After the Martian Apocalypse

by Mac Tonnies

  Shortly thereafter, Erich von Däniken appeared on the stage, attributing the works of ancient civilizations to human-like extraterrestrials in a variety of sensational books. Researcher Ronald D. Story took von Däniken’s claims to task in two revealing books, exposing both his sloppy research and his hopelessly biased reasoning.

  The “scientific” quest for extraterrestrials in human antiquity had taken on the guise of religion, and the belief system left in von Däniken’s wake rarely fusses with inconvenient details. Sitchin’s quasi-academic sensibility revived von Däniken’s mystique and even attempted to update its Space Age trappings. Regardless, Sitchin has garnered a cult-like following to whom his Earth Chronicles series is nothing less than gospel. The inherent religious implications of Sitchin’s subject matter make objective assessment exceedingly difficult, and academia has responded to the challenge by ignoring it.

  But the presence of possible nonhuman artifacts on Mars demands that Sitchin’s basic thesis be given careful attention. Sitchin and other second-wave ancient astronaut theorists may simply be wrong. A humanoid face on Mars doesn’t necessarily translate into an alien presence on Earth at the dawn of civilization. Future scholars may look on the desire to connect obscure historical theories and the Cydonia enigma with amusement or even confusion.

  At the same time, dodging a potential terrestrial link exposes our deep fear of discovering that humanity is part of something much older and larger. Religions enjoy enormous popularity by purporting to reveal transcendental truths, but their insights are exclusively faith-based. If even a small part of Sitchin’s mythological soap opera is true, then it should be possible to pursue it using the tools of science.

  Imagine the culture shock of discovering letterforms on Mars that can be directly linked to Mesopotamian counterparts. A discovery of this implicit urgency would shake the bedrock of anthropology as certainly as the discovery of terrestrial DNA sequences in Martian bacteria would redefine exobiology. The potential for cultural disorientation is obvious.

  Quantum physics has shown that there can be no such thing as an objective observer. The very act of observation invariably affects the observed system, binding observer and observed in a weird existential pact. By analogy, even the most secretive of extraterrestrial civilizations would betray their existence in one form or another. The complex in Cydonia may be such a revelation.

  The “Glass Tubes” of Mars

  Some of the Surveyor’s most popular discoveries were the so-called tubes, apparent ribbed formations resembling extensive tunnels. Longtime Mars researcher Richard Hoagland popularized the tubes on his website, posting a tantalizing image of what appeared to be an eroded cylinder, complete with translucent casing. Reactions to Hoagland’s interpretation of the NASA photo were immediate, with many proclaiming the artificial-looking formation the relic of an ancient Martian transportation system, or even—as astronomer Percival Lowell had postulated a century ago—a mechanism to distribute precious water from the receding polar ice caps. Lowell’s vision of a Mars crisscrossed by huge canals was a touchstone of serious early discussion of life on the Red Planet. Although eventually dismissed as an optical aberration, Lowell’s canals continue to surface in science fiction.

  Graphic designer Chris Joseph, using a sophisticated shape-from-shading algorithm, was able to render Hoagland’s tube in synthetic aerial perspective. The most immediately noticeable aspect of his image was that any resemblance to a three-dimensional tube vanished, replaced by a series of vertical columns ascending the wall of a ravine.

  Further destroying the tube hypothesis, commentators pointed out that the anomaly’s cylindrical nature could be largely attributed to the way in which the photo had been presented. Seen upside-down, the illusion of a recessed cylinder is diminished, and more recognizable as a series of vertical formations. While the nature of Hoagland’s find remains a tantalizing question, it appears decidedly more geological than previously assumed.

  This image of an apparent transparent “tube” on the Martian surface, which seems to show a reflective object inside, launched a flurry of speculation. Courtesy of NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology/Malin Space Science Systems.

  Online browsing through the Malin Space Science Systems catalogue quickly revealed multitudes of additional “tubes” on the Martian surface, some lurking in shallow ravines, others winding sinuously against the sides of mesas. Seen in context, the tubes seemed less extraordinary than the specimen unveiled by Hoagland, and Mars discussion groups divided into factions to contest the formations’ origin.

  Skeptics noted that the tubes were not actually tubular at all; they were more akin to enormous “zippers,” with regularly spaced shallow rills in the terrain contributing to the illusion of cylindrical features. This notion was borne out by stereoscopic viewing. One researcher colorfully compared the rills to the edges of chips poking out of a bowl of dip. The tube moniker quietly became less a descriptive term than a convenient label.

  As the tubes seemed to fall into the domain of geological phenomena, JPL was more forthcoming in addressing them than they had been in dealing with possible life. Interestingly enough, some Mars watchers offered the notion that the tubes were life forms. Multimedia artist Kurt Jonach produced a false-color image of one of the controversial features with the proposed tube verdant against the red Martian surface, likening it to a gigantic rhizome. Comparisons to the sandworms of Frank Herbert’s novel Dune were inevitable.

  JPL maintains that the tubes are “dune trains” produced by Martian winds. Although this explanation certainly explains the majority of the tubes, some researchers are less-than-accepting. Hoagland, for example, argued that the dune train theory was insufficient. He presented a tube that divided in two, much like a zipper with interlocking clasps. While wind could certainly deposit trains of regularly spaced narrow dunes (the so-called arches), it was difficult to understand how wind action could deposit them in interlocking fashion.

  Nevertheless, the prevailing natural appearance of the majority of tubes seemed to exclude artificial interpretations. Many of the individual arches were extremely crude in appearance, with individual rills varying radically in size and placement. Suggestions that the tubes were perhaps an unrecognized geological phenomenon were swatted aside by Hoagland’s Enterprise Mission website, which insisted that the grossly “deformed” nature was merely the product of Martian architects fitting their creations into the uneven Martian surface, coupled with eons of structural decay.

  Although this argument was alarmingly post facto, many online researchers pronounced the tubes positive evidence of a once planet-wide civilization. This left only the question of purpose, with some favoring the idea of a derelict Martian “autobahn,” and others committed to water transportation.

  That the tubes ramble across the Martian surface like so much dropped spaghetti rather than conforming to any sort of architectural model left enthusiasts undeterred.

  Cydonia itself features its share of tube-like features, one of which had baffled anomalists since it was photographed by the Mars Global Surveyor (in the same image strip as the Face) in 1998. Known alternately as the “Coathanger,” “Trailer Park,” or “Dolphin” (depending on how one interprets the local geology), the feature in question consists of several unusually bright, evenly spaced notches. Nearby are several bright domes, appearing somewhat like British earthworks.

  Except for a few bright streaks on the edge of an adjacent mesa, the bright markings are isolated. No suspicious dune trains lead to the area, strongly implying that the markings—whatever they are—are a distinct anomaly. Furthermore, the curiously dolphin-like profile immediately above them brings to mind the animal shapes produced by Native American Mound Builders.

  To geologists interested in Cydonia, the composition of the strange bright markings is the most pressing question, and the most reasonable solution—barring artificiality—is water ice. Cydonia was to have been a landing site for
the Viking mission because of the high probability of ice in the region, but the mission plan was changed when Viking scientists concluded Cydonia was too rocky, and might crash one of the fragile landers. Ironically, the landing sites ultimately chosen in Chryse Planitia and Utopia Planitia are smothered in boulders.

  But how does ice become arranged in geometric “bars” on otherwise flat ground? Could the unique features comprising the aforementioned Coathanger be something other than frozen water? Their proximity to the Face and other anomalies add weight to a nonnatural explanation.

  Similar ribbed features are found east of the enigmatic Cliff, and, to some, look suspiciously like artificial trenches. If indeed artificial, perhaps they are evidence of the Cliff’s assemblage; Cydonia researchers have puzzled over the Cliff’s unlikely placement, arguing that a nearby impact crater should have buried the Cliff with ejected rubble.

  Instead, lobes of ejecta extend past the Cliff, which appears undamaged. One explanation for the Cliff’s strangely unscathed appearance is that it was built after the collision that produced the crater. Martian builders could have quarried the rock blasted loose by the meteor impact, leaving the ribbed furrows seen in the MGS photos.

  But the most compelling tube in Cydonia is attached to the Fort, radiating from its mile-long eastern wall only to vanish abruptly in the desert between the City and the Face. A close-up look at the feature reveals tightly spaced notches and a faint rectilinear formation at the feature’s edge.

  The implications of such features in light of the Artificiality Hypothesis are intriguing, and even more so when the evidence for long-extinct Martian seas are taken into account. Data from the MGS’s Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter strongly suggest that Cydonia once bordered a sizeable ocean. The Fort and Face may very well have been islands, in which case conspicuous, relatively small-scale anomalies such as the Fort’s tube and bright markings would have been submerged. What possible significance could they have had underwater?

  While the Fort tube looks likely to have served a functional purpose, the narrow, arguably dolphin-shaped formation with its attendant bright lines seems more aesthetic than utilitarian.

  Popular conception of a Martian tube, emphasizing “rungs” and reflective “casing.” Image courtesy of Zak.

  Humans have very little experience constructing monuments designed to last forever. Our skyscrapers are fragile and easily toppled. Our homes require near-constant maintenance. Even predictable changes in climate can cause severe structural damage over a period of years or, in the case of lightning and hailstorms, literally overnight.

  Unattended, humanity’s various dwellings would eventually succumb to the elements, overrun by weeds, shattered by ice, buried under snow. With the exception of the doomed Chernobyl power plant, there has been no reason to evacuate a city; thus we have no real knowledge of just how long the imprint of civilization would remain recognizable in an abandoned city.

  In J. G. Ballard’s novel The Wind From Nowhere, Earth experiences a global windstorm of surreal intensity, leveling all human structures save for underground bunkers and a single modernistic pyramid designed expressly for withstanding the meteorological onslaught. Ballard’s speculative novel isn’t hard science; no explanation is offered for the lethal wind, and we interpret it as a metaphor for entropy, not as a literal prediction.

  Notice the remarkably straight wall or “ramp” on top of the narrow mesa known as the Cliff, which shares the Face’s axis of symmetry. The ruler-straight wall is comprised of numerous tightly packed links, similar to vertebrae. If artificial, is this evidence of high-tech construction or building techniques analogous to the Great Wall of China? Courtesy of NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology/Malin Space Science Systems.

  An alleged tube reimagined as a structural engineering work. Many of the Martian tubes cling to the edges of large landforms or huddle in ravines, as suggested by this computer-generated illustration. Image courtesy of Zak.

  But other planets are subject to equally devastating—and distressingly surreal—natural cataclysms. The scientific community is slowly thawing to the possibility that Mars’s career as a hospitable world ended suddenly, rather than gradually. This reticence to accept catastrophe is as much self-defense mechanism as scholarly bias; none of us wants to dwell on the possibility of a life-exterminating event occurring on Earth in the foreseeable future.

  Our national budgets for precautionary asteroid-watching are ridiculously low, and Earth has survived a volley of near-misses in recent years. Indeed, our last brush with interplanetary apocalypse was in 1908—a split-second in geological time. Fortunately, 1908’s encounter in Tunguska, Siberia was with a relatively minor object, although researchers remain divided as to what exactly it was. Most seem satisfied that the collision can be attributed to a comet. While the ensuing air-burst would have easily decimated a city, the incoming comet exploded in the Siberian wilderness, and years passed before a scientific team was dispatched to survey the damage.

  Faced with such appalling threats, we are oddly complacent. As with the Face on Mars, we consign space itself to a kind of mythological limbo where it cannot infringe on workaday reality. The immensities of time and space are consequently lost on us. But the proliferation of nuclear technology has undermined this outlook. Although we’re loath to actually admit it, the radioactive by-products of our military-industrial establishment promise to last an unthinkably long time. Assuming there is intelligent life on this planet in, say, a thousand years, how do we warn future inhabitants of the dangers concocted in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries?

  Was the complex in Cydonia the final gesture of a doomed race? Or is it simply a prelude to more disconcerting discoveries? It is one thing to have human heritage overturned by the presence of nonhuman artifacts; it is another to confront the mind behind the curtain.

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  Cover-ups and Fact Management

  Ever since the Face on Mars emerged into public consciousness, various conspiracy theories have attempted to account for NASA’s apparent disinterest in the formation. The most typical is also the most straight-forward: NASA, aware that the Face was the work of alien intelligence, has systematically ridiculed the notion while at the same time continuing to photograph the region in detail. When the Mars Observer lost control near Mars in 1993, many suspicious parties believed that the Observer project had simply been taken underground, away from prying eyes.

  But if the Face et al are artificial, it’s doubtful NASA knew this as a fact as early as 1993. In that case, theorists presume, NASA (probably acting upon a national security directive) took control of the Mars project in order to take stock of the situation. As a preemptive mission, the Mars Observer could serve as a reconnaissance craft, allowing the space agency to decide how best to present the Face to the public when and if images were released.

  Neither of these situations makes much sense when examined closely. While the presence of extraterrestrial artifacts on Mars would almost certainly invoke national security measures, the question is not “What kind?,” but “Is Cydonia taken seriously enough by the security establishment to warrant cloak-and-dagger treatment?” And how could NASA (or whatever agency responsible for the alleged cover-up) know anything for certain before the first high-resolution photos were taken?

  Some maintain that various occult groups have long possessed knowledge of Martian structures. This “explains” why no images were needed in order for official secrecy to take effect: NASA knew what it would find based on esoteric teachings, perhaps gleaned from Nazi “Project Paperclip” scientists at the end of World War II.

  Perhaps the most ingeniously paranoid theory is that U.S. officialdom gained knowledge of Cydonia by analyzing wreckage from the purported Roswell, New Mexico, UFO crash of 1947—a situation that betrays a bizarre inner logic in light of Jacques Vallee’s Mars-UFO correlation.

  The Society for Planetary SETI Research, founded by Stanley V. McDaniel and now sp
earheaded by theoretical physicist Horace Crater, steers clear of the usual conspiracy accusations. Its members essentially view NASA’s disdain for the Face as a symptom of the often-inane conspiracy counter-culture that’s given the Face its lunatic fringe stigma. Mike Malin, principal operator of the Mars Orbiter camera, has been a vocal critic of Cydonia and has vented not a little disgust at having been “forced” to photograph Cydonia in order to placate conspiracymongers. Of course, even when the Face was photographed from almost directly overhead in 2001, there were those who claimed that Malin had doctored the imagery to conceal smoking gun details.

  While Malin is not a popular figure among Mars anomalists, there is no denying that he has a point when he accuses his detractors of seeing cover-ups within cover-ups. Some Cydonia watchers will never be satisfied, while others are willing to assess photographic evidence for what it is and move on to the salient question: are we seeing geological anomaly or intelligent design?

  It can be argued that the Space Age—the real Space Age, as opposed to the vestigial remnant witnessed by the post-Apollo generations—ended in 1972, when humans last set foot on the surface of another world.

  Seen from our Space Shuttle-mired era, the notion of astronauts doing anything fundamentally exciting or new in space seems impossibly exotic. Predictably, a surge of new controversy has arisen regarding the validity of NASA’s moon landings, with various conspiracy theorists cynically appraising Apollo photography and pointing out myriad alleged inconsistencies.