On Mounds, Mesas, and Martians

In the debates over whether the MGS image of the "Face on Mars" gives any support to the artificiality hypothesis, most people have probably based their conclusions on their own subjective mental images of what the landform "ought" to look like if it were, in fact, artificial. What has been badly lacking are objective images of both natural and artificial landforms on which to base these conclusions. We present here some examples of both artificial and natural structures on Earth that are comparable to the "Face."

The natural structure shown here is a mesa, because that is the natural terrestrial landform the Face most closely resembles. I have chosen images of ancient Native American mounds from the Mississippian cultures that inhabited the mid-southern region of the United States for several thousand years. The last of these cultures came to an end in the 15th Century and the earthworks built by these civilizations have been subjected to the forces of erosion and the destruction by European settlers for over 500 years, making them excellent examples of what artificial structures look like in a state of disrepair after long periods of time, although still for a much shorter time than the hundreds or thousands of millenia that the Face and other Cydonia structures must have been subjected to erosion.

Below are three aerial images. To the left is a photograph of a Mississippian mound, in the middle is the "Face", and to the right is a mesa in Thailand.

Left: Emerald Mound, one of the largest ceremonial mounds in the United States, It is described as "a massive, flat-topped earthen structure that rises 35 feet high and covers eight acres along the Natchez Trace Parkway (Tennessee)." This was originally a color image from http://www.cr.nps.gov/aad/feature/emerald.htm

It has been changed to gray-scale mode for comparison to the gray-scale Face image. The landform is seen here at an oblique angle, as was the Face in the MGS image. This may be part of the reason why the left edge of the platform does not appear as well defined as the right edge. The mound has been repaired by the Park Service, and the white walkways across its top are modern additions.

Center: The Face in Cydonia as it appeared in the MGS image taken in April, 1998. 30% full size.

Right: A portion of a satellite radar image of a mesa in north-central Thailand from http://photojournal-b.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/PIAGenCatalogPage.pl?PIA01235

As with the image of Emerald Mound, the color has been removed from the original image for comparison to the MGS Face image.

Comparison

The Face is roughly ten times the length of Emerald Mound and about 1/4 the diameter of the Asian mesa. All three landforms have clearly been subjected to erosion. The lower left corner of Emerald Mound is missing and its top surface is not level. Several of its sides, however, are very straight. Emerald Mound has a rough mirror image symmetry about its long axis, with the two short sides at the upper right intersecting at the center-line. The symmetry is emphasized by the placement of the small mound on or near the axis of symmetry. It is the straightness of its sides and the repetition of symmetry that give a strong indication that this is an artificial landform.

Similarly, the longest sides of the Face are straight and parallel, with the linear features on the top of the "head dress" crossing at a point near the vertical cemter line. The "nose," "nostrils," and the point of the hare-lip structure of the "mouth" are all positioned along the central axis. Note: due to the oblique viewing angle in the MGS photograph, the center-line position of the vertical center-line is not apparent. See Mark Carlotto's report which gives his assessment of the lateral symmetry of the Face based on orthorectification of the MGS image.

While mesas are impressive structures, the aerial view of this mesa shows only the remotest similarity to the either the Face or Emerald Mound. Claims emanating from JPL officialdom that the Face is an "eroded hill" are wrong. A mesa is a landform created by fluvial erosion (flowing water, usually rivers). As the rivers progressively erode away the plains, the river beds widen as the waters recede, leaving steep-sided islands surrounded by wide and gently-sloping aprons of debris. Mesas are not hills. The flat horizontal surfaces of a mesa are remnants of the former plains The flat horizontal surface of the Face could be that of a mesa. The Face is not surrounded by a wide apron of debris typical of mesas. But the lack of a debris apron cannot be taken as an indication of artificiality, only as an indication that any geological processes contributing to the morphology of the Face were different in som respects from the terrestrial processes that create mesas. An example of another mesa-like martian landform from the MGS image of the Face clearly has a relatively flat table-top surface similar to that of a mesa but it, too, lacks the wide apron of debris.

Perhaps both the Face and this second "mesa" are , instead, islands rising from the dry bed of an ancient sea. The Face possesses much of the symmetry and regularity of an artificial mound of native American cultures, but it also shares some characteristics with this other martian landform, which in turn has a highly asymmetrical shape more similar to a terrestrial mesa even though it, too, lacks a debris apron. Any conclusion as to the origins of these Cydonian landforms must be tempered with a great deal of caution, and the understanding that much more needs to be learned about the alien environment and history of Cydonia. Additional reasons for caution are discussed below.

Deceptions of Nature

Somewhat ironically, there were serious scientific debates in the last century as to whether the earthworks of the MIssissippian cultures were natural or artificial structures. The photograph of the mound below from

http://www.cast.uark.edu/~shelley/html/parkin/genmoundpg.html

would certainly lend support to those arguing for a natural origin. This certainly looks like nothing more than an eroded hill. But it is not. It is an artificial structure in a state of bad disrepair. Even though it is artificial it is far more "natural" looking than the Face. Even Emerald Mound, as impressive as it is, would be much less remarkable in appearance had it not been for the restoration work of the Park Service.

Photograph of an "eroded hill" that is actually an artificial mound of the Mississippian cultures.

Deceptions of Man

In cases where nature does not give unambiguous evidence of a natural origin to those with a compelling need for that to be so, a little digital trickery can sometimes be employed to "help" the argument. The center image below shows the Emerald Mound photograph after excessive high-pass filtering and application of a slight Gaussian blur. This is similar to the "enhancement" technique used by someone at JPL to produce the "Catbox" enhancement of the Face widely touted by the news media. That image is shown on the far right below.

Emerald Mound:

Now you see it...	Now you don't.	The original JPL Catbox image of the Face

Conclusion

It has been demonstrated here that, in comparison to specific terrestrial examples, the Face is substantially more similar to an ancient artificial structure than to a natural mesa, and is substantially more artificial looking than another badly-eroded structure known to be artificial. This, obviously, is not proof that the Face is an artificial structure. There are also many examples of terrestrial structures known to be natural but that have a decidedly artificial appearance. The purpose here is not to claim such proof, but to show that question of the artificiality of unusual martian landforms such as the Face is not a simple one to resolve, but one that should be resolved in a serious and responsible manner. Responsible behavior has not, unfortunately, been at all evident in the actions of those who control the publicly financed Mars Surveyor.

-- Lan Fleming

Web Sites Devoted to Aerial Photography and Archaeology

For anyone interested in seeing a greater selection of aerial photography of archeological sites, Dr. James Strange, archaeologist and member of the Society of Planetary SETI Research, has provided me with the list of web pages below. Among the images on these pages, you will see some structures that range from unambiguously artificial, such as the rectangular foundations of an Indian pueblo, to those that appear to be enigmatic geology, such as several examples of stone ring structures.

1. The Aerial Archaeology Newsletter. Illustrated. Vol. 1, No. 1

http://www.nmia.com/~jaybird/AANewsletter/TableOfContents.html This is

brand new, showing some thumbnails which can be downloaded as JPEG images.

They specialize in showing ground-level shots compared to aerial views.

None of them are large berm-like structures.

2. Archéologie aérienne J. Dassie aerial archaeology

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/archeo/ The English mirror site is at this URL:

http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hall/3376/

3. Aerial Photography

http://www.anthro.mankato.msus.edu/Technology/aerial_photography.htm

This is dedicated to aerial photography of Austria and includes the

typical shots of Roman forts and neolithic forts peeping through