The Mars Mystery

by Graham Hancock

  “IS THAT A CAMEL?”

  Following the Arab uprising of 1917, T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) presented the leaders of the rebellion with portraits of themselves. To his amazement they literally could not see what the paintings were supposed to be. One tentatively pointed to the image of his own nose and asked, “Is that a camel?”

  The Arabs were not being ignorant and naive. They merely lacked the specifically European cultural references of the time that would have taught them to know what to look for. All they could see was a flat square canvas covered in areas by colored paint. They were at first unable to interpret these areas of pigment as representations of three-dimensional objects. In a way they were seeing reality, and it is we who are taken in by illusion. What the Arabs saw was what was actually there. They were unaware that a picture is a visual metaphor. We, however, would have seen a face—where there really was, in truth, only pigment.

  In the same way, as you read these words, the sounds that you hear in your head are not intrinsic to the printed letters. An alien, on seeing this page, would just see it as a mass of squiggles—and again, like the Arab chiefs, would be correct. It is we who are culturally educated to transmute the shapes into sounds—which, of course, they are not.

  Recognition of faces as significant objects is a genetic predisposition of the human species, something that we inherit and never need to be taught—indeed, something that is hard-wired into the brain itself.9 Obviously it is an important gift. It means, for example, that a newborn will instantly recognize human beings (preferably its parents) without first having to learn what humans look like.10 Thus it is that any arrangement of objects that resemble facial features, whether they be a face or not (they could be two apples, a carrot, and a banana), will act as a stimulus to the brain and cause us to see that object, or collection of objects, as a face. For the same reason, we sometimes see faces in clouds or become scared of a tree that seems to have a twisted evil face in its bark.

  But face recognition is not quite the same skill as recognition of an image of a face. As Lawrences example shows, the ability to see a face in a two-dimensional portrayal such as a painting or a photograph is something that has to be learned. Had the Arabs been given sculptures, there is no doubt they would have seen that they represented faces.

  For the sake of argument, let us imagine that the Viking 1 orbiter that photographed Cydonia was not an unmanned mission but was crewed by the 1976 equivalents of T. E. Lawrence and one of his Arab allies.

  Drifting some 1,800 kilometers above the surface of the Red Planet, armed with a powerful telescope, our two protagonists would pass over the Face and exchange observations. Lawrence would turn to his colleague and say, “Wow! Look at that face!” But what would the Arab say? This is the question that goes to the very heart of the Artificial Origins at Cydonia hypothesis. Is the Face merely an illusion, a Rorschach image, on which Lawrence is projecting qualities that do not belong to it—and which the Arab cannot see except as a two-dimensional pattern of differing tone values? Or is the object truly sculpted (by nature or artificial means), in which case the Arab sees it? Does he reply “What face?”—or does he too gasp in wonder at the dusty visage staring back up at him?

  10

  Ozymandias

  MARK Carlotto of the U.S. Analytic Sciences Corporation is a major figure in the debate over artificial origins at Cydonia. Since first hearing about the Face on Mars in 1985 he has consistently been at the forefront of research, using his skills as an image processor to extract new, high-quality information from the original Viking data tapes. He told us in an interview in December 1996:

  My initial reaction was kind of open-minded; I was intrigued. I had no idea about this. I’ve always followed the space program pretty closely, since college, and I was in college in 1976. I remember Viking—but I didn’t hear then about the Face on Mars. So I was curious….

  I started off applying the methods that we used in my day job at the Analytic Science Corporation, TASC. What I did was to apply the methods we were using routinely at the time to enhance X-rays, radiographic analysis, remote sensing, satellite images, that sort of thing. I was really able to clean up and restore the [original Viking] imagery.1

  THREE-DIMENSIONAL ANALYSIS

  We have spoken of Carlotto’s images in previous chapters and noted that they show intriguing features and previously unnoticed details in the Face; for example, bilateral crossing lines above the eyes that are suggestive of a diadem, teeth in the mouth, and stripes on the headdress. Carlotto was also able to add to the stock of information on other previously known attributes of the Face such as the left eye socket (on the shadowed side) and an alleged teardrop below the right eye.

  “I was bothered from the start,” he told us, “by NASA’s ‘trick of light and shadow’ hypothesis. And so I figured, well, maybe there’s a way of assessing this, and that’s when I got into three-dimensional analysis of the Face to reconstruct its shape and get an awful lot of details a lot more clearly.”

  Such analysis gleans information about the three-dimensional aspects of an object from its two-dimensional representation; that is, a photograph. This can be done in a variety of ways depending on the available imagery: by the analysis of the heights of the shadows; by stereoscopy—comparing two images of the same object taken from different angles; and in particular by “shape from shading,” also known as photoclinometry.2 As Carlotto puts it: “Shape-from-shading techniques reconstruct the shape of the object being imaged by relating shading information to surface orientation. In cases [such as Cydonia] where there is a lack of distinct surface features and texture, the primary source of surface information is shading.”3

  One objection to shape from shading is that the computer may end up doing exactly the same job as the human brain. In other words, it may “see” shade as slope—for example, interpreting what could be nothing more than flat-surface albedo coloration as height. The great strength of the computer, however, is that it can build 3-D images and then view and test these from different angles and perspectives.

  Working with the two available Viking frames of the Face, Carlotto instructed his computer to prepare three-dimensional models based on each of them. Since the two frames had been taken at different angles and different times of day he wanted to see if the computer would construct different models from each. Both reconstructions showed facial features in the underlying topography, however, an indication that the structure is indeed three-dimensional and face-like.

  Carlotto then checked his results in an ingenious fashion. Taking the model of the Face from frame 35A72, he instructed the computer to illuminate it from the sun angle given in frame 70A13. His image correctly predicted the shadowing that was found on the real 70A13. He then repeated the procedure, this time using the sun angle from frame 35A72 on the photoclinometrically reconstructed face from frame 70A13. Again the computer image paralleled the real frame.

  FRACTALS ON MARS

  Most of mankinds giant leaps forward in space discovery have followed advances in weapons technology. It should therefore come as no surprise that the computer-processing technique best adapted to detecting signs of artificiality in the Cydonia images is one that was originally developed for military purposes. “At the Analytic Sciences Corporation,” Carlotto told us, “we were at that time developing computer programs for detecting manmade objects. Again, I went into the analysis with an open mind. I simply took the technique we were using on terrestrial imagery and applied it to the Mars imagery, right down to the same settings and everything.”

  The programs that Carlotto was developing for TASC involved what is known as “fractal analysis.” Put simply, nature tends to repeat herself in specific areas in terms of the morphology of natural features. An example is the fronds of a fern—each of which is a scale model of the larger, whole fern—or cracks in rock, which resemble great mountain crevices, only on a smaller scale. The basic patterns that make up natural structures are termed fractal
s, which are repeated on a range of different scales. Because of this quality of natural objects to be self-similar, a computer can be used to detect the repetition of the basic morphological fractal and thus distinguish a natural object from an object that does not correspond to the fractal pattern—i.e., an object that is almost certainly artificial.

  For the military, this technique can be used to detect manmade objects and installations camouflaged in any terrain. First the computer calculates the “normal” fractal model for the locality, then it analyzes the entire region and highlights any parts of that terrain that do not seem to fit the fractal model. If these objects are non-fractal to any great degree, then they are judged alien to that specific locality; that is, they are in all probability manmade. It has been calculated that fractal analysis correctly identifies artificial objects with roughly 80 percent accuracy.4

  Carlotto with a colleague, Michael C. Stein, carried out a detailed fractal analysis of the Viking frames:

  We found that the Face was the least natural object on frame 35A72 and applied it to adjacent frames. It was also the least natural object over the four, five frames that we did. Very anomalous.5

  In fact, Carlotto’s fractal analysis revealed the Face as the least natural object for 15,000 kilometers in every direction—showing a model-fit error curve slightly more pronounced than that of a military vehicle!

  ILLUMINATION

  Whatever it may finally prove to be—artificial work of sculpture or weirdly eroded mesa—the Face on Mars is not a “shadow that somewhat resembles a face.” It looks like a face, because it is face-like in form. We believe that Carlottos work proves this. But it does not prove artificiality—in part because the unilluminated side of the Face is in general much less convincing than the illuminated side, as Carlotto readily admits:

  It is apparent that the shadowed side of the Face is either incomplete or degraded and is not a mirror image of the side in sunlight. Those who support the intelligence hypothesis argue that the distortion could be due to meteorite impact, erosion over time, outright abandonment of the project, or its intentional discontinuation upon achieving adequate recognizability as a face. Opponents are not surprised at the roughness in the symmetry of what they believe simply to be a naturally formed mesa.

  It should be understood by all concerned that the original Viking data from the shadowed side of the Face contains very little information and therefore represents the weakest link in the chain of image reconstruction. Final judgments about the symmetry of the ridge line and the nature of any fine detail in the shadowed side should be suspended until the Face can be photographed under more revealing illumination.6

  On 5 April 1998 Mars Global Surveyor did succeed in rephotographing the Face under more revealing illumination and in high resolution. As we shall see in chapter 15, the image remains ambiguous. Yet the Face does not stand alone and, as Carlotto told us when we interviewed him in December 1996, it is the context in which the Face is set that provides the most convincing evidence of artificiality:

  About a year ago I began to see another direction here, another avenue of research. Coincidentally, over these last few years I’d been getting increasingly more involved in “Bayesian analysis”—this is a way of really taking lots of pieces of evidence and putting them together and qualifying to what extent these support or deny your hypothesis. The thought occurred to me about a year ago, maybe this could be applied to include all the evidence about [artificiality at Cydonia], not only the work that I have done, but also the early discoveries of Hoagland and others.

  So during this last year I think I’ve been transformed in some sense, in that when I first got involved in this I was open-minded, but I wasn’t ready to jump on the bandwagon and wave a flag. I’ve always been very cautious…. Up until a year ago if someone would ask me, “What do you think the odds are [of the Cydonia structures being artificial]?” I would say, “51 percent to 49 percent”—a real conservative engineering kind of assessment. But, I’ve always been split-brained on this…. I guess intuitively I felt there was more there, but it was subliminal. This Bayesian analysis, I think has, in my mind, just brought it out that there’s no single piece, no “smoking gun.” Instead there’s a lot of little pieces that all kind of add up…. At this point in time I feel pretty confident these are artificial objects.

  LOOK ON MY WORKS …

  Inspired by the ruins of the giant statues of Ramses II on the west bank of the Nile at Luxor, Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) wrote Ozymandias,” his haunting poem of hubris and destruction. It tells of a traveler coming on the ruins of the vast, broken statue of Ozymandias, King of Kings, on which he reads, “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair.” The king, in his pride, wants readers to look at the splendid city that he rules over, wishing them to despair in the face of his power, but time has reduced his works to dust. The meaning of the line therefore twists into a warning of mortality to those proud rulers like Ozymandias who think themselves mightier than death.

  Were we to stand on the Cydonian plain, we, too, would see a “half-sunk, shattered visage” in the sand. From this proximity we could tell if we were looking at just a hill, or whether we were dwarfed by the crumbling death mask of some ancient alien Ozymandias.

  Perhaps we could even look upon his “works”? For if we were to cross the once-flooded plain to the foothills of the ancient shoreline, we would come to a place where a city, though in ruins, may still stand.

  11

  Companions of the Face

  THE Face is not alone on the plains of Cydonia but is surrounded by other anomalous structures which some believe will ultimately prove to be of greater importance. Richard Hoagland has even suggested:

  If someone made it with the purpose of attracting our attention, there was a certain logic to a face. What better way to call attention to a specific place on Mars as a site for further exploration?1

  Hoagland had been present at JPL on the day the Face had been discovered in 1976, and like the rest of his colleagues in the press, had initially believed Gerry Soffen’s “illusion” explanation. Only years later, with time to peruse the image in more detail, did he get bitten by what he calls “this Mars bug.” He remembered a facetious comment that had been made on that afternoon at JPL by a fellow journalist—along the lines of “the Face is to tell us where to land.” Ignoring the intended sarcasm, Hoagland decided to take seriously the possibility that the Face could be a marker for something else and began to search the Cydonian landscape for other “monuments.”

  THE CITY AND THE FORT

  Reasoning that whoever had created the Face would have wanted to get a good view of it, Hoagland drew a horizontal line 90 degrees from the structure’s vertical axis. It led him to the center of four small regular mounds in the pattern of a cross, housing a fainter central mound—this itself seemingly at the center of a group of ten geometrical pyramidal forms. He christened this collection of features “the City” and described it as a

  remarkably rectilinear arrangement of massive structures, interspersed with several smaller “pyramids” (some at exact right angles to the larger structures) and even smaller conical-shaped “buildings.” The entire gathering measured something like four by eight kilometers—a strikingly rectangular pattern created by numerous features at right angles to each other, including aligned corners and even “streets” running roughly north and south.2

  The easternmost structure of this grouping was termed by Hoagland “the Fort.” It is a straight-edged feature that seems to consist of two huge walls, each roughly a mile in length, meeting at the southwest corner, enclosing a regular inner space, like the keep of a giant castle.

  More discoveries were to follow.

  LINES ON THE LANDSCAPE

  Hoagland’s next find was the so-called Cliff, 14 miles east of the Face—that is, on the side opposite the city. He noticed that this curious formation lies strangely untouched by, and at right angles to, a splash of crater ejecta material—su
ggesting that it was built after the crater was created.

  The Cliff, which lies on an axis parallel to the Face, might be a thin wedge-shaped mesa or a gigantic wall. It seems to act as a backdrop to the profile of the Face as seen from the City, along a line that runs from the “City Square,” through the mouth of the Face, and then on to the center of the Cliff.

  Hoagland used computer technology to re-create the Martian sky to see if this horizontal line could have any astronomical significance. He calculated that a viewer positioned at the city center would have seen the sun rising out of the Faces mouth at dawn on the summer solstice approximately 330,000 years ago.

  ENTRY TO THE CITY

  The main structures of the City are found in a circle around the “City Square,” as Hoagland terms the cross-shaped pattern of small mounds. The surrounding large structures, each roughly the same size as the Face, are straight-sided and appear to be pyramidal in form. The only exceptions are a feature opposite the Face—which is oval, like the Face itself—and the Fort, which resembles a huge triangle, with what looks to be two sides of immense walls enclosing an inner space, the third side being more built up and irregular.

  Dotted around the feet of the monstrous pyramids that define the City are sixteen small oval mounds. They are set in no immediately obvious pattern save for the City Square, with its four mounds in a cross arrangement. These mounds are so small that no detail can be gleaned from them other than their position and size. And yet, as we shall later discuss, they are of prime importance in the AOC debate.