FACE(ing) Mars. Whither the Cydonians now?

Roger Keeling & Randolfo Pozos PhD of The U.S Mars Project interviewed

Hologram Tales: When and how was the case of the Cydonian anomalies first brought to light, and when was it the Group began to realise its significance?

RK: The first image was captured by the Viking "A" orbiter in 1976, soon after it arrived in Mars space. That image, Viking 35A72, contained the low sun-angle image of the "Face," and was noticed by NASA personnel very soon after it was received. The story goes that they were at first quite excited about it, then quickly dismissed it as nothing more than an amusing optical illusion -"a trick of light and shadow."

Except for a few fringe publications - UFO watchers, that sort of thing - the image was all but forgotten. In 1979, it was "rediscovered" by two Lockheed imaging engineers who were working at the Goddard Space Flight Center: Vince diPietro and Greg Molenaar. They had seen the image in a fringe publication and thought for sure it must be a fake. When they came across it in NASA's public files, they were quite astonished. They decided to run some image enhancement efforts on it, and eventually decided they were on to something.

Eventually they self-published a little monograph. Both, I understand, are now a little bitter about how they've been treated by the scientific community, and given some of the reactions we've seen their anger is probably not misplaced.

At the 1982 "Mars Conference" in Boulder, Colorado, the two tried to give a formal presentation about their work but weren't permitted to by the organisers. The story I've heard is they just commandeered a classroom at the college where it was all going on, and talked to anyone who wanted to listen. One of those was a largely self-educated science writer named Richard C. Hoagland. Hoagland is a remarkable person, in both good and bad ways. He really became obsessed with this whole thing, but thanks to that was able to contribute an enormous amount of energy and quite a few important ideas.

It was Hoagland who first noted that such a thing as the Face - if it really is artificial - probably wouldn't exist in isolation. There would be other artificial objects around it. He checked the region around the Face, and sure enough found stuff that didn't look like it ought to be there. The biggest finding was what we now refer to as the "City," a huge collection of pyramidal and other structures some 8 miles southwest of the Face. From those structures, one would be accorded a truly stunning view of the Face, whether artificial or natural. The intervening years have seen a huge amount of "administrative history" which is probably not worth delving into here. Suffice it to say, Dick served both as a remarkable magnet for people, and a divisive force wearing people out or pushing them away, often in great anger.

Hologram Tales: So how was The Mars Project formed, then?

RK: Dick actually came up with the name, taken from Werner von Braun's book. We didn't know it at the time, of course, but The Planetary Society also has a "Mars Project" of its own . . . an in-house committee that follows Mars- related events. Your readers shouldn't confuse us with them.

Hologram Tales: How do you personally view Mr. Hoagland's book, The Monuments of Mars?

RK: Well, it has been and pretty much remains the only book out there that really lays out the basic argument. I believe that even before this interview appears in print, a new updated version Monuments may be issued by North Atlantic Books in Berkeley. For better or worse, Dick's interpretation of things remains the primary version most folks have heard. My feeling is that Dick has done a great good thing by keeping this whole area alive in the public mind.

His book - despite some of the most woefully awkward writing and punctuation ever seen - really is a "good read." And no one will ever fail to note Dick's role in things, since he certainly has been effective in writing history to his advantage. Scientifically, however, Dick's book isn't that useful. You'll get 50 times more real stuff just reading Dr. Carlotto's two articles from the peer- reviewed scientific press.

For all of Dick's observed mathematical alignments - many of which are true, by the way - the data and interpretations that would move scientists must meet higher standards of rigorousness than Dick's willing or able to provide.

Hologram Tales: So that brings us to the crux of this issue. What would you list at the Project's main scientifically oriented reasons for believing the origins of the Cydonia anomalies to be artificial?

RK: First off, no one here argues that we know the objects to be artificial. That cannot be known for sure until better data is returned from Mars. We just argue that evidence exists which suggests artificial origin . . . enough evidence so that this thing must be taken seriously, something that neither NASA nor the scientific community have been willing to do. The first evidence was just the visual stuff. It looked like a Face, after all. When diPietro and Molenaar first found the image, it was merely a batch-processed NASA print.

One theory held that if you cleaned up the signals, many of the face-like qualities would vanish if it really was just a "trick of light and shadow." But they didn't; on the contrary, it got more face-like. And there were all those strange, artificial-seeming objects in the area, many with oddly-precise mathematical relationships to the "Face." For example, draw a circle centred on the so-called "town square" of the City, with a radius just large enough to encompass the entire of the major City structures. Call the edge furthest from the Face "0," the center "1" and the point on the circle's circumference closest to the Face "2."

You'll find that the far edge of the Face falls precisely one circle circumference away from Point 2; and then the so-called "Wall," another artificial-seeming object about 8 miles northeast of the Face, is precisely three circle circumferences from Point #2. Or, to put it another way, measuring from Point 0 to Point 1 to Point 2 to the Face to the Wall, you get a doubling: zero to 1 to 2 to 4 to 8. That, by the way, was first observed by an artist who was involved in the whole thing, Kynthya Lynn. There are a lot of other quirky things, but none by themselves really added up to a scientifically-compelling argument.

RP: Up to a point there, we were just flying on our intuition. The first really hard science came from Dr. Carlotto - one of the world's top image enhancement experts. When he got interested, he did so fully expecting that his analysis would dispel the whole thing quickly. But instead, his first enhancements were actually quite shocking to us. The teeth in the Face, for example, appeared only as a ragged line on the diPietro/Molenaar enhancements. They came out with a threatening clarity in Mark's version.

RK: Then came Mark's application of the "shape from shading" algorithm. This system was initially created, I understand, to identify Soviet tanks in Eastern Europe. The program didn't know faces, nor cared, and when Carlotto applied it to the Viking images the result was dramatic. The program projects the shadows in the image backward to reconstruct the object that made them.

Once that's done, you can move the sun around the object to any angle you want, within the computer, and get a sense of what you're really seeing. Of course, it's not perfect, but what Carlotto produced still cannot be dismissed. He proved that the Face really is a face. It has the shape it has, no matter where you stand to look at it. Carlotto certainly didn't prove that the object was artificial. There's nothing in this particular bit of work that rules out natural origin. But the significance of the work is simply this: for about 12 years, NASA swore that the Face was nothing more than "a trick of light and shadow."

And they were wrong, a fact I'm not sure they've come to grips with even now. They swore the world's "best" scientists had been all over that image and had concluded that it was nothing more than an optical illusion.

RP: Of course, Mark knew that this was not enough. It still didn't prove whether the object was artificial or natural; indeed, it didn't even begin to approach that question. And, besides, there are still those who argue about his shape-from-shading work. I've heard people dismiss single-source shape from shading as being unreliable.

That's not really true, of course, but as there is a kernel of truth in it so they grasp at it as a way to deny any possibility of the Face being artificial. Carlotto's next step was, quite frankly, just brilliant. He applied "fractal analysis" to the Face. This comes from the emerging area of chaos theory. Like shape-from-shading, the fractal algorithms Carlotto used were devised for military purposes. They rely upon the fact that natural terrain, like most natural objects, tends to be "high fractal." Like a tree, which branches, branches again, and so forth.

Human-created objects, on the other hand, tend to be architectural in nature. The computer can look at an image and distinguish low-fractal from high-fractal areas. It doesn't know faces, of course. Just fractals.

RK: And when he applied it to the Face and the City, both lit up like a Christmas tree. It varies a bit from the low sun angle to the high sun angle images, and again cannot be considered definitive proof of artificial or natural origin. But the results strongly indicate artificial origin. You cannot rule artificial origin out now . . . and still claim to believe in the scientific method, that is.

True, you can say in your gut you don't believe the objects were intelligently created; you can say you base that on a total consideration of what we know about space, about the histories of the planets, whatever. But don't claim to base your intuitive declaration on the scientific method.

Because at this point, the data cannot support either a claim that the objects are artificial, or natural. There's about equal evidence to support both views. And, frankly, I think I'm being generous when I say that.

Hologram Tales: How so?

RK: Well, a very wise RAND scientist said something to me that I've never forgotten. He noted that if you send a problem to a shoemaker, what you'll get back will probably look like a shoe. And if you send a problem to a geologist, what you'll probably get back will look like geology. Those who claim the Cydonia anomalies are natural do so almost entirely upon the say-so of planetary geologists.

But let's consider something: suppose - just for a minute - that the objects are definitely artificial. Then what scientist or professional would have something useful to tell us? Geologists? Of course not. You'd want to talk to anthropologists, architects, city planners. Geologists could contribute, but they'd be pretty far down the ladder. They are trained to see geology; hand them an image of Mars - a place they already know has nothing but geology - and, sure enough, they will find a geological explanation for everything there. Nothing wrong with that so long as you know that everything really is natural, and geological. But these are the same guys who were making fun of plate tectonics as late as 1970.

These are the same guys who, as late as the 1950s and early '60s, thought Arizona's Meteor Crater most certainly wasn't caused by a meteor. They've never been to Mars; God knows what errors they've made already. What we know about Mars is about a billionth of what we know about Earth, and they're still trying to digest the whole plate tectonics thing here. I'm not attacking geology by saying this.

It's a fine discipline full of some brilliant people who've done some great work. But when it comes to this whole issue, the hubris we've seen has been pretty stunning. They shouldn't be so certain about things until they know; and they cannot possibly know until we get a whole heck of a lot of better data back from that region of Mars.

Hologram Tales: So what famous members of the establishment have opposed the ideas of the Mars Project, and how have they gone about it?

RK: The short answer is nearly everyone, and mostly by benign neglect. We do have some quiet supporters out there. Most of them, so far as I know, really aren't convinced by the data and analysis we've done. But they do think its worth taking seriously. But those who've called it rubbish, they are pretty much everywhere. I'd rather not start pointing fingers at any single person, however, because that's not a very productive thing to do. We hope to at least convince them to think about it more seriously. It never bothers us too much when someone says, "This whole theory is absurd, but you appear to be reasonable and honest and sane."

Hologram Tales: Have the opponents of the Mars Project ever put up any scientific evidence against you, and how have you countered it?

RP: The primary arguments have focused on the implausibility of the Face as anything other than a product of natural forces. By and large, scientists have avoided considering the topic at all with an open mind, because to do so seriously would - in their estimation - give the question respectability. Usually, critics tend to discount the images and say there is no need for counter evidence because they have little respect for the basic data in the first place. No one, to this date, has presented any compelling arguments or evidence actually disputing the current data.

Hologram Tales: Any notables who've taken up your banner?

RP: C. West Churchman, a noted philosopher at the University of California at Berkeley and a innovator in systems theory who is highly regarded in the scientific community, has been very most supportive.

He regards the Cydonia anomalies as a question of the highest order. Dr. David Webb, a noted space scientist who also served on the President's Commission on Space publicly urged colleagues to consider the anomalies, and chided them for timidity. Congressman Robert Roe, formerly head of the House Committee on Space Exploration, has backed more intense examination of the area as well.

Hologram Tales: Purely scientific issues aside, if the Cydonian anomalies do turn out to be artificial, for what purpose do you think they were put there? Are there any conflicting views on this question?

RK: Officially, The Mars Project has no opinion on that. Personally, I don't have much opinion either. It seems fair to assume that the Face, if artificial, was intended to be seen from space. Just look at the scale of it! But why would anyone do such a thing? Religion, a signal to the emerging ape-men on Earth? We cannot possibly know until we do a return mission, or many such missions.

RP: Our speculation is necessarily limited to our human experience on Earth. If the anomalies are artificial, their exact meaning and purpose may be lost to us, much as with Stonehenge. Or they may reveal to us their secrets through the course of many years of archeological research.

Hologram Tales: How far do you think the low public perception of science fiction and its application in this case has hampered the acceptance of the Cydonian face as an artificial construct?

RK: Is science fiction held in low public esteem? I don't think it is here in the U.S. But your question actually has several interesting answers to it. First, what has hurt us has been the perception that we're sort of tied in with the whole UFO thing. That's just not true at all, of course. This is not about some fleeting sighting that cannot be verified or duplicated. It's not even about something alive today.

It's about some NASA images, and a lot of hard, duplicable science. But a lot of folks just instantly lump us in with those who talk about the Greys and all that stuff. Deadly! Beyond that, we've been severely damaged by an extraordinarily perverse grocery store tabloid here in the U.S. They're the guys who just recently printed a photo of a guy in an alien suit walking arm-in-arm with President Bush - or a celebrity imitator who looks like Bush. You wouldn't think anyone takes that garbage seriously, and you're right. No one does. Well this same rag has printed Carlotto's enhancement of the "Face," or drawings based on it, about 5 or 6 times now. And every time they do, they make our work ever so much harder; people lump us in with stories about World War II bombers found on the moon.

I once gave a talk before a group of scientists - the Bay Area Sceptics - and I swear they were all holding photocopies of that awful publication when I walked in! Actually, though, what has been very interesting to me is that the public has been at least as receptive to us - maybe more so - than the science fiction community. I can forgive scientists, you know, just because it is their job to be sceptical and a little harsh. But SF people, SF writers? My God, what is their job if not to intrepidly reach out onto the cutting edge? Sure, going for the cutting edge means running the risk of being cut . . . but that's the nature of SF, for heaven's sake.

Ray Bradbury - a man I dearly love - wouldn't even look at our materials until he had the approval of Bruce Murray, former director of JPL and co-founder of The Planetary Society. Well of course Murray told him it was all rubbish. Larry Nevin dismissed it as "a trick of light and shadow and the human inclination to see faces," and had no interest whatsoever in Carlotto's papers. I met Jack Cohen at the 1990 EastCon, in Liverpool. Loved him! A fine, brilliant, kind man, and one I have developed enormous respect for. Yet I understand that he fairly ran the other direction when Chris O'Kane of ASTRA approached him about 'the face' in another convention. Early SF writers were those crazies, back in the '20s and '30s and '40s, who thought that nut Goddard really might be onto something with his rockets. They were the ones who paved the way for public acceptance of the space race! They prepared us for the dangers as well as opportunities of a thousand different technologies.

The key thing is, they are still the ones willing to go beyond the boundaries of accepted norms. Yet on this issue the SF community, by and large, has been unbelievably gutless. No vision. No courage. Not even any curiosity, which is perhaps the hardest thing to understand of all. I have a theory about some of this. I think the entire SF subculture went for decades yearning desperately for acceptance by scientists. But for a very long time, the two never really came together. Serious scientists at UC Berkeley or MIT did not waste their time on such tripe.

That's changed. NASA accords folks like Bradbury the red carpet treatment; scientists make up a huge part of SF's following. And all those SF writers who so yearned for acceptance . . . they will do nothing to jeopardise that acceptance. In fact, you want to know what's ironic? You find that real scientists - even if wholly unconvinced by our work - tend to be more respectful, more interested, in all of this than established SF writers

Hologram Tales: Well it can all be resolved with more data. So does the Mars Observer mission next year have the instruments necessary to prove the Group's case one way or another?

RK: Yes, but we have no real confidence those instruments will be used to honestly settle the question.

The primary instrument is the wonderful Malin camera. It can provide images with a fabulous resolution in which one pixel will be about a yard in size. Compare that with the Viking images, where each pixel covers - what? - about 150 feet. A thorough examination of the Cydonia anomalies, taken at two different sun angles (morning and evening, say) would probably give us something close to a definitive answer.

But there are, unfortunately, some real problems. The camera is mounted on the craft with a non-scanning platform. That means that if you want to target something, you have to shift the entire satellite. That's hard, hard, hard to do - uses propellant up. But even if NASA has the best of intentions, we must be prepared for them to fail to provide the images we want.

RP: And, of course, we don't know that NASA does have the best of intentions. While we've been told by good scientists that they believe Dr. Malin himself will try to image the area, we've also heard that NASA still considers it all a monumental absurdity. The rumour is they'll just take whatever shots they can, and then claim to have done the job. If the photos show nothing, well, they'll say that's what they predicted all along. Even if the photos actually show some site other than the Cydonia anomalies site.

Hologram Tales: If further satellite missions indicate the Cydonia face is artificial, how do you think the various space agencies around the world would respond?

RK: I think the real question is how the public would respond. The space agencies, needless to say, will go crazy. Mars will instantly become the focus of all our efforts. NASA will possibly dump the space station Freedom, a $100-billion boondoggle looking for a job. Japan and Europe will probably expand their space programs, as will the Soviets and the U.S. if anarchy or budget problems, respectively, don't make it impossible. But as for how the public will respond, well I think Randy can answer that better than I.

RP: Based on public reaction to the anomalies so far, there will probably be some excitement, but this will be restrained since we have been amply prepared by the stories of science fiction.

Hologram Tales: If the face does turn out to be artificial, who would be the top three people with egg on their face?

RK: That's a fun question, but a dangerous one too. Some of the scientists who so eagerly dismissed this thing are nonetheless awfully good people. To the extent they'd be "discredited" it would be a terrible thing for them personally and for all of us who depend on the scientific community to extend our collective horizon. Also, you'd be surprised at some of the people who've publicly attacked this thing and privately supported it in a generous and decent way. Should they have egg on their face because they didn't want to endanger their careers?

Sure, there are a few people - rather more minor figures, I think - who have earned our enmity and will be paid back thoroughly if the Face proves artificial. But famous people? Larry Niven is the biggest name that comes to mind. Some of the other SF writers, too. Bradbury, possibly, which anguishes me because I love the man and his work dearly; but for him it may not matter, because everyone will be so happy for him to see a little bit of The Martian Chronicles appear to come true. Arthur Clarke, I've heard, was just plain unnerved by the whole thing - too similar to 2001. No disgrace there.

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