Facing Facts and Saving Face - interpretation of photographs of the planet Mars - Brief Article

With each new generation of NASA photographs, the so-called Face on Mars, popularized most prominently by Richard C. Hoagland (see SKEPTICAL INQUIRER November/December 2000 and May/June 2001), is becoming less and less recognizable as such. NASA's latest image, obtained on April 8, 2001 (see photo above), had even Art Bell (during his nationwide radio program on the night of May 25) suggesting to Hoagland that it might be time to admit defeat. But Hoagland replied that even if this latest NASA photo "had shown nothing--that [the "Face"] was just a hole--I would not have been fazed in the slightest, because you can't undo the mathematical matrix in which this thing is embedded" (a reference to his "tetrahedral geometry" linking the Face to additional artificial structures within the surrounding landscape).

NASA'S new three-dimensional elevation map, based upon laser altimetry data also obtained in April (see photo on page 6), reveals the Martian landform to be absent both the vertical contours of a face/head and the organs (eyes, nose, mouth) that some have imagined to be present. Unlike overhead photographs, altimetry readings are not subject to the illusions created by quirks of light and shadow. (For more about NASA's newest findings, see http://science.nasa.gov/ headlines/y2001/ast24may_1.htm.)

A curious addendum: During the same Art Bell show, Hoagland and Bell both referred to my May/June SI Followup column (expanding upon my original article and clarifying a few points) as a "retraction" in which, according to Bell, I had gone "out of [my] way to say [Hogland] shouldn't be ridiculed." Bell even pretended to read a nonexistent passage in which I allegedly wrote, "The idea, therefore, that Richard C. Hoagland should be ridiculed for stating that the new [i.e., 1998 light-reversed] Face on Mars photo shows an eastern-side lion head, is ridiculous." And Hoagland played along: "The most amazing thing is Gary Posner's reaction. I mean, the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER can never be considered a prejudiced source in favor of our models right? For him to say that I shouldn't be ridiculed for proposing this, I believe, and the reason they did the retraction, is they had an inside track from the political side--not the NASA side, but the political side--that there is a Face on Mars, it does have dual [humanoid-lion] imagery, and we're going to go there [with a manned mission] and find out what it means."

Gary Posner is founder of the Tampa Bay Skeptics.

COPYRIGHT 2001 Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group