4-07-01

Metropolis on Mars?

This geometric, "celled" terrain suggests an eroded infrastructure not unlike a terrestrial city.

Keith Laney has found a new MSSS image that shows terrain consistent with reasonably well-preserved geometric structures. If artificial, the features comprising the "metropolis" were apparently constructed atop a flat mesa or platform on the side of a shallow hill. When viewing this complex feature, I'm reminded somewhat of a beached aircraft carrier with small, building-like structures covering the "runway."

Similar terrain discovered by the Enterprise Mission.

Fine-scale "ruins" such as this appear notably different from surrounding terrain. Especially noticeable is the overall "grid" suggestive of "city blocks" or "streets." If faulting or other natural factors can be ruled out, an artificial interpretation for this highly unusual "celled" terrain may also be the most reasonable.

Commentary from SPSR's Lan Fleming

"The 'metropolis' looked interesting enough that I checked the ancillary data to see what kind of adjustments should be made to get a correct overhead view. The image gives the impression that the camera was looking at an angle rather than from directly overhead, at least if the 'city' interpretation is correct. The ancillary data listing says the aspect ratio was 2.03, which means that the image needs to be stretched so that the length is about twice what it is in the raw image.

"The spacecraft was actually overhead, but the way the MGS camera works, the view it returned was simulating a line of sight elevated about 30 degrees above the horizontal.

"[...] Most of the ranks of parallel ridges mostly disappear, although there are a few rectilinear ridges left. I guess there are two ways you could view this result: that the impression of ruins was just a trick of the perspective in the unstretched image, or that there really is a city 'plan' here that is visible only when looking from an off-nadir line of sight. There might be something to that, but I'd be very cautious about accepting such interpretations. If the line of sight is low enough to the surface, even craters can appear as parallel ranks of trenches all running in the same direction."

4-10-01

Polar "Monoliths" Revisited

The image above, taken from the Independent Mars Research Group's website, shows a reconstructed Martian "monolith." John Dyck's independent reconstruction was previously posted on this site.

4-11-01

The Cliff's "Forbidden Zone"

Two apparently different images of the Cydonian "Cliff" suggest an intentional attempt to censor MOC imaging data, as shown above. The black bar crossing the images denotes spacecraft transmission error. If these are indeed two separate imaging attempts, then the odds of the same portion of the same landform failing to be successfully transmitted to Earth on two distinct occasions are astronomically low.

The Cliff, as discussed on this site, is a vital formation in our potential understanding of the Cydonia Mensae region and the role intelligence may have played in shaping it. Before MSSS' release of the newly reimaged Cliff in 2001, I had predicted the Cliff would bear stylized facial details, based on relatively low resolution Viking data. While this prediction proved inaccurate, the blank area shown above corresponds to where I had anticipated a possible "mouth."

Is something being deliberately hidden? Or if these are in fact separate versions of the same photo, why the misleading context?

Update:

See "new" image here: www.msss.com/moc_gallery/m13_m18/images/M18/M1800606.html

The full-resolution view of the "new" Cliff photo is available on the MSSS website. The April release I suspected of being a second photograph of the Cliff (see above) is not a new image. However, it is a significant improvement over the original, with the lower "error stripe" eradicated and the upper stripe partially deleted.

I extend my thinks to Jill England and Lan Fleming for their help in setting me straight on this discrepancy. Their comments follow.

Jill England:

There are not two images of the wall with the same errors in the same place. There is one image, which was pre-released before MSSS had cleaned up all of the data.

From what little I can tell so far about errors in images it appears that the chance that two random images will have errors is between 1 and 7 percent. If that seems a little high it is attributable to the really high error rate of 44% for high resolution images.

Just to test this I'm currently looking at pairs of overlapping images where both images have errors. So far I've examined about 6 pairs of images and found no errors overlapping in them. This observation pushes the probability of errors overlapping to less than 1 in 6 * 44/2 or less than 4% for two random images. That's just a rough guess and I need to look at many more image pairs to nail this down.

Lan Fleming:

Remember, the second Cydonia image in '98 also had a missing piece that was later recovered. I've got no idea how the data was recovered, or exactly how it was "lost" in the first place. It's a complete mystery to me, although there may be a logical explanation that someone with experience in spacecraft telemetry could provide.

4-14-01

Controversial "Letters" on the D&M Pyramid

Alleged "letters" cited by Tom Van Flandern and Mike Bara are natural grooves in the D&M Pyramid's eroded surface.

Tom Van Flandern, in one of the most embarrassing claims at his ad-hoc Washington press conference, attributed alleged "letters" found on the D&M Pyramid's northeast quadrant to the work of intelligent Martians. Mike Bara, criticizing Van Flandern's endorsement of the "letters" in a recent post on the Enterprise Mission, blasts the notion that they were carved by Martian architects. Instead, he writes they were probably placed there by scheming JPL technicians hoping to mislead Mars anomaly researchers.

Yet more lines on the D&M's surface.

Neither of these fanciful scenarios makes any sense whatsoever. The "letters" are dark grooves in the D&M's surface and conform to the "debris flow" and "domed uplift" noted by Richard Hoagland. Bara argues that the letters must be intentionally "airbrushed" because there are no corresponding features on the D&M's surface to cast alphabet-shaped shadows.

This equilateral triangle on the D&M is possibly a fortuitous result of erosion.

But there needn't be shadow-casting features to explain the presence of these markings. Given the highy irregular, eroded nature of the D&M's northeast flank, the "letters" are almost certainly nothing more than spurious shallow grooves etched by patient Martian winds.

And just how letter-like are these markings, anyway? The answer, after a careful look, is "not very." A few isolated characters can be made out, in particular a passable "A." Tellingly, no actual words are spelled, and the alphabet-like figures are interspersed with random "glyphs" consistent with natural features. If JPL actually intended to pull one over on the independent Mars research community by inserting "graffiti" on MOC image strips, one would certainly think they could do better than this.

It would be wise to remember previous experience with apparent "letters" on Mars. In "Cosmos," Carl Sagan relates the appearance of the apparent letter "B" on a rock at one of the Viking landing sites. Letters are extremely easy to visualize when faced with a screen-full of alien geography. The "graffiti" on top of the D&M Pyramid are additional examples of the mind attributing meaning to spurious arrangements of pixels. They do not reflect the handiwork of ancient Martian architects or, for that manner, disinformationists on the JPL payroll.

The Face and other formations in Cydonia -- including the vast D&M Pyramid -- constitute a very real scientific puzzle. Citing the "letters" as evidence of anything other than random processes trivializes the Mars SETI inquiry.

4-18-01

Fine-Scale Linear Features in Cydonia

These lettered dots denote anomalous specular "Mounds" in Cydonia.

Paul Anderson, writing in a new installment for his Eras Project site, has drawn attention to two bright, curiously parallel features in the Cydonia region. Their small size suggests they may be components of the Mound Geometry Hypothesis advanced by Dr. Horace Crater and Prof. Stanley McDaniel. These features meet certain proposed criteria for artificial structures, such as possible fine-scale structural detail and orientation.

Parallel linear mounds discovered by Paul Anderson.

If the Cydonia region was once home to a technological civilization, then it's not unreasonable to expect relatively small-scale indications of prior habitation. This could take the form of "earthworks" designed to be appreciated from an aerial or orbital perspective.

Rectilinear "teardrop" feature on the Face.

Other Cydonia features display similarities to Anderson's "Eras Mounds." For example, the "teardrop" feature on the Face appears to consist of two close walls confining a narrow interior space. Additionally, we see fine-scale linear features in the area dubbed the "City Square," such as this triangle, photographed in 1998:

Blowup of small, unmistakably triangular feature found in the City Square. The hollow interior suggests artificial origin.

4-19-01

Analysis of Unusual Lenticular Formation by Lan Fleming

The "flying saucer" discussed below was noted some time ago by Richard Hoagland. Lan Fleming's preliminary analysis is the first serious attempt I've seen to ascertain whether or not this is a convex or concave feature. If convex, then the "saucer" certainly qualifies as an anomaly.

"The [image above] shows the [lenticular formation] adjusted for aspect ratio and skew angle, with the sun azimuth and spacecraft azimuth drawn in. The sun and spacecraft would be at the tails of the two arrows. If this was a crater that looked elliptical due to the off-nadir line of sight, the major axis of the ellipse should be perpendicular to the spacecraft azimuth line. But the long axis of the object is way off from that orientation."

Establishing whether a Martian surface feature is convex or concave without knowing the illumination conditions can be surprisingly deceptive, as illustrated by the "T"-shaped formation shown here.

"The brightest part of the object is opposite the sun, as you'd expect for illumination of a crater. The problem, though, is that the _darkest_ part of the object is also opposite the sun. But at a high sun elevation, albedo differences tend to predominate over slope angles as the cause of brightness variations of an image.

"The main thing that gives the impression that this is a convex object is that it appears to be hanging over a cliff, with a dark fringe of what looks like shadow beneath the overhanging edge.

"The ambiguity caused by the high sun angle is probably too great, though, to conclude with any confidence that this is a crashed spaceship or a mega crab sunning itself on the rocks."

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