If astronomers were to find a hundred stars precisely arrayed on a 10 by 10 grid, they would quickly conclude it was an alien construction. And if they discovered a stellar formation that precisely spelled out, in blinking letters, “EAT AT JOE’S” (as science cartoonist Sidney Harris drew in the book “What’s So Funny About Science?“), diehard scientists might insist they’re pulsars, but most would accept that it’s artificial in nature, even if they might question their sanity. But not all artifacts are so unambiguous.
For instance, the 1976 Viking Orbiter 1 photo of the now-famous “Face on Mars” convinced many that it could not possibly be a trick of light and shadows, as NASA declared, but was rather an actual monument created by aliens, perhaps to get our attention. Richard Hoagland, in his book “The Monuments of Mars” went into painstaking detail in his analysis of the face and the surrounding Cydonia region (which he claimed show pyramids and a ruined city), using image processing techniques and measuring angles and distances that define “precise” mathematical relationships. To him and many others, his analysis revealed so many coincidences as to provide unequivocable proof that the Cydonia region was artificial in nature. Yet his critics claim that when you analyze something to death, with the intent to find evidence to prove your hypothesis, you will inevitably find that evidence, overlooking all evidence to the contrary, and even create that evidence via introducing image processing artifacts.
Interestingly, high-resolution photos of the Face taken from the Mars Global Surveyor in 2001, which reveal a landform that looks nothing like a face, have only fueled the conspiracy theories. Other such debates over lunar anomalies and crop circles continue. And now, after the announcement that NASA will be pursuing a nuclear propulsion project known as Prometheus to allow astronauts to travel to Mars, some theorize that it is entirely because President Bush wants to find alien artifacts on Mars.
Perhaps Agent Mulder’s poster “I WANT TO BELIEVE” hangs on too many people’s walls. But you have to admit, finding alien artifacts on Mars would be pretty cool.