On August 6, 2001, the Formal Action Committee for Extra-Terrestrial Studies (FACETS) submitted a Freedom of Information (FOIA) inquiry requesting:

"all records, in the possession of NASA, its contractors (including, but not limited to, JPL and Cal. Technology) and its subcontractors (including, but not limited to, Malin Space Science Systems) relating to any analysis, examination, assessment and/or interpretation of [multiple NASA images from the Viking 1 Orbiter, Mars Global Surveyor and other space probes]."

FACETS' inquiry, of course, focused on imagery from the Cydonia region of Mars, and was prompted in large part by NASA Associate Administrator for Space Science Edward J. Weiler's statement that "Dr. Michael Malin, the Principal Investigator of the MGS Mars Orbiter Camera, has provided his experienced interpretation of the new images" for NASA. (See paragraph two of NASA's response to the FACETS demand letter.)

The FACETS request also sought to confirm or deny the existence of interpretation provided to NASA by the "Scientific [sic] advisory committees" referred to by Dr. Weiler in the same letter (see paragraph six of NASA's response to the FACETS demand letter). According to Weiler, these advisory committees "have not interpreted the Cydonia feature as evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence."

Five months after the initial FACETS request, in a January 8, 2002 letter to FACETS legal counsel Peter A. Gersten, Freedom of Information Act Officer Janet K. Ruff responded to the inquiry with the following statement: "Upon researching and requesting information through the appropriate organizations at the Goddard Space Flight Center, we have no records responsive to your request for the…information."

In a December 21, 2001 response from NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, the aptly-named Stella Luna, an FOIA Coordinator for the Office of Public Affairs, reported that, in reference to space agency analysis of Lunar Orbiter-III, Apollo 10 and Apollo 14 imagery, "We are unable to provide this portion of your request, since the requested information does not exist."

In a December 14, 2001 letter to FACETS from Sharon S. Holgerson, an FOIA Officer at NASA Headquarters, Holgerson reported the following: "It was determined that your request was too broad in scope for JPL to reasonably respond. If the request could be narrowed to specific individual documents, then JPL will conduct another search in an attempt to locate them."

At first glance, we might conclude that we've learned nothing from the FACETS FOIA. But the terse responses received from NASA provide valuable information. First, we now know what we've suspected for a long time: NASA has conducted no analysis on any Viking 1 image of Cydonia. All of NASA's proclamations about the nature of the "face on Mars" and associated features fall squarely into the realm of "public relations," and are not based on scientific evaluation. The same can be said about LO-III, Apollo 10 and Apollo 14 imagery.

Those involved in the quest to move discussion of artificiality at Cydonia into the scientific arena are well aware of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's pivotal role in shaping the mainstream scientific community's current negative opinion on the topic. Given JPL's propensity to stretch the truth (from its infamous false "trick of shadow and lighting" statement 25 years ago, to its "catbox" fraud, to its latest MOLA misrepresentation of the Face), it is not surprising that JPL's was the least cooperative response to our FOIA inquiry.

FACETS will take up NASA HQ's offer to contact Cal-Tech directly, however, in hopes that the "experienced interpretation of the new images" mentioned by Dr. Weiler actually exists.

 

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