The first image of the "face on Mars" on NASA contractor Lan Fleming's web site, shown below, was created by Mark Kelly, who used standard enhancement and orthorectification techniques to correct the "skewed" image returned by the Mars Global Surveyor in 1998. (Click here for a definition of orthorectification. Click here for a description of Kelly's enhancement.)

Credit: Mark Kelly

Fleming analyzed Kelly's enhancement and concluded that it was an accurate depiction of the "face" as it would look when viewed from directly above, given the data available in NASA's MGS and Viking imagery. No new data was added to the image to derive the overhead view. (Click here to go to Fleming's critique.)

The resulting image is strikingly symmetric and face-like. It is not perfectly face-like, but the artificiality hypothesis does not require a perfect face to remain viable--only a significant degree of symmetry and non-randomness, both of which are clearly present in the higher resolution image.

Were the "face" a random feature, the artificiality hypothesis predicts that face-like details noted in lower resolution Viking images would disappear in the MGS image. We would also expect a proliferation of random non face-like features to appear in better images. Instead, features such as the "pupil," raised self-contained "eyebrows," beveled "lips" and even "nostrils" are present exactly where they should be if the "face" is artificial. Regions where we would expect no superfluous features are largely devoid of detail, again confirming earlier predictions of the artificiality hypothesis.

Now compare the Kelly enhancement with the image hastily posted to JPL's web site in 1998, shown as Figure 2 on Fleming's site. This image, which is inferior in all respects to a later, less publicized JPL enhancement, as well as Kelly's orthorectified enhancement, was released promptly with little comment to all major news organizations.

Given the highly distorted and featureless appearance of the NASA image, is it any surprise that the vast majority of scientists and members of the public immediately dismissed the issue of the "face," based on what was "obviously a pile of rocks"?

What would have been the reaction of the scientific community and the public had an accurate depiction of the "face" mesa (such as Kelly's) been posted on the internet and flashed across TV screens worldwide? It's safe to say we'd be having a very different discussion today. But for some reason NASA chose to present an improperly processed image of the "face" mesa that eradicated all evidence of its impressive height and symmetry and masked almost all "facial" detail. Whether through laziness or impropriety NASA effectively ended a conversation that should be continuing today, not only in "chat rooms" but in scientific venues everywhere. What a shame.

 

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