From: mccreary@sword.eng.hou.compaq.com (Ed McCreary)
Subject: Re: Face On Mars An Other Other Time
Keywords: hoagland, book, monuments, mars
Organization: Compaq Computer Corp.
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 13:57:01 GMT

In article <1992Oct8.034539.1600@rtfm.mlb.fl.us> joshua@rtfm.mlb.fl.us (Joshua Geller) writes:
>a kind soul sent this to me; I forthwith post it to the net.
>
>"telnet dra.com" yields:
>
>   Type of Material: Book
>
>     LC Call Number: QB641 .H63 1987
>
>             Author: Hoagland, Richard C., 1945-
>
>              Title: The monuments of Mars : a city on the edge of forever /
>                      Richard C. Hoagland.
>

..info deleted for space...

I haven't seen this posted, so here it is.  It's from the sci.space
faq.



    THE "FACE ON MARS"

    There really is a big rock on Mars that looks remarkably like a humanoid
    face. It appears in two different frames of Viking Orbiter imagery:
    35A72 (much more facelike in appearance, and the one more often
    published, with the Sun 10 degrees above western horizon) and 70A13
    (with the Sun 27 degrees from the west).

    Science writer Richard Hoagland has championed the idea that the Face is
    artificial, intended to resemble a human, and erected by an
    extraterrestrial civilization. Most other analysts concede that the
    resemblance is most likely accidental. Other Viking images show a
    smiley-faced crater and a lava flow resembling Kermit the Frog elsewhere
    on Mars. There exists a Mars Anomalies Research Society (sorry, don't
    know the address) to study the Face.

    The Mars Observer mission will carry an extremely high-resolution
    camera, and better images of the formation will hopefully settle this
    question in a few years. In the meantime, speculation about the Face is
    best carried on in the altnet group alt.alien.visitors, not sci.space or
    sci.astro.

    V. DiPeitro and G. Molenaar, *Unusual Martian Surface Features*, Mars
    Research, P.O. Box 284, Glen Dale, Maryland, USA, 1982. [Apparently the
    first lengthy consideration of the Face published. Does anybody know
    what it costs?]

    R.R. Pozos, *The Face of Mars*, Chicago Review Press, 1986. [Account of
    an interdisciplinary speculative conference Hoagland organized to
    investigate the Face]

    R.C. Hoagland, *The Monuments of Mars: A City on the Edge of Forever*,
    North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, California, USA, 1987. [Elaborate
    discussion of evidence and speculation that formations near the Face
    form a city]

    M.J. Carlotto, "Digital Imagery Analysis of Unusual Martian Surface
    Features," *Applied Optics*, 27, pp. 1926-1933, 1987. [Extracts
    three-dimensional model for the Face from the 2-D images]

    M.J. Carlotto & M.C. Stein, "A Method of Searching for Artificial
    Objects on Planetary Surfaces," *Journal of the British Interplanetary
    Society*, Vol. 43 no. 5 (May 1990), p.209-216. [Uses a fractal image
    analysis model to guess whether the Face is artificial]

    B. O'Leary, "Analysis of Images of the `Face' on Mars and Possible
    Intelligent Origin," *JBIS*, Vol. 43 no. 5 (May 1990), p. 203-208.
    [Lights Carlotto's model from the two angles and shows it's consistent;
    shows that the Face doesn't look facelike if observed from the surface]


Just for the record, I've been playing with the raw data from
NASA for several years now and nothing has convinced me it's not
a bunch of rocks.  It looks neat, but two (very noisy) pictures
is not enough to derive the history of a civilization from.


--
In the midst of the word he was trying to say,|McCreary@sword.eng.hou.compaq.com
     In the midst of his laughter and glee,   |Me, speak for Compaq?  
He had softly and suddenly vanished away---   |Yeah, right.
     For the Snark *was* a Boojum, you see.   |#include <stddisclaimer.h>