Emphatically Still a Face
NASA's Mars Odyssey craft has returned an impressive new photo of the Face on Mars. The short of it: It's still a face.
A face? Yes.
This image lobs a challenge into the laps of critics who maintain the Face is merely an un-face-like mesa. Taken with the THEMIS camera in visible-light, the new snapshot of the Cydonia Mensae region (which includes a portion of the controversial D&M Pyramid in the lower-left) shows a scattering of amorphic mesas and knobs in the Face's vicinity, none of which approximate the Face's defining symmetry and anthropomorphism.
In recent years, debunkers have seized on high-resolution close-ups of the Face to demonstrate the feature's age-ravaged surface, implying the Face is a natural formation. This tactic completely neglects the hypothesis that the Face, if artificial, was constructed perhaps hundreds of thousands of years ago, in which case some degree of erosion is inevitable.
In return, advocates of the Artificiality Hypothesis have pointed to known artificial ruins on Earth (including the Pyramids and Sphinx) which, seen sufficiently close-up, can look tantalizingly natural. By providing a contextual view of the controversial "Martian Sphinx," the THEMIS image effectively "removes" superficial damage, underscoring the formation's anomalous humanoid appearance.
The conclusion is quite plain: The Face, whatever its origin, is very much face-like, despite the repeated "scotchings" doled out by the mainstream skeptical establishment.
The "nostril" in this early image is a transmission error. But better photos show an actual candidate nostril where one belongs if the Face is an anthropomorphic sculpture.
A popular debunking myth is that an early Viking image of the Face shows a dot thought by "Face enthusiasts" to be a nostril-like surface feature. While digital imaging processors intrigued by the Face knew perfectly well that the so-called "nostril" was simply a data transmission error, the prospect of an anthropomorphic "nose" appeared to be vindicated in 1998, when the Mars Global Surveyor took its first picture of the Face -- there actually is a nostril-like "pit" on the Face. More interestingly, it coincides with the Viking transmission error, suggesting the "will to believe" in a facial likeness is based in morphological reality.
In the new image, the candidate "nostril" on the Face's western half can be seen, along with further detail in keeping with the Artificiality Hypothesis.
posted by Mac @ 10:26 PM
34 Comments:
There is definitely the appearance of a face here, but to me it does not seem to be a designed face, even given it may be deeply eroded and altered. In contrast to this, the platform on which "the face" sits is so symmetrical it seems unlikely to be natural and very likely could be designed. Because of this, for years and years I keep going back to the face, looking at it and trying to envision the design, but it just seems off-kilter to me. I have read everything about how it may be a two-sided face, how there are certain facial details, like the nostril that is very apparent in the recent picture, but it still looks like a natural formation to me. If you removed the face from the platform, it would be more convincing to me as a designed object.
My work on the geometric aspects of the Face (as yet unpublished) shows a high degree of symmetry to the formation as a whole, with facial proportions that echo those of standard human ones.
You can't eyeball it and make meaningful statements. You have to get in there and actually work on the image.
Note that one of the most common plaints of would-be debunkers is that seeing a face in that formation is subjective. They fail to realize that not seeing a face in it is equally subjective.
I will be very interested to see your book. I don't think the argument of the debunkers is that seeing the face is subjective. Basically, you cannot help but see a face in this formation, but seeing a face does not mean it is designed. Their argument is that humans tend to see faces everywhere they look, it is a recognition system hard-wired into our brains. Designed face advocates seem to say, if we see a face here, it must be designed because the chance actions of natural processes are very unlikely to have created this. Debunkers claim, we see facial characteristics all the time in objects not designed to look like faces, so it is not really so unlikely.
No, the presence of a face doesn't mean it's designed. But I would argue that other anomalous (and decidedly non-subjective) traits such as nonfractality, symmetry and persistence of a facial resemblance from a multitude of perspectives and sun-angles qualify as evidence of artificiality.
Sure, there are all sorts of facial simulacra here on Earth that are perfectly natural, but none, to my knowledge, passes the sort of stringent analysis the Face has weathered.
BTW, I noticed you can get my book (used) on Amazon for $7.00.
I don't think it'll be book length by any means, but the rough beginnings of it are about 20 pages so far, as I recall.
A lot can be said in 20 pages.
Mac, I have already read your book and most everything else that has been written on the subject. I really liked your book. Recently I read another book about Mars. "A Traveler's Guide to Mars" by William K. Hartmann. This is actually a pretty good book also, by a self-proclaimed sceintific expert on Mars. Here is what he has to say about the face in his book; "Like the idea of flying saucers, the idea of the so-called Face on Mars was far more about sociology and human behavior than any credible evidence for intelligent aliens. It's a story about misconception, silliness, promoters, and the insatiable drive of the less reputable media to exploit any quirky story to sell papers and attract viewers."
Hartmann appears to be approaching this subject with blinders on and I find your analysis much more reasonable, but I still remain a skeptic. Maybe I am just the kind of person who is really hard to convince about anything.
Besides the silly stuff about the face, Hartmann's book is pretty cool. It discusses all the Martion landforms and their history and has a lot of really good pictures. If you have any interest in learning more about the geology of Mars, I would recommend it.
Hartmann's book is wonderful, visually, and I look forward to reading it. I read his take on the Face; it's obvious he's got "issues" -- probably from being hounded by Face true-believers.
"...insatiable drive of the less reputable media to exploit any quirky story to sell papers and attract viewers."
As opposed to the insatiable drive of those who wish to sell books and attract viewers by offering their writing about the Face on Mars being a natural formation.
[polite cough]
Yes, we're hardwired in some ways to recognize face-like features. But there really have been quite a lot of commments over the years by mainstram writers that it doesn't look like a face.
It's a useful indicator that you can stop right there and not bother to read any further comments on the Face which they may make. Someone whose visual processing is malfunctioning to the point where they can't recognize faces (you can file "prosopagnosia" right after "pareidolia") can't give useful input on that particular formation.
Well, you are right Carol, I have read a lot of those comments, but I always figured the people making those comments could not have really looked at all the good photos of the formation and might have seen the famous "catbox" image. Basically, they were just dimissing the issue out of hand without much thought.
Carol, has there been anything new on the hint of a heptagon around the "face"?
I've been out of it for so long, and I saw your comment above about your working in a book. I can't wait to see it.
Ever since finding very detailed eye "structure" on the face http://www.darkplanetonline.com/facetwo.html I have no doubt that this is an artificial object.
To suggest that these things would appear in the needed locations via some kind of natural process is insanity.
I agree; the "eye" feature is incredibly anthropomorphic. The odds of a feature like this occurring by chance (right where it belongs) are infintesimally low.
I consider the "eye" very strong evidence that the Face is more than simply an "slightly unusual mesa."
I may have posted something along these lines on the Posthuman Blues thread on this topic but I think it's worth repeating here (but then again, maybe not!) Let's get past all the arguments about whether or not the Face is artificial and assume it is. What are some of the implications of this?
1) Were the ancient Martians themselves remarkably humanoid in appearance OR ELSE were they "sending a message" to some OTHER species who was humanoid in appearance?
2) At what stage of civilization would someone construct such a massive monument? Would a species advanced enough to travel in space bother with this kind of thing? Wouldn't the stage of civilization that constructed this more likely correspond to the ancient Egyptians in level of development? If this is the case, might not the Face be an image of one of their gods, in which case it would make sense for it to be facing heavenward?
3) If estimates for the so-called "Maritan Spring" when Mars may have been habitable that put the end of this period at 3 billion years ago are accurate, consider this. What if the Face was constructed not millions but BILLIONS of years ago?
It may be that "reverse engineering" the construction of the Face in this way might give us some further hints and clues about what to look for that would clinch the case for artificiality.
I feel when we look at Mars and examine from a distance the ruins and anomalies up there.....we are actually looking at our past. The Future will hold many new things for us, including the chance to visit our old planet. Skeptics are irelevent. Time will show that a razor is a razor and the simplest answer is artificialty. One strange object and I would be skeptical......hundreds of strange objects and I am sold.
Iapetus is another example of the we-are-not-alone scenario playing out, Those in the know will deny, those who want to know will search. Will you be a searcher?
Look at the face and wonder....Where did the Mayan's go? Where did they come from? I think they got on their spaceships and left for points unknown.
Earth may be an antiquated spaceport for travelers.
FWIW, a few years ago I did some very rough calculations given what statistics I could find on the Great Wall of China, which seemed to show that the volume of the Face would be smaller than that of the whole of the Great Wall. It's in a stack of papers here somewhere, and maybe someday I'll be able to find it and post it in less time than it took to build the Wall.
Sentiment of Mars anomalists seems to be mixed as to whether it would be built up, or instead carved out of existing stone, if it is indeed an artifact.
Sauceruney, it's a long paper, not a book. And it's in a holding pattern at the moment, as too many real life things need dealing with at present.
Carol -- That's a great comparison. It demonstrates what seems logical to me -- That even an enormous earthwork (or earth-and-stone work) the size of the Face is certainly well within the engineering (and possibly slave-driving) capabilities of a civilization about at the level of the ancient Chinese, Egyptians, or Maya. My own notion is that the Face is, indeed, the work of an early phase through which the ancient Martians passed before going on to colonize the rest of the Solar System and beyond....
We're all nuts but..........
Ain't there always?
If a martian was looking to leave Mars and move to Earth for whatever reasons they'd seek to inhabit places comparable to thier own enviroment. Low oxygen levels and a cooler enviroment would point to mountain tops. The Andes, the Himalayas, The Alps. All with a civilization that over time evolved different features.
Now accepting that the human race came from Mars is the first step into understanding how and where we go back. Claims are made and most likely correct that the surface of Mars is cold and airless. Prone to dust storms the size of super hurricanes. While few seems to look towards the canyon over three miles deep that would have a thicker atmosphere and possibly be blocked from the worst of the dust storms.
But with the world blowing up soon we're likely to never know and all this is but conjecture for SciFi magazines.
IXLNXS
At first I thought the left (from the Face's perspective) eye in the new photo was out of alignment with the right but now I see it's not. The left eye is actually in perfect alignment with the right and exactly the same distance from the nose, making the symmetry of the image truly remarkable. What I originally took to be the left eye seems to be the top of the whole apparently collapsed left side of the Face, from the cheek just under the real left eye all the way down to the chin.
That's nothing -- take a good look at the hi-rez versions. The "eye" on the western side is so accurate it's creepy.
http://www.mactonnies.com/facephotos.html
I did. You're right, Mac. "Creepy" is the word. Hard to believe that something that looks out at you like that is a natural formation. I also rotated the high-res Face so it's vertical. The effect is even more striking.
I'm partial to the "we are the martians" hypothesis. I could conjure up a reason something like the face might be built that involves it.
Imagine that your world is dying or you are aware of some kind of extreme and inevitable catastrophe. You can, just barely, gather enough resources to send a small population to your neighboring planet, as a desperate bid for survival. Those people are considered brave heroes, braving a hostile and alien environment with no hope of return home. The survival of the race rests on their shoulders.
Those left behind have some time to kill until they're all dead. They obsess, perhaps, on the brave astronauts and their fate. This energy, and the nervousness of their own impending doom, is focussed on building a massive monument to the astronauts, built large so it can be seen from the skies, a kind of everlasting guardian watching over them from home.
Oh, and to digress a bit... the Great Wall of China isn't a great analogy, actually. Firstly, it's not really a single structure. It's composed of a bunch of different walls, built at different times, that were linked up. Also, most of it is only a wall in a technical sense. The Great Wall you see in pictures is only a (relatively) small stretch of the wall that is unusually ornate. Most of it isn't nearly as impressive, usually just rammed-earth banks. Oh, and it can't be seen from space unless you're using a telescope or somesuch.
JohnFen -- I like your take on the whole thing. It's very poignant. Couple of points. I merely meant to suggest that the kind of labor involved in constructing something on the scale of the Face was well within the capabilities of an archaic civilization such as ancient China or Egypt. To further speculate -- the ancient Martians (or ancient us!) could simply have taken an existing mesa of roughly the right size and shape and sculpted it into the Face (and surrounding frame or "headdress") that we see. Honestly, though, if they lived during the time of the so-called "Martian Spring" supposedly several billions of years ago, I don't see them colonizing Earth, which was uninhabitable at the time except for anaerobic single-celled organisms. But maybe they did and "martiformed" it!
"If a martian was looking to leave Mars and move to Earth for whatever reasons they'd seek to inhabit places comparable to thier own enviroment. Low oxygen levels and a cooler enviroment would point to mountain tops. The Andes, the Himalayas, The Alps."
There are circulating rumors that extraterrestrials have landed in the Himalayas and intend to reveal themselves in 2012. Just hype? Or could we actually have extraterrestrial visitors who are presently keeping a low profile in the Himalayas? Could they be our ancient Martian neighbors???
"But with the world blowing up soon we're likely to never know and all this is but conjecture for SciFi magazines."
Here's a bizarre conjecture for you: The ancient Martians were *us* - as time travelers from the future. Living conditions on Earth will progressively get worse; someday we will devise a way to save our race by traveling back in time billions of years - to colonize a much younger Mars during its "spring"...
In short: WE (that is, our posterity; NOT our ancestors) sculpted the Face - billions of years ago.
Here's a bizarre conjecture for you: The ancient Martians were *us* - as time travelers from the future. Living conditions on Earth will progressively get worse; someday we will devise a way to save our race by traveling back in time billions of years - to colonize a much younger Mars during its "spring"...
Ya know, Ken, I've been thinking along exactly the same lines. (It's gotta be telepathy!) Assuming time-travel, it might be a lot easier to go back to when Mars was habitable than to terraform present-day Mars. There's definitely an s.f. novel lurking here somewhere in all this rife speculation!
The problem the close-ups present to the artificial face theory isn't that they show erosion, but that they show it to be composed entirely of large natural features, like mountains and valleys between them. It would be one thing if the close-ups showed one huge mountain or maybe plateau that had been artificially sculpted here and there to form a face, and then eroded somewhat. But this shows many natural features, unrelated except that they are fairly close together. Each mountain is eroded exadtly as a mountain would erode. There is no semblance whatsoever of a unified object. That's the problem the close-ups present. Sure you can say that some amazingly massive sculpting, with say, atomic bombs, was used to form those mountains in the first place simply because they knew what their shadows would look like if the sun was shining from a certain angle. But doesn't that seem to you like picking at straws? Like having a theory that you must no matter what force the facts to fit? I would like to see Martians there too, but not at the expense of sacrificing my ability to see reality.
We do not know how old our own planet is...let alone Mars. These structures may be hundred of thousands of years old. Our own pyramids are only around 4 thousand years old and we are not even for sure of that. Stan, you cannot see the forest for the trees. Our planet could be millions of years old. Somewhere in their is a vastness we cannot even conceive in our little 21 century minds. The face is but one of many, many glaring improbabilities staring at us across the dark miles. We are here on Earth. That is a given. Therefore there could be any number of possibilities of what else is out there. We know nothing but we search. For what? Why are we not happy here on Earth? Why do we constantly search the heavens? We know more about space then our own Oceans. It is because home is out there somewhere. We did not come from ancient oceans, and if we did, they were not on this planet.
I am comfortable with the data flowing back. It will turn from a trickle to a torrent. I hope I am alive when NASA comes clean, probably because it is forced to, and tells the people of the World that we are travelers, and we have new Heros to follow. They weill be the people that came here from Mars and saved the race. Humans are a race of people with amnesia. We forgot that Journey. I hope NASA steps up to the plate and fills us in. Ignoring the information made available to us will not make it go away.
We are a planet of people looking for home and we have forgotten the way.
>>"We do not know how old our own planet is...let alone Mars" I would have to disagree with this statement. The age of the Earth is pretty well established as 4.6 billion years. As far as I know there is no controversy over this date and it no one has contested the date since I learned it as a Geology student 30 years ago. The science behind this date is pretty solid and very unlikely to be contested in the future. Of course, if you do not believe in science, I guess you could make the statement "we don't know how old our own planet is". The age we assume for Mars is tied to the age of the Earth. It could very well be inaccurate and cannot be confirmed until we bring back some rocks from Mars, but I think it is pretty safe to say, it is billions of years old.
Stan,
There are five-sided anomalies all over Cydonia. The City Pyramid and the D&M Pyramid, for instance, are almost exactly the same shape (i.e., five-sided). There are also other geometric shapes, such as a complete parallelogram right in the middle of the "city square". Finally, take another good look at the Face: note that its form is *symmetrical*. In addition, the line constituting the "headress" above the forehead looks *ruler straight*. And how do you explain the eye? I think that, taken together, the Face and the other anomalies in the Cydonia region very strongly suggest artificiality.
These images are challenging the religious and spiritual beliefs of the world. Everything that we have come to accept as a spiritual truism is open to debate ......so be it, we have been mindless entities en masse for too long.
I sincerely hope that more evidence can be found to support the artificiality of the photographed objects ....this may jolt people into realizing the total absurdity of fighting religous wars based on fictitious story telling.
This debate is all quite strange to me. For one thing, I'm a total believer in a galactic civilization that's very very old. But I don't believe it because of evidence, but simply because of logic. If you think hard enough about the age of the galaxy, and about how life evolves, it becomes pretty clear that we aren't the only intelligent beings, by a long sight. And it also is obvious that most civilizations would be a lot older than ours.
On the other hand, I have seen no evidence of it so far that looks real. You site the face on Mars as evidence. I've looked very close at the details of it in those very close photos, non of which I've seen on your web site (I'm not sure you know of the ones I mean, for that reason), and there is nothing there but natural phenomena. I've looked carefully at the 5-sided pyramids, and when you see them up close they are far from being symetrical, nothing at all like the pyramids in Egypt in that sense. It's only when you get far enough away and don't look at them carefully that they look symmetrical. If I was you I would take a good second look at these things. By the sounds of it, you've got an idea in your head, and come hell or high water you're going to stick to it. Probably because you've made a big deal of it on this web site. The problem is, there's only so much time to a life time. Before you know it, it's all over. It would be a shame to find out, just before the door closes, that everything you've espoused all your life was nuts. Wouldn't it? I know there are other civilizations out there, but why do we have to just make stuff up about it? Why can't we just be patient?
By the way, here is the address of that image of the face at it's very highest resolution: http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/extended_may2001/face/
Cool blog you have going here, I will check in often! I have a similar site about how to publish a book. It pretty much covers how to publish a book related stuff.
ufo's Are For Real:
Twas a very foggy night. Mum sent me to the grocery store to fetch a bottle of milk and a box of baby diapers for baby Grundyke.
i left the house and was down the road for about a quarter of a mile or so.
Just at that moment i remembered i had left my jacket on the back of my arm chair.
twas a nip of cold in the nights air.
i looked slightly to my left and saw a swift flashing light of green and blue. At first the lights were at a distance, and slowly started right at me at a high rate of speed. I was so scared i got out of my car and took about three steps and i froze in motion. My feet were about four feet off the ground. I was weightless. The only part of my body i was able to move was my eyes.
Then i was approached by a figure of a man. A man not of this world. His head was large and his eyes were silver in color with green inner colors. He had tiny little ears and a large hole for a nose. The nose cavity was leaking a green slime of snot. His mouth was very small. His teeth were filthy and looked like an old service station oil rag.
His ears were like the ears of a gold fish. I remember him looking to his left and mumbling a strange noise.
Then another figure came into view. it was a female from another world. Her features were much the same as the man except she had a pinkish liquid comming out of her nose that smelled of oxygen.
She came to me and a tenicle from her forehead came out and she guided it through my ear. it went into my ear and through my brain. Even though there was no pain in the brain, my head was dead. A loom of doom.
The tinicle was retracted from my brain and ear as the male floated over to the female.
The female beings tinicle was bound with redish wax from deep within my ear.
The male being began to extract his lips and lick my ear wax from her tinicle. his lips were big and greenish purple and shaped like a garlic clove. His breath smelled of onions, mixed with skunk oil.
His eyes began to change colors and two of his teeth fell onto the ground.
The female came up to me and said she now had all the information she gathered from my brain, put into a computer chip in her brain and could now comunicate with me.
she said her name was Philis and they were from another galaxy far, far away.
i ask her if they were going to harm me. She said they were friendly people and just passing through looking for plopez, which is a fuel they use for their space ship.
we then floated straight up for about twenty five feet or so and went inside the space ship.
Just to my right side was a computer that looked like a thirty six inch television set.
I could see that they were downloading illegal mp3 music from the net.
The lady from another world said they had permission from the President of the planet Ziptoetoc to download it and they would not reproduce, sell, or give coppies to pirates on the high seas.
i told them i would except that, and not turn them over to the s p c a, and they were happy.
she poured me a cup of tea, and we began to visit.
She put two table spoons of ground garlic into her cup of tea.
i ask her if she had ever tried sugar in her tea and she ask, what is sugar?
i told her i woud be glad to go to the grocery store and get them a bag.
She was so happy because from their planet there was no sugar.
She also told me her husband had dibetes and could only have sweet n low.
she floated me to the door and i floated down to my car.
When i got to the store, i bought five pounds of sugar and a box of sweet n low.
i also got a quart of low fat milk, and a box of depends for my little brother, Grundyke.
as i was driving back to the location of the space ship, i was in a hurry.
I kept telling my self, speed kills.
I drove very carefully.
As i got back to the space ship, i shut off the engine of my car and set the emergency brake, i began to float upwards.
Again i was in the space ship and Phillis had made another pot of tea.
She added two tea spoons of sugar to her cup of tea and drank it all up.
She looked at me and said, this sugar stuff is great.
I replied, oh, i am so glad you like it.
Her husbands name was Milton.
Milton loves all kinds of music. Even country and blues.
He told me his teeth are in bad condition because back on their planet, all the men mow the grass and, when finished mowing the grass,
they have block partys and eat it with sweet bread.
Plillis and Milton told me the favorite drink on their planet is aligator milk.
Yuck, i explained.
I told them how dangerous they can be, and they replied, they are our pets on our planet.
I answered, oh, that is nice.
Just at that moment, i remembered, my lunch break was about over at the factory, and i must return to work soon.
They understood and told me they realy injoyed the visit.
Again they floated me back to my car and i was on my way back to work.
To this day i will never know why there is a bottle of milk and a box of depends, in a grocery bag, sitting in the front seat of my car.
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