@S1-A.ARPA,@MIT-MC.ARPA:rta@cmu-cs-spice.arpa (05/31/85)
From: Robert.Aarhus@CMU-CS-SPICE I hate to bring up a rumor like this on one of the best net-bboards, but I am hoping that someone "in the know" can confirm/deny this story: At a national Metallurgical Science convention, it was announced that photographs from the Viking lander revealed what appeared to be a pyramidal rock formation with "a face on it" (this is where I became *real* skeptical); the formation, no less, had dimensions akin to those of the Great Pyramids. The pyramid appeared in greatly enlarged photographs of the martian surface. Now a rock formation, perhaps, but a Pyramid with a face? Does anyone know if this thing has been observed (maybe just a photographic artifact?), and if so, why the media hasn't picked up on it (sounds like something from the pages of the Enquirer)?.. Bob Aarhus rta@cmu-cs-spice.arpa
@S1-A.ARPA,@MIT-MC.ARPA:Lynn.ES@Xerox.ARPA (06/03/85)
From: Lynn.ES@Xerox.ARPA NASA has been showing those pictures for years, and people keep trying to make something out of them. There are two separate objects on Mars to which you refer, one a pyramid shaped peak, quite regular, and the other a rock formation that with just the right sunlight angle appears roughly like a face. But only roughly. There is no reason to assume they are other than natural rock formations. After all there are several famous natural rock "faces" here on earth. /Don Lynn
steiner@topaz.ARPA (Dave Steiner) (06/05/85)
In the June 2nd issue of Parade Magazine (distributed in a number of
newspapers) there is an article by Carl Sagan titled THE MAN IN THE MOON and
subtitled "Why do people see faces in eggplants, tortillas, in the Moon and
the planets?" In the article they talk about the face (at Cydonia) you
describe (althought there is no mention of a pyramid). They have two
pictures of it, one that is quite like a face, the other with the lighting
at a different angle where it looks more like an irregular hill. An
interesting article.
--
ds
uucp: ...{harvard, seismo, ut-sally, sri-iu, ihnp4!packard}!topaz!steiner
arpa: Steiner@RUTGERSdoug@escher.UUCP (Douglas J Freyburger) (06/06/85)
> From: Robert.Aarhus@CMU-CS-SPICE > At a national Metallurgical Science convention, it was > announced that photographs from the Viking lander revealed > what appeared to be a pyramidal rock formation with "a > face on it" (this is where I became *real* skeptical); > > Now a rock formation, perhaps, but a Pyramid with a face? > Does anyone know if this thing has been observed (maybe just > a photographic artifact?), and if so, why the media hasn't A couple months ago, the JPL employee's newssheet "The JPL Universe" had a pictorial of several photos like that. A lunar crater with a smiley face, a little Mars mountain with an ice-hockey goalie mask, cracks in Ganymede shaped like a mouse, etc. There were about a dozen all told, and some had to be explained before you got the joke. The best part of the Martian face is that one of the "eyes" was a pixel drop-out during transmission, and the other was a fairly recent crater. Computer image enhancement had sharpened one, and blurred the other. The algorthyms do that to bit drop-outs usually. The claim of a "Great Pyramid" is one I haven't heard about yet, though. Sounds like fun. Let's go play Napolean, and strip off the top layer of limestone as convient building material for our colonies housing! DOUG@JPL-VLSI, doug@aerospace, ...!trwrb!escher!doug, etc. Douglas J Freyburger, JPL 171-243, Pasadena, CA 91109