THE Martian Enigmas A Closer Look ELECTRONIC EDITION by Mark J. Carlotto i Copyright © 2008 by Mark J. Carlotto All rights reserved ii With love to my family, especially my children, who are living in interesting times. iii iv Acknowledgments Thanks to Vince DiPietro and Greg Molenaar for finding the original image of the Face on Mars and for taking the time to look for that second image which NASA claimed didn't exist, to Dick Hoagland for recognizing the importance of their discovery, for his many contributions, and for organizing, along with Randy Pozos, the Independent Mars Investigation group. Thanks to Tom Rautenberg, a member of that group, for coming to Boston in the winter of 1985 with two Viking data tapes. During the next few years I spent many hours analyzing the imagery on those tapes. I am indebted to my former employer, TASC, for allowing me to work on this project after hours, and owe a great deal to my colleagues there for many fruitful discussions on image processing, shape- from-shading, and fractals. Thanks to Brian O'Leary who collaborated with me on the shape-from-shading analysis of the Face, and to Dan Drasin, who has been involved in the Mars investigation from the beginning, for his many contributions to the first edition of The Martian Enigmas. I would also like to thank Erol Torun for his contributions to the first edition of this book, Jim Erjavec and Ron Nicks for allowing me to include their work in the revised edition, and Ananda Sirisena and Chris O'Kane for their recent work in the U.K. Finally, I thank Stanley McDaniel and the members of the Society for Planetary SETI Research for their efforts in moving the investigation of the Martian anomalies into the scientific mainstream where it belongs. v vi Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................V FOREWORD................................................................................................................ XI PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.................................................................XIII PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION .............................................................XV PREFACE TO THE ELECTRONIC EDITION................................................XVII I. THE MYSTERY .....................................................................................................1 RETURN OF THE MARTIAN CANAL BUILDERS .............................................................3 II. REDISCOVERY ...................................................................................................9 THE VIKING MISSION .................................................................................................10 IMAGE RESTORATION .................................................................................................15 IMAGE MAGNIFICATION .............................................................................................16 IMAGE CONTRAST.......................................................................................................18 DIGITAL CONTRAST CONTROL...................................................................................19 ANALOG CONTRAST CONTROL ..................................................................................20 IMAGE PROCESSING RESULTS ....................................................................................21 THE FACE AND NEARBY OBJECTS .............................................................................24 REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................31 III. 3-D ANALYSIS OF THE FACE ON MARS ................................................33 SHAPE-FROM-SHADING..............................................................................................33 3-D RECONSTRUCTIONS OF THE FACE.......................................................................35 VERIFICATION OF THE RESULTS.................................................................................36 PERSPECTIVE VIEWS...................................................................................................37 ARTIFICIAL STEREO ....................................................................................................39 REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................42 IV. MARS AND THE SEARCH FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL INTELLIGENCE .........................................................................................................43 THE NEED FOR OBJECTIVE CRITERIA ........................................................................44 FRACTAL MODELING ..................................................................................................44 AN EXAMPLE OF A FRACTAL......................................................................................45 FRACTAL TERRAIN......................................................................................................46 DETECTING ARTIFICIAL OBJECTS IN IMAGES ............................................................47 FRACTAL ANALYSIS OF THE FACE .............................................................................48 ANALYSIS OF THE CYDONIA COMPLEX .....................................................................49 OTHER ANOMALOUS OBJECTS IN THE CYDONIA AREA ............................................51 REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................52 vii V. GEOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF ENIGMATIC LANDFORMS IN CYDONIA ..................................................................................................................... 53 THE CYDONIA REGION OF MARS............................................................................... 54 DIMORPHIC IMPACT CRATER DISTRIBUTION ............................................................ 56 PALEO-LAKE CYDONIA?............................................................................................ 58 DIFFERENTIAL EROSION............................................................................................. 59 THE FACE — IMAGE OR ILLUSION? .......................................................................... 60 THE CLIFF ................................................................................................................... 61 MORE ARGUMENTS AGAINST DIFFERENTIAL EROSION ........................................... 63 OTHER CYDONIA ENIGMAS ....................................................................................... 66 CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................. 67 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................... 68 VI. OTHER INTRIGUING OBJECTS ON MARS ........................................... 69 THE CRATER PYRAMID .............................................................................................. 70 THE RUNWAY ............................................................................................................. 73 OTHER ANOMALIES IN CYDONIA............................................................................... 77 FORT AETHERIUS AND KING PYRAMID ..................................................................... 79 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................... 82 VII. THE CASE FOR ARTIFICIALITY............................................................. 83 EXHIBIT 1: THE FACE — GENERAL FEATURES ........................................................ 86 EXHIBITS 2 AND 3: THE FACE — FACIAL PROPORTIONS AND ARCHITECTURAL SYMMETRY ................................................................................................................. 87 EXHIBIT 4: THE FACE — SUBTLE DETAIL ................................................................ 88 EXHIBIT 5: THE FACE — PERSISTENCE OF FACIAL FEATURES OVER VARIATIONS IN SUN ANGLE AND VIEWING GEOMETRY..................................................................... 90 EXHIBIT 6: THE FACE — NON-FRACTAL STRUCTURE ............................................. 93 EXHIBIT 7: SIMILARITY BETWEEN THE FACE AND ROUNDED FORMATION IN CITY95 EXHIBITS 8 AND 9: THE FORTRESS — GEOMETRIC SHAPE AND FINE-SCALE DETAIL .................................................................................................................................... 96 EXHIBIT 10: SIMILARITY BETWEEN THE FORTRESS AND ADJACENT PYRAMIDAL OBJECT........................................................................................................................ 97 EXHIBIT 11: SIMILAR SIZE AND ORIENTATION OF FACE AND LARGER OBJECTS IN CITY ............................................................................................................................ 98 EXHIBIT 12: MOUNDS — GRID PATTERN ................................................................. 98 EXHIBIT 13: ALIGNMENT OF LARGER OBJECTS IN CITY AND FACE WITH GRID PATTERN ..................................................................................................................... 99 EXHIBIT 14: ANOMALOUS GEOMORPHOLOGY OF D&M PYRAMID .......................100 EXHIBITS 15 AND 16: THOLUS — ANOMALOUS GEOMORPHOLOGY AND FINE- SCALE DETAIL ..........................................................................................................101 EXHIBIT 17: CLIFF