Artifacts by Little Green Men?

dsoltesz writes "ASU Mars Odyssey Themis team has released a nice 19m resolution visible-band image of the Cydonia region -- including the infamous Face On Mars, the Pyramid Formation, and the City that many outside of NASA have speculated were built by an intelligent people (presumably Martians or maybe space-faring ancient Egyptians). The ASU Themis team states that finding familar shapes in landforms is a fun diversion, but not a sign that such landforms may be artificial in nature. To get alternate views on the origins of these "structures", check out Jason Martell's Research Network and the Cydonia Mars Pyramids and Sphinx Cherubim and the Stones of Fire pages."

Re:Linux: the hype is over

[KosovoYankee]

What the hell does this have to do with anything? You could have at least slid the word "Mars" in there somewhere.

yeah see this shit everywhere dudes

[President Chimp Toe]

Fortean times has a nice archive of such simulcra [forteantimes.com]

My particular favourite being "rasputin in the ear of a kitten". A definate sign of the lack of intelligence on this planet, at least.

Corporate Logo shows to the lower left of image

[infonography]

Forget Martians, It's the Cingular wireless logo. This could mean that the Marketing people of Madison Ave are from Mars!!! This would really explain a lot.

It's a Nick Park Character!

[Royster]

That's a definate sign of intelligence. Just not a highly developed one. ;^)

Very poor article

[quantaman]

The article is unfortunatly clouded by a strong religous disposition. I feel this is very evident in this quote "The androgynous Cydonia face has a stylized leonine headdress, and computer enhanced photos of the face show that the darkened side seems to be that of a lion, according to Richard Hoagland. This points again to the message of Christ's first advent, Virgo, and second coming to establish the Millennial Kingdom, Leo." Would of been nice for them to put these computer enhanced photos in a place where I can find them. Unless of course these photos consists of the gif animation going in the top right hand corner of the page which transforms the face into what I assume is to be a cherub? I don't know exactly what kind of effects erosion would have but I don't believe it would include severely displacing facial features! Still it's is interesting that the "city", "pyramid", and "face" seem to form an equilateral triangle. Unfortunatly me thinks the "pryamid" is not qite as conclusivly a pyramid as they they to think and I couldn't find a close up pic of the "city". Overall I think it's just a very biased article trying to put give a religous justification to the Mars pics.

The ASU/NASA release is the real story...

[dsoltesz]

...and the city/fort is pretty clear in the new Odyssey image they released. The links to the "there is intelligent life on Mars" sites was simply to give an alternative point of view on the imagery as well as some history into the controversy/debate.

Here's a couple links with other images of the city (also called the "fort" by some):

• Cydonia, Mars [mufor.org]
• MGS City image from JPL [mcdanielreport.com]
• Malta UFO Research, Mysteries of the Red Planet [mufor.org]

Personally, I'm with ASU -- landforms that look like familiar objects are nothing more than that. Looking at the Themis image I can see all kinds of shapes -- for instance the mouthless skull below the face and above the pyramid, and to the left of the hill just below the pyramid appears to be three partially obliterated silos or water tanks in a row (running horizontally).

Re:The ASU/NASA release is the real story...

[shadowbearer]

and we say it over and over and still there's this
huge growing population of people who can't believe
facts. Anything to do with the bullshit one finds in
most of the mainstream press? Naaaaahhhhhh....

[ insert your horoscope here ]

Sagan/grave == 50k rpms

Itsa Conspiracy

[Tablizer]

NASA intentionally smashed the "missing" Mars Polar Lander into the face so that it would no longer resemble the face as it appeared in the 1970's Viking Orbiter photos, but just a "regular mountain".

You can even see cracks on it on the first post-Viking orbiter photo that seem to erode away in later photos, probably due to wind, in subsiquent photos. This implies that the cracks were fresh.

(Well, at least that is one interpretation of the photo history.)

Re:Itsa Conspiracy

[Tycho]

For the Mars Polar Lander to have destroyed a hypothetical face on Mars, NASA would have had to launched something with the size and the mass of the Sears Tower at it. If NASA could launch an object like that from the surface of the Earth with the technology we have today or for that matter, that we might have in fifty years, I'm almost totally certain that NASA would find something better to do with its time and money. It would have been even more stupid if NASA had built such an object in orbit and launched it at Mars. Seriously, there is no face, there never was a face and what you thought you saw was just the interaction of light and shadow off of an interestingly shaped mountain.

Re:Itsa Conspiracy

[Tablizer]

(* NASA would have had to launched something with the size and the mass of the Sears Tower at it. *)

Perhaps it had a nuke onboard :-)

Didn't NASA also lose an orbiter due to alleged metric/English conversion problems?

(* Seriously, there is no face, there never was a face... *)

I think what you really mean to say is that "nobody *purposely* created a face". Whether it is/was a face shape or not is another matter.

It is perfectly possible for a rock/mountain to *happen* to be shaped like a face.

My favorite space-shape is the middle-finger near the Eta Corona (sp?) nebula. Whether it is purposeful or coincidence, I would love to put a big poster of it in my cubicle.

Re:Itsa Conspiracy

[jonerik]

Seriously, there is no face, there never was a face and what you thought you saw was just the interaction of light and shadow off of an interestingly shaped mountain.

Ah ha! That's exactly what you want us to believe, isn't it, Mr. Shadowy Government Official?
My theory is that the Mars Observer probe, which mysteriously "vanished" in 1993, was actually armed with a nuclear device, which heavily damaged the face when it impacted on the planet's surface. By the time the Mars Global Surveyor had arrived in 1997, the dust stirred up by the explosion had long since settled. I think that the eventual show trial of the responsible NASA officials will be impressive, but mercifully short.

Don't forget Richard Hoaglands' website itself

[EvilBastard]

http://www.enterprisemission.com

It's a website that's just full of 100% Real artifacts.

Shame the artifacts are what happens when you use Photoshop to magnify something 500%, then completly abuse the filters and levels until you arn't so much looking at the image as a blurred and messy bunch of pixels

Then declare that you can detect "Regularity" and issue a press release / book / start a new talk show circuit.

My favorite (was where he discovered that on the walls of an ancient Egyptian pyramid, there was a hyroglyph that looked like the Millenium Falcon and Luke's Landspeeded(He has since removed that image, as I can't see it in the archive, but http://www.enterprisemission.com/images/tankcomp.j pg shows that he is now comparing the same set of markings it to a M1-A1)

Hoagland, he's not up there with the "Aircraft Contrails are spreading chemicals that destroy our precious bodily fluids" but worth a visit none the less

Face: surely wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

including the infamous Face On Mars

Face, surely that should be faces!

I'm no visionary, but I can see about half a dozen easily in that photo; just like when I peer at clouds or artex, and thats sober.

When I'm stonked (read S#!+ F@(£d), I can see countless faces in everything from ice cream to donkey dung.