Mars Enigma

by Angus Sutherland Copyright 2000 - 2006 UFO Area

All about Mars is strange. There are many puzzling questions and very few satisfactory answers.

The planet has intrigued humankind for centuries. Anomalous structures on its surface are puzzling us all. Are they the result of natural processes or the remains of a great, past civilization? Many of Mars anomalies, for example the pyramids, the tubes and the Face appear to be constructed by intelligent beings However the most interesting question is: Does life exist on Mars today? Today we know that there are places on Mars with the conditions for life very similar to those we have on Earth. Life has been detected on Mars in 1976 and then has been systematically denied. Flowing liquid water has been recently photographed on the Martian surface and the presence of methane in the Martian atmosphere is a great surprise to many scientists. This could indicate subsurface life on the planet. We, humans, have not had much luck with the exploration of Mars. Some of our space missions to Mars were very dramatic. NASA's Mariner 8 was lost shortly after launch in 1978. Mars Climate Orbiter was lost when it arrived at Mars. The expensive Mars Polar Lander was also a failure. The Russian Phobos 1 and 2 space probes were also lost, apparently one of them, Phobos 2 was disabled by an extraterrestrial craft. Photographs of unidentified flying objects hovering over the Martian skies have been sent to Earth by Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity. What are we searching for on Mars? Life obviously does exist there!

Further reading
C.W. Leadbeater on Mars & Its Inhabitants Martian Ice Shrinking Dramatically Phobos and other space habitats The loss of the Russian probes Alien Faces & Writing Found On Mars Scientific logic for life on Mars Artifacts in space Historic Mars lander 'did find life' Cydonia was Viking 2 lander's prime landing site NASA accused of skullduggery with Mars Data There is life on Mars Is Earth a colony of Mars? Mysterious structures and evidence of Martian life! NASA Researchers Claim Evidence of Present Life on Mars

MORE ABOUT MARS

Crashed Triangle Spacecraft Half-Buried on the Surface of Mars? The Curious Case of the NASA Crinoid Cover-Up 'Ignoring Fossils On Mars' Parked Spacecraft on Mars Spherix - Mars research (Dr. Gilbert V. Levin) Mars case for liquid surface water NASA hides, destroys possible evidence of life on mars Life on Mars? Mars Global Surveyor MOC Images

C.W. Leadbeater on Mars & Its Inhabitants

The present condition of the planet Mars is by no means unpleasant. It is a smaller planet than the Earth and more advanced in age. I do not mean that it is actually older in years, for the whole chain of worlds came into existence - not simultaneously indeed - but within a certain definite area of time. But being smaller it lives its life as a planet more quickly. It cooled more rapidly from the nebulous condition, and it has passed through its other stages with corresponding celerity. When humanity occupied it in the third round it was in much the same condition as is the Earth at the present time that is to say, there was much more water than land on its surface. Now it has passed into comparative old age, and the water surface is far less than that of the land. Large areas of it are at present desert, covered with a bright orange sandwich gives the planet the peculiar hue by which we so readily recognise it. Like that of many of our own deserts, the soil is probably fertile enough if the great irrigation system were extended to it, as it no doubt would have been if humanity had remained upon it until now. The present population, consisting practically of members of the inner round, is but a small one, and they find plenty of room for themselves to live without great effort, in the equatorial lands, where the temperature is highest and there is no difficulty as to water. The great system of canals which has been observed by terrestrial astronomers was constructed by the second order of moon-men when they last occupied the planet, and its general scheme is to take advantage of the annual melting of enormous masses of ice at the outer fringe of the polar snow-caps. It has been observed that some of the canals are double, but the double line is only occasionally apparent; that is due to the fore-thought of the Martian engineers. The country is on the whole level, and they had great dread of inundations; and wherever they thought there was reason to fear too great an outrush of water under exceptional circumstances the second parallel canal was constructed to receive any possible overflow and carry it away safely. The actual canals themselves are not visible to terrestrial telescopes; what is seen is the belt of verdure which appears in a tract of country on each side of the canal only at the time when the water pours in. Just as Egypt exists only because of the Nile, so do large districts on Mars exist only because of these canals. From each of them radiate at intervals water-ways, which run some miles into the surrounding country and are then subdivided into thousands of tiny streamlets, so that a strip of country a hundred miles in width is thoroughly irrigated. In this area are forests and cultivated fields, and vegetation of all sorts stands forth in the greatest profusion, making upon the surface of the planet a dark belt which is visible to us even forty million miles away when the planet is at its nearest and favourably situated. Mars is much farther from the centre of the system than we are, and consequently the sun appears to its inhabitants scarcely more than half the size that it does to us. Nevertheless the climate of the inhabited portions of the planet is very good, the temperature during the day at the equator being usually about 70 degrees Fahrenheit, although there are not many nights of the year when there is not a touch of frost. Clouds are almost unknown, the sky being for most of the year entirely clear.The country is therefore to a large extent free from the unpleasantness of rain or snow. The Martian day is a few minutes longer than out own and their year is nearly twice as long as ours, and the variation of the seasons in the inhabited part is but slight. In physical appearance the Martians are not unlike ourselves, except that they are considerably smaller. The tallest men are not above five feet in height

and the majority are two or three inches shorter. According to our ideas they are somewhat broad in proportion, having very great chest capacity - a fact which may possibly be due to the rarity of the air and the consequent necessity of deep breathing in order fully to oxygenate the blood. The whole civilised population of Mars is one race, and there is practically no difference in features or complexion, except that, just as among ourselves, there are blondes and brunettes, some of the people having a faintly yellowish skin and black hair, while the majority have yellow hair and blue or violet eyes - somewhat Norwegian in appearance. They dress mostly in brilliant colours, and both sexes wear an almost shapeless garment of some very soft material which falls straight down from the shoulders down to the feet. Generally the feet are bare, though they sometimes use a sort of metal sandal or slipper, with a thong round the ankle. They are very fond of flowers, of which there is a great variety, and their towns are built on the general plan of the garden-city, the houses usually being one-storeyed only, but built round inner courtyards and straggling over a great deal of ground. These houses look exteriorly as though built of coloured glass, and indeed the material which is used is transparent, but it is somehow so fluted that while the persons inside enjoy an almost unimpeded view of their gardens, no one from outside can see what is going on in the house. The houses are not built up in blocks, but the material is melted and poured into moulds; if a house is to be built, a sort of double mould is first made in metal faced with cement, and then the curious glass-like substance is melted and poured into this mould,and when it is cold and hardened the moulds are taken away, and the house is finished except for a certain amount of polishing of the surface. The doors are not exactly like ours, since they have no hinges or bolts, and are opened and shut by treading on certain spots in the ground, either without or within. They do not swing on hinges, but run back into the walls on each side. All these doors and all furniture and fittings are of metal. Wood seems to be used scarcely at all. There is only one language in use over the whole planet, except for the few savage tribes, and this language, like everything in their world, has not grown up as ours have done, but has been constructed to save time and trouble. It has been simplified to the last possible extent, and it has no irregularities of any sort. They have two methods of recording their thoughts. One is to speak into a small box with a mouthpiece on one side of it, something like that of a telephone. Each word so spoken is by the mechanism expressed as a kind of complicated sign upon a little plate of metal, and when the message has been spoken the plate falls out and is found to be marked in crimson characters, which can easily be read by those who are familiar with the scheme. The other plan is actually to write by hand, but that is an enormously more difficult acquirement, for the script is a very complicated kind of shorthand which can be written as rapidly as one can speak. It is in this latter script that all their books are printed, and these latter are usually in the shape of rolls made of very thin flexible metal. The engraving of them is extremely minute, and it is customary to read it through a magnifier, which is fixed conveniently upon a stand. In the stand there is machinery which unrolls the scroll before the magnifier at any desired rate, so that one read without needing to touch the book at all. On every hand one sees signs of a very old civilization, for the inhabitants have preserved the tradition of all that was known when the great life-wave of humanity occupied the planet, and have since added to it many other discoveries. Electricity seems to be practically the sole motive power, and all sorts of labour-saving machines are universally employed. The people are on the whole distinctly indolent, especially after they have passed their first youth. But the comparatively small size of the population enables them to live very easily. They have trained various kinds of domestic animals to a far higher condition of intelligent co-operation than has yet been achieved upon earth, so that a great deal of servant's and gardener's work is done by these creatures with comparatively little direction. One autocratic ruler governs the whole planet, but the monarchy is not hereditary.

Polygamy is practised, but it is the custom to hand over all children to the State at a very early age to be reared and educated, so that among the vast majority of the people there is no family tradition whatever, and no one knows who is his father and mother. there is no law compelling this, but it is considered so decidedly the right thing to do and the best for the children that the few families who choose to live somewhat more as we do, and to educate their children at home, are always regarded as selfishly injuring their prospects for the sake of what is considered mere animal affection. The state is thus in the position of universal guardian and schoolmaster, and the school authorities of each district are instructed carefully to sort the children according to the aptitudes they display, and their line of life is decided for them in this manner - a very wide range of choice, however, being allowed the individual child as he approaches years of discretion. But children who show at the same time great intellect and wide general capacity are set apart from the rest, and trained with a view of becoming members of the ruling class. The King has under him what may be called viceroys of large districts, and they in turn have under them governors of smaller districts, and so on down to what would be equivalent here to the head man of a village. All these officials are chosen by the King from this group of specially educated children, and when the time of his own death is considered to be approaching it is from them or from among the already appointed officials that he chooses his successor. They have brought their scientific medical studies to such perfection that disease has been eliminated, and even the ordinary signs of the approach of old age have been to a large extent got rid of. Practically no one appears old, and it would seem that they hardly feel old; but, after a life somewhat longer than our own the desire to live gradually fades away, and the man dies. It is quite customary for a man who is losing interest and feels that death is approaching (this corresponds to what we would call a centenarian) to apply to a certain scientific department which corresponds to what we might call a school of surgery, and ask to be put painlessly to death - a request which is always granted. All these rulers are autocratic, each within his own sphere, but appeal to a higher official is always possible, though the right is not frequently exercised, because the people usually prefer to acquiesce in any fairly reasonable decision rather than take the trouble involved in an appeal. The rulers on the whole seem to perform their duties fairly well, but again one gets the impression that they do so not so much from any pre-eminent sense of right or justice as to avoid the trouble that would certainly ensue from a fragrantly unjust decision. one of the most remarkable things about this people is that they have absolutely no religion. There are no churches, no temple, no places of worship of any sort whatever, no priest, no ecclesiastical power. The accepted belief of the people is what we should call scientific materialism. Nothing is true but what can be scientifically demonstrated, and to believe anything which cannot be so demonstrated is regarded as not only the height of folly, but even as a positive crime, because it is considered a danger to the public peace. Martian history in the remote past was not unlike our own, and there are stories of religious persecutions, and of peoples whose beliefs were of so uncomfortable a nature that they forced them not only into feverish energy for themselves, but also into perpetual interference with the liberty of thought of other people. Martian public opinion is quite determined that there shall never again be any opportunity for the introduction of disturbing factors of that sort, and that physical science and the lower reason shall reign supreme; and though there, as here, events have occurred which material science cannot explain, people find it best to say nothing about them. Nevertheless on Mars, as in other places, there are a certain number of people who know better than this, and many centuries ago a few of these joined themselves together in a secret brotherhood to meet and discuss these matters. Very gradually and with infinite precaution, they took other recruits into this charmed circle, and so came into existence, in this most materialistic of worlds, a secret

society which not only believed in superphysical worlds but knew practically of their existence, for its members took up the study of mesmerism and spiritualism, and many of them developed a good deal of power. At the present time this secret society is very widely spread, and at the head of it at this moment is a pupil of one of our Masters. Even now after all these centuries its existence is not officially known to the authorities, but as a matter of fact they something more than a suspicion of it, and they have learned to fear it. None of its members are actually identified as such, but many are strongly suspected, and it seems to have been observed that when any of these strongly suspected people have in the past been injured or unjustly put to death, the persons who were concerned in bringing about that result have invariably died prematurely and mysteriously, though never in any case has their death been traceable to any physical-plane action on the part of the suspected member. Consequently, although such a belief is no doubt somewhat of an infringement of the principles of pure reason by which everything is supposed to be governed, it has come to be generally understood that it is safest not to pry too closely into the beliefs of people who seem to differ in some degree from the majority, so long as they do not openly make profession of anything which would be considered subversive of the good morals of materialism. Driven far away from the pleasant equatorial regions into inhospitable lands and impenetrable forests, there still exist some remnants of the savage tribes who are descended from those left behind when the great life-wave left Mars for the earth. These are primitive savages at a lower stage than any now living on the exterior of our earth, though bearing some resemblance to one of our interior evolutions. Some at least of the members of the secret society have learnt how to cross without great difficulty the space which separates us from Mars, and have therefore at various times tried to manifest themselves through mediums at spiritualist seances, or have been able, by the methods which they have learnt, to impress their ideas upon poets and novelists. The information which I have given above is based upon observation and inquiry during various visits to the planet; yet nearly all of it might be found in the works of various writers within the last thirty or forty years, and in all such cases it has been impressed by someone from Mars, although the very fact of such impression was (at least in some cases) quite unknown to the physical writer. Of our future home, Mercury, we know much less than of Mars, for visits to it have been hurried and infrequent. Many people would think it incredible that life such as ours could exist on Mercury, with a sun that appears at least seven times as large as it does here. The heat, however, is not at all so intense as would be supposed. I am informed that this is due to a layer of gas on the outskirts of the Mercurian atmosphere, which prevents most of the heat from penetrating. We are told that the most destructive of all possible storms on Mercury is one which even for a moment disturbs the stability of this gaseous envelope. When that happens a kind of whirl-pool is set up on it, and for a moment a shaft of direct sunlight comes from the sun through its vortex. Such a shaft instantly destroys whatever life comes in its way, and burns up in a moment everything combustible. Fortunately such storms are rare. The inhabitants whom I have seen there are much like ourselves, though again somewhat smaller. The influence of gravity both on Mars and Mercury is less than half what it is on earth, but while on Mars I did not notice any particular way in which advantage had been taken of this. I observed on Mercury that the doors of the houses were quite a considerable height from the ground, needing what for us would be a respectable gymnastic feat to reach them, though on Mercury it is only a slight spring which is required. All the inhabitants of that planet are from birth possessed of etheric sight; I remember that the fact was first brought to my notice by observing a child who was watching the movements of some crawling creature; and I saw that when it entered its abode he was still able to follow its movements, even when it was deep down under the ground.

The influence of gravity both on Mars and Mercury is less than half what it is on earth, but while on Mars I did not notice any particular way in which advantage had been taken of this. I observed on Mercury that the doors of the houses were quite a considerable height from the ground, needing what for us would be a respectable gymnastic feat to reach them, though on Mercury it is only a slight spring which is required. All the inhabitants of that planet are from birth possessed of etheric sight; I remember that the fact was first brought to my notice by observing a child who was watching the movements of some crawling creature; and I saw that when it entered its abode he was still able to follow its movements, even when it was deep down under the ground.

Phobos and other space habitats

by UFO Area

(Click to enlarge) Phobos

(Click to enlarge) Deimos

Phobos and Deimos are so small that even in large telescopes from Earth they appear as mere points of light. Phobos, the larger of the two, measures 14 miles (23 kilometers) across, while Deimos is just 8 miles (13 kilometers) wide. These two tiny satellites were discovered by Asaph Hall (18291907) of the U.S. Naval Observatory in 1871. Even earlier in 1610 Johannes Kepler, followed by others, suggested their existence. In 1726, Jonathan Swift in his "Gulliver's Travels" (chapter 3), wrote that the inhabitants of a place called Laputa had made valuable astronomical observations of 10 000 fixed stars along with the two moons of Mars. One of them orbiting with a period 10 hours and the other with a period of 21 hours. "...two satellites, which revolve about Mars, whereof the innermost is distant from the center of the primary planet exactly three of its diameters, and the outermost five..." When Swift wrote his book, there were no powerful enough telescope to spot tiny moons of Mars... Who or what is a source of Swift's information about Mars' moons? these celestial bodies? Many have suggested Jonathan Swift simply made guesses about the astronomical data on Phobos and Deimos.. Perhaps he did... If so, then he was a very clever man, because his guesses are extremely precise...

This was written long before Phobos and Deimos, the two satellites of Mars, were officially discovered. The two satellites were finally discovered only after many years of searching. Is this possible that Phobos and Deimos were not always located in the same places, could they be artificial, launched by extraterrestrial intelligence? The two Martian satellites moved at very high speeds and appeared to travel in different directions! These and other factors make many astronomers believe that the moons might be artificial! Two strange moons of Mars (from photos taken by spacecraft such as Mariner IX, the Vikings and the Mars Global Surveyor, both do not appear like spheres but potato-shaped lumps) were not always seen though astronomers had to their disposal powerful instruments and made important discoveries of other moons located farther away in our solar system. Soviet astronomer I.S. Schklovsky, a prominent member of the Soviet Academy of science, pointed out that the Martian satellite Phobos exhibits a strange acceleration irregularity which would be expected only if the satellite were a huge hollow metallic sphere. The same irregularity, however, would be impossible for a natural astronomical body. According to Dr.Schklovsky's opinion at least one of the moons of Mars, is not a natural object, but an artificial satellite placed in orbit around the planet. Based on the estimated density of the Martian atmosphere and Phobos' peculiar "acceleration", Shklovskii, calculated that the satellite must be hollow. Could Phobos be a huge hollowed-out space station? Astronomers have estimated that Phobos is drawing closer to Mars at the rate of 0.7-inches (1.8 centimeters) per year and possibly could crash into Mars in 40 to 50 million years. One possibility is that the future crash will take place in a distant future. However, it may also happen something completely different, for example both tiny moons or one of them will move away...change a position, like before... Many years after Phobos 2 disaster it was discovered that the magnetic field of Mars satellite Phobos is as strong as Earth's. The scientists of the Institute of Magnetism and Radio Wave Propagation studied the data sent by the Soviet Union's probe Phobos-2, when it reached the orbit of Phobos and completed the four-day long measurements in March 1989. According to the scientists, more than one-third of the satellite is made up of a some kind magnetic substance, unique in our solar system. There is much strangeness of both origin and destiny of Mars' moons. Phobos, the larger of these moons, has an enormous crater Stickney, with a diameter nearly half as large as the average diameter of Phobos. Not only Phobos itself is peculiar, the same can be said about Stickney. If we assume like many others did that Phobos is an artificial creation, its Stickney crater could be an entry point to an underground world. Famous Isaac Asimov and others as well have suggested that Phobos might be an ancient spacecraft. It could be one of the possibilities. Many straight and parallel so called "cracks" (10 meters deep and hundreds of meters across, some of them) radiate away from Stickney. There is no clear explanation for their existence from geological point of view. It was theorized that crater Stickney is a result of a violent impact, which also formed a pattern of "cracks". The question is: should not these cracks follow natural lines of weakness in the mass of the body? Should not these so called "cracks" be much bigger near the impact place (Stickney) than far away from it? Perhaps these are not the "cracks" but rather grooves or rills? The grooves could have been caused by space craft entering and leaving Phobos... Phobos can be an important base for intergalactic travel.

(Click to enlarge)

(Click to enlarge)

(Click to enlarge)

(P.J. Stooke. Morphografic Conformal Projection. Original mosaic by P.Thomas and D.Simonelli, November 1994). More reading: Stooke Small Bodies Maps Cartographic options for Non-Spherical Worlds, Philip J. Stooke One of the Phobos' oddities is its mass that seems to be lower than astronomers expected. The surface of Phobos seems to be composed of stone with a great amount of carbon, but also a fraction of ice. It could explain Phobos low density. Many speculated that Phobos is hollow. If so, the hollow asteroid could be a perfect place to live in. There may be many habitats in hollowed asteroids in deep space and even in our stellar neighborhood. In the 1970s, the technical director for the NASA design program, Princeton University professor Gerard K. O'Neill published a detailed blueprint entitled "The High Frontier" and described how to design habitats in space. He described how a captured asteroid can be "rebuilt" to make room for a human population would provide abundant raw material for a self-sustaining microgravity industry. On Earth, the idea of an orbital space habitat has been known for a long. It was first presented in Edward Everett Hale's "The Brick Moon" published by Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XXIV, Oct-Dec, 1869. It described how a city in space developed accidentally when a brick sphere intended as an orbital maritime navigational guide was inadvertently rolled onto the launch catapult with all technical staff still inside. Konstantin Tsiolkovsky also described the concept from a technical point of view, first as science fiction in Dreams of Earth and Heaven, Nature and Man (1895). Then, in "The Rocket Into Cosmic Space" (1903), Tsiolkovsky made a scientific scientific approach to the subject and presented a concept of rotation for artificial gravity, possibilities for use of solar energy, greenhouses and ecological aspects as well. In 1929, J. Desmond Bernal (1901-1971) inspired by the ideas of Tsiolkovksy and Edward Everett Hale, wrote a book "The World, The Flesh And The Devil", in which he proposed a 500-meter spherical space habitat. Space stations were also a subject of military study in Germany during and after World War II. The so called "space wheel" concept was very popular while it was published by Wernher von Braun in his article "Crossing The Last Frontier" (Colliers, March 22, 1952). The author described a 76-meter rotating wheel in a 1,730-kilometer near-Earth polar orbit.

Not only J. Desmond Bernal but also many others were later inspired by the concept of artificial space habitats in orbit. The NASA Skylab seemed to be only a beginning... and the studies of man-made worlds have begun and several types of space habitats were proposed. The so called the Stanford Torus has been selected by NASA for further studies and experiments. The Stanford torus was a cylindrical tube 130 meters in diameter and 5.6 kilometers long, bent into a circle and joined end-to-end to form a wheel 1.8 kilometers across. Spinning at exactly one RPM, it would be able to give accommodation to 80,000 people in an environment very similar to ours. In his book "The High Frontier: Human Colonies In Space" (1977), professor Gerard K. O'Neill presented three different designs, which he characterized as evolutionary stages: Island One, Island Two and Island Three. Island One was a 500-meter Bernal sphere capable of supporting 10,000 people. Island Two was a 1.8-kilometer Bernal sphere or, alternatively, a domed cylinder 1.8 kilometers in diameter and nine kilometers long for a population of 140,000 (sphere) to 820,000 (cylinder). Island Three was the design known as the "O'Neill Cylinder", which could give an accommodation to tens of millions of people dependent on Earth-like environment. Summing this up we must understand that the concept of space habitats is not necessarily mankind's invention. It could be already adapted by a number of intelligent species in our solar system and even in the Milky Way. Actually, Phobos moon could be such a habitat...

Mars Had Intelligent Life

Source: www.nationalufocenter.com/ George Filer 03-03-2004

Scotland Reports Finding a Skull artifact on Mars, Additional Artifacts and Writing On Ornamented Stone, Faces On The ET Rock, Theological Implications of Alien Life, We Are Not Alone, Blueberries May Be Vegetation, Opportunity Rover Finds Strong Evidence Meridiani Planum Was Wet Astronaut Claims We Are Not Alone The St. Petersburg Times, reports that Astronaut Edgar Mitchell announced. "The Earth is being visited by extraterrestrials.? The sixth astronaut to walk on the moon told 200 people in the audience. We are not alone in the universe." Further the President's after Kennedy were not briefed on the situation. The Day the World Changed - Faces With Writing Found On Mars Filer's Research Institute and Filer's Files is proud to announce the finding of evidence and artifacts that indicate extra-terrestrial intelligent life on Mars. This announcement is not made lightly and is based on multiple images from Mars Rover Spirit's NASA/JPL images. I have discussed the announcement with John Schussler the Director of MUFON and he cautioned my enthusiasm and stated, "I can see the apparent E on the rock. However, if you look at the other areas on the rock that catch the angle of the light, it appears that the E is part of that same light angle - an artifact not a real E. This is a situation similar to the Hoagland Mars face that was just a light angle artifact. Be careful getting to a conclusion on this one too quickly. Another photo with a light angle taken only a few minutes earlier or later would confirm or deny this."

E above Face top or rock G face

We admit the symbols are difficult to see on some computer screens and need further verification. I have made numerous unsuccessful calls to JPL, and left numerous messages. However, we are working with over a dozen images taken by the Spirit Rover that show the symbols and possibly two faces taken over several minutes. When I was in Athens, Greece we saw many similar markings, and broken carvings. It is my opinion that has been confirmed by several others, that there are alien symbols on the Martian rock nicknamed the "ET Rock." On the left upper corner is a symbol that appears to be similar to our capital letter E,the top of the E may be closed like a P. A second symbol similar to our letter G is also apparent. A possible face also appears to be carved in the right portion of the rock with part of a second face in the center. The combination of anomalous features seems to rule out natural markings on the rock. The symbols are most similar to Greek or old English writing. These anomalies are shown on both right and left panoramic cameras eliminating camera angle as a possible cause. We can make the assumption that based on the evidence, that intelligent alien life once existed on Mars and that the aliens looked humanoid and used symbols for writing similar to our own. The symbols appear to have been chiseled into the rock and the faces show form in three dimensions. This rock may have been carried to this position in the Gusev Crater by a possible flood or catastrophic meteor hit. Readers of Filers Files have found structural shapes, possible vegetation, a network of glassy tubes, artistic imagery and sculptured faces from satellite data - all that infer activity by a former civilization. Norman Bryden has a complete series of photos at:www.georgefiler.com/ I would caution that these are initial findings and the images have been enhanced to bring out detail. However, they can be seen on multiple JPL images taken on February 16 and 17, 2004, (sol 43 and 44). The symbols are shown in at least a dozen separate images, taken by several different cameras including panoramic left and right cameras and navigation cameras.

None of the other images show symbols ruling out transmission errors, fakery, camera angle, and camera dust, etc. The impression of a face seems to appear in several sun angles and with a couple different cameras. The objects do not appear natural and suggest they have been designed by intelligent extraterrestrials. Scotland Reports Finding A Skull Joe writes, "Like all photos it may just be camera angle or a trick of the light, however it does look like a bird or animal skull. It can be viewed at this NASA sol photo. http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/p/016/2P127793693 EFF0327P2371L7M1.HTML

And I have also attached a small portion of the photo for your perusal. Thanks to Joe (www.uforth.com) Conway Costigan writes, "The Spirit PanCam image Sol 52 ID: 2P130989760EFF1120P2426R2M1 shows what may be a fragment of a statue piece of ornamented stone that appears to be artistically carved. It seems to have a series of Y's not unlike the ET Rock. If the area is examined closely, it has an interlaced design. Funny that NASA would put this one front and center on their main page." Thanks to Conway Costigan

BC, a professional photographer who is one of our top analysts says, "It's a possibility the photo is a fake perpetrated by whom? The 'letters' could just

be natural formations that resemble letters but the odds of having two letters of similar type face on a rock by chance would be beyond astronomical. Remember that I also don't like the looks of some of the shadows in the picture. At least four black shadows appear to just be "things" painted out to resemble shadows. Having the original photos would make a real difference but we will never see those even though we paid for them."? Thanks to BC Faces On The ET Rock Actually there may be more than one face and this is speculation on my part, becaue I see eyes, lips, cheek, and chin visible. The lips seem rather wide. A damaged face can be seen in the center of the rock, that was likely damaged when Gusev Crater was formed. We admit these are forms that exist in the eye of the beholder, but many others besides me have commented on the face. My grand daughter Anastasia saw the faces immediately, and showed a printed picture to her class. Everyone claimed to see them. JPL may not agree with our analysis of the ET rock but in my opinion it sculptured. I have seen similar ruins in Greece, Iran, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Italy. Once we realize that life exists through out the universe and is visiting us, the detection becomes much easier. You may not agree with me, but believe your own eyes. Mars Stadium - Mars stadium also appears to have writing on it that look like an A and C symbols on right and center stadium. This view was taken from a satellite overhead and shows a depression surrounded by a high structure.

A and C or G

We know there are hundreds of planets outside our solar system and the history of the ascent of humans indicates we had outside help. It is my opinion that soon it will become apparent that extraterrestrials have been visiting and helping us for thousands of years. For example, writing developed in Egypt overnight. Theological Implications of Alien Life Some are worried about the theological implications if life is recognized on another planet. The Bible is full of stories about clouds that carry people and angels. Some of the description reminds me of terraforming the planet. The Koran, the scriptures of Islam uses the word 'universes' and makes it clear that the cosmos contains other creations. Buddhism and Hinduism contain evidence of extraterrestrials and welcome them. It is time to realize we are not alone in the universe, trade and interaction with the extra terrestrials. With JPL's new announcements of water on Mars it is apparent that both primitive Earth and Mars were ready for life. Whether God brought life or it was with panspermia. The next logical question is did life totally disappear or did it continue and persist until today. The face also appears similar to faces in Cydonia and Survis Major. The face appears in 3D but is apparently damaged, perhaps by the impact of a meteorite. Other debris is scattered around the area. Actually, the Darwinian theory of evolution may be in question if Martians look the same as Humans ,because then we both required a mutual creator. And God said, "Let us make man in our image," Genesis 26 Water On Mars Water exists on Mars in large quantities in polar caps of Mars and each spring a great deal melts and appears to move toward the equator. There are two places where water is known to exist in vast quantities, right at the surface. The permanent ice cap at the North Pole is larger than Texas and 3,000 feet thick. This would provide a civilization enough water to irrigate and grow food. We now have many indications that a civilization once existed on Mars and may continue despite the dry cold landscape. The recent Spirit Rover landing on Mars seems to point to underground water due to the mud like surface. Just when we expected a startling announcement the Spirit stopped sending data. It was quiet for two weeks and just as mysteriously, started broadcasting again. Layering can be seen by Opportunity? in a dry lake bed. Micro-organisms, algae and other life forms swathed in biological antifreeze could be lurking just a few feet under the ice, scientists say. These living Martians might hibernate for the winter and come out each spring. Many areas of Mars are shown to be green in the spring indicating some sort of growth. It is doubtful rocks can change color over vast areas the size of France just because of warmer weather. The water appears to move from one area to another in tube like objects that cover hundreds of miles. Life exists in harsh climates on Earth in both our Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets. A system of tubes or pipes are visible on many images that could carry water. Since we

discovered strange alien writing on Mars, I have been looking for some connection to human symbols. For example, the Egyptian symbol for water is -- that look very similar to Martian tubes. We Are Not Alone Sixteen million years ago a meteorite slammed into Mars exploding with the power of a nuclear weapon and sending giant fragments of rock into space that eventually landed in Anartica about 13,000 years ago. Recently, some was examined by scientists and in August 1996, scientists from NASA surprised the world with the announcement that Mars in the distant past revealed evidence of primitive life on a Martian rock dubbed ALH 8400. The ET Rock will likely become more famous because it announces the discovery of intelligent extraterrestrial life. E and G like symbols carved into the three foot rock are significant indications of intelligent life. The three parallel lines that help make the E are unlikely in nature, the almost perfect circle of the G or O is even more unlikely. The mathematical are astronomical that these two letters could be carved by nature. Preliminary identification also makes it likely that other carvings are present. Each letter has lines emphasizing the symbols. Opportunity Rover Finds Strong Evidence Meridiani Planum Was Wet On March 2, 2004 JPL scientists announced the part of Mars that NASA's Opportunity rover is exploring was soaking wet in the past as we have predicted for several years. The rover found evidence in a rock outcrop and the presence of sulfates, and niches where crystals grew. The scientists are convinced that liquid water once flowed through these rocks. It changed their texture, and it changed their chemistry," said Dr. Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, principal investigator for the science instruments on Opportunity and its twin, Spirit. "NASA launched the Mars Exploration Rover mission specifically to check for water and an environment that could possibly have been hospitable to life. Today we have strong evidence for an exciting answer: Pictures from the rover's panoramic camera and microscopic imager reveal the target rock, dubbed "El Capitan," is thoroughly pocked with indentations about a centimeter (0.4 inch) long and one-fourth or less that wide, with apparently random orientations. This distinctive texture is familiar to geologists as the sites where crystals of salt minerals form within rocks that sit in briny water. Round particles the size of BBs are embedded in the outcrop. From shape alone, these spherules might be formed from volcanic eruptions, from lofting of molten droplets by a meteor impact, or from accumulation of minerals coming out of solution inside a porous, watersoaked rock. Blueberries May Be Vegetation Our scientists at Filer Research feel these are forms algae or lichens. Dr.

Annamarie Johnstone writes, The blue berries in the Opportunity Rover image may be fruticose type rock lichens (symbiotic plants composed of fungi and algae.) Forming a mutualistic relationship, the dense skin of the fungus protects the interior algal cells from desiccation, in turn, the photosynthetic algae, using sunlight, and produce food for the fungus. Lichens are brightly colored pioneer plants in an ecosystem, capable of "shutting down" metabolically, when subjected to unfavorable environmental conditions. As a result, they are able to survive extreme heat, cold and drought. Lichens grow only when moisture is available, so the amount of moisture governs their rate of growth. Fungal acids of fruticose lichens decompose rock into soil, thereby providing necessary substrate for succession plants, such as mosses; hence lichens are designated pioneer species of bare-rock habitats. Composed mainly of carbohydrates with a small percentage of protein, rock lichen species can be a food source for animals and man. Purportedly, the Mars Rovers are not equipped to analyze organic or carbon based substances, only inorganic substances can be analyzed and verified, an unfortunate oversight by scientific planners, to say the least.? Thanks to Dr. Johnstone The frigid community is made up mostly of primitive creatures called Cyanobacteria, which live in tightly-woven groups called microbial mats. The microbes produce chemicals that act as anti-freeze and UV shields, protecting them from frigid temperatures and from sunlight, which is known to pass relatively easily through water ice. I happen to live on a lake and most years the lake freezes but the fish and living organisms are protected by the ice which insulates the lake life against the cold temperatures that can drop to minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit on Mars. There also appears to be salts and minerals that act as antifreeze. Many photos appear to show ice over rivers and lakes. If this data ever reaches the public at large, perhaps our wars will seem less significant and we shall realize we are not alone in the universe. Interacting with alien intelligence could bring prosperity and peace to a troubled world. - George Filer

Scientific logic for life on Mars

by Gilbert V. Levin Spherix Incorporated http://mars.spherix.com

ABSTRACT Scientific findings and theoretical analysis over the past several years have increased the probability for extant life on Mars. Discoveries have revealed terrestrial organisms flourishing in environments thought hostile and barren of life. Experiments with extremophile organisms, including some of those newly discovered, have demonstrated their extraordinary and unanticipated hardiness, including under conditions comparable to, or approaching those on present-day Mars. Microorganisms subjected to extreme g forces survived shock as severe as meteoric impact. Calculations and experiments based on Viking data allow for water to be liquid on the surface of Mars for biologically significant periods. Direct observations of Mars by subsequent missions support this likelihood. These new developments provide a workable Panspermia model for the transport, survival and growth of terrestrial life on Mars. No insurmountable obstacles to their survival to the present have been demonstrated. Organisms transported to Mars from Earth and/or from other sources may have been responsible for the positive results returned from Mars by the Viking Labeled Release experiment in 1976. A simple robotic experiment can resolve the issue. 1. INTRODUCTION For countless centuries, man has wondered whether life came to Earth from distant sources beyond his ken. A repetitive theme in our earliest myths and writings, this poignant mystery has puzzled us since the dawn of reasoning. Perhaps the best modern answer to the puzzle was articulated by Arrhenius[1], whose theory, Panspermia, proposed that the seeds of life travel from planet to planet. His theory, however, quickly met with fundamental objections centering on the improbability of living organisms to withstand the rigors of interplanetary transport. These objections have survived until the present. It is only since 1860, when Louis Pasteur[2] tried, and failed, to culture organisms from the Orgueil meteorite, that empirical investigation of this problem began. For the next 50 years, little scientific attention was paid to it, until Percival Lowell published[3] his famous, erroneous observations of Mars. His drawings of his telescopic views led to sustained excitement about the possibility of intelligent beings on Earths nearest neighbor. Unfortunately, Lowells brilliant deductive reasoning was applied to very poor quality data that he subjectively obtained through an inadequate telescope. His work maintained heightened public and scientific interest in the possibility of Martian life until 1964. Then, images of Mars taken by Mariner 4 revealed no trace of the straight lines of intelligently produced works Lowell reported on Mars. Instead, Mariner 4 saw an utterly dry desert. Hope for life on Mars was virtually abandoned. The next life-seeking mission to reach Mars was NASAs Mariner 9, arriving in 1971. Mariner 9s orbital imagery resuscitated the possibility that Mars might harbor life. Images showed signs of ancient water flows, and a generally more hospitable Martian landscape. The first scientific indication that there might be life on Mars was sent back by Mariner 9s Infrared Interferometer Spectrometer (IRIS) [4], but was unrecognized for years. That evidence was in the analysis of the Martian atmosphere, 95.32 percent CO2, with a CO content of only 0.07 percent. Based on earlier telescopic analysis, Hunten[5] had recognized that the large amount of CO2 in the Martian atmosphere required

some supporting reaction. With no ozone layer to absorb it, the ultraviolet light penetrating the Martian atmosphere would split that gas to liberate CO to become the dominant atmospheric constituent. To solve this inconsistency between his theory and Mariner 9s observation, Hunten theorized that the ultraviolet light also split water vapor molecules in the atmosphere to produce OHradicals that then combined to form H2O2. This compound completed the carbon cycle by oxidizing the CO back to CO2. No mention was made of the possibility that, as on Earth, the CO2 could be supplied by living organisms. However, Hitchcock and Lovelock[6] had proposed that an imbalance, or dynamic disequilibrium, in the atmospheric constituents of a planet would indicate the presence of life. They used Earth as an example, citing the presence of CH4 in its atmosphere. Earths oxidizing atmosphere immediately turns CH4 into CO2. Unless it were being constantly replenished, there would be no trace of CH4 in Earths atmosphere. A knowledgeable observer on another planet, detecting CH4 in our atmosphere, could thus conclude that life was present (in this case cows, Earths principle source of CH4). This finding by Mariner 9 was reported[7], possibly as being the first real clue to life on Mars. However, the possibility found no response among the scientific community, and was ignored thereafter. It was not until 1997 that all of the clues and observations on Mars and Earth reviewed together with the results of many pertinent experiments led to the first published[8] conclusion that Viking had detected microbial life on Mars. An attempt is made herein to show that the conclusion that microbial life currently exists on Mars is supported by logic that, if from no other source, microorganisms exist on Mars transported from Earth. The doubts of Panspermia being operative, even from Earth to Mars, are herein assuaged by two lines of argument: quantitative testing of the principal rigors of travel between the two planets; and the discovery of microbial extremophiles thriving in environments previously thought inimicable to life, including those at temperatures and with liquid water limitations equal to those on Mars. Appropriate recent literature citations are used to support this model of Panspermia that could have infected Mars with terrestrial organisms surviving, in original, adapted or evolved form, to the present. An important ancillary asset of Panspermia with respect to life on Earth and Mars is the elimination of the need to invoke separate origins of life on the two planets. Perhaps, the next generation of young students will wonder why it took so long for their predecessors to accept the fact that we are not alone. Those future students might even be taught that comparisons of evolutionary rates to the length of time Earth has been inhabited indicate that our life likely did not originate on our planet. Such studies will have been made by then. No longer merely on the wings of science-fiction, lifes microscopic seed can now be accorded the ability to actually travel through space, planting itself to grow and to evolve to the extent possible in any sustaining habitat encountered. But, no matter what level of organization such transplants engender, the microbial form must remain. It is necessary to provide a fully operational ecology, that is, to recycle organic matter assembled into any larger organisms. This requirement for microorganisms as lifes least common denominator also renders life always available for ejection into space to further distribute the expanding phenomenon of life. Our new knowledge may remove lifes origin from Earth to some yet unknown site, or sites. This merely begs the issue of genesis. The ultimate question of how life began remains. Corollary questions are: Is the formation of life a cosmic imperative? If so, does it dictate only one basic form of life? 2. PANSPERMIA FROM EARTH TO MARS Figure 1 (NOTE THE IMAGE IS MISSING) depicts the model of Panspermia proposed herein. The necessary, and sufficient, links in the chain of events that could infect Mars with microorganisms from Earth are given in Table 1. Each of the links in the proposed chain of Panspermia is treated below,

along with referenced support for its successful participation in the portage of viable microorganisms from Earth to Mars: 1. Microorganisms must be widely distributed about Earth, available to impact-ejection into space. Long regarded as a thin film covering most of the Earth and existing in all the seas, microorganisms easily meet this requirement. Moreover, rather than constituting a thin film, microorganisms are now known to inhabit a large, three-dimensional biosphere, extending from deep within the Earth, up to the surface and through most, if not all of the atmosphere. Thus, they would be in materials ejected by meteoric impact, or readily available for incorporation into such materials in the explosive process of their being formed into ejecta. 2. Meteoric impacts must be capable of ejecting rocks and earth into space. Calculations by Melosh[9] show that meteor strikes on a planet can send ejecta to a planet in another solar system. Clark[10] finds interplanetary transport of materials between Earth and Mars occurs not infrequently, but assigns only a small probability to the survival of any living material therein because of the sterilizing effect of ionizing radiation. In a recent analysis, Mileikowsky et al.[11] found that viable transfer of microbes, if they exist on Mars, is highly probable. Earth to Mars transfer was also found possible. 1. Microorganisms are widely distributed on Earth. 2. Meteorites impacting Earth eject soil and rocks into space. 3. Microorganisms in the ejecta can survive the shock and temperature of impact. 4. Microorganisms in ejecta can survive heating through Earths atmosphere. 5. Microbes can survive the temperature and vacuum of the space environment. 6. Microorganisms can survive the ionizing radiation of space. 7. Mars-infecting ejectus can approach Mars and be captured in its gravity well. 8. Microbes can survive the temperature of entering the Martian atmosphere. 9. Microbes can survive the shock and temperature of impact on Mars. 10. Terrestrial microorganisms can grow under Martian conditions. 11. Microorganisms are capable of adapting to or evolving to spread over wide regions of Mars. 12. Earth and Mars were hospitable over epochs that would have permitted infection of Mars by Earth microorganismsand from other sources. It is now more difficult to propose a sterile Mars than a live one. Earth and Mars are part of the same biosphere. 3. Organisms in the ejecta must survive the mechanical shock and heating of meteoric impact. In addition to the above citations9,10,11, Horneck et al.[12] found sufficient survival among B. subtilis spores subjected to intense shock to report that Bacterial spores may survive an impact-induced

escape process in a scenario of interplanetary transfer of life. Roten[13] demonstrated the survival of bacteria and yeast after subjection to g forces in excess of those of planetary impact. Weiss et al.[14] reported that the temperature experienced in the interior of Martian meteorite ALH84001 did not exceed 40o C at any time during the journey. 4. The organisms must survive friction heating of the ejecta passing through the Earths atmosphere. Reports cited in items 2 and 3 above support this requirement. 5. The organisms must survive the low temperature and vacuum of space over the time of interplanetary trip. In addition to Weiss et al.14, a direct demonstration of the survival of terrestrial microorganisms under space conditions was reported[15] when they were recovered and cultured after nearly three years on the moon. Survival of microorganisms in the space environment is supported in the paper by Roten13, and by Mileikowsky[16]. Perhaps most relevant with respect to low temperature and high vacuum is the fact that such lyophilization of microorganisms is the universally applied method for their indefinite preservation in viable form. 6. The organisms must survive their exposure to ionizing radiation in space. The extensive treatment of Clark already cited10 includes a detailed evaluation of radiation exposure to rocks ejected from Mars to Earth. He finds that organisms within pebbles less than one cm in size would be sterilized by radiation in less than 10,000 years, and that a boulder would be required to protect interior microorganisms for a one-million year trip. From this, he argues that there is little probability of organisms surviving the trip. However, he cites evidence that, of the small number of Martian meteorites found on Earth, one arrived about 600,000 years after leaving Mars, and others after about 2.6 million years. Allowing for errors in measurements, in assumed parameters, and for the small sampling, the window of possibility sketched by Clark certainly remains open. Moreover, Weiss et al.14 point out that travel times for Martian ejecta larger than 100g can be as little as 2 to 3 years. Including the radiation problem in his assessment, Melosh9 found the probability of Panspermia between planets in different solar systems small but possible. The exposure time for possible trajectories between Earth and Mars are far less than those for interstellar travel, providing a significantly greater probability of survival. In the paper reported in 2 above, Mileikowsky et al. report that 5 billion rocks capable of bearing radiation-surviving microbes likely arrived on Earth from Mars over the past 4 billion years. 7. The Mars-infecting ejectus must approach Mars and be captured in its gravity well. Clarks and Mileikowskys citations in 2 above support this link in the chain. 8. The organisms in the ejectus must survive the temperature of entry into the Martian atmosphere. This temperature will be less than the temperature experienced in the impact and exit through the Earths atmosphere already treated in 3 above. 9. The organisms must survive the mechanical and thermal stresses of impact on the Martian surface. Again, these stresses will be less than those shown in 3 and 4 to be survivable upon leaving Earth. 10. Environmental conditions at the impact site must be amenable for growth of the organisms. Living populations of microorganisms have been found in active ecosystems in supercooled droplets in clouds above the Austrian Alps[17], deep within ancient permafrost[18], in very high salinity[19], in sub-freezing ice on the South Polar Cap[20], beneath a high Arctic glacier[21], and under simulated Martian conditions[22]. Even the deep trenches in the seas have been reported to be teeming with organisms surviving extreme heat, cold, enormous pressure and lightlessness. Indeed, life has recently been found to be so pervasive on Earth, including under conditions approaching those on Mars, that it has inspired life-related experiments on Beagle 2[23] (although no direct life detection

experiments are known to be included). However, Pathfinders finding[24], that the atmospheric temperature below one meters height at the landing site diurnally rises into the 20soC, extends the habitable zone further than previously thought. 11. Alien organisms arriving on Mars must be capable of adapting to, or evolving to spread over wide regions of the planet. As pointed out in 10 above, terrestrial organisms have demonstrated an astonishing ability to adapt to extreme environments approaching those on Mars. The evolutionary history of life on Earth fully supports the likelihood that, once deposited in a life-sustaining, if not optimal environment, terrestrial microorganisms would successfully adapt and/or mutate eventually to spread across wide areas of the Red Planet. 12. Earth and Mars must have been hospitable to life over epochs permitting infection of Mars by Earth organisms. Thus, conditions supporting life must have prevailed on Earth at the time of a meteor-produced ejection, and on Mars at the subsequent time of its arrival. It is now widely believed that life began on Earth about 3.5 billion years ago, and has existed here continuously since then. While most meteors impacted Earth during the eons following its formation, the impacts continued well into the time of life, continuing until the current era. Kerr[25] reports that a study of many spacecraft images of Mars supports a warm, wet Mars some 4 billion years ago. Evidence of liquid water on the surface of Mars in the current era was recently reported[26],[27], and recent analysis[28] of Viking data indicates extensive regions where liquid water is currently stable for months on end. Moreover, recent experiments[29] have demonstrated that ice melts into liquid water under present Martian conditions. ALH84001 is now reported to have magnetite crystals[30] in chains constituting evidence of biological origin[31]. There has been sufficient overlap of habitable environments to allow for viable ejecta from Earth to land on a receptive Mars. Indeed, it is contended8 that such conditions exist on Mars today. 3. CONCLUSION In his extensive treatment of the possibility of Panspermia operating from Mars to Earth, Clark10 proposes a probability analysis indicating little likelihood of viable organisms surviving the trip from Mars to Earth. Similar to the links listed above, a series of barriers to Panspermia is proposed by Clark. He finds each probability less than one, such that the product of all produces a virtually nil overall probability that Martian life can arrive on Earth in viable form. Some of his barriers seem repetitive, and others might well be assigned a probability of 1, but were not. Clark concludes, without calculating, that the probability product renders the possibility of live transfer from Mars to Earth virtually nil. Nonetheless, the author carefully ends with the caveat, The probabilistic model, though yet incomplete and with many uncertainties, already argues against any conclusion that Martian contamination of Earths biosphere occurs pervasively (emphasis added). A very different conclusion results from the analysis proposed herein. Argument is made that each of the vital links in the chain of life connecting Earth and Mars has a probability of one. Todays knowledge makes it very difficult to conceive of a sterile Mars. Indeed, it now seems that Earth and Mars form one biosphere. This sheds new light on the results of the Viking LR experiment on Mars. Together with growing acceptance[32] of the fact that no chemical or physical experiment or theory has satisfactorily explained the extensive and consistent LR data, significant support is found for the conclusion8 that it detected microbial life in the soil of Mars. While the case for life on Mars has strengthened in recent years, many will require additional proof before accepting such a major change in paradigm. It has been proposed8,[33] that this important confirmation can be obtained by a simple modification of a miniaturized version of the original LR experiment[34].

All of the multiple rationales attempting to explain the Mars LR results as chemical or physical in origin have now been effectively refuted, but their impact remains. A tried and true scientific axiom says: once a method to probe the unknown demonstrates utility, the exploratory tool should be refined to investigate the causes of the phenomenon discovered. Mars exploration might greatly benefit by elaborating on the demonstrated LR technique. The simple modification of the LR instrument to settle the issue of life on Mars could do so in a manner acceptable to nearly all scientists. Called the Chiral LR Experiment, the refinement separately applies the optical isomers of compounds the LR originally applied to the Martian soil. Other suitable compounds having optical isomers might be tested in parallel. For reason still unknown, life evolved with great preference for left-handed, or L-amino acids, and right-handed, or D- (for Dexter) carbohydrates in all of its metabolic functions. The enzymes that evolved to catalyze the otherwise energetically improbable biological reactions originally chose those forms. The successors to the first cell that arose handed down those preferences in perpetuity to their progeny, including you and me. Chemicals, on the other hand, cannot distinguish between D- and L- versions of the same compound, reacting equally with both forms. Thus, a positive metabolic response to one chiral isomer of a compound in exclusive or overwhelming preference to the other would unequivocally establish that the agent responding was alive. Moreover, should the preference be similar to that shown by Earth life, a relationship would be implied, enhancing the prospect that interplanetary propagation was operative. On the other hand, the most interesting result would be for the chiral preference to differ from that on Earth. This would be strong evidence for a form of life differing from our own at the fundamental biochemical level. This would present a case for multiple origins of life. A strong, if not irrefutable scientific argument can be made for going back to Mars at the earliest opportunity with a slight, but important variation of this already demonstrated technique. Should the experiment confirm microbial life on Mars, future missions could apply further variations in nutrients, environmental controls and other elucidating factors to conduct comparative biological studies of Earth and Mars life for improved and beneficial knowledge of each. This mission would be consistent with NASAs announced highest priority, the search for life on Mars. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The outstanding work of Kathy Brailer, Executive Assistant, Spherix, in searching and organizing the references, and in working with the author on the many iterations of this paper are warmly acknowledged. This work was supported by Spherix Incorporated. REFERENCES [1]. Arrhenius, S., Worlds in the Making, Harper, London, 1908. [2]. Could space rock hold building blocks of life? Scripps team finds clues in remnant of comet, Union-Tribune, March 11, 2001. [3]. Lowell, P., Mars as the Abode of Life, MacMillan Co., New York, 1908. [4]. Hanel, R.A., et al., Infrared Spectroscopy Experiment on the Mariner 9 Mission: Preliminary Results, Science 175, 305-308, 1972.

[5]. Hunten, D., Possible Oxidant Sources in the Atmosphere and Surface of Mars, J. Mol. Evol. 14, 57-64, 1979. [6]. Hitchcock, D.R. and J.E. Lovelock, Life detection by atmospheric analysis, Icarus, 7, 149-159 1967. [7]. Straat, P.A., G.V. Levin, and P.D. Lowman, Jr., Mariner 9: Prelude to First Field Test of a General Theory of Biology? Publication No. X-922-74-310, Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA, Greenbelt, MD, November 1974. [8]. Levin, G.V., The Viking Labeled Release Experiment and Life on Mars, Instruments, Methods, and Missions for the Investigation of Extraterrestrial Microorganisms, SPIE Proceedings 3111, 146161, 1997. [9]. Melosh, H.J., Exchange of Meteoritic Material Between Stellar Systems, Proceedings of the 32nd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, Houston, TX, March 12-16, 2001. [10]. Clark, B.C., Planetary Interchange of Bioactive Material: Probability Factors and Implications, Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere 31, 185-197, 2001. [11]. Mileikowsky, C. et al., Natural Transfer of Viable Microbes in Space 1. From Mars to Earth and Earth to Mars, Icarus 146, 2, 391-427, 2000. [12]. Horneck, G., D. Stffler, U. Eschweiler, and U. Hornemann, Bacterial Spores Survive Simulated Meteorite Impact, Icarus 149, 1, 285-290, 2001. [13]. Roten, C.-A., Interplanetary Biological Transfer: Impact Resistance, Proceedings of the Founding Convention of the Mars Society, Boulder, Colorado, August 13-16, 1998. [14]. Weiss, B.P. et al., A Low Temperature Transfer of ALH84001 from Earth to Mars, Science 290, 791-795, 2000. [15]. Hoover, R. et al., Earth microbes on the moon, Space Science News, 1998. [16]. Mileikowsky, C., Natural Transfer of viable Microbes in Space, Proceedings of the Founding Convention of the Mars Society, Boulder, Colorado, August 13-16, 1998. [17]. Sattler, B., Bacterial growth in supercooled cloud droplets, Geophysical Research Letters 28, 2, 239-242, 2001. [18]. Rivkina, E.M., E.I. Friedmann, C.P. McKay, and D.A. Gilichinsky, Metabolic Activity of Permafrost Bacteria below the Freezing Point, Applied and Environmental Microbiology 66, 8, 32303233, 2000. [19]. Ng, W.V. et al., Genome sequence of Halobacterium species NRC-1, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 97, 22, 12176-12181, 2000. [20]. Carpenter, E.J., S. Lin, and D.G. Capone, Bacterial Activity in South Pole Snow, Applied and Environmental Microbiology 66, 10, 4514-4517, 2000.

[21]. Skidmore, M.L., J.M. Foght, and M.J. Sharp, Microbial Life beneath a High Arctic Glacier, Applied and Environmental Microbiology 66, 8, 3214-3220, 2000. [22]. Kral, T., Researchers Find Size Affects Growth of Microorganisms in Mars-Like Environment, Proceedings of the 100th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology, Los Angeles, California, May 21-25, 2000. [23]. Westall, F. et al., An ESA study for the search for life on Mars, Planetary and Space Science 48, 181-202, 2000. [24]. Schofield, J.T. et al., The Mars Pathfinder Atmospheric Structure Investigation/Meteorology (ASI/MET) Experiment, Science 28, 1752-1758, 1997. [25]. Kerr, R.A., A Dripping Wet Early Mars Emerging From New Pictures, Science 290, 1879-1880, 2000. [26]. Malin, M.C., and K.S. Edgett, Evidence for Recent Groundwater Seepage and Surface Runoff on Mars, Science 288, 2330-2335, 2000. [27]. Zent, A.P., Strategic Re-evaluation of the Search for Martian Organics, DPS Pasadena Meeting 2000: Session 62, Mars Surface and Satellites II, 2000. [28]. Quinn, R.C., A.P. Zent, C.P. McKay, and R.M. Haberle, The Stability of Liquid-Water Films on the Surface of Mars, DPS Pasadena Meeting 2000: Session 62, Mars Surface and Satellites II, 2000. [29]. Levin, G., L. Kuznetz, and A. Lafleur, Approaches to Resolving the Question of Life on Mars, Instruments, Methods, and Missions for Astrobiology, SPIE Proceedings, 4137, 48-62, 2000. [30]. Thomas-Keprta, K.L. et al., Truncated hexa-octahedral magnetite crystals in ALH84001: Presumptive biosignatures, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 98, 5, 2164-2169, 2001. [31]. Friedmann, E.I., J. Wierzchos, C. Ascaso, and M. Winklhofer, Chains of magnetite crystals in the meteorite ALH84001: Evidence of biological origin, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 98, 5, 2176-2181, 2001. [32]. Warmflash, D.M., S.J. Clemett, and D.S. McKay, Organic Matter in SNC Meteorites: Is It Time to Re-Evaluate the Viking Biology Experimental Data, Proceedings of the 32nd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, Houston, TX, March 12-16, 2001. [33]. Levin, G.V., and R.L. Levin, Liquid water and life on Mars, Instruments, Methods, and Missions for Astrobiology, SPIE Proceedings 3441, 30-41, 1998. [34]. Levin, G.V., and P.A. Straat, Labeled Release - An Experiment in Radiorespirometry, Origins of Life 7, 293-311, 1976

Artifacts in space by J. Douglas Kenyon Since discovery in 1981, a gigantic and enigmatic face gazing upward from the Cydonia region of Mars has held out the tantalizing promise of scientific proof that intelligent life in the universe is not unique to Earth. Though photographed from satellite five years earlier, the face had gone officially unnoticed, so space expert Richard Hoagland (author of The Monuments of Mars) and his associates, including many top scientists and engineers who felt anything but optimistic about the chances for an effective official follow-up, proceeded to launch their own investigation. The photos of the Face on Mars and an apparent complex of ruins nearby were subjected to years of exhaustive research. Utilizing the most advanced tools of scientific analysis, The Mars Mission, as the group terms itself, has produced more than enough evidence to argue plausibly that the objects of Cydonia are not only the remains of an ancient civilization, but one possessed of a science and technology well beyond our own. The startling possibility that such artifacts exist has created considerable public pressure to return to the red planet, and was cause for more than a little consternation in the summer of 1993 when NASA lost contact with its Mars Observer probe just as it was about to begin a detailed photographic survey which could have proved the issue, one way or the other. How long now must we wait until the argument can be tested? Well, perhaps not too long after all. As it turns out, the cherished concrete evidence that man is not alone in the universe may well exist in our own back yard, relatively speaking. Within the past two years, the Hoagland group claims to have discovered in numerous NASA photographs evidence of ancient civilization on our closest neighbor, the moon. And in this case, if NASA isn't up to the verification job, Hoagland insists that he and his backers are. The result could be, sometime within the next few months, the first privately funded mission to the Moon. If anybody can pull it off, Hoagland may be the man. For more than 25 years a recognized authority on astronomy and space exploration, Hoagland has served as a consultant for all of the major broadcast networks. Among his many valued contributions to history and science, the best remembered is probably his conception, along with Eric Burgess, of Mankind's First Interstellar Message in 1971: an engraved plaque carried beyond the solar system by the first manmade object to escape from the Sun's influence, Pioneer 10. Hoagland and Burgess originally took the idea to Carl Sagan, who successfully executed it aboard the spacecraft, and subsequently acknowledged their creation in the prestigious journal Science. It was Hoagland who proposed the Apollo 15 experiment in which Astronaut David Scott, before a worldwide TV audience, simultaneously dropped a hammer and a falcon feather to see if it was true, as Galileo predicted, that both would land at the same time. Once again Galileo was vindicated. Since the 1981 discovery of the Face on Mars Hoagland had devoted most of his time to the pursuit of scientific evidence for extraterrestrial intelligence. We caught up with him the day after Hollywood's latest space epic Stargate had opened nationwide to enormous audiences. Since the film deals with the idea of extraterrestrial intervention in Earth's history, we wanted to know what portents, if any, he saw. The problem with the movie, Hoagland offered, is that the vehicle for anything interesting isn't there after the first half-hour. It disintegrated into a kind of shoot-em-up with an awful lot of ends totally unfulfilled. But the film's quality, or lack of it, notwithstanding, Hoagland is encouraged by the public reception. The fact that people are rushing to see this indicates to me there is almost an archetypal compulsion to know more, and if we put together the right vehicle, which we are attempting to do, we may have a ready audience.

Hoagland was alluding to a couple of possible film projects now in the talking stages based on the Mars and Moon work. The outcome, hopefully, will be both a scientific documentary and a fictionalized treatment presenting some of the more speculative aspects of the research. Such matters, though, are not his primary concern. Uppermost in Hoagland's mind and those of his associates are recent discoveries on the moon. In clear NASA photos, some nearly 30 years old, from both manned and unmanned missions, from orbiters and landers, can be seen giant structures unexplainable by any known geology, what Hoagland calls architectural stuff. In sharp contrast to the Mars data, where we have been constrained to look at two or three pictures of the Cydonia region with increasingly better technology, 3D tools, color, polarametric, and geometric measurements, with the moon we are data rich. We have literally thousands, if not millions of photographs. Yet with pictures taken from many directions and many different lighting conditions, angles and circumstances of every kind, Hoagland's team has produced stunning corroboration that all the photos are of the same highly geometric, highly structural, architectural stuff. In fact, he says In many cases, the architects on our team now are able to recognize the standard Buckminster Fuller tetrahedal truss, a hexagonal (six-sided) design, with cross bars for bracing. I mean, we're looking at standard engineering, though obviously not created by human beings. The structures appear to be very ancient, battered to hell by meteors...it looks like it had gone through termite school. It's been motheaten and shattered and smashed by countless bombardments. The edges are soft and fuzzy because of micro meteorite abrasions like a sand blasting. Hoagland explains that on an airless world there's nothing to impede a meteor from reaching the surface or reaching a structure on the ground. Nevertheless, we're seeing a prodigious amount of structural material. Spread over a wide area the material is turning up at several locations. It looks as if we're seeing fragments of vast, contained enclosures, domes, although they are not inverted salad bowls. They are much more geometric, more like the step pyramids of the Biosphere II in Arizona. We're looking at something which is extraordinarily ancient left by someone not of this earth, not of this solar system, but from someplace else. One of the most interesting structures appears to be an enormous free-standing tower, a crystalline glass-like partially preserved structure, a kind of a megacube, standing on remnants of a supporting structure roughly seven miles over the southwest corner of a central part of the moon called the Sinus Medii region. If all of this exists, one of the most important questions may be: Why didn't NASA notice? If Hoagland is right, Something funny has been going on. Indeed. Recently Hoagland presented the Lunar material at Ohio State University. In the months since, discussions have raged on the Internet, Prodigy, Compuserve and other on-line computer services. Many questions now being put to him are coming from scientists and engineers within NASA, many of whom have had direct experience with the lunar program, yet who have been kept in the dark regarding any ET evidence. Hoagland has passed on the present state of the research and asked for input, and he's left with the inescapable impression that something incredible has been missed. As Hoagland sees it, there are only two possible explanations: Either we're dealing with incredible dumbness, in which case we spent $20 billion for nothing because we went there, took photographs, came home and didn't realize what we were seeing. Or we're dealing with the careful manipulation of the many by the few. The latter may not be as implausible as it might at first sound. If you're in a

system which is corner-stoned on honesty, integrity, openness, full disclosure, he explains, and there are folks in there who are operating contrary to those precepts, they won't get caught because no one is suspicious. Actually Hoagland has moved beyond suspicion to belief, and he says he can prove his point. The smoking gun is a report by the Brookings Institution commissioned by NASA at its inception in 1959. Entitled Proposed Studies on the Implications of Peaceful Space Activities for Human Affairs, the study examines the impact of NASA discoveries on American society 10, 20, 30 years down the road. On page 215 it discusses the impact of the discovery of evidence of either extra-terrestrial intelligence, i.e., radio signals or artifacts left by that intelligence on some other body in the solar system. The report names three places that NASA might expect to find such artifacts, the Moon, Mars or Venus. It then goes on to discuss the anthropology, the sociology, the geo-politics of such a discovery. And it makes the astounding recommendation that for fear of social dislocation and the disintegration of society, NASA might wish to consider NOT telling the American people. It's right there in black and white. It recommends censorship. Now that's what they've been doing. Hoagland believes that anthropologist Margaret Mead, one of the authors of the report, was responsible for the recommendation, which he believes came out of her experience in American Samoa. In the 1940s Mead witnessed the devastation of primitive societies exposed for the first time to sophisticated Western civilization. That experience so moved her, so changed her perspectives that when she examined the whole ET possibility, she projected and mapped on that experience. She basically felt that if we even learned of the existence of extra-terrestrials it could destroy us, therefore people can't be told. Believing as he does that NASA and perhaps even higher levels of government have been committed to keeping people in the dark regarding the realities of extraterrestrial intelligence, Hoagland is not very sanguine about the chances of success for such high-profile programs as SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence). They are a complete, absolute farce. They are a false front Western town. They do not mean what they purport to mean. They are a red herring. They are a bone to the Star Trek generation. In fact, Hoagland has become so dubious of government intentions on such matters that he suspects the entire alien abduction phenomenon is a misinformation campaign calculated to scare people off the subject. If there has been a policy to obfuscate and confuse people on behalf of the objective data, he reasons, what would that policy do and how far would it extend to the idea of ET contact? If you had a few real contacts with someone who was trying to give us messages and trying to lead us to new insights and the fear on the part of government structure had been that this will destroy civilization itself, would not that government also put in place a program to misinform, to confuse, to politically spin in the wrong direction those few real contacts by submerging them in a sea of misinformation about contacts? Part of the evidence for benign extraterrestrial contact, Hoagland sees in the crop circle phenomenon. The thing that makes them different from the monuments of Mars or the ancient cities on the moon, he reasons, is that they are occurring in the crop field here on earth and they are occurring in the present time. He sees little doubt that the circles are not of this world. We simply do not have the technology, let alone the knowledge base, to construct the multileveled communication symbols that the crop circles represent. So that once you eliminated the hoaxers.... He chuckles, If Doug and Dave hoaxed the circles, they deserve a Nobel prize. Hoagland resumes his thought. The level of sophistication of the information encoded in these symbols is so vast and so congruent with the lunar and Mars work that you're forced to conclude that whoever the artists are, they know a bit more than contemporary science, and/or the media or, for that matter, the government. At any rate, Hoagland's group is now planning an end run around the government's monopoly on ETrelated space exploration information. The time has come, he believes, for a privately funded mission to the moon. Already investors have expressed interest. We're talking a few tens of millions of dollars,

not really the price for the special effects in one major motion picture. We could go to the moon and get stunning live CCD quality color television images of the things we're seeing in these 30-year-old NASA still pictures, still frames. Such a mission, if funded, could be launched within 15 months. Using new technology and a solid fueled rocket, a 500 to 600 lb. payload could be delivered into lunar orbit where it could provide stunning camera and telescopic live transmission capabilities. The mission could even do more science. One group has expressed interest in sending a gamma ray spectrometer designed to survey the moon for water, which in Hoagland's scenario there now has to be. The mere possibility of such a mission may already be forcing NASA to be more open. Hoagland and other members of his group have recently received a front-door invitation to view extensive previously unreleased film archives. The bureaucracy, he feels, is already moving to cover itself and forestall the eventual embarrassment of being proved out of touch, to say the least.

Historic Mars lander 'did find life'

BBC News May 29, 2003

Claims have re-emerged that the US space agency (Nasa) found signs of life on Mars during the historic Viking landings of 1976.

An image of Mars from the Viking II lander

Dr Gil Levin, a former mission scientist, says he now has the evidence to prove it, just days before the US and Europe send new expeditions to the Red Planet. The United States and Russia have spent billions since the 1960s on a handful of space craft designed to land on Mars. Only three have succeeded so far: the two Viking probes in the 1970s and Mars Pathfinder in 1997.

In 1976, the world was gripped by excitement when a robotic spacecraft touched down on Mars for the first time in history. Biology experiments detected strange signs of activity in the Martian soil - akin to microbes giving off gas. Before announcing the news that life had been found on another planet, Nasa carried out more tests to look for evidence of organic matter. The Viking experiments failed to find this essential stuff of life and it was concluded that Mars was a dead planet. New evidence Dr Levin, one of three scientists on the life detection experiments, has never given up on the idea that Viking did find living micro-organisms in the surface soil of Mars. He continued to experiment and study all new evidence from Mars and Earth, and, in 1997, reached the conclusion and published that the so-called LR (labelled release) work had detected life. He says new evidence is emerging that could settle the debate, once and for all. He told BBC News Online: "The organic analysis instrument was shown to be very insensitive, requiring millions of micro-organisms to detect any organic matter versus the LR's demonstrated ability to detect as few as 50 micro-organisms." Dr Levin, now president and CEO of US biotechnology company Biospherix, has a new experiment that he says "could unambiguously settle the argument". But it was rejected by both Nasa and the European Space Agency (Esa) to go on-board this summer's Mars missions. The British-built Beagle 2, which will be deposited on the Martian surface by Esa's Mars Express space craft, is going with the main purpose to hunt for life. This is a risky strategy, claims Dr Levin. "Strangely, despite its billing, Beagle 2 carries no life detection experiment!" he said. "Neither its GCMS (organic detector) which is claimed to be more sensitive than Viking's, nor its isotopic analysis instrument can provide evidence for living organisms." Robot geologists Nasa's mission to Mars is taking a more circumspect approach to the big life question. Its two identical rovers will roam the ancient plains of Mars acting as robot geologists. Mark Adler, deputy mission manager, said the main science objective was to understand the water environment of Mars not to search for life. He told BBC News Online: "What we learnt from Viking is that it is very difficult to come up with specific experiments to look for something you don't really know what to look for."

Claims of life on Mars have always proved highly contentious. Twenty years after Viking, microbe-like structures discovered inside a Martian meteorite found in Antarctica led to more claims that were later rejected. As the astronomer Carl Sagan once said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. And there is no reason to believe that anything found this time will be any different. "It's going to take a number of missions if we want to know whether there is life on Mars or not," said Dr Charles Cockell, a Mars biologist at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridgeshire, UK. "If we find no evidence of life on Mars it may just mean we have looked in the wrong place."

Cydonia was Viking 2 lander's prime landing site

By Sebastian Wood Nommos Prime (Dogon) NOTE FROM UFO AREA: This research paper is written by one of our members. This document may not be sold, used in advertisement or for any other commercial purpose.

Below is my "Condensed Version" of my Research Paper written for the "Usurper Higher Physics Group", way back in 1989. The Mission B-1 Landing Site Selection of the Viking 2 Lander From the research I have done, I understand that there were 8 separate groups which had input into the final decision of the landing site selection for the Viking 2 Lander. They were, in order of importance and input (with 1 being the most influential down to 8 being the least); (1) Viking Project Office, Langley Virginia (headed by Jim Martin) (2) Office of Space Science, NASA Headquarters (headed by John Naugle) (3) Landing Site Steering Committee (aka Landing Site Selection (LSS) Committee) (4) Science Steering Group (5) Landing Site Working Group (6) United States Geological Survey, Astrogeological Studies Branch, Flagstaff Arizona (headed by Hal Masursky, Senior Geologist) (7) Martin Marietta Corporation (Denver Division) (8) Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) The Viking landing sites were selected from Mariner 9 images of the landing sites and earth-based data (radar-mapping). Data analysis experts that had previously worked on Apollo knew that NO pictures of a potential landing site meant immediate exclusion from consideration. As a result, Mariner 9 began its extended mission on 4 June 1972 to complete the mapping of Mars AND, on the

recommendation of the Landing Site Working Group, to photograph ALL 35 potential landing sites for the Viking Landers. 1 potential landing site was CYDONIA, according to NASAs own public records. By July 15 1972 Mariner 9 had taken 3 narrow-angle high-resolution Camera B frames and 1 wideangle Camera A frame of Cydonia (which was designated number 16 of 35 potential landing sites, and located at 44.3 degrees N, 10 degrees). The B-frame images obtained covered the entire potential landing ellipse, had a resolution of 60 metres and covered an area 16.4 x 20.8 kilometres. The A-frame image had a resolution of 800 metres and covered an area 164 x 108 kilometres. By 28 September 1972 all the potential landing sites for the Viking Landers had been examined IN DETAIL by the Landing Site Working Group. Ten potential landing sites were selected. Cydonia was not one of these sites. In October 1972 Hal Masursky and William Baum of the Planetary Research Center at Lowell Observatory recommended changes in the 10 selected potential landing sites. By December 1972 Mariner 9 had imaged all of Mars and mapped the entire planet. The biologists wanted to find water, so Cydonia became a target once more, primarily due to the belief that fossilised water could be found there. It was theorised that if the pressure was 7.8 millibars or higher, and if the temperature rose above freezing point, then liquid water would be found at Cydonia. In February 1973 the Landing Site Steering Committee met at Langley, Virginia. Carl Sagan was there and believed that the landing sites should be selected based on radar imaging (which showed irregularities on the 10-cm scale) rather than photographic images. Hal Masursky considered Cydonia to be the optimal landing site for Viking 2, due to its low smooth plains and because, according to the available data, there was a great chance of finding atmospheric water at the site. In a Memo dated 20 February 1973 John Naugle reported to NASA Administrator James Fletcher about the presence of water issue that: It appears that the regions most recently studied by the Viking Landing Site Working Group may not be good sites from the point of view of availability of liquid water because of low temperatures, even though large amounts of water ice are known to exist. (Remember that NASA denied water ice existed for over two decades!) Above line added to "Condensed Version" in 2001. On 22 February 1973 James Fletcher returned the Memo to John Naugle with a handwritten message in the margin that said: John NI have two questions. (1) Does Lederberg (& his committee) agree that the chances of life are best at 73degrees? (2) Does liquid water have to exist now or could it have existed once, for life signatures to be detected? From my own point of view, the main reason to consider polar landings was to increase the probability of finding life, not to study vastly different geological regions. JCF On 2 April 1973 the Landing Site Working Group recommended potential landing sites 16 and 17 as the Mission B (Viking 2 Lander) landing sites. The Science Steering Group MADE THE DECISION that potential landing site number 16 (44.3 degrees N, 10 degrees) as the Mission B-1 primary site and potential landing site number 17 (44.2 degrees N, 110 degrees) as the Mission B-2 backup site. The Viking landing site destinations were announced to the public on 7 May 1973.

Hal Masursky asked David Scott to make a special hazard map for the B-1 site from the available Mariner 9 photographs of the Cydonia region. After sighting this map, Masursky become nervous. He directed that pictures of the B-1 site be taken on periapsis 9 (orbit number 9). On 28 June 1976 The Viking 1 Orbiters cameras took their first photos of the Viking 2 Landers B-1 primary landing site at Cydonia from a height of 2050 kilometres above the Martian surface. Two photographs taken on 28 June 1976 were released to the public (the first was taken at 43degrees N latitude, 7.6degrees longitude, the second was taken at 42.4 degrees N latitude, 7.3 degrees longitude). On 25 July 1976 Jim Martin told the press and public that the Viking 1 Orbiters mission objectives had changed and that: Were going into an orbit which will allow us to spend some time observing three possible north latitudes. Two of them are known as B-1 and B-2. Weve spent a fair amount of energy looking for landing sites in B-1; so far we havent seen anything I would like to put an ellipse in. At the 27 July 1976 Landing Site Working Group meeting Hal Masursky said that he had found a number of suitable landing spots at the B-1 site. On 17 August 1976 the Landing Site Steering Committee (which was made up of a group of independent scientists whose job was to advise Jim Martin) met and secretly decided to drop Cydonia as the primary landing site for the Viking 2 Lander. At this closed meeting 6 new sets of pictures taken of Cydonia were produced and shown to the Committee. The Landing Site Working Group would never see these photos. Later that day, at the 42nd meeting of the Landing Site Working Group, Hal Masursky was informed of this decision. Hal Masursky screamed in protest that Jim Martin and the Landing Site Steering Committee had not: even looked at the rest of the pictures in the B-2 area. After storming out of the 42nd meeting which lasted a mere 15 minutes (the 41 previous meetings had each lasted for many hours), Hal Masursky was confused and upset. Asked about the decision made in the lightning meeting, Hal Masursky answered like a shell-shocked war veteran: We had committed the project to landing at B-3 where we had zero data. A new landing site had been selected for the Viking 2 Lander. It was designated B-3 and was situated at Utopia Plantia (47.9degrees N, 225.9degrees). At the time of the meeting, the few pictures available of the B-3 landing site were terrible. They were Mariner 9 images (A frames) obtained in low resolution. Hal Masursky was TOLD by one of the members of the Landing Site Steering Committee before the 21 August 1976 meeting of the Landing Site Working Group that: Viking 2 Lander must land somewhere at B-3. Period. A special meeting of the Landing Site Steering Committee was held on 22 August 1976 and Hal Masursky was asked to attend. Amongst those present at this meeting were Jim Martin, Carl Sagan, Hugh Keiffer, Tom Young, Gentry Lee and a number of unidentified participants. Photos of the various landing site selections obtained from the Viking 2 Orbiters camera on periapsis 20 were shown. At the meeting Jim Martin was asked by Hal Masursky about the new landing site selection and how it was not as safe as the original Cydonia B-1 site: Do you call 155 foot high sand dunes a better landing area? To which Jim Martin replied:

Well let me say that there was not unanimity in the selection of this landing site. My job is much easier when everybody gets up and says lets go this direction. Well, here we had a case where people were wanting to go in a couple of different directions. I still believe that from my own knowledge of sand dunes, that we can land on essentially any sand dune in the United States. I think it is very intolerant to big rocks. So I would trade sand dunes for big rocks any day. On 30 August 1976 the final coordinates of Viking Lander 2s landing site were chosen. It was to land at the eastern end of Utopia Planitia, at 47.89degrees N, 225.86degrees. On 3 September 1976 the Viking 2 Lander touched down at approximately this location on the Martian surface. Postscript: I have plenty more to add to my article. Included are the events that transpired after the selection of the landing sites and the public announcement of them in 1973 and the first photos returned by the Viking 1 Orbiter. Many strange meetings were held. The Russians came into the game with their Mars orbiters and landers (which most people regarded as failures). In fact, Mars 4 was the first lander to achieve a soft-landing on Mars way back in 1973. Postscript for Masursky (after the Viking 2 Landing): Masursky also worked on polar axis shift measurements of Mars and seemed to have become obsessed with Cydonia, after it was scrapped as the Viking 2 Landing Site. He had hidden a diagram in his 1977 piece Classification and Time of Formation of Martian channels based on Viking data. The diagram related to future Mars/Earth Polar Axis shifts. This was his protest, his Cydonian clue to the scientific community. Now, I understand from reading Hoaglands Monuments Of Mars that he was friends with Masursky, and that he first said there was water on Mars after sighting Mariner 9 images, and that subsequently he changed his tune. Hoagland is wrong on this key issue, Masursky always claimed that liquid water existed to this day on Mars. In fact, I understand that at a 1985 SDI (Star Wars) conference that Masursky was still pushing the Cydonia issue, even to the extent that Sagan collaborated with him to promote a joint US/Soviet manned mission to Mars to explore specifically, Cydonia.

NASA accused of skullduggery with Mars Data

by John Kettler Index of Issue 13

On September 11 Richard Hoagland and his Enterprise Mission flung a gauntlet squarely into NASA's face. The challenge was twofold. First, there was a morning protest on the traffic island directly opposite the main entrance to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena to demand NASA change its priorities and re-image Cydonia now! The second, held at the Pasadena Double Tree Hotel, was an eight-hour conference with evidence alleging that NASA has systematically censored and suppressed Pathfinder imagery to hide unambiguous evidence of a purported advanced, long-extinct Martian civilization. Additional charges were also made and evidence presented that NASA has been pursuing a hidden agenda on Mars, one allegedly involving weapons and the occult! Admittedly, the above is a bit much for one paragraph, but nonetheless, it fairly represents what happened on the very date that NASA's Mars Surveyor entered Martian orbit. The timing was no accident. Designed explicitly to embarrass NASA, steal its publicity thunder, and garner national attention for the cause of obtaining high resolution imagery from the newly arriving Mars Surveyor of the Cydonia region, site of the Face and many other anomalies, the protest was already underway by 9:15 a.m. when California sculptor and Cydonia enthusiast Kynthia arrived. Under the cameras of CNN, NBC, and local affiliates, the protesters first confined themselves to the traffic island. Later, Kynthia and Rick Savard, founder of the Near Pathfinder Anomaly Analysis Group, decided to have the protesters parade in the crosswalk while the walk sign was lit, returning to the island when the light changed. The tactic apparently succeeded in distracting the JPL security people. When six frustrated officers and several security vehicles confronted the protesters, Kynthia countered with the question Do you want to arrest us for crossing the street with the light (while) on national TV? They didn't. The protest, however, was peaceful and orderly throughout, so much so that upon conclusion the protesters thanked the officers and shook hands. By 7 p.m. 600 people had convened to see and hear the latest Martian revelations. Most stayed until 3 a.m. the following morning. The videotapes, combined with Hoagland's Phoenix Con-ference, will be out, hopefully, before Christmas. Within minutes Hoagland charged NASA with covering up nothing less than the confirmed existence of an ancient, now-extinct civilization on the planet Mars. That is a grave charge, which, no doubt, is why the next eight hours were spent presenting purported proofs of such a civilization, and that NASA knew of it and was hiding that paradigm-shattering revelation. Hoagland briefed the audience on the nature and capabilities of the Mars Surveyor, spending some time explaining how the highly elliptical insertion orbit would gradually be circularized. But, he insisted, in spite of repeated requests, NASA had no intention of imaging Cydonia from the Mars Surveyor at high resolution. Hoagland's assertion is based on the agency's cumulative public statements to date. NASA's approach to serving the public he finds novel in the extreme reimage Cydonia as part of a complete planetary mapping exercise at nearly five times less resolution than the original Viking imagery that first revealed the Face!

The question being asked by the public: If NASA has nothing to hide, then why won't it publicly commit to taking high resolution imagery of Cydonia, especially the Face, and provide an independent, verifiable, guaranteed procedure for same-day public release of the new imagery? Readers will recall that the Mars Observer was supposed to take care of this issue back in 1993, only to be tragically lost fourteen hours from Mars orbit entry. This disaster was, according to Hoagland, reported by NASA directly to the Associated Press right after he had concluded a Good Morning America segment in which he had pressed for Cydonia and surrounds to be imaged at high resolution. AP was told NASA had lost contact fourteen hours prior. The Mars Observer team was informed after AP. What followed was even spookier. On August 22, three days after the supposed loss of Mars Observer, Hoagland received four independent calls from NASA insiders with the same story. Mars Observer was okay, but had been taken stealth gone covert. This, it was felt, defeated the public pressure to reimage Cydonia and allowed NASA to quietly go about its real agenda, whatever that was. Hoagland proceeded to lay out what he believes the agenda to be, emphasizing that it is a work in progress. He also pointed out that he had deliberately kept fellow researchers in the dark, so as not to bias their conclusions. Hoagland introduced David John Oates, discoverer of Reverse Speech, believed by some to be a powerful new tool for learning the truth by analyzing the unconscious side of recorded human speech. He also introduced Rick Savard, of the recently formed Near Pathfinder Anomaly Analysis Group. Ronald Nicks, a registered geologist, professional geologist, and certified engineering geologist, was unable to attend, but was represented by homemade video. The final leg of the analysis effort came from Nick Skouras, whose years of careful research would shed light on a hitherto unsuspected dark side' of the origin of JPL purported occult connections between its founder and the black magick of Aleister Crowley, and how they related to an alleged hidden agenda by NASA on Mars. Hoagland's analysis seemed to have plenty of corroboration. Several times one researcher's stunning discovery would be confirmed by another's work. Hoagland went on to detail the data path of the imagery from Mars to Earth, covering digital image processing and how the images were treated to extract information from them. To support charges of a cover-up, he produced extensive evidence of image tampering, including digital wallpaper to hide important areas, image cloning, image splitting, image removal in one notable case leaving a pronounced gap in the Martian horizon and deliberate mis-registration of color. Readers may recall detecting a transformation in the Martian landscape after the first color images came in from the crisp orange red soil and blue sky like the American Southwest, to something less natural looking. Hoagland suggested that such crudity (in an era of seamless special effects) proved internal dissent in NASA and was an indication that something important was being covertly signaled. Using TV clips of JPL personnel, Hoagland attempted to demonstrate that they did not expect either the quantity of images received or the coverage. The original plan, he suggested, was merely to image the petals of the Pathfinder, in order to make sure Sojourner could debark unhindered by airbags. This led Hoagland to conclude that a revolt was occurring within NASA, since the software had to be written well before Pathfinder was launched. The camera sequence was preprogrammed before the mission, not commanded from Earth.

Ronald Nicks' video then made the point that there is no such thing as Martian geology per se, only Earth geology applied to Mars. In other words, the same geologic processes operating on Earth are assumed to operate on Mars. Nicks found a whole series of things unexplainable by current geological theory for example, evidence of faceting on the left peak of the famous Twin Peaks, as well as possible terracing on the right peak. The suggestion is that the peaks may not be natural, but are, in fact, remains of two different types of pyramids, an Egyptian on the left and a MesoAmerican on the right, both severely eroded. Reinforcing this notion is reported orthogonality (right angles) on the right peak. Orthogonality is not common in nature. When it does occur, it typically does not occur on only one geological structure in a group, as is the case with the Twin Peaks. The next shock came when Nicks checked individual rocks and clusters. One looked like a building cornice, with what appeared, from the writer's perspective, to be a bright, flat ribbon cable running atop it. The so-called cornice made no less than three right angle turns and was significantly taller than it was wide, resembling a beam in its proportions. On the black and white image the primary structure appeared dark gray, with the ribbon cable a dazzling, distinctive white. Another appeared to be a missile nose cone, complete with bits of debris protruding from its base. Other images presented by Nicks were carefully considered as potential geological occurrences. His conclusion: there was no way to explain the array of apparently structured objects with known geological processes. In fact, the suggestion accepted by the audience was that the objects most resembled a collection of technological debris. The next came David John Oates with a whole new discipline of his own creation, Reverse Speech, a tool for detecting the hidden subtext of human speech, often expressed as metaphors and Jungian archetypes. It also serves as an effective but noninvasive lie detector. In the course of normal forward speech we unconsciously every 10-15 seconds typically also utter backwards phrases and sometimes complete sentences which reveal what we are really thinking. The theory grew out of careful investigation into claims that Satanic messages were being reverse recorded onto rock and roll records. He found that there were messages, but that, except for the Beatles album, they were unintentional and not Satanic, covering a variety of subjects. Intrigued, and aided by a backwards playing Walkman (it had fallen into a toilet and never played normally again), he began to explore this strange new terrain. To date, he has spent over thirteen years at it and published three books, with two more due out this year. Reverse Speech is in active use in applications ranging from child psychology to criminology. According to Hoagland's sources, Reverse Speech was used in a Congressional subcommittee and at least one intelligence agency as of 1988. Oates first published his work in 1987, but Hoagland had not heard of him until a recent appearance on Art Bell. Oates provoked a laugh with one of his first examples of Reverse Speech. It concerned a partner who assured him of support for a book. The reversal said: I'm full of (expletive deleted). Far less amusing was the reversal of Bill Clinton's response to charges of dishonesty: Denied the habits and I said damn ya. Consider, too, the reversals at the Air Force's June 24, 1997, Roswell press conference in which the statement We'll roll a short video becomes We faked it and another affirming that Once the public reads the report... is even more specific: And it's not true. Oates soon noticed another level of reality in various space related audio coverage at press conferences and on talk radio. He started encountering references to weaponry, these on a supposedly peaceful scientific mission. What place do phrases such as Hide the weapon, Flyby the weapon, and Now it's safe. May research save that gun have in the mouths of NASA scientists and

officials? A dumbfounded Oates found out at the conference when Hoagland interrupted and posted some dismaying images. His researches, Hoagland said, had turned up evidence of weaponry, some present on Mars as apparently alien artifacts, and one which was covertly brought along with the Mars Pathfinder. According to Hoagland, the extra, unplanned-for weight caused the Pathfinder to overshoot its planned landing site by some forty miles. Unfortunately for NASA, it landed in the middle of an alien debris field. Hoagland cautioned the audience not to assume the Martians were like us. The artifacts he claimed to have found were only a few feet long but were recognizably martial. Gun emplacements and the shattered remnants of a tank seemed apparent to this writer, a former military analyst. One of the vehicles looked very much like a World War II German Panzer I, right down to its peculiar track work. Others seen in the vicinity looked like a World War I rhomboid tank and a U.S. M-48 of 1960s vintage. Whatever these things were, it seems that in later frames they received the full NASA disinformation treatment in which they were made to disappear as apparent alien artifacts. Worse was to come. Hoagland had a direct answer to the reverse speech quote Hide the weapon. He showed what he said was a stowaway on Pathfinder, a stowaway whose protective shroud was the reason for the problems debarking the Sojourner. His evidence lay in a high resolution color image and in several black and whites where a hinged lid like a clamshell can be seen. Housed within the assembly was what Hoagland said was a Searl disk, an electrogravitic craft. in plain English, a flying saucer using antigravity. It certainly looked like one. In any event, it was easy to see what appeared to be various efforts in the pictures to make it go away. Oates said he had been extremely disturbed by bizarre occult references in the audio he analyzed. What was he to make of such reversals as Did you accept the Goddess? and Who will meet God? Nor was the cryptic advice It helps to see hidden particularly useful when he encountered Reveal the dark city combined with And the white man's skull we see it now hidden. Imagine how he felt when yet another Hoagland rabbit was produced. This time an image of a plaque on the Pathfinder lander, which had what appeared to be a flying saucer, a human skull, and an observatory dome upon it. The first two were fairly easy to see in the raw image, but the dome did not show up as well. One leaked image was shot on a day in which, officially, no imagery was taken. Intrigued, Hoagland checked JPL's full-scale sandbox model. It had a plaque frame, but no plaque. Hmm. The missing link came from Nick Skouras, whose independent research showed that John Whitesides Parsons, founder of JPL, was a devoted student of the notorious black magician Aleister Crowley and his Ordo Templi Orientis (Order of the Eastern Temple). Crowley personally made him head of the Pasadena lodge. Interestingly, some major themes in Crowley's life were war, prophecy, Mars, aliens, communion with the gods, even tanks! All of these elements repeatedly show up in the analyses presented at the Pasadena Conference. The American people would like to know why.

There is life on Mars

Source: www.nationalufocenter.com/ George Filer 04-09-2002

Summary: Based on my analysis of recent images coming from Mars, and intelligence information there is strong evidence that intelligent life once existed on Mars and may continue. THERE IS LIFE ON MARS As a former Air Force Intelligence officer my analysis is based on my interpretation of the evidence. Scientists often state where there's water there is life? I feel where there is Martian water, heat and geometric structures there is life. University of Arizona scientists announced that photos taken by the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) show evidence of recent catastrophic floods. A team of researchers studying photographs of Mars has found teardrop features that they say were sculpted by flowing water within the last ten million years ago. Infrared and gamma ray images indicate there are large reservoirs of water, just below the surface of Mars. My photographic analysis indicates that all over the planet there are what appears as ancient structures and anomalies such! as forts, faces, pyramids, walls, and tunnels. These anomalies are not natural geological formations, but in my opinion represent ancient cities or religious centers. We could ignore one or two anomalies, but there are hundreds. We can speculate, that the Martian climate was making catastrophic changes, the atmosphere was rapidly deteriorating possibly due to meteorite bombardment or changes in the sun. These atmospheric changes probably caused the Martians to seek shelter underground and possibly on their Moon Phobos to preserve their civilization. They may have left both a face and pyramids on the surface as a signal to others who would eventually visit Mars. The Germans in World War II due to allied bombing also rapidly moved underground and developed manufacturing and living quarters in a relatively short time. Virtually all ME-262 aircraft were manufactured underground. While in college I met President Eisenhower and was told that the Mars' Moon Phobos was most likely an artificial satellite launched long ago by an advanced Martian race. Jeff Rense has an article that confirms this speculation. Dr. S. Fred Singer, special advisor to President Eisenhower on Space Developments in his published opinion backed a claim first made by the Soviet astrophysicist I. S. Shklovsky. The Russian scientist's announcement that Phobos was a hollow artificial satellite proved the existence of a Martian civilization, set off heated arguments among astronomers. Shklovsky based his decision on a long study of Phobos' peculiar orbit, which other astronomers also questioned. Shklovsky is also famous for having written a 1966 book with Carl Sagan on SETI. The book states, "We now come to discuss our enigmatic planetary neighbor Mars, which seems to provide the best opportunity, in the immediate future, for the study of ext! raterrestrial life. In this chapter we will discuss the physical environment of Mars and the possibility that life could have come into being in the ancient Martian past and survived until the present day" "Intelligent Life in the Universe." page 259 Dr. Singer backed the Shklovsy's calculations and said, Phobos would make an ideal space base, both for Martians and earthlings. In July of 1988, the Soviets launched two unmanned satellite probes named Phobos 1 and 2 headed for a landing on the planet's mysterious moon, Phobos. I watched closely when the first one failed in route, but the second successfully took up orbit around Mars in January 1989. Significantly, its infrared cameras picked up underground heat emissions and numerous other anomalies on Mars. A Phobos picture, released on Canadian TV, presents an

infrared scan radiometer image of the Martian surface that showed clearly defined rectangular areas. These are interconnected with a latticework of perfectly straight channels, that resemble city blocks. The heat signature of what may be a set of underground caverns or channels are just too geometrically regular to be formed naturally. According to Dr. John Becklake of the ! London Science Museum, "The city-like pattern is 60 kilometers wide and could be easily be mistaken for an aerial view of Los Angeles." The infrared geometric patterns clearly indicate Martian intelligent life. On March 28, 1989, Phobos 2 then headed for the moon Phobos, when its cameras picked up an Unidentified Flying Object. The Phobos satellite failed as the UFO came closer. President Eisenhower was apparently excited about the possibility of life in space and often made doodling of strange craft on his White House papers. When I visited the President's Museum in Abilene, I took a photo of some of his doodling showing what appears to be a typical Flying Triangle. Eisenhower's Science Advisor Dr. James Killian, gave a briefing on March 14, 1958 -- "claiming Mars is much more exciting than thought and conditions more similar to earth are there. -- Undoubtedly some form of life, although probably not ones which we would recognize." In 1963, Raymond H. Wilson Jr., Chief of Applied Mathematics at NASA, joined Shklovsky and Dr. Singer in their Martian conclusions. He stated that "Phobos might be a colossal base orbiting Mars." New studies this year indicate subsurface reservoirs exist. The heat and water provided by geothermal activity would be good news for biologists who would search for possible life on Mar! s. The shapes of some of reservoirs indicate they are made by intelligent life forms. I must admit that my analysis of Mars is not strictly scientific, but includes intelligence data gained from retired Soviet Air Force Colonel Marina Popovich, who told us that Phobos, one of the two Martian moons, is an artificial structure.

s Earth A Colony Of Mars?

Source: www.georgefiler.com Filers Files #13 - 2004 Skywatch Investigations George A. Filer, Director MUFON Eastern March 17, 2004,

The Filer Research Institute is dedicated to finding evidence for extraterrestrial life in the universe and for providing reports of these encounters. Dr. Gilbert Levin says Viking Lander Found Life on Mars, More Mars Symbols Found by Expert in Israel, Dr. Johnstone's Living Blueberry Analysis, Rovers Take Images of UFO's, "Meteorite Yields Evidence of Primitive Life On Early Mars, New Jersey Elongated Disc UFO, Tennessee Family Sees Flying Saucers, Missouri -Orange Spheres, Iowa Flying Saucer and Red Marks, Missouri -Orange Spheres, Washington Investigation of Entity Pulls Man From Trailer, Hawaii - Distant Moving Star, Canada Bright Ring of Red Lights, UK/Scotland Disk Seen for Several Nights, England - Diamond Hovers, Sweden Fast Moving Lights, and New Zealand - Nine Orange lights Head Out To Sea

Dr. Gilbert Levin Says Viking Found Life on Mars Monday, I spoke with Dr. Gilbert Levin who designed the Viking laboratories tests for life on Mars. He stated, "Mars has life and for some reason JPL seems to have a closed mind on the subject." Why is the NASA scientific community blatantly ignoring the crucial scientific data to support Mars life? It may be the result of a Brookings Institute report that the discovery of intelligent life could cause a world wide crisis. In 1997, Biospherics' President and CEO, Dr. Gilbert V. Levin, announced his new conclusion that his 1976 Viking Labeled Release (LR) life detection experiment found living microorganisms in the soil of Mars. Objective application of the scientific process to 21 years of continued research and to new developments on Mars and Earth forced this conclusion. Of all the many hypotheses offered over the years to explain the LR Mars results, the only possibility fitting all the relevant data is that microbial life exists in the top layer of the Martian surface. Dr. Levin was hired by NASA to develop a laboratory to prove that life exists. He designed experiments that tested the soil of Mars nine times at two different landing sites under different temperature regimes and environmental conditions. All his data point to microbes metabolizing a nutrient solution and giving off an indicative radioactive CO2 gas. The tests conducted on Mars were positive indicating life, but were not accepted. Dr Levin states, "We have waited ten years for all of the theories, experiments and results produced by the many scientists investigating our experiment to be reviewed before voicing a committed conclusion of our own. After examining these efforts in great detail, and after years of laboratory work trying to duplicate our Mars data by non-biological means, we find that the preponderance of scientific analysis makes it more probable than not that living organisms were detected in the LR experiment on Mars. This is not presented as an opinion, but as a position dictated by the objective evaluation of all relevant scientific data. In conclusion, then, we submit that this real possibility for Martian biology should be an important--even dominant--consideration in the future exploration of Mars. This clearly is not the case at the present time, according to published NASA plans for continuing the unmanned exploration of Mars which neglect the biology issue. The search for life on Mars, when evidence for its possible existence offers such important potential, should have much greater significance for the planning of such missions." Thanks to Dr. Gilbert Levin. Was Earth a Colony of Mars? The evidence for life on Mars is accumulating each day and indicates its civilization is much older than ours. My analysis was based on twenty years experience as a flier, an intelligence officer and as a photo interpreter. Additionally, I have input from an experienced group of researchers and professional photographers and scientists. When photographic evidence suggested we had found potential Air Force targets, I would launch aircraft to obtain higher quality images. "I wish I could launch missions on interesting targets on Mars for high resolution images!" We thank JPL for making the evidence available from satellite, rover, and microscopic images that to us indicates life exists on the planet Mars. Unfortunately, due to the limitations on our web site and in sending data, I can not provide our readers with the same quality of images we are using for analysis. We encourage you to visit the JPL web site at http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/ and check out the artifacts for yourself. The Spirit Rover landed in the Gusev crater and in our opinion struck an ancient city or temple site on Mars that we have nicknamed "Gavesak" based on some of the letters or symbols we have found. The area is covered with millions of rocks laying in the soil that were once part of this city that included stone carvings, symbols and sculpted faces. Although it is difficult to determine a date this happened based on the slim evidence, all indications are that the blast occurred thousands, if not millions of years ago. The main Gusev crater is estimated to be almost four billion years old when reptiles were beginning on Earth. We just located a #3 and #4 some other writing on

two center rocks. I, also, located a 'Sv' mark on a large rock taken from the Mars Pathfinder landing site showing the sojourner rover in 1997. I also just located an 'A' and a 'V' on different rocks, also the number '17'on a rock, although this may represent a symbol 'LI' upside down. http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/p/061/2P131778439EFF1159P2212R2M1.JPG Our experts in various life sciences are finding strong evidence of life. Below are some of our findings. Evidence of vegetation including trees, water, lichen and fossils indicating marine life and cynobacteria is evident. Since there are no means for testing for life on the rovers, photo interpretation becomes paramount. Many microscopic images from Opportunity Rover appear as bioenous sediments that argeological terms as "foraminiferal ooze" that are essentially marine sediments from the bottom of large bodies of water. http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/p/061/2P131775136EFF1159P2214L5M1.JPG Did Noah Come From Mars? We can speculate that Mars gained intelligent life far in advance of Earth. A sophisticated society was formed not unlike Earth today, but a terrible disaster apparently occurred. Asteroids with the force of many nuclear weapons apparently exploded destroying many areas of the planet. The remaining inhabitants probably chose several courses of action. Many went underground to live, some may have built space ships and headed for Earth. The story of Noah and the carrying of animals may have been an allegory of a space ship bringing animals here.

Click to enlarge

Note: Humanoid anomaly at top left. Image was found by Norman Breyden. We have located an image of a humanoid being we're calling 'Noah' that is next to a large crater. At his feet there is an apparent line of writing to the right of the prominent crater. This image indicates the intelligence had built a message for posterity. We are attempting to decipher. Unfortunately, our consultant in ancient languages Mario Pazzaglini, Ph.D. has passed away. Life is likely to follow a pattern of migration through the galaxy. K. E. Tsilkovsky said that colonization and not evolution, may be the major factor in the spread of life in the universe." The gravity on Mars is much less than Earth's and interplanetary flight distorting the gravitational field would have been much easier for them. If intelligent life forms migrate to new worlds, such as traveling the 140 million miles from Mars, it would be logical to take seeds, plants and animals to start basic agriculture. On Earth many basic foodstuffs, grains and some domestic cattle have no traceable wild ancestry. Such ancestry may have been brought to Earth from Mars. The beginning of Earth's agriculture occurred about ten thousand years ago in what now is northern Iraq when wheat was first cultivated in the Neolithic Revolution. There are many symbols on Mars of life forms. Many can be seen on my website. (www.georgefiler.com) More Mars Symbols Found by Expert in Israel Daniel L. Levy writes, "The magnificent color picture you sent me was unfortunately too small for the "E" to be clearly visible. I did, however, finally find 13 views of your boulder (with these stunning hills

behind it!) that were taken by Spirit's pancam on Sol 44. While searching, I found a similar rock, that not only has an "E", but also a stylized Hebraic "Shin", the power symbol of, well, Adonai-Zebaot Himself!. http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/ 2/n/051/2N130887058EFF10AGP1868L0M1.JPG, taken by the navcam on sol 51: However, in the next picture, taken by the navcam's right "eye", only the Shin remains somewhat visible. These photos, apart from their stark beauty, do not, in my opinion, enable a clear-cut conclusion as to whether these boulders have been carved with letters, or if they just exhibit random natural shapes.

Click to enlarge

On Spirit sol 65, I found an artifact which cannot by any means be explained away as a random basalt feature. This is a jaw-dropping, unarguably nonrandom shape! Please, also, take a look at the microscopic camera views that were made of this intriguing, artificial-looking object. I have a degree in Agriculture, and I'm trained as a field zoologist and as a microbiologist, and my weapon of choice is the microscope. I, also, took some Geology in my time, and my father and I+ used to be keen rockhunters. Keep up the good work! Thanks to Daniel L. Levy. Caution From a Professional Sculptor Mr. Kim Shaffer a professional sculptor writes, "As somewhat of an expert, qualified because I have probably searched for, carried, cleaved and cut more terrestrial 'rocks' than anyone alive, I offer these points of possible explanation". I have for 28 years been a sculptor, working in natural stones and have very many times, found stone, in situ, having strange characteristics. Some will have almost face-like areas, some will have fractures or almost geometric patterns from impact fracturing or natural abrasion. I have noticed that the harder the stone, the more bizarre the patterns. When I cleave or split hard stone very often there are almost "letter-like "or "face like" features in the stone. One final point, the face on the mars rock is in a recess and on a fracture line, with the rest of the surface of that rock in a rough unaltered state. I, as a sculptor, would not go to the massive effort to carve a face on a stone without altering any other parts of the stone's surface, nor could I do so. I am not saying your assumptions are wrong, you may be 100% right, but there are other possibilites. Thank you for introducing a subject that we can all debate and enjoy. Mr Kim Shaffer Asst State Director, MUFON of Tennessee Mars Catch Basins and Dams and Mars Inspection Engineer John E. Combest writes, "My transmittal of the annotated photos covering the Mars photo of a Lake-with-artificial-Dam was delayed because its original size - transmittal of the 7.64MB photos was too large to be permitted by my internet provider. Therefore - lacking any software by which I could reduce the pixel count - I resorted to "print screen" tactics to reproduce the document so that it now consists of two photos with a total size of about 1.4 MB. Photo #1 includes what appears to be a dry lake bed with an artificial dam, and several smaller catch basins with the same type dam constructed to catch runoff from an area of deep ravines. The previous sent photos of the Square Building and other structures at coordinates 42S-158W is about 300 miles from this Lake scene at coordinates 39S -166W. If both photos had the same resolution, then it may be that the main

Lake Dam may be several hundred of feet in length with a height of perhaps 40 feet. http://space.com/scienceastronomy/mars_earth_040311.html Editors Note (George Filer) - To send high resolution photos by email is difficult or even to put them in full resolution on my web site is very expensive. However, these photos infer intelligent life on Mars has been building dams and attempting to preserve and transport water. Living "Blueberries" Dr. Annamarie Johnestone writes, "Conclusions from an experiment on the Mars Viking Landau Mission, as well as additional experiments in similar earth environments since1976, offer proof that "blueberries" photographed by Mars Opportunity Rover are lichens (a fungal sheath enveloping cyanobacteria or primitive algae). In Antarctica, endolithic (living in rock) bacteria, algae, lichens and fungi have been found alive inside of rock surfaces, to a depth of 1.5 cm. Like organisms have been photographed by the Opportunity Rover, in particular, "Blueberries" (lichens), in and on the Mars rocks. Lichens are known to photosynthesize and grow in water vapor, as a sole source of water. Using infra red instruments, Anderson and Tice (1979) describe a hydrosphere at the Viking Lander site that they believe could support endolithic growth. Water vapor measured 50 precipitable microns at the surface of Mars. As well, lichens have all the characteristics necessary to live in the harsh Martian environment above the rock surface. In extreme temperatures of hot or cold, with only absorbed water vapor, lichens can withstand desiccation from wind and ultra violet radiation. Color photos from Viking Lander, displaying yellow and green patches that change color patterns with time, were observed to be similar to lichens on rocks, according to Levin and Straat (1988). e photos were computer analyzed for verification. In my opinion, it is very unlikely, that inorganic substances would display like cyclic change. A changing pattern indicates living organisms. I observed that "blueberries" present in many Mars Rover photos were elevated above the rock surfaces. Some lichen species attach to rocks with a tube-like structure that absorbs and transports inorganic nutrients from the rock to the lichen's interior, algal-like, microbe component. Fungal acid excreted through the tube disintegrates the rock to facilitate the absorption process. Elevation of the exposed "blueberries" indicates an organic structure rather than an inorganic substance. Meteorites from Mars, analyzed by JPL and NASA, contained organic compounds (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) and fossilized primitive cells, according to Hartsfield and Salsbury (1996). Organic compounds are products of oxygen photosynthesizing bacteria and plants. Regrettably, the Mars Rover is not equipt to analyze organic substances. On earth, lichens are an indicator of clean air, as they flourish in an unpolluted atmosphere and diminish or disappear in polluted industrial areas. If there is a significant, living population of lichens on Mars, as displayed in large changing color patches, it would indicate that the atmosphere on Mars is not polluted. Observing the sky with the green filter of its panoramic camera, the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit came across a surprise: a streak across the sky. The streak, seen in the middle of this mosaic of images taken by the navigation and panoramic cameras, was probably the brightest object in the sky at the time. Scientists theorize that the mystery line could be either a meteorite or one of seven outof-commission spacecraft still orbiting Mars. Because the object appeared to move 4 degrees of an arc in 15 seconds it is probably not the Russian probes Mars 2, Mars 3, Mars 5, or Phobos 2; or the American probes Mariner 9 or Viking 1. That leaves Viking 2, which has a polar orbit that would fit with the north-south orientation of the streak. In addition, only Viking 1 and 2 were left in orbits that could produce motion as fast as that seen by Spirit. Said Mark Lemmon, a rover team member from Texas A&M University, Texas, "Is this the first image of a meteor on Mars, or an image of a spacecraft sent from another world during the dawn of our robotic space exploration program? We

may never know, but we are still looking for clues." picture http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/press/spirit/20040311a/12-ml-03-strea%20k-A067R1.jpg

Click to enlarge

Object appears to change shape at bottom right time image. This does not seem to be caused by camera angle. Thanks to Norman Breyden ROVER FINDS EVIDENCE OF WATER "One of NASA's robotic rovers has found evidence that parts of Mars was once soaked with enough water to sustain life", scientists said Tuesday, March 2, 2004. "'Opportunity has landed in an area of Mars where water once drenched the surface," said Ed Weiler, a NASA space science administrator. Meteorite Yields Evidence Bacteria On Mars News Release NASA: 96-160, August 1996 James Hartfield (Johnson Space Center) David Salsbury (Stanford University) Excerpt:: The NASA-funded team found the first organic molecules thought to be of Martian origin: several mineral features characteristic of biologic activity; and possible microscopic fossils of primitive, bacteria-like organisms, inside of a Mars rock that fell to earth as a meteorite. The journal Science, reports the compounds they elicited from the meteorites found in Antarctica, were directly associated with fossil-like structures and carbonate globules in the rocks. Life Once Existed On Mars Journal of Microscopy claims Australian scientists believe they have found evidence that life once existed on Mars. They have found that microscopic fossils of primitive bacteria-like organisms in a Mars meteorite match characteristics of bacteria found in mud in Queensland. Dr. Taylor says he has found enough evidence of life on Mars to warrant a manned mission to the red planet, and that more samples must be collected from Mars for further investigation.. http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1033640.htm Rover Takes Images of UFO's Robert Roy Britt reports that on March 11, 2004, the Spirit rover took the first picture of Earth ever made from the surface of another planet. It, also, spotted what could be a Viking Orbiter spacecraft or a meteor -- scientists aren't sure which. The photo of Earth shows the planet as a bright dot above the horizon. Another sky photo from Spirit shows a thin and short streak of light. "That streak could have been a meteor," Lemmon said. Or it could have been the Viking Orbiter 2, still circling Mars long after its 1970s mission ended. Lemmon said the other nine spacecraft currently orbiting Mars -- three of which are presently in working order -- have known positions and did not create the streak.

Click to enlarge

Editor's Note: It could, also, have been one of the UFOs that are periodically imaged by Mars satellites.

The Mysterious structures that may upstage NASA`s evidence of Martian life!
Daily Mail August 17-19, 1996

What was heralded as "arguably the biggest discovery in the history of science" last week -- a fossilized organism embedded in a meteorite which arrived on Earth from Mars -- is the first evidence of life beyond our own world. Could advanced life forms have existed on the Red Planet millions of years ago? Robert Bauval and bestselling author Graham Hancock, whose book, Fingerprints of the Gods, was the publishing phenomenon of last year, believe there is evidence to support this. Monumental structures on the planet's surface have mystified scientists for 20 years. Are they the result of natural processes... or the remains of a great civilization? Decide for yourself. The sensational announcement that a fist-sized meteorite from Mars contains signs of life has so far been accepted by scientists as evidence that only "incredibly primitive" organisms may once have existed on the planet. Yet it could mean far more. The meteorite, billions of years old, is thought to have landed in Antarctica about 13,000 years ago after being "splashed off" the surface of Mars by a cosmic collision -- probably with a comet -- at least 15 million years ago. We know from our experience on Earth that life is always evolving to higher species. During the thousands of millions of years after that rock and its fossils formed on Mars there was ample time for incredibly primitive organisms to have become much more complex -- perhaps even forms capable of developing a civilization. After all, the Earth and Mars are not thought to be much older than 4.5 billion years and the first incontrovertible evidence of life here -- bacteria and algae -- does not appear in the fossil record until 3.1 billion years ago. From those primitive organisms, we evolved. So why should precisely the same sort of processes not have taken place on Mars? What raises the stakes in such speculation is the existence of remarkable evidence that complex artificial structures -- monuments, gigantic edifices -

may have been built on Mars at some remote date. These structures, detected in NASA video images sent back by the Viking Orbiter in 1976, have never been photographed since but have become the focus of a widening controversy over the past 20 years. Because they include several enormous pyramids and a massive sphinx-like face, an apparently lunatic fringe argues that they must be the work of intelligent and technologically advanced beings. A civilization, in other words. Scientists have officially opposed this view, asserting that the structures are not structures at all but tandem geological patterns. Increasingly, however, even the most orthodox academics have begun to sound less sure. Earlier this year, for example, several months before the discovery of signs of life in a Martian meteorite, Professor Car Sagan, of Cornell University in the U.S., made a significant admission. The "Face on Mars," he said, was "probably sculpted by slow geological processes over millions of years". Nevertheless, he also said: "I could be wrong. It's hard to b sure about a world we've seen so little of in extreme close-up." Sagan urged that forthcoming American and Russian missions to Mars should make a special effort "to look much more closely at the pyramids and at what some people call the "Face" and the "City." "These features merit closer attention. More detailed photographs of the 'Face' would surely settle issues of symmetry and help resolve the debate between geology and monumental structure." COHERENT SHAPES The "Face on Mars" was identified on Viking frame 35A72 by Dr. Tobias Owen, who is now professor of astronomy at the University of Hawaii. The same frame, covering approximately 34 by 31 miles -also shows many other features that could be artificial. These cluster around latitude 40 degrees north in the region of Mars known to astronomers as Cydonia, and were photographed from an altitude of more than 1,000 miles with relatively poor resolution. A casual glance reveals only a jumble of hills, craters and escarpments. Gradually, however, as though a veil is being lifted, the blurred scene begins to feel organized and structured - too intelligent to be the result of random natural processes. Although the scale is grander, it looks the way some archaeological sites on Earth might look if photographed from 1,000 miles up. The more closely you examine it, the more it is apparent that it really could be an ensemble of enormous ruined monuments on the surface of Mars. For a long while after the 1976 Viking photographs, NASA and other scientific authorities continued to disseminate what one researcher calls "the bogus claim that the 'Face' is a trick of light and shadow". This notion began to be challenged seriously only when Vincent Di Pietro, a computer scientist and former NASA consultant, discovered another image of the "Face" on frame 70A13. This second image, which had been acquired 35 Martian days later than the first one and under different lighting conditions, made possible comparative views and detailed measurements of the "Face." Complete with its distinctive sphinx-like headdress, it is now known to be almost 1.6 miles long from crown to chin, 1.2 miles wide and just under 2,000 ft.. high. Image analysts say the bilateral symmetry of the "Face," which has a natural, almost human appearance, is most unlikely to have come about by chance. This impression is confirmed by other characteristics that have subsequently been identified under computer enhancement. These include 'teeth' in the mouth, bilaterally crossed lines above the eyes, and regular lateral stripes on the headpiece -- suggestive, to some researchers at least, of the headdress of ancient Egyptian pharaohs.

According to Dr. Mark Carlotto, an expert in image processing, all "these features appear in both the Viking images, and are coherent shapes structurally integral to the object. Thus they could not have been caused by random interference or artifacts of the image restoration and enhancement process." PYRAMIDS AND TOWERS The same is also true for the "D&M Pyramid" (named after Di Pietro and his associate Gregory Molenaar, also a former NASA contractor, who discovered it). This five-sided structure stands about ten miles from the "Face" and, like the Great Pyramid of Egypt, is aligned virtually north-south towards the spin axis of the planet. Its shortest side is a mile, its long axis extends to almost two miles and it is half a mile high. Commenting on the proximity of the "Face" and the "D&M Pyramid," American researcher Richard Hoagland asks a pointed question: "What are the odds against two terrestrial-like monuments on such an alien planet and in essentially the same location?" Hoagland has made his own detailed study of Frame 35A72 and has identified additional, possibly artificial, features. These include the so called "Fort," with its two distinctive straight edges, and the "City," which he describes as "a remarkably rectilinear arrangement of massive structures interspersed with several smaller pyramids." Hoagland also points out another striking fact about the "City:" it seems to have been sited in such a way that the inhabitants would have enjoyed a perfect, almost ceremonial, view of the "Face." The impression of a great ritual center, shrouded under the dust of ages, is enhanced by other features of Cydonia, such as the Tholus, a massive mound similar to Britain's Silbury Hill, and the "City Square," a grouping of four mounds centered on a fifth, smaller mound. This configuration, so suggestive of cross hairs, turns out to be located at the exact lateral center of the "City." In addition, a group of British researchers based in Glasgow has recently identified what looks like a massive four-sided pyramid, the so called "NK Pyramid," 25 miles west of the "Face" and on the same latitude (40.8 degrees north) as the "D&M Pyramid." In the same general area is a feature called the "Bowl," approached by a tapered ram that has been likened to the stairway of a Mexican pyramid. "Looking at the whole of Cydonia," says Chris O'Kane of the Mars Project UK, "my gut feeling is that these structures have to be artificial." O'Kane's hunch is strengthened by the fact that "many of the structures are non-fractal." In plain English this means that their contours have been scanned and assessed as artificial by highly sophisticated computers. "What we have, therefore," sums up O'Kane, "is an improbable assortment of anomalies. They have alignments, they're grouped, and they're non-fractal." Nor is Cydonia the only site on Mars to have yielded photographic evidence of unusual and apparently artificial structures. Pyramids have been identified elsewhere, notably in the region known as Elysium, on the opposite side of the planet where , as early as 1971, NASA's Mariner 9 spacecraft photographed a group of mile-high three-sided structures. Other Martian features that are decidedly non-fractal include a straight line more than three miles long defined by a row of small pyramids, extensive rhomboidal enclosures in the south polar region, and a weird, castle-like edifice rising to a steeple more than 2,000 ft. high. WHAT HAPPENED? If there was a civilization on Mars capable of creating such monuments, then what might have happened to it?

A WAR OR A FLOOD MAY HAVE WIPED OUT LIFE ON MARS Since extensive damage typical of explosive penetration is apparent on some of the structures, notably the "D&M Pyramid," more than one researcher has suggested that the Martians might have destroyed themselves in a suicidal war. A geological cataclysm is another possibility. Analysis of the Martian meteorite suggests the Red Planet was warm and wet - an environment that is likely to have been hospitable to life. Today, it is permanently frozen. The change may have been caused by a very large and rapid slippage of Mars's outer crust, a phenomenon which has also been cited as a possible cause of the cataclysmic end of Earth's last Ice Age 13,000 years ago. Evidence reported in Scientific American in 1985 confirms that Mars did at some unknown stage in its history, suffer a catastrophic crustal displacement. If this had happened during the planet's warm and wet phase, any civilization present at that time would almost certainly have been wiped out in the ensuing global floods and earthquakes, leaving behind only whatever scattered ruins and monuments were massive and stable enough to survive. The pyramids and the sphinx on Mars seem to fit the bill. And if they are artificial, then the implications for our idea of ourselves and our place in the universe are shattering. One top priority in President Bill Clinton's recently announced program of intensified Mars exploration should be a mission to find out for sure, particularly so since NASA has hitherto refused to include Cydonia in the list of more than 150 sites of scientific interest that it recognizes officially on Mars. Similarly, investigators would be unwise to ignore the fact that there is a region very like Cydonia on Earth -- Egypt's famous Giza plateau -- which has its own distinctive pyramids and Sphinx. Associated with these ancient monuments is a tradition that they were built by an antediluvian race as repositories for scrolls and books of past ages, and intended "to prevent the ancient wisdom from being lost in the Flood." Could that flood have been the cataclysmic 400 ft. rise in sea levels that we know took place 13,000 years ago at the end of the last Ice Age? And could there be some sort of bizarre interplanetary connection, not yet understood, between the story of civilization on Earth and on Mars? THE MYSTERIES OF MARS: COSMIC SEED AND THE ORIGIN OF LIFE WERE MEN BROUGHT TO EARTH BY A METEORITE? Is there an extraordinary connection between the Martian meteorite containing what scientists believe to be a fossilized organism and mysterious structures on the surface of the Red Planet? Robert Bauval and Graham Hancock, authors of the number one bestseller Keeper Of Genesis ( Message of the Sphinx ), which was serialized in the Mail earlier this year, believe there could be. On Saturday, in the first part of their controversial series, they described the strange monumental objects in Cydonia, a region of Mars, and how they could be the remains of a long-dead civilization. They also pointed at the bizarre similarity between a structure called "The Face" and the Egyptian Sphinx. Today, in the second part, Bauval and Hancock focus on the other inexplicable links between Mars and ancient Egypt . At some points in its orbit Mars passes less than 30 million miles from Earth -- in cosmic terms just outside our front porch compared to the nearest star, Alpha Centauri, which is 26 thousand billion miles away. Therefore it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that there could be a connection between life and civilization on Mars and life and civilization on Earth. Since time began, Earth has played host to literally millions of strange visitors from outer space -meteorites. It has been estimated that a million meteorites hurtle through the Earth's atmosphere every year. Fortunately most of them are tiny and quickly burn out after entry,appearing to us as "shooting stars." A few survive the atmosphere and reach the ground. These can be as small as a

ping-pong ball or as large as a London bus. The most spectacular meteorites found on the Earth are the large "oriented" meteorites, so called because they cut through the air retaining their direction of flight like a cannon shell, with their front part taking the brunt of the frictional heat. When they hit the ground they are found to be shaped like cones or pyramids. Wonderful examples of "oriented" meteorites can be seen in museums around the world. a 15-ton "oriented" iron meteorite called Willamette is displayed in the Smithsonian Institute in New York and another, called Morito, can be seen at the Institute of Metallurgy in Mexico city. Such an "oriented" meteorite, probably pyramidal in shape, could have been at the root of the mystery of the Giza pyramids. It is known that long before the so-called pyramid age of Egypt (circa 2,500 BC) a strange pyramidal or conical "stone" was kept within a sanctuary called the Temple of the Phoenix, 12 miles to the east of Giza in the sacred city of Heliopolis. This mysterious stone was called the Benben, derived from the root Ben -- a word which Egyptologists say means "seed'' or "procreation." Other details that ancient Egyptian texts give us about the Benben strengthen the possibility that it may have been a meteorite. We are told that it came "down from heaven" like the firebird or Phoenix. It was also said to have been "sent by the gods" at the moment of "Creation" -- an epoch the pharaohs called Zep Tepi, literally meaning "The First Time." In our book, Keeper Of Genesis, we used the science of astronomical alignments to calculate the date of the "First Time" to 12,500 BC. The implication, if the Benben was indeed an oriented meteorite, is that it landed in Egypt in precisely the same period during which the meteorite containing a fossilized organism from Mars arrived in Antarctica. The original Benben of Heliopolis -- an object that was already old in the time of the ancient Egyptians - is lost. Whatever its origins , it must have been of paramount importance to the pyramid builders, because stylized replicas of it served as the capstones of all pyramids. A surviving example, carved in one piece out of a hard stone known as diorite, is in the main hall of the Cairo Museum. On it are two rows of enigmatic hieroglyphs evoking the "Lord of the Horizon" (the rising sun, according to Egyptologists) and making reference to a deity called Sahu, identified with the constellation of Orion and the deity Osiris -- the archetypal god of the "First Time," whose "Divine Seed" created humanity. Beneath the complex layers of symbolism, the ancient Egyptian texts can be taken to link the origins of life -- and civilization -- to the arrival of a meteorite. Within the past ten years, scientists have independently reached a similar conclusion, arguing that life on Earth may indeed have been imported -- or "seeded" -- by a meteorite or a comet, billions of years ago. A striking characteristic of the pyramids and Sphinx of Giza is the way in which they are integrated into a grand architectural plan, based on mathematical and astronomical data. There is no evidence that the pyramids were used as tombs. What is certain is that two narrow shafts emanating from inside the Great Pyramid were directed to two specific stars: Zeta Orionis, one of the three stars in Orion's belt, and Sirius, in the constellation of Canis Major. It is certain, too, that the principal Giza monuments form an accurate terrestrial "map" of the three stars of Orion's belt as these constellations appeared in 10,500 BC. Who could have been observing the skies over Giza in 10,500 BC and who, at that date, could have had the technical capacity to realize such monumental works as the Sphinx and the pyramids? Egyptologists assert there was no civilization on Earth at that time, let alone one capable of planning and building such immense, well engineered structures. If they are right, why do the alignments of Giza so plainly and repetitively mirror the skies of the 11th millennium BC? Former NASA consultant Richard Hoagland is convinced there may be a "terrestrial connection" between Giza and Cydonia -- the region of Mars where the mysterious structures are located -perhaps a common source that imparted the same legacy of knowledge and symbolism on both

worlds. Hoagland's interest in Giza began when he met Dr. Lambert Dolphin, a scientist from the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) who had conducted radar and seismographic research to locate hidden chambers near and under the Great Sphinx. Dr. Dolphin was captivated by Hoagland's idea of a "Martian Sphinx" -- the "Face"-- and in 1983, was instrumental in helping Hoagland set up the Independent Mars Investigation Project under the aegis of SRI. Hoagland argues that the Face on Mars is "not merely the image of an terrestrial hominid...lying where it has no business being. One half (the right) is also the perfect image of a cat; specifically a lion - the king of beasts. So the Martian sphinx is in truth the combination of two 'families:' hominid...and ...feline." The discription also fits the lion-bodied, human headed Egyptian Sphinx. Another coincidence is that the ancient Egyptians called the Sphinx Hor-em-Akhet, meaning "Horus in the Horizon." Horus -- the hawk-god, the divine child of Isis and Osiris -- is a name derived from the Egyptian word Heru, which translates as "face." Helped by a mathematician, Erol Torun, Hoagland has also identified a number of intriguing mathematical and geographical connections between Cydonia and Giza. Torun was among the first to realize that one of the large "pyramids" on Mars, the "D&M Pyramid," contains a variety of functions and constants used in a sophisticated mathematical system known as tetrahedral geometry. Evidence of such high mathematics in supposedly natural structures is strongly suggestive of a conscious design. The most important recurring feature found in the mathematics of Cydonia is the value 0.865 -derived from the ratio of e (an important mathematical constant equal to 2.7) and pi (the mathematical constant of 3.142 used to work out the properties of spheres and circles). This Hoagland terms the "message of Cydonia." A trigonometrical function, the arc tangent of e/pi, gives the value of 40.8 which is the Mars latitude on which both the "D&M Pyramid" and the "NK Pyramid" are sited. Amazingly, another trigonometrical function, the cosine of e/pi, gives the value 30 -- the exact geographical latitude of the pyramids of Giza on Earth. Hoagland has demonstrated that the Great Pyramid of Giza contains "tetrahedral" functions identical to those of the "D&M Pyramid" on Mars, and Torun has shown that the positioning of the Great Sphinx, relative to the pyramids, expresses the Cydonian ratio e/pi. "The odds of such correlations happening by coincidence on two neighbouring planets are somewhere in the region of one in 7,000," says Hoagland. What makes coincidence look even less likely is a bizarre link to another ancient site on Earth. One of the key angles of Cydonia, repeated again and again, is 19.5 degrees. this is precisely the latitude (19.5 degrees north) of the mysterious Mexican city of Teotihuacan, 'the place where men became gods', with its three distinctive pyramids dedicated respectively to the Sun, the Moon, and to Quetzalcoatl, the Central American counterpart of Osiris. OPENING THE WAY Last week, in a statement on the implications of the Martian meteorite and its fossils, President Clinton promised to launch a whole fleet of space probes to the Red Planet. The first of these, designated Pathfinder 1, is scheduled to leave Earth in November. Is it a coincidence that the name of the ancient Egyptian jackal-god Upuaut means "Opener of the Pathways" -- literally "Pathfinder" -- and that Upuaut was also the name given to the small robot camera that was used to explore the narrow "star-shells" of the Great Pyramid earlier this decade? Designed and operated by the German engineer Rudolf Gantenbrink,Upuaut stunned the world in March 1993 when it revealed a "door" blocking the entrance to a hidden chamber at the end of the shaft pointing to Sirius (a star the ancient Egyptians identified with Isis, mother of the divine child Horus). Why shouldn't the pyramid builders have concealed behind that door the fabled lost relic of Heliopolis -- the Benben.

We may soon know the answer. Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities has announced that an attempt will be made later this year to open the 'door' at the end of the Sirius shaft. IS THE TRUTH BEING KEPT FROM US? The secret chambers beneath the Sphinx at Giza could hold the key to a link with Mars. Is there something on Mars which would shock mankind? Robert Bauval and Graham Hancock, authors of the bestseller Keeper Of Genesis, think there could be. Already, in the first two parts of their fascinating series, they have examined the monumental structures in the Cydonia region of the Red Planet that could point to their existence of a long-dead civilization. And they have drawn parallels with the Sphinx and pyramids of ancient Egypt. Their speculation may not be so extraordinary, given that scientists believe a meteorite from Mars contains a fossilized organism that was alive billions of years ago. Today, in their final installment, the authors ask whether the space agency NASA is keeping the facts a secret from all of us. Conspiracy theories abound over NASA's role in the Monuments of Mars affair -- and with good reason. The space agency's almost unbelievable lack of interest since photographic Frame 35A72 was taken by the Mars orbiting Viking craft in 1976, and its obstinate disregard for calls from other scientists to investigate the Cydonia mystery further, have raised suspicions of a cover-up. And why not? We know that our governments selectively censor potentially traumatic or destabilising information. If something has been found with the potential to upset established social values and religious beliefs, then it is reasonable to suppose we might not have been told about it yet. What makes this seem more probable is the facet that NASA's probe, Mars Observer, scheduled to rephotograph Cydonia in 1993 in response to growing pressure, failed to do so due to alleged technical problems (the orbiter was 'lost' by mission control at the crucial moment). Also noteworthy is the fact that NASA's constitution authorizes it to co-operate with agencies directly concerned with national defense and specifically obliges it to withhold from the public information classified to protect national security'. It is, therefore, by no means impossible that information has been withheld. At any rate, it does seem odd that NASA, which steadfastly scorned any suggestion that the Martian pyramids and Face might be signs of civilization has in the past two weeks embraced the implications of a few fossilized microbes in a Martian meteorite. But if NASA really does have a secret interest in the Monuments of Mars, it would be expected that such an interest would also have been manifested here on Earth -- in, particularly, the three great pyramids and the Sphinx at Giza in Egypt. INTRIGUE AT GIZA In March 1995, a German scientific team discovered a mysterious "door," with handles made of an unknown metal, lies at the end of a narrow (8 in. x 8 in.) 200 ft. shaft which cuts through the body of the pyramid from the south wall of the so-called Queen's Chamber. It was several weeks before new of the discovery was leaked to the Press. Active very like NASA, the Egyptian Antiquities Organization (EAO) first made curious accusations of a hoax and malpractice, then belatedly admitted the find by downplayed the importance and finally opted for silence. A proposal to put a fiber-optic camera under the door was mysteriously shelved on the pretext that nothing of importance would be found. Quite unexpectedly, however, this was reversed in March this year when Egyptian scientist Farouk El Baz, a former NASA consultant, was chosen by the EAO to lead a team scheduled to start work next month, will deploy equipment designed by Spar Aerospace which builds the hydraulic arms used by NASA Space Shuttles. FACT: A remote-sensing specialist in the U.S. , Dr. James Hurtak, was the first scientist to show interest in the NASA photographs taken by Mariner 9 in 1971 of possible pyramids in the Elysium region of Mars.

In 1975, a year before the Viking pictures of Cydonia, he predicted that further finds of similar structures, including a sphinx-like monument, would be made on Mars and that they would all prove to be connected, in a great cosmic blueprint, to the Giza monuments in Egypt. Hurtak does not deny that he has close links with California's prestigious Stanford Research Institute (SRI) which has participated in controversial experiments on behalf of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency using psychics to pinpoint secret military installations. We have confirmed that as early as 1973, the EAO granted a license permitting the SRI to search for subterranean tunnels and chambers around the Great Sphinx. This work continued until the early 80's. FACT: In 1991, a team led by Boston University geologist Dr. Robert Schoch resumed the quest at the Sphinx. Using remote-sensing equipment, U.S. scientists detected a large rectangular chamber concealed in the bedrock 20 ft. under the front paws of the monument. At the time, the EAO refused to allow the chamber to be investigated and withdrew the team's license. FACT:In March this year, a few days after the announcement that Farouk El Baz would open the "door" inside the Great Pyramid, the EAO granted a one-year renewable license for another project at the Sphinx. Last month, information was leaked to the U.S. media that nine further chambers and tunnels had been identified and that the sensors had picked up indications in all the them of the presence of metallic objects. However, senior EAO officials denied that anything had been discovered, claiming the story was a lie. Before the end of this year, NASA will launch two probes to Mars -- an orbiter, Mars Surveyor 1, and the Pathfinder Lander. Officially, neither will be going anywhere near Cydonia. The truth may indeed be "out there" but how soon will we be told about it?

NASA Researchers Claim Evidence of Present Life on Mars

Source: www.space.com 16 February 2005

WASHINGTON -- A pair of NASA scientists told a group of space officials at a private meeting here Sunday that they have found strong evidence that life may exist today on Mars, hidden away in caves and sustained by pockets of water. The scientists, Carol Stoker and Larry Lemke of NASAs Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, told the group that they have submitted their findings to the journal Nature for publication in May, and their paper currently is being

peer reviewed. What Stoker and Lemke have found, according to several attendees of the private meeting, is not direct proof of life on Mars, but methane signatures and other signs of possible biological activity remarkably similar to those recently discovered in caves here on Earth. Stoker and other researchers have long theorized that the Martian subsurface could harbor biological organisms that have developed unusual strategies for existing in extreme environments. That suspicion led Stoker and a team of U.S. and Spanish researchers in 2003 to southwestern Spain to search for subsurface life near the Rio Tinto riverso-called because of its reddish tintthe product of iron being dissolved in its highly acidic water. Stoker did not respond to messages left Tuesday on her voice mail at Ames. Stoker told SPACE.com in 2003, weeks before leading the expedition to southwestern Spain, that by studying the very acidic Rio Tinto, she and other scientists hoped to characterize the potential for a chemical bioreactor in the subsurface an underground microbial ecosystem of sorts that might well control the chemistry of the surface environment. Making such a discovery at Rio Tinto, Stoker said in 2003, would mean uncovering a new, previously uncharacterized metabolic strategy for living in the subsurface. For that reason, the search for life in the Rio Tinto is a good analog for searching for life on Mars, she said. Stoker told her private audience Sunday evening that by comparing discoveries made at Rio Tinto with data collected by ground-based telescopes and orbiting spacecraft, including the European Space Agencys Mars Express, she and Lemke have made a very a strong case that life exists below Mars surface. The two scientists, according to sources at the Sunday meeting, based their case in part on Mars fluctuating methane signatures that could be a sign of an active underground biosphere and nearby surface concentrations of the sulfate jarosite, a mineral salt found on Earth in hot springs and other acidic bodies of water like Rio Tinto that have been found to harbor life despite their inhospitable environments. One of NASAs Mars Exploration Rovers, Opportunity, bolstered the case for water on Mars when it discovered jarosite and other mineral salts on a rocky outcropping in Merdiani Planum, the intrepid rovers landing site chosen because scientists believe the area was once covered by salty sea. Stoker and Lemkes research could lead the search for Martian biology underground, where standing water would help account for the curious methane signatures the two have been analyzing. They are desperate to find out what could be producing the methane, one

attendee told Space News. Their answer is drill, drill, drill. NASA has no firm plans for sending a drill-equipped lander to Mars, but the agency is planning to launch a powerful new rover in 2009 that could help shed additional light on Stoker and Lemkes intriguing findings. Dubbed the Mars Science Laboratory, the nuclear-powered rover will range farther than any of its predecessors and will be carrying an advanced mass spectrometer to sniff out methane with greater sensitivity than any instrument flown to date. In 1996 a team of NASA and Stanford University researchers created a stir when they published findings that meteorites recovered from the Allen Hills region of Antarctica contained evidence of possible past life on Mars. Those findings remain controversial, with many researchers unconvinced that those meteorites held even possible evidence that very primitive microbial life had once existed on Mars.

Crashed Triangle Spacecraft Half-Buried on the Surface of Mars?

This anomaly was originally identified by Efrain Palermo, in the MSSS Archives. The original image processed by MSSS was overly contrast-enhanced and exhibited a strange square processing artifact that originally caught the attention of Efrain. I processed this image directly from the original raw image, applying destriping, moderate contrast enhancement, sharpening and enlarging 2x. North is to the bottom of the image. The sun is from the upper left in this image. Because the raw image is 3.5 meters / pixel, the object is about 100 meters across, and appears to be roughly heart- or triangleshaped. Upon close examination, several anomalies are apparent. There appear to be several support structures on the top. The shadows on the lower left suggest that the object is raised above the otherwise relatively uniform surface. The area to the North is... (Click on images for full resolution views in separate windows.) This is a Viking raw image of the area I processed, showing the anomaly at a distance. This link shows the location of the anomaly on the side of the fishshaped depression. The sun is to the right. Compare with the context image taken by MGS.

These images are 256 pixel / degree surface map views of the area made from 1/16 degree MOLA data, the first with color from the Viking red-synthesized green-violet map, and the second from a synthetic color processing from the MOLA elevation data. The location of the anomaly in the depression is in the purple area, a very high plateau. Maybe the crash was controlled flight into terrain, a common pilot error. Or maybe not. This looks like a good place for training flights, Area 51 on Mars? This is a 3-d context view showing the 3-d cliffs, explaining the strange patterns at the lower left of the MGS context image. This shows the advantage of 3-d imaging. Soon we will have MGS maps and even higher resolution elevation data. This is a 3-d view I made with a from shape-from-shading program I wrote in IDL, of the object showing the blast area. Note the two impressions possibly caused by material ejected from the object during an explosion. The direction of the possible craft may have been from the upper left to the lower right, suggesting this craft may have been triangle-shaped as it slammed into the ground, created an explosion which destroyed the right side of the craft and created a wide, spreading pattern of blast debris. This view shows one side and back of the object in more detail. Note the 'string of pearls' and the wake-like pattern in the surface to the lower left which may have been caused by the propulsion system of the craft. It

looks like the TR3-B prototype I saw near Travis AFB in 1994, in Northern California (Bird's Landing to be exact). The 'hanging beam' appears to cast a shadow on the right side. Note the dark cross-shaped area and circular depressions to the lower left of the cross. This might be a possible design template for the possible craft. Or it might be a alien-inspired TR3-B Triangle that I saw in 1994 near Travis AFB in N. California. Edward Fouche claims to have worked on this spacecraft . This is another site showing the triangle. More on the theory of operation of the TR3-B triangle

Maybe this very high volcano in the crater nearby is where they came from? Or maybe there were just going that way for a sightseeing trip and had a bad accident. Too bad. It must have been a nice place to visit when there was water there. This is another view showing the unusual shape of the volcano. This is a view from the north showing the isolated mounds visible in the distance 3d context image. This is another view of the area toward the southwest, from a higher elevation. This is a view from the south. Note the 'monolith' below the plateau.

This is a closeup of the monolith. It looks like a projection screen positioned to be viewed from above. But it might be an illusion, although the correlation between the topographical data and the Viking map shading is interesting. (This site is under construction and subject to updates.)

The Curious Case of the NASA Crinoid Cover-Up

By Richard C. Hoagland 2004 The Enterprise Mission

A few days ago, on Sol 33, the Martian Rover "Opportunity" was commanded to roll forward to begin intensive investigation of a small section of the rocky outcrop, rimming this small crater that it's been exploring in a region of Mars, called "Meridiani Planum," since shortly after it landed there, January 25 th . The overall, few inches high outcrop, which spans approximately 180 degrees of the crater's interior, has been dubbed by the JPL Rover Team "Opportunity Ledge." The specific section that Opportunity was ordered to investigate last week is about in the middle of this outcrop (below), is approximately ten inches high, and was named by the Team "El Capitan."

(Click Images with Borders to Enlarge) Preparatory to actually drilling into El Capitan and making detailed composition measurements with the array of sophisticated instruments on the Rover's "arm," Opportunity was commanded to take a series of close-up Microscopic Images of the untouched surface of the rock with the B&W CCD camera attached to the arm. One of those images (1M131201699EFF0500P29933M2M1.jpg) revealed an amazing sight (below): A potential Martian fossil !

A close-up enlargement of this fascinating object (above bottom), reveals an apparently "snapped off" body geometry, at least five visible cylindrical "segments," and a hint of other fossil-like features buried in the surrounding rock itself all classic hallmarks of a former living organism! So, what did the JPL Rover science Team do with this potentially explosive scientific find ? They promptly ground it into powder right before our eyes (PanCAm color image, below)!

As the second Microscopic Image (1M131212854EFF0500P2959M2M1.jpg), taken immediately after this grinding operation clearly shows (below), rather than move the grinder (technically called the "Rock Abrasion Tool" RAT) a couple of inches to the left or right, the grinding of the rock took place directly over this astonishing fossil-looking object . Totally obliterating it.

The raw "before" and "after" images of this wanton and inexplicable destruction can still be seen at the JPL Mars Exploration Rover Mission homepage. After we discovered and posted an initial version of this remarkable series of events on "Enterprise" March 2, as might be expected (for a website which received almost 40 million hits in January alone) we began receiving emails from around the world -- from amateur and professionals alike -- all pointing out an almost unbelievable resemblance between "our" Martian fossil and a well-known terrestrial counterpart. Quoting from one correspondent, James Calhoun: I have been a collector of marine fossils for 34 years, an amateur to be sure, but with years of field experience. When I saw the "Fossil" pic [on "Enterprise"], it was clear to me that it met a number of the basic criteria of fossilization. RCH was correct in that "scale does not matter," as the physical characteristics of the item are immediately apparent, and it is sad that the MER team did not present a professional paleontologist to comment. In that light, I have heard a varied number of explanations as to what type of fossil this could be, everything

from a segmented worm (annelid) to a shrimp (crustacean). I would like you guys to consider that based on the symmetry of the object, that it could be in fact an early Crinoid, a filter feeding marine plant-like animal, a type with a calcium carbonate exoskeleton (this is Earth-based of course, the Martian exoskeleton [could] have been of a differing mineral composition). I have included a couple of pictures for symmetry and scale reference. Notice the triangular symmetry in the "branch areas," not to mention the segments, and also that the scale is inline with the "size of the blueberries." Your opinion would be most appreciated. Thanks for your time and I appreciate the work the team does." Mr. James C. Calhoun (Jim) Lancaster, NY The images Jim included with his e-mail "knocked our socks off," as the saying goes. Chosen from " A Beginners Guide To Identifying Cincinnatian Crinoids, "by Jack Kallmeyer, they clearly showed that the fossilized Martian "creature" we'd discovered on this series of Opportunity's Microscopic Images for Sol 33, shared an amazing number of specific characteristics with one "Ordovician Crinoid Retercrinus Alvealatus" (below).

Other mages Mr. Calhoun sent us revealed even further similarities (below).

Among the many responses to our posting of this extraordinary terrestrial fossil analog, was one from our longtime friend and colleague, Ron Nicks. Ron, as you may remember, is one of our Enterprise consulting geologists, who's written a number of thoughtful analyses on prior NASA missions and results. For several days prior to this, Ron and I had been arguing back an forth via e-mail about the "Martian blueberries" that Jim Calhoun alluded to those curiously spherical, highly uniform "somethings" that litter the Opportunity crater literally, in the millions . As seen in this PanCam color image (below), not only are these mysterious objects amazingly abundant and apparently contained within the rocks (until released through slow erosion), in properly calibrated images they are actually blue (contrary to the Rover Science Team Principal Investigator Stephen Squyres' increasingly curious denials at NASA press conferences, "They're NOT blue " -- after it was he who originally termed them "blueberries" ).

In fact, other than noting their great profusion and color, the major mystery of "what are they, really?" the most obvious "anomalous features" of this entire Martian landscape -- had not been publicly addressed directly by the Rover Science Team even after a full month at Meridiani Planum. Ron had been arguing that the "berries" were also some kind of preserved life form, specifically representative of a separate Class of marine invertebrate animals (now extinct on Earth) called "blastoids." Fossilized blastoids (commonly called "fossil Rose Buds" or "Hickory Nuts" in the southeastern United States where a lot of their fossils have been found) at first glance resemble a hard fruit common to many current trees. In fact, they are the partially petrified remains of a marine organism which (like the Crinoids see below) stood above the sea floor on a long, segmented "stem" and gathered food from the surrounding currents with a waving set of tentacles (rarely preserved) called "pinnules" (below).

One common blastoid form, because of its striking five-sided symmetry (below), is called "Pentremites."

When Opportunity rolled up and took its first close in PanCam color images of a feature of "Opportunity Ledge" called "Stone Mountain" (below), the spacecraft was also commanded to acquire Microscopic Images at the same time (inset).

Notice on the MI image (below), the series of extremely thin, parallel, sedimentary layers in this rocky outcrop (1M129516156EFF0312P2933M2M1.jpg), which also includes a couple of dangling "Martian blueberries," partially exposed.

Ron, in examining the "blueberries" on several of these and other close-ups, believed he'd spotted the tell tale, five-sided signature of Pentremites! In a carefully composited color version of this same image, created by another Enterprise associate, Jill England, the details of some "berries" become clear. As you enlarge the "berries," distinct hints of five-sided, geometric surface features eerily similar to fossilized terrestrial blastoids finally do appear (below).

Though eroded by unknown length of exposure to the Martian winds and sands which over time have almost removed all surface markings and relief -- enough remains to make some interesting comparisons . Based on his paleontological experience, Ron had been arguing for days that these tantalizing clues pointed to a fossil explanation for the mysterious "blueberries" as opposed to the strictly geological explanations being officially advanced by the Rover Science Team. While intrigued, I was not convinced .

Then I found the fossil on the Sol 33 Rover MI image, and posted it on Enterprise. James Calhoun's highly provocative confirmatory e-mail and images arrived. And, Ron wrote again: Richard, Remember my [earlier] e-mail regarding crinoid stems? That is exactly what you are looking at in the "segments" that you describe [on "Coast to Coast AM," and in the latest "Enterprise" posting]. A crinoid stem

has the appearance of a stack of lifesavers. In the same image, you can see what appears to be the blastoids or cystoids that top the stems. This deposit looks exactly like much limestone in the Cincinatti, Ohio area. Ron What are the odds of two independent experts who have never met, let alone talked to one another on this subject! separately identifying this specific crinoid's fossil on a random Martian image ... and then, the precise region on Earth where it's counterpart is found?! OK, what's a "Crinoid?" A crinoid [sometimes called a "sea lily," because of its superficial appearance to a spreading flower (below)] is, as James Calhoun described, "a filter feeding, marine, plant-like animal ." Crinoids first appeared in Earth's primeval seas over 500 million years ago, in the so-called "Cambrian Era," climbing to dominance over the next 150 million years, before receding once again in the terrestrial fossil record.

UCLA's "astrobiology" website features several Crinoid reconstructions through geological time, some (below) carefully detailing their various components.

The section of our fossilized Martian equivalent -- apparently captured in the Opportunity Microscopic Image from Sol 33 -- was the base of the "cup" and a small portion of one segmented "arm" (compare above and below). The other arms, which were used to gather food from the underwater ocean currents when the organism was alive, apparently had eroded away (or been blasted away by the creation of this Martian crater) long before NASA's Opportunity Rover landed in the crater and took the specific image .

***

The mysteries presented by this astonishing discovery are far too complex to even begin to explore in any depth here. But a few questions seem in order . Given that this is real, that all of us now who have independently looked at this, and come to the same conclusion -- that this could in fact be a genuine Martian fossil at Maridiani Planum -- are not delusional what could it mean? A few days after the acquisition of this remarkable image, NASA held a sudden "water press conference" in Washington DC. There they announced, with much fanfare, that Opportunity had discovered via its analytical equipment, measuring the chemistry of the outcrop -- that the site it was exploring once " was soaking wet in the past." While refraining from also claiming that "Opportunity Ledge's" layers of sediments had been laid down in actual liquid water, they came very close and hinted that this confirmation could come "as early as a few days." So, what do we have here? Crinoids lived in ocean water ranging from a few feet deep to several miles anchoring their stems on the ocean floor and feeding on whatever nutrients drifted by. If you look at a combined map of where JPL landed its two Rovers, and the Odyssey GRS orbital determination of water abundance in the upper one meter of Martian soil, a glance will suffice to show the Rovers are indeed exploring none other than the shallows of our two proposed equatorial Martian tidal oceans (below)! Almost as if that had been planned .

It takes almost no imagination (so, even the current Rover Team might handle it ) to picture this site several million years ago (below) -- a quiet tidal pool, filled with gently waving creatures of the sea until one day, something extraordinary happened and this pool and all of Mars forever changed.

The fact that our small Martian creature seems identical to the Crinoids which once dominated Earth's terrestrial oceans is astounding. That fact alone if it is a fact means that something is radically wrong with our current view of biological, if not planetary, evolution. Verifying that simple fact would seem now to be the highest priority for a space program about to undertake significant new challenges including multi-generational planning for human flights to Mars. It is so easy to invoke the idea of "parallel evolution" to explain this astonishing development. But is such a concept especially on two totally different planets, with totally differing environments and histories -- even plausible science fiction let alone scientific fact? Could not one just as easily invoke the intervention of an "outside agency" including a Creator -- to explain the appearance, on these two separate worlds, of a species essentially identical in function and in form ? And, if that can be done here, where does invocation of such an "outside intervention" end? With the appearance of the Face on Mars itself ? The idea of landing a robot (essentially at random) on an alien planet only to discover an ancient form of terrestrial life (maybe two if the "blueberries" turn out to be Ron's blastoids!), so immediately recognizable that literally dozens of observers on this planet amateurs and experts alike have now independently identified it, raises profound philosophical and scientific questions to which we now desperately need real scientific answers. Unfortunately, if we expect our own Space Agency to publicly address let alone answer any of them based on NASA's current actions vis a vis this fossil we may be waiting a very long, long time . ***

One final mystery: In 2000, Geoffrey Landis a NASA scientist attached to the NASA-Glenn Research Center, in Ohio wrote his first Mars science fiction novel, " Mars Crossing ." In 1997, Landis had been a Principal Investigator for one experiment on the highly successful first unmanned Mars Pathfinder Sojourner rover mission to the outflow of an ancient water channel, Ares Vallis. As a result, his "Mars" in the new novel was highly praised, by both veteran science fiction writers and planetary scientists alike, as "totally authentic." One wrote: "High-quality hard SF written with the authenticity of a NASA insider Landis has given us a legend of our own near future ." Geoffrey Landis is also now a member of the current JPL Rover Science Team, a member of the "atmospheric group." Which makes what he did in his novel four ago, very interesting ... to say the least. Three quarters through his novel, Landis has one of his characters, Brandon Weber, get lost in the arid Martian desolation of endless dunes and dust. Tired and scared, the astronaut finally climbs a small butte to get his bearings and makes a startling, serendipitous discovery . There was a fracture line running down the middle of the butte; one half of it was two feet higher than the other. It made a natural seat. Without any sense of wonder, without even a sense of irony, he reached out and touched it. Embedded in the layered sandstone exposed by the crack, it held a perfectly preserved fossil. It looked like a cluster of shiny black hoses, clumped together at the bottom, branching out into a dozen tentacles at the top. In the same section of rock, he could see others, of every size from tiny ones to one three feet long. There were other fossils too, smaller ones in different shapes, a bewildering variety. "I name you Mars Life Brandonii," he said.

How did Landis -- a Pathfinder and MER Rover Mission NASA scientist -- somehow know ... four years ago?!

Ignoring Fossils On Mars By David Sadler www.david-sadler.org 2004.03.19 Art by Steve Troy

CHALLENGE TO SPACE.COM and CNN Print the image in question , and print the paper by Richard C. Hoagland. Let your readers decide. Image: Opportunity rover image 034/1M131201538EFF0500P2933M2M1 http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/opportunity_m034.html Paper: " The Curious Case of the NASA Crinoid Cover-Up." http://www.enterprisemission.com/articles/03-08-2004/crinoid_cover-up.htm

CHALLENGE TO NASA Engage in a debate on this fossil candidate with Richard C. Hoagland and his team. Broadcast this debate on NASA TV and let the public decide whether or not NASA destroyed a fossil candidate. TIMELINE On or about March 8, 2004, Richard C. Hoagland published a paper titled, "The Curious Case of the NASA Crinoid Cover-Up." This paper may be found at http://www.enterprisemission.com/articles/03-08-2004/crinoid_cover-up.htm

The paper carefully considers a fossil candidate on Mars imaged by the MER Opportunity's microscopic imager. These images are posted by JPL at http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/opportunity_m034.html Before ordering a scientific survey of this specimen, the rover Opportunity was instructed to grind this fossil candidate to dust, which it did with unquestioned efficiency. Since then, very curious media has emerged that suggests NASA doesn't want anyone discussing or showing the potential fossil. Immediately after Hoagland's paper was published to the Internet, Hoagland came under intense personal attack by persons closely aligned with NASA. On March 15, 2004, Space.com published a character assassination piece with the provocative title, "War of the Words: Scientist Attacks Alien Claims." This article is posted at http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mystery_monday_040315.html Hoagland responded on March 16, 2004 by publishing his email communications with the author of the attack piece, Robert Roy Britt. Britt ignored Hoagland's defense and hard science, choosing instead to concentrate on Hoagland's 'credentials' and his critics' personal accusations, innuendo and deliberate misstatements of fact. Hoagland's response is titled, "Email Exchange From Rob Roy Britt of Space.com And Richard C. Hoagland on the Plait\Greenberg Allegations." Read this response at http://www.enterprisemission.com/response.htm Enterprise published my opinion of this fossil diversion campaign under the title, "NASA RUNNING SCARED: Shooting the Messenger." It, too, was posted on March 16, 2004 and can be read at http://www.enterprisemission.com/messenger.htm Space.com followed immediately the next day, March 17, 2004, by publishing a fossil denial piece that does not mention the fossil candidate in question, but imparts the impression that it is nearly impossible to find a fossil on Mars without astronauts on the scene. This article is titled, "Fossil Hunting on Mars," and can be found in its original published form at http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mars_fossils_040316.html I would like to take this article to task (below), paragraph by paragraph. My comments will be enclosed in this fashion ((( My comments... ))) On March 19, 2004, CNN jumped on Hoagland by reprinting the "War of the Words" article under the title, "Scientist Attacks Alien Claims On Mars." In this article, there is still no mention of the Crinoid paper and no printing of the Opportunity image sparking this entire controversy. This omission by these news outlets and by the NASA scienticians being interviewed are proof of a campaign to divert attention away from the fossil and discredit the author of the first paper published regarding the fossil. The CNN article can be viewed at http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/03/17/alien.debunk/index.html Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to academic freedom in the New America...

CONFIRMATION BY OMISSION With each passing day, the fossil find is CONFIRMED, by how it is being ACTIVELY ignored and by how one scientist is being dragged behind the proverbial media pickup truck for publishing a thoughtful and scientific analysis of the find! Using Opportunity's microscopic imager and grinder, a detailed survey of this object could have been performed. A controlled deconstruction of this fossil candidate could have been ordered with multiple targeted grindings planned by trained biologists and paleontologists. Each grinding could have been closely inspected by Opportunity's microscopic imager and analyzed by biologists and paleontologists the world over. Instead, the fossil candidate was destroyed in one fell swoop. One is left with the mental image of the MER control room filled with minors fighting over the joy stick to see who gets to drive now and who gets to grind next. Where is the adult supervision at NASA? It is difficult to describe the loss of this moment and this 'opportunity.' THE NEW CHURCH OF OFFICIAL SCIENCE Speaking of Galileo, it's deja vu all over again, but with a twist.

Father James, Brother Bob and Rabbi Jacob were not at the rover controls. They did not issue the directive to grind the fossil candidate to dust. It was not they who failed to formulate a plan for detailed study of this remarkable artifact. This potential find would have eclipsed every fossil ever found on Earth. And the scientists and engineers at NASA, not the Catholic Church of the 17th century, destroyed it. After the fossil candidate was ground to dust, it fell into an official black hole. Officially, it does not exist. NASA does not acknowledge it, and you won't see its image in science publications or the mainstream news. In short, the Mars fossil has been excommunicated. Without some form of censorship, propaganda in the strict sense of the word is impossible. In order to conduct propaganda, there must be some barrier between the public and the event. Access to the real environment must be limited, before anyone can create a pseudo-environment that he thinks is wise or desirable. -- Walter Lippman -At the same time, a vicious intimidation campaign began to silence anyone drawing attention to the fossil and a debunking campaign began to deny a fossil candidate had been found. Again, this isn't the 17th century Catholic Church preventing the public from discovering a world-view paradigm shift. It's the New Church of Official Science destroying the evidence then hiding the potential discovery from the public. And this is all happening with the help of mainstream media and so-called 'science' publications. "Today, the military-industrial complex has expanded to become the military-industrial-media complex... Thanks to lax enforcement of antitrust regulations and far less restrictive telecommunications laws, a mere handful of corporations, many with close ties to the national-security establishment, now controls most of what Americans know about the world." -- Terry Hansen -This is how it works in 2004 A.D. That's not a new pulsar being detected by Arecibo. It's Galileo spinning in his grave. But this time its the High Priesthood of Scienticians of the New Church of Official Science refusing to look through their own 'telescope' of the 21st century --- the rover Opportunity's microscopic imager. 'Scientician,' is a word combining 'scientist' and 'politician' coined years ago by Dave Powelson to describe the political corruption of a 'scientist.' A scientician is willing to alter and/or ignore observations and research to conform to the political correct thinking or policy of any particular age. No longer an objective scientist, the person becomes a 'political' scientist --- a scientician. The term will be applied in my comments to the Space.com article below. I am confidant that time will expose the corruption and co-opting of 20th-21st century science. But every age hides a truth. Every age has its scienticians. And every age has its objective scientists willing to confront conformity and battle to have paradigm-shifting evidence considered for its scientific merit. In our age, this is especially true with regards to life beyond Earth and revolutionary energy sources. DEBUNKING AND DIVERSION TACTICS One tactic being used by Space.com and the scientists being interviewed is to persuade the reader to ignore anything they've heard about the Crinoid like fossil found on Mars. The intent is to make the reader believe only the experts at NASA can determine what a fossil is. They do this by convincing the reader that it is nearly impossible to identify fossils in general, let alone one on Mars.

Does the intelligent, scientifically oriented reader detect anything missing from the Space.com article, "Fossil Hunting On Mars," and the remarks of those 'scientists' being interviewed? Notice there is: 1. no mention of the fossil, 2. no image of the fossil, and 3. no advocate for the fossil candidate creating this controversy. Richard C. Hoagland is not interviewed about his paper. Space.com and NASA are both aware of this paper. In fact, the recent and ongoing personal attacks upon Hoagland and now this 'no fossils on Mars' article, both by Space.com, are damage control measures by NASA following Hoagland's publication of the fossil paper and popularization of the fossil find. These Space.com articles are a stacked deck --- a packed jury and a show-trial to persuade you, the reader, that "There's nothing to see here. Move along. There are no fossils on Mars and nothing even comes close to looking like one, so move along. Nothing to see here." NASA, in this article, is telling us what to do. "Don't believe your eyes. Forget your education of the sciences. Do not rely on your own intellect to determine what you see. Let us tell you what you see. Let us mold your reality. We are official. We have credentials. We have authority. Just hand over your tax dollars. You pay --- we play." To that, I have a simple reply that I had hoped to deliver at appropriations time as a member of the U.S. House committee overseeing NASA appropriations. " America's 'civilian' space exploration program is an empty shell. The shell provides the public with pretty pictures, but little more. Hidden from view behind the pretty pictures and astronaut hero worship is a highly politicized, militarized and corporate owned black operation. "NASA has grown arrogant in its control of public funds and public data. NASA swims in cultish ritual that is documented and provable. NASA is awash in a culture that denies faults pointed out by its own engineers in both design and procedure. These faults have resulted in the loss of life and extreme damage to and interruption of America's manned access to space. "NASA feeds at the trough of the public treasury and shows its appreciation for its billions of dollars in annual public funding by treating public-data as proprietary-data and by treating the public as morons. NASA has dishonored its position and abuses the public trust. NASA has destroyed objective science for profit and hidden agendas. "Today, NASA is back asking the U.S. taxpayer for more money so it, and the contractors that feed from it, can conduct their NEXT mission to 'discover life' or the NEXT mission that, it is promised this time, will really see to the end of the universe. But even fools, such as us, have their limits. "We saw the Hubble Deep Field. It is a truly remarkable and inspiring image of galaxies as far as we can see. Now we've seen the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. Another awesome image, but still galaxies for as far as we can see. How about showing the public something really interesting closer to home? "Let's get multiple-angles in high-resolution (1.3 meter) images of the 'tube-dune' and the 'golf ball' that is in the crater near the 'tube-dune' on MGS m1501228. http://ida.wr.usgs.gov/html/m15012/m1501228.html

http://ida.wr.usgs.gov/fullres/divided/m15012/m1501228b.jpg Image Enhancement by Dave Powelson, Blackbird Co.

http://ida.wr.usgs.gov/fullres/divided/m15012/m1501228a.jpg Image Enhancement by Dave Powelson, Blackbird Co.

"We have not seen structures like these on the other moons and planets in our solar system. Aren't you, and isn't NASA, the least bit curious as to what these structures are? Do not give us the dune remark and then expect us to move on. Show us the multi-angled, high-resolution (1.3 meter) images of these objects. We have the technological capability and we are paying for the missions. As Ronald Reagan said, "Mr. Green, I paid for this

microphone!" NOW SHOW US THESE FEATURES. "And rather than attacking people asking tough questions, show us Opportunity rover image 034/1M131201538EFF0500P2933M2M1. "Tell us why you ground this remarkable specimen to dust when, to many educated and certified biologists and paleontologists, it looks like a fossil. And let us hear directly from the MER team's only official 'paleontologist,' Dr. Andrew Knoll, of Harvard. We want to know where he was and what he was doing when the destruction of this fossil candidate was taking place. "Explain to this committee why no discussion of this incident and no image of this fossil candidate appears in the many articles attacking a scientist who is trying to draw attention to it. "Here is a target list of very peculiar features on Mars. We have missions underway that can do real science on these features, IF NASA is still interested in civilian science. We want answers. We want cooperation. We want the full imaging and sensing capability of U.S. taxpayer space assets on and around Mars to zero in on these targets, and we want open data channels on all returned data and telemetry with critics of NASA's data handling in the control rooms at all times. No more data embargoes and sequestering by NASA contractors. This is the public's data. It is not proprietary to contractors or agencies doing the public's work. "Until these conditions are met, this committee is withholding further funding of NASA operations." JUST KIDDING Many people can't take a joke. As a person who has run a political campaign, I am very aware of the dangers resident in jokes and sarcasm. Yet, the absurdity of the "Fossil Hunting On Mars" article and its abject denial by omission of Opportunity's fossil candidate begs for some humor. So in my comments below, I've taken the bait and injected some humor, all in good fun, along with more serious analysis of the interviews. If I sound angry, I am. 'Opportunity' may not knock twice. David Sadler 2004.03.18 +++++ The following article is a modified version of the original. None of the original text has been altered. However, my comments and analysis of the text has been inserted between paragraphs within a set of three opposing brackets like this... ((( My comments... ))) The original article may be accessed at http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mars_fossils_040316.html Fossil Hunting On Mars By Leonard David ( ldavid@hq.space.com) Senior Space Writer SPACE.com 3-17-2004

Those on-the-prowl Mars robots -- Spirit and Opportunity -- are sending back extraordinary images and science data about the red planet and its history of climate and water. Both rovers have found evidence of water at their respective landing sites. But the question remains open as to whether Mars was, or is today, a planet capable of supporting life. The tell-tale clues of water left behind hint that some spots on Mars did have a persistent wet look that might have been sociable to extraterrestrial creatures. While Mars scientists have their eyes focused on finding tiny microbes, the question remains: just how far along could martian biology, if any, have evolved? Yet answering this question is a difficult task to answer robotically and it might take rock-splitting fossil hunters, hammer in hand, to chronicle the true life on Mars saga. Eye of the beholder Peter Schultz, a planetary geologist at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, said you don't have to look out to Mars to see how hard it is to spot fossils. ((( It should be no surprise that NASA has difficulty recognizing fossils on Mars. Its hard for NASA to determine the correct colors of Mars, too. The American taxpayers pay for costly imaging equipment and color calibration charts onboard our rovers and landers. In addition to the expensive equipment, the taxpayers also pay premium rates for the time and effort expended by NASA employees and contractors on Earth to develop procedures ensuring that correct colors are rendered under all lighting and environmental conditions on Mars. But with all the costly equipment and preparation, NASA admits it can't get the colors right and that the color is really subjective. See Notes (1) at the end of this article. ))) "We even have trouble identifying fossils on Earth that are older than 3 billion years old. There continues to be debate today," Schultz said. Many primitive life forms leave only subtle traces and often require sophisticated techniques to prove that they indeed were produced by something living, he said. ((( Shultz is intentionally confusing the reader. The fossil candidate that NASA promptly destroyed and which Space.com refuses to even mention, let alone show the image of, is not difficult to resolve with a high-degree of confidence. It is rather obvious, and many biologists, geologists and paleontologists have identified it as being very similar -- if not identical (!) -- to a terrestrial Crinoid (sea lily). Schultz is talking about the very first, single-celled life forms to appear on Earth. No biologist or paleontologist has difficulty identifying a fossil the likes of a Crinoid. And that is the issue at hand --- the Mars fossil candidate. This is not a single-celled life form. The Mars fossil candidate is a multi-celled, multi-stemmed, multi-segmented, fully formed, fully differentiated and fully-functional Crinoid like fossil. Similar fossils on Earth date much younger than the three billion years mentioned by Shultz. ))) Those studying the incoming Mars rover images clearly get an eye-full. For many a casual observer, the zones in which the robots tread appear to be chocked full of objects, from weird rocks to leftover remains of longgone life. ((( This is a direct, if simultaneously indirect, shot at Hoagland. See the Space.com article titled, " War of the Words." ))) "There are slow geochemical processes that can create spherical shapes and filamentous forms. The 'eye of the beholder' may guide us where to look but that is not proof," Schultz advised.

Schultz explained that astronomer Percival Lowell, a keen observer who, in the late 1880s into the early 1900s, advocated that Mars was a populated world, once ironically said: "So easily are we the dupes of our own prejudice." ((( See, we are just nuts again. We are the fools to even consider looking at a fossil candidate on Mars. How presumptuous of us to think that a science degree from various public and private U.S. universities could come close to preparing us to recognize a fossil candidate. We should have known that the real qualifier for that special knowledge and talent is a government or government contractors' paycheck and an official working relationship with NASA. NASA and the scientists interviewed in this article are highly conflicted. There has to be a term in the field of psychoanalysis describing the condition of thought that says on one hand, "Let's go to Mars to see if we can discover: (1) whether or not conditions ever existed to harbor life, and (2) whether or not life actually existed or still exists. We will design experiments and build the instruments necessary to conduct the experiments to determine these questions." Then on the other hand the same person or group refuses to even consider the evidence returned from their own instruments and a refusal to even look at their own images. They ignore detections of possible past life in the form of fossil candidates, imaged by Opportunity, and current life in the form of microbes detected by the Viking LR experiment! If that isn't a mental and mission conflict, then, "Scotty, beam up Traficant. We're getting outta here." And there has to be something very wrong with a publication devoted to 'science' that launches attack pieces against people who are drawing attention to the very things on Mars for which NASA 'says' it is looking. Space.com does a one two punch. Both punches are political rather than scientific. Punch one launches a personal attack against the people pointing these fossil candidates out. Punch two is more complex. It argues the following points: (1) we should look for fossils on Mars, (2) finding fossils on Mars, if they exist, will be very difficult if not impossible, (3) we probably won't be able to identify a fossil on Mars even if we find one, (4) anyone saying they have found one or a candidate for one is expressing unscientific prejudice, and (5) we need the NEXT mission to resolve this question. Even though the publication runs dozens of images and articles each day, it refuses to run the image of the fossil candidate and reprint a scholarly scientific paper describing a good potential fossil candidate! In this context, it is clear that Lowell's comment, "So easily are we the dupes of our own prejudice," is NOT referring to the many people drawing attention to a potential fossil that literally leaps out from a rocky ledge on Mars. Instead, Lowell is describing the extreme dogma and prejudices within NASA, JPL and, evidently, at Space.com -- compelling them to not even consider NASA's own data returns! I would urge these entities to revisit the Galileo event, least they repeat the error of arrogant authority and the encounter the public and professional humiliation of refusing to look through their own 'telescope.' )))

"This certainly is true for what we think we may see in these unprecedented close-up views of Mars [provided by the rovers]. Science requires testing and proving, not simply suggesting," Schultz concluded. ((( 'Testing and proving' are hard to do when you grind the fossil candidate to dust in one fell swoop. Add to this, the official refusal to even publish the photo and papers advocating its consideration as a possible fossil, and one is left bewildered by the direct contradiction between the Schultz statement and the actions of the rover team concerning this fossil candidate. When it comes to the detection of life, past or present, beyond Earth, NASA and its clergy spout dogma and rhetoric as opposed to conducting science. The 'search for life' appears to be used solely as a carrot to entice the American taxpayer continually to fund "the NEXT mission." Science is observation and experiment, not the destruction of evidence followed by post-destruction denial that it ever existed. That is dogma at best. ))) Recognizable patterns The identification of fossils is often difficult, explained Ron Greeley, Mars Exploration Rover team scientist from Arizona State University in Tempe, even by scientists observing them with the full spectrum of lab instruments. ((( Who is this article written for, dead cavemen? This fossil candidate is not difficult to see. In fact, it is so obvious that any life 'scientist' at NASA -- like Dr. Andrew Knoll, of Harvard, the only official 'paleontologist' on the entire rover team -- who looked at it and didn't say, "Hey, what's that!?" is 'qualifications suspect.' ))) "Remember that fossils are defined as the traces -- such as leaf imprints in rocks, or the remains, such as shells or bones -- of formerly living organisms. Typically, recognizable patterns are sought, such as bilateral symmetry," Greeley told SPACE.com . "Unfortunately, similar patterns often occur in rocks that result from non-biological processes, which make the identification more difficult." ((( In other words, if you've seen the picture of the fossil, dont trust your eyes. In fact, it's very possible you will never be able to recognize another fossil in your life unless we, the gods of NASA, confirm it for you. ))) On Mars, Greeley said, there is no reason to expect the same patterns as fossils that are seen on Earth. Nonetheless, patterns of some sort are being formulated by the astrobiological community -- so-called biomarkers -- in the on-going search for life elsewhere. Furthermore, while the Athena science gear onboard the two Mars rover are great assets, "analyzing patterns and other features remotely is not so easy," he added. For Greeley, Mars fossil hunting has a bottom line: Unless something really obvious pops out in the images and/or other information, "it's going to take a while to sift through the data and derive some clear answer." ((( Something obvious HAS popped out and it's also obvious that NASA and Space.com are trying really hard not to look through the microscopic imager! The fossil like appearance is SO obvious, that they really don't want to show it to you because if they did, you would see how obvious it is for yourself. They are, in effect, telling you, the reader, they don't trust you to be able to judge this image for yourself. Now who's the paranoid ones? Galileo, say it isn't so... ))) There is a lot of interest in trying to see fossils in the Mars rover images, Greeley said. "The team is looking at the data fairly rigorously, but nothing has emerged along these lines." ((( The team Greeley speaks of must be the Life Detected Containment Team <LDCT>. Any team of objective biologists or paleontologists searching for signs of past or current life would by now be yelling at the top of

their lungs between jumps in the air, Hey, whats that?!" ))) Preserved in stone Prior to 21st century astronauts putting foot and exploration flag down on Mars, there is much that can be done remotely. Future on-the-surface rovers are already being designed, profoundly more capable than the golf cartsized Spirit and Opportunity. "Ultimately, it will take sample return of any putative 'fossils' to convince the scientists of the world. But we can tell a lot in situ (on-the-spot) before such a time," said James Garvin NASA (news - web sites) Lead Scientist for Mars and Lunar Exploration in the Office of Space Science at the space agency's headquarters in Washington, D.C. ((( You see, for NASA to confirm life, past or present, it's always the NEXT mission. James Garvin has credentials and a government paycheck. Hes official, so he is the authority. Leave it to the clergy of the New Official Church Of Science to tell us what we dont see with our own eyes. When he says, 'scientists,' he means, 'officially sanctioned and ordained scientists.' Most of these are usually on the government payroll either directly or indirectly. The American public has been heavily indoctrinated to trust authority, and scientific authority in particular. Psychology experiments have shown that people will often trust the word of authority figures over their own eyes, particularly when confronted with phenomena outside their experience. -- Terry Hansen -- ))) Garvin, a long-time fossil hunter himself, cautioned about the definition of the word. ((( Oh, now WE might even be confused about the word 'fossil.' This article belongs in the fourth grade of a failing government indoctrination center, not an adult science publication. Such is the sorry state of our 'educated' public at the beginning of the twenty first century that many will buy this article as the authoritative word that no fossil candidate has been found on Mars. ))) Fossils come in many varieties, Garvin advised, from the micro- and nano-fossils of single-celled primitive microbes, to preserved-in-stone bones of organisms as big as automobiles. ((( How about as big as a football field? We have fossils on earth as big as a greyhound bus. Or is that T-Rex at the entrance to the Denver Museum of Natural History fake? Why couldn't some fossils be as big as a football field on other planets -- particularly those with much less gravity, like Mars ...? ))) "Searching for fossils also comes in many flavors, from microscopic siftings through tiny grains, to overland reconnaissance for suitable bedding settings to uncover bones," Garvin said. Microscopic to macroscopic Assuming that Mars rover data confirms the existence of sedimentary systems of rocks on Mars, searching for fossils can then take many forms, Garvin related. "One would involve the recognition that depositional environments were interrupted and that they are preserved at scales ranging from microscopic to macroscopic." On Earth, such "preservational" environments are almost always sedimentary, but can include volcanic and impact 'sedimentary' environments. "So, if the kind of putative sedimentary deposits we have identified on Mars from orbit are validated, then we can gainfully start our first searches for at least indirect, morphological (form and structure of plants and

animals) signs of life in such localities," Garvin suggested. ((( After reading this, Im not sure the Mars rovers are capable of determining signs of life if a MacDonalds Happy Meal sack blew by. I really wonder how NASA expects to validate 'putative sedimentary deposits' from orbit when it can't get the colors right even with the aid of a color chart and extensive Earth-based testing. NASA wants to validate 'putative sedimentary deposits' from orbit but it destroys, without as much as a second thought, a fossil candidate within inches of a rover's camera. It's getting warm in here. I'd say the temp is about 451 Fahrenheit. ))) However, expecting fossil formation to operate on Mars the same way as it does on Earth is not a sure bet, Garvin pointed out. ((( Wait. This is very important. Garvin is telling us that even the basic laws of geology and physics could be radically unrecognizably -- different on Mars, so different that we cannot trust that something looking like a fossil really is a fossil on Mars. But, if this is the case, then how has NASA reached any valid scientific conclusions about anything its discovered out there -- including its recent flat assertion that there are no indications of past or present life?! They cant have it both ways -- simultaneously. ))) Nooks and crannies The recent finding by the Opportunity Mars rover of a very high concentration of sulfur in the rock outcrop at Meridiani Planum bodes well for biology and fossil hunting. The chemical form of this sulfur appears to be in magnesium, iron or other sulfate salts Moreover, Mars is rich in landscape where vestiges of life may be found. "My overall fossil-hunting bias is heavily weighted to natural caves and fissures and overhangs," said Penelope Boston, Director, Cave and Karst Studies Program at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in Socorro, New Mexico. "I know from personal experience how these environments serve as both original home for organisms and as great places to preserve the evidence," she said. "I'm particularly excited about the sulfate results because so much of the material we are looking at is in sulfur rich caves where gypsum and other sulfate minerals play a huge role in the biology and the subsequent preservation of traces of that biology," Boston observed. Along with caves, Boston said some top-notch nooks and crannies on Earth to look for fossils are in things with vertical relief that slices down through layers, like canyon walls, fault escarpments, and river/stream outflow channels. For Mars and other crater-rich environments, obviously crater walls where things are excavated down to some deeper strata are first-rate sites. "The best thing about these places is that large -- as in macroscopic -- buried fossilized material is usually weathering out of the outcrops. One can see them laying about and follow the fragments to the source," Boston said. "For microscopic fossils, of course, no clear obvious clues are usually present. The exception is large scale microbial mats like those that made stromatolites and algal travertiles and tufa." Happy hunting ground Thanks to picture-taking Mars orbiters, snapshots of Newton Basin on Mars reveal it to be a site where ponded standing water appears to have been present, Boston said. That landscape feature is a great place to look for

significant sedimentary rocks, "not to mention Martian critter remains," she added. "That kind of a no-doubt-about-it pond with minimal shallow excavation could be a goldmine of microfossil material! I'd want to sample its beautiful rims...and do a small core down through the middle somewhere," Boston explained. Another promising happy hunting ground for biologists on Mars may be in the cracks within so-called patterned ground or polygonal terrain. ((( How about the rocky ledge where NASA destroyed the first fossil candidate? I would say that rocky ledge should be prime target number one. ))) "On Earth, the bottoms of these cracks can house organisms in a much more pleasant environment than the surface at large. Obviously, if such communities thrive or thrived on Mars, some of the evidence may well be at the bottom of these cracks," Boston said. "We have much imaging evidence of these terrains on Mars for comparison to the similar terrains here on Earth, not just at the poles but many other high latitude and high altitude places." Place your bets So far there have been no shouts of "eureka!" from Mars rover scientists spotting a signature of past or present life. ((( Thats because these are political scientists, or spineless scientists intimidated and fearful of shouting "eureka." These people are under orders and standing policies. Some are on the government keep you mouth shut payroll, while others are constrained by peer pressure to stick to the dogma that has been crumbling around their feet for decades. ))) "I flat out see no evidence for any fossils in our data," said Jim Rice, a Mars Exploration Rover team scientist and a planetary geologist from Arizona State University in Tempe. "If a trilobite, for example, evolved on Mars and we came across a rock with it, we could resolve it." ((( Rice could 'resolve' a trilobite on Mars, but not a Crinoid!!! Somebody hold me back! Take this club out of my hands! Someone please calm down my friend, Galileo. Rice, doesn't have the scientific integrity or courage to contact Richard C. Hoagland. If Rice is unaware of MER Opportunity microscopic imager :: Sol 034, then his statements in Space.com are uninformed. If he is aware of the images, then he is deceitful. These images are on the JPL website, Dr. Rice, at http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/opportunity_m034.html . Have a look at image 034/1M131201538EFF0500P2933M2M1 Just look though the microscope that 21st century technology and the hard working American taxpayers have provided you, Dr. Rice. Then tell me "flat out," that you "see no evidence for any fossils," in that specific image. Now access Richard C. Hoagland's paper on this fossil candidate for comparisons to terrestrial Crinoids here... http://www.enterprisemission.com/articles/03-08-2004/crinoid_cover-up.htm Someone help Galileo back to his chair. Could someone please turn down the heat? It's hot enough in here to burn a book. ))) Rice noted that the twin Mars rover's each carry a Microscopic Imager. It has a resolution of 30 microns per

pixel. That device, however, has the ability to only see objects that are about 100 microns across and above, he added. "Fossil finding will be a very difficult job on Mars. I don't think robotic missions will do it," Rice said. "It will take astronauts and even then it will be a tough job," he said. ((( Right... The NEXT mission... I don't know why we are sending these robots up there. They can't get the color right. They goof up and return positives on life detection experiments. They image these really weird things at gross resolutions; unable to retarget them at 1.3 meter resolutions. That very special resolution capability seems to be reserved for everything that isn't out of the ordinary. See Note (2). ))) And that job ahead most likely means drilling and cracking a lot of rocks open. On Earth, Rice added, even when you go to a known fossil field location it still requires work to find them. ((( Its my recollection that many amazing dinosaur fossils have been found simply lying on the ground or sticking up out of the ground. But Im sure I need an official government paid scientician to confirm that for me. ))) "We are a lot farther along in the game now that we have identified a rock outcrop on Mars that involved liquid water. We still have much to learn about where to go for any future fossil hunting on Mars." ((( How about sticking with the rocky outcrop? Fossils are like deer about to jump in front of your truck. Where there's one, there's at least two. Slow down and look around. Turn that grinder into a cutting pick and hammer and do some really challenging steering and some really exciting fossil hunting. But, no, were about to leave this now demonstrated scientifically unique rocky outcrop in Eagle Crater ... and drive thousands of feet across this Martian plain to an even larger crater, in hopes of finding something scientifically more interesting. Which, given what has happened, NASA is just as likely to destroy either by design or ignorance. ))) "It will be sheer luck if robots discover conclusive evidence for fossils on Mars," Rice said, making the point: "I am putting my bets on astronauts." ((( You can count your lucky stars, Dr. Rice, because the MER robot Opportunity has imaged a credible fossil candidate. You only have to look at it. Space.com could print it along with the Hoagland paper, but that would be open, and objective science conflicting with the internal policies, rituals and dogma of the New Church of Official Science. Dr. Rice, I'm sure you and your family would benefit nicely from such a nationally funded program to send humans to Mars, but, quite frankly, I'm about taxed out. The thought of paying for your mortgage doesn't thrill me when I consider that we, the American taxpayers, have already paid for the NEXT missions that are on and orbiting Mars now and that are returning science you are ignoring. You and your scientician cohorts at NASA are refusing to consider data when indications of life, past or present, are clearly detected by both experiment and image. Science, Dr. Rice. You and NASA should try it sometime. ))) Copyright 2004 SPACE.com +++++ Notes for IGNORING FOSSILS ON MARS

(1) Regarding the rendering of colors on Mars: "To calibrate Mars' colors, the twin Spirit and Opportunity rovers rely on a small color-coded key carried on their backs. This square 'Mars dial' displays in each corner a chip, similar to a paint store's color sample, of known shades of red, green, blue or yellow. ... Each dial, known as a calibration target, also contains three concentric rings in varying shades of gray, which allows scientists to understand what Mars' black-and-white tones should look like. The entire target "is essentially a photographer's color chart," said Jim Bell of Cornell University, lead scientist for Pancam, the panoramic camera aboard each rover. Before the rovers went to Mars, each Pancam photographed the calibration targets again and again, working to understand how different lighting, dust or other conditions could affect the appearance of Martian colors." -- "'Mars red' is open to interpretation," By Alexandra Witze, The Dallas Morning News, February 22, 2004 -Incredibly, after all this time and expense, NASA comes right out and says all that effort and taxpayer money is wasted because color is beyond our rocket science to render accurately! "What Mars looks like is very much in the eye of the beholder." -- Michael Malin, Malin Space Science Systems, 'Mars red' is open to interpretation, The Dallas Morning News, February 22, 2004 -"No one can say for certain what color Mars is. ... No two people see color and no two computer monitors display color in precisely the same way." -- Alexandra Witze, 'Mars red' is open to interpretation, The Dallas Morning News, February 22, 2004 -"... There was no reason for the Spirit to see pink on Mars. When producing the panorama ... "We just made a mistake. It's really just a mess-up." -- James Bell, the lead scientist for the camera Spirit rover, "How did the red planet turn pink?" by Kenneth Chang, New York Times, February 12, 2004 " "... Even the color chips placed on the rover to calibrate the color photographs had shifted. What should be bright blue is instead bright pink; what should be bright green is brown." -- "How did the red planet turn pink?" by Kenneth Chang, New York Times, February 12, 2004 -So at least we have identified an area of the space budget we can cut back without impacting objective, factual science. If accurately rendering colors on Mars is beyond our science, let's cut all the color related equipment and activity from the materials and to-do lists. It is my understanding this color issue will be revisited by the Enterprise Mission with updated material in the near future. (2) Regarding the NEXT mission: Let me quote from my article, "NASA Running Scared: Shooting the Messenger," at http://www.enterprisemission.com/messenger.htm in which I said, "NASA always holds out the promise that the next mission might reveal that life once existed on Mars ... Dr. Gil Levin's LR team answered that question in 1976 with their life detection experiment aboard Viking. "It's hard to imagine why such bullet-proof evidence was denied for such a long time, and why those so vigorously denying it never did so by meeting the science, but merely by brushing it away. Of course, now that it must be acknowledged by all that there is liquid water on the surface of Mars, this starts those denying the

validity of the Mars LR data down the slippery slope leading to life." -- Dr. Gil Levin, Chief Project Scientist on the Viking Labeled Release Experiment "Every time our Mars landers and orbiters find evidence of previous life or current life, the discovery is dismissed with the wave of a hand, not science ... For NASA and its contractors, it's always the NEXT mission, the NEXT round of appropriations of taxpayer dollars that might yield the great discovery. "I submit that the next mission is not needed. All we need to do is utilize the current missions. From our orbiters: retarget those areas of exceptional interest for a high-res, multiple angle look. From our rovers: more fossil hunting and water-table digging. Let's inspect the undersides of those rocks a bit closer."