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Redefining SETI: The Case for Martian Archaeology

Posted by Mac Tonnies, Friday, February 22, 2008 at 09:00 AM by Mac Tonnies

Few subjects within the astronomical community have aroused as much scorn as the 1976 discovery of a face-like formation in the Cydonia Mensae region of Mars. The now-iconic "Face on Mars" has become the source of endless derision among mainstream scientists. Uninitiated readers are typically assured that the unusual feature is a naturally occurring hill (or mountain, or butte, or "pile of rocks," depending on the debunker's bias). To be sure, the face may well prove to be natural.  But I've always been disturbed by the divisive climate that's surrounded the subject--and not a little frustrated by the factual mistakes made by self-proclaimed "skeptics" who should know better. Far from being a dead issue, the face and its seldom-remarked associated anomalies constitute a novel challenge that has yet to be taken seriously except by a relative handful of curious agnostics.

 

My previous post emphasized the need for archaeologists if "planetary SETI" is to contend with its radio-based predecessor. After all, if we find candidate artifacts on other worlds, it's likely they'll be extremely old. Mars, blanketed by dust and pocked with craters, is hardly an ideal location for preserving artificial structures. Although not as corrosive as Earth, the Red Planet boasts scars that hint at a geologically active past; anything constructed during Mars' tenure as a "living" planet is likely to have endured many of the same processes that have sculpted the planet into the wasteland we see today. If so, how tenable are NASA's casual dismissals of potential Martian artifacts?

 

When the face was reimaged in 1998, debunkers condescendingly noted the lack of "roads" and parked "flying saucers" that would conclusively demonstrate artificiality. But given Mars' age and geological history, superficial features like "roads" would be the last things one might reasonably expect to find--unless, of course, Mars was home to an active alien civilization with a penchant for terrestrial architecture.

 

The fact that virtually no one seriously considered Mars to be home to an extant civilization was brushed aside to accommodate the skeptical community's need to shoot down the looming myth that the face has become in the decades since it was first photographed. Sadly, the opportunity to address the issue of extraterrestrial archaeology in scientific terms was squandered, leaving a residue of misconceptions that only fueled the "fringe's" obsession with conspiracy theories.

 

10 Comments:

	Posted by Leonardo February 27, 2008 at 07:09 AM If you knew that the truth behind these conjectures would subject millions of ordinary people to unimaginable persecution, misery and pain, would you just leave it alone and stop digging?
	Posted by Leonardo February 27, 2008 at 07:05 AM The issue would be so much less complicated if it weren't for the sociopathic insanity of the "dark mission" cooks. It's a good job that certain deviancy occurred in the pre-web 80's... Getting back on message, the truth about ET and Mars won't come out until our species has reached a sufficient level of "genetic blending." If things came to the forefront before this occurs, certain groups within society would be persecuted beyond comprehension. It's to our benefit that some things remain hidden and not to our detriment (but, really, I'm sure minds like Mac's could have worked this out by now.)
	Posted by Gordon February 25, 2008 at 04:57 PM I think I'm agreeing with Lan here. I don't think it does the cause of planetary archaeology any good to harp on about the artificiality of the "Face". There are too many irrationalities to overcome to make the case look viable. It might well be the case (however slim) that a structure that seems to be 10's (if not 100's) of millions of years old depicts a human face, on some other planet, before the evolution of humans. But that's a long bow to draw (great sci-fi fodder, nonetheless). Far better to spend the money, effort and time looking for signs of extinct or extant life on Mars. Something we should be doing far more thoroughly than the current crop of NASA probes/landers are providing.
	Posted by Mac Tonnies February 25, 2008 at 01:17 AM Neukum's image is a faithful synthetic-perspective rendering. To the chagrin of many Cydonia-watchers, Malin Space Science Systems mangled a version of Neukum's work by introducing a spurious "horn"-like feature between the Face's "eyes." What was the point, if not to detract from the Face's anthropomorphic appearance?
	Posted by Avi Solomon February 24, 2008 at 05:36 PM Dr. Gerhard Neukum has released what is arguably the best photo of the 'Face': http://esamultimedia.esa.int/images/marsexpress/310-230906-3253-6-3d4-Cydonia_H.jpg
	Posted by Michael Garrett February 24, 2008 at 06:27 AM I have found it odd, to say the least, that the scientific community can on the one hand recognize the statistical probability of extraterrestrial intelligence somewhere in the universe and yet on the other hand not consider the possibility that it would follow that these intelligences, if they exist, could in fact be thousands or millions of years more advanced than our own. Failure to accept the implications of that last statement is what I suppose, among other things, holds the scientific community away from giving serious consideration that a civilization that much more advanced than our own might have solved the problems we have identified with achieving interstellar space travel and exploration. Speaking for myself, this is not a great leap of faith. I agree with Mac that we should consider seriously and leave open the possibility that our planet, the moon or mars may have been and may still be visited in some fashion by other intelligences. I believe that is the most rational scientific approach for us to take.
	Posted by Mac Tonnies February 23, 2008 at 03:47 PM Thanks for the nice feedback, everyone. I share Lan's opinion that the wannabe "debunkers" seem to protest a bit too much. That's worth a post in itself -- if not two or three!
	Posted by Lan Fleming February 23, 2008 at 09:03 AM Good article, Mac As I said in the ESA article, what I find most curious about the skeptics attitude toward the Face is that they seem more obsessed with it than most people who were "Face on Mars'" enthusiasts. I think most of us have concluded that the high-resultion images, while showing some interesting symmetry and details to the land form, have failed to provide anything approaching conclusive evidence of its artificiality. My opinion is that it should be assumed the Face is natural until proven otherwise, something that isn't likely to happen in the near future. But that doesn't seem to be enough for the "skeptical" planetary scientists. They keep re-imaging the thing and figuring out new ways of torturing the images they get into looking less symmetrical than the land form actually is. It's almost as if the natural origin of the Mars Face is an article of quasi-religious faith to them, and they need to reaffirm their belief from time to time. But reaffirmation of a core belief is only needed when some cause for doubt arises. For anybody reading this, the article on the ESA image Dr. Crater mentioned is at: http://spsr.utsi.edu/news/ESA3.pdf As for the SETI people, I'm afraid they will never except anything as evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence unless it's exactly what they're expecting it to be: radio or optical signals of sufficient strength and duration that they can be verified by multiple observatories around the world. And I don't think that's likely to happen.
	Posted by Denny February 23, 2008 at 12:12 AM Sock it to em Mac ;) This is an extremely important issue and its omission from official programs is a real loss for the general advancement of knowledge and or scientific method. Being open and logical is the key to truly understanding our local neighborhood. Whether there are artifacts or sites of interest on Mars or not, the quest to explore these questions should be saddled right along side standard scientific process. I\\'ve heard some whoppers coming from the mouths of \"official\" sources and hardened skeptics to explain some very unusual things on the red planet. The explanations often sound outlandish and contrived. Or in other words; the fear of not having an immediate public answer for \"high strangeness\" often predicates a knee-jerk assumption of what\\'s being observed. Rather than making a brave shift in attitude, they seem to take great pleasure in grandstanding a fairly extreme Mars viewpoint and launching an inquisition on those who disagree (hands on eyes, fingers in ears, screaming \"La, la, la, la!\"). I think it\\'s time we grew up, stopped with the ridicule that surrounds xeno-archeology and moved forward with open eyes.
	Posted by Horace Crater February 22, 2008 at 07:26 PM Excellent post Mac. Your readers may be interested in a news item related to your points about NASA debunking and skeptics who do not question space agency Face related news releases. At the SPSR web site spsr.utsi.edu news section, Lan Fleming exposes how the European Space Agency release of a distorted Face image plus a lack of any serious questioning by some science writers led to still another misleading debunking of the Face. Of added interest is the response of ESA's Gerhard Neukem.

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