the Main City Pyramid as well as the feature dubbed the “Hollow,” a formation with a unique triangular “courtyard” apparently engraved into its top.
The conspicuous tube-like feature noted in Hoagland’s study of THEMIS imagery radiates from the Fort’s eastern flank and appears to rest in a shallow depression that, if extended in a straight line, would intersect the Face itself. The tube’s connection to the enigmatic Fort suggests a direct functional interpretation. Perhaps the tube was a sort of rail system once used to transport Fort-dwellers to the Face or elsewhere in Cydonia. After all, if the Face, Tholus, and other Cydonia features are cultural artifacts, then they would have been visited at some point, for whatever reasons. Alternatively, if Cydonia was once a shallow lake, the tube could have been some sort of water-intake or waste-disposal device.
Along the remarkably straight eastern “wall” of the Fort is an isolated teardrop-shaped formation featuring an unusual central spine. Most small mounds in Cydonia are amorphic and random, fully consistent with natural erosion. The teardrop has a level of detail that is both rare and puzzling, very much like the rectilinear teardrop feature on the Face. Most interestingly, a very similar bisymmetric teardrop-shaped feature on top of the eastern platform overlooks the teardrop next to the Fort. This second feature, also with a spine-like central ridge, is positioned precisely ninety degrees from its somewhat larger counterpart.
Right angles are rare in nature. The odds of two essentially identical formations occurring in virtually the same place at right angles to one another provide a degree of anomaly that may help us determine if conscious intervention once played a role in shaping the Cydonia landscape.
The City Pyramid
The City Pyramid is the most apparent pyramidal formation found in the City area. Contenders include the Platform Pyramid (or Rounded Formation), a lozenge-shaped dome set on a shallow base, and the “Northeast City Pyramid,” which appears quite natural in high-resolution. The City’s southwest landmass (which appears quite unpyramidal in both Viking and Surveyor imagery) is littered with various small oddities some anomalists equate with intelligent design. Of these, the most interesting is an Egyptian-scale “pyramid” perched on the edge of an irregular mesa.
Carl Sagan’s “Pyramids of Elysium,” simple three-sided features discussed briefly in the Cosmos television series, demonstrate how wind-faceting can produce remarkably geometric pyramids, and the Egyptian-scale pyramid may be a further example of fortuitous natural processes. Still, its location in Cydonia and proximity to other alleged structures welcome speculation. Until the site is explored in depth, the Egyptian-scale pyramid will almost certainly cling to the larger mystery of potential alien artifacts in Cydonia.
The City Pyramid is perhaps the only City anomaly to look as expected based on Viking data. Architects Robert Fiertek and Harry Jordan each produced interpretations of the City area. While the Fort’s distorted shape seems to have confounded both of them, both found the City Pyramid to be pyramidal. The only question seemed to be how many sides it had. While Jordan suggested a simple four-sided affair, Fiertek’s reconstruction was more complex, and plotted the City Pyramid in a pentagonal arrangement that seemed to unify the City into a geometric whole.
The Surveyor’s first image of the City Pyramid surprised many people. Instead of a classic pyramid, it was distinctly five-sided, like the much larger (and differently oriented) D&M Pyramid to the south. The resemblance was startling, and supported the hypothesis that the Cydonians had built their structures according to a specific motif.
Like the D&M Pyramid, the City Pyramid shows tantalizing evidence of possible buried substructures. The most obvious geometric-looking detail is the square seemingly carved out on the formation’s uppermost ridge. The extent of this linear feature can’t be precisely determined because of shadow, but it appears to extend the entire length of the upper-left facet. At the base of the lower-right facet is a somewhat artificial-looking U-shaped “bracket,” possibly the sand-filled remains of a crater.
While I was discussing the 1998 Cydonia images with a skeptical NASA planetary geologist, he jokingly likened the City Pyramid to a giant fossilized starfish. Evidently he wasn’t the only one to notice the similarity; the awkward “City Pyramid” label has since been mostly supplanted by “Starfish.” The term itself is interesting in that it conjures organic imagery.
This wasn’t the first time Martian pyramids had provoked discussion of animate forms. In The Monuments of Mars, Richard Hoagland notes that the D&M Pyramid’s five-sided morphology can be viewed as a geophysical expression of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Man in a Squared Circle.” Whether this humanoid relationship is pure chance or intentional is, of course, unknown, and complicated by the relatively recent discovery that the D&M features an unsuspected angle that had been almost completely buried. While the latter discovery actually bolsters the D&M’s case for bilateral symmetry (an indication of conscious design), it deals a potential blow to Hoagland’s observation (see “Enduring Anomalies”).
The City Pyramid as photographed by the Surveyor in 1998. Courtesy of NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory/Cali
fornia Institute of Technology/Malin Space Science Systems.
Of course, the D&M may embody a number of traits, both organic and Euclidian. New Age commentators are quick to stress the relevance of “sacred geometry” in the Cydonia formations. And cartographers such as Erol Torun argue that the very placement of the Cydonia enigmas is wound up in a intricate cat’s cradle of planetary dimensions. Thus, the City and Face may not have been built where they were because doing so was practical; their location on the Martian globe may be an implicit aspect of the message they’re presumably intended to convey. This consideration has enormous bearing on the nature and intentions of the Cydonians, whoever they were. Mars itself may function as an epic communication; the key to the cipher may lie in the strange geometry found in Cydonia, with the Face as an effective place marker.
The morphology of the City Pyramid itself is faceted and stark, unlike neighboring knobby mesas. Surface detail, such as an unusual bifurcated terrace and elliptical depression, hint at superficial structure. Intriguing angular and rectilinear detail at the pyramid’s base may be the remaining portion of a casing of some sort, long abraded by dusty winds and burnished by micrometeorite impacts.
To the north of the City Pyramid is a faint but striking geoglyph reminiscent of the famed Nazca lines of Peru. Consisting of a triangular emblem embedded in a shallow triangular trench, the “Pictogram” points due Martian north and, as noted by researcher David Jinks, is accompanied by an apparent tetrahedral pyramid.
As the first Surveyor images found their way into the Cydonia microculture in 1998, the Pictogram received significant attention. Sonoma State University philosophy professor emeritus Stanley V. McDaniel examined the feature in detail in an installment to his McDaniel Report website, which contained vastly expanded discussion of issues in his book of the same name. McDaniel noted that while the central triangle appeared striking on first glance, it appeared less so when compared to other wind-shaped features in the area.
