83 The "face on mars"
Description
This article is from the Space FAQ, by Jon Leech leech@cs.unc.edu and Mark Bradford tla@surly.org with numerous contributions by others.
83 The "face on mars"
There really is a big rock on Mars that looks remarkably like a humanoid
face. It appears in two different frames of Viking Orbiter imagery:
35A72 (much more facelike in appearance, and the one more often
published, with the Sun 10 degrees above western horizon) and 70A13
(with the Sun 27 degrees from the west). The feature, about 2.5 km
across, is located near 9 degrees longitude, +41 degrees N latitude,
near the border between region Arabia Terra and region Acidalia
Planitia.
Science writer Richard Hoagland has championed the idea that the Face is
artificial, intended to resemble a human, and erected by an
extraterrestrial civilization. Most other analysts concede that the
resemblance is most likely accidental. Other Viking images show a
smiley-faced crater and a lava flow resembling Kermit the Frog elsewhere
on Mars. There exists a Mars Anomalies Research Society (see address for
"Mars Research" below) to study the Face.
Due to the unfortunate loss of the Mars Observer mission, this issue
will remain open for future missions. In the meantime, speculation about
the Face is best carried on in the altnet group alt.alien.visitors, not
sci.space.* or sci.astro.
More detailed discussions of the Face, including raw and processed
imagery and discussion of plans for observation by the upcoming Mars
Global Surveyor, are at
http://barsoom.msss.com/education/facepage/face.html
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/photo_gallery/photogallery-mars.html#controversy
Some references:
V. DiPeitro and G. Molenaar, *Unusual Martian Surface Features*, Mars
Research, P.O. Box 284, Glen Dale, Maryland, USA, 1982. $18 by mail.
R.R. Pozos, *The Face of Mars*, Chicago Review Press, 1986. [Account of
an interdisciplinary speculative conference Hoagland organized to
investigate the Face]
R.C. Hoagland, *The Monuments of Mars: A City on the Edge of Forever*,
North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, California, USA, 1987. [Elaborate
discussion of evidence and speculation that formations near the Face
form a city]
M.J. Carlotto, "Digital Imagery Analysis of Unusual Martian Surface
Features," *Applied Optics*, 27, pp. 1926-1933, 1987. [Extracts
three-dimensional model for the Face from the 2-D images]
M.J. Carlotto & M.C. Stein, "A Method of Searching for Artificial
Objects on Planetary Surfaces," *Journal of the British Interplanetary
Society*, Vol. 43 no. 5 (May 1990), p.209-216. [Uses a fractal image
analysis model to guess whether the Face is artificial]
B. O'Leary, "Analysis of Images of the `Face' on Mars and Possible
Intelligent Origin," *JBIS*, Vol. 43 no. 5 (May 1990), p. 203-208.
[Lights Carlotto's model from the two angles and shows it's consistent;
shows that the Face doesn't look facelike if observed from the surface]
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