The Face On Mars And The Incan City

As many of us grow impatient to find life on Mars, some of us appear determined to place it there. Take for example, the infamous Face on Mars, first photographed by Viking I on July 25th, 1976. As you can see, it definitely looks like a face, but is it really?

As it turns out, the mars face is nothing more than an optical illusion, caused by a combination of the low resolution image of the Viking camera, the lighting, the angle, and the terrain. In fact, a new picture from the Mars Global Surveyor on April 8th, 2001 shows the face to be nothing more than a razed surface feature on Mars.

But that’s only one photo debunked – and there are many more.

The Pyramid

In the lower-right corner of the picture you can vaguely make out a structure which appears to be a pyramid. Another trick of the eye, but a convincing one. Why do we want so much to believe this is proof of life on Mars? What’s the connection being made in our minds?

Many think we are paralleling this to the face of the Great Sphinx and the Great Pyramid in Egypt. If we, as humans could build such grandiose structures on Earth, then why couldn’t Martians do the same on Mars? Some thought was even given to the possibility our species was transplanted her. This theory received a huge boost when Viking reported Mars to be a lifeless world. That’s when people started thinking – maybe our species started life on Mars, and then moved to Earth to avoid a great catastrophe.

While this sounds like pure insanity, the theory, in and of itself, does make sense. After all, if we discovered the Earth would become uninhabitable within 1000 years we’d do whatever it took to find a way to live on – even to the extent that we would try to continue our lives on other worlds. However, current knowledge tells us that Mars would have become uninhabitable to us billions of years ago, which is well beyond our existence on Earth as a species, and if we were able to transplant from one planet to another we would have done so before much of the atmosphere and water evaporated off into space.

Still, this doesn’t mean Mars never held life, nor does it guarantee it’s lifeless today. Our knowledge of extremophiles tells us that life can manage to cling on under the must tenuous of circumstances, but such life is always small in stature and very low on the evolutionary scale. For higher forms of life to evolve, the conditions must be just right.

The Lost City Of Cydonia

This picture is another marvel, seeming to be an ancient Incan city settled in the desert of Mars; however, once again, a closer look unravels the mirage.

The image on the left was taken by Mariner 9 in 1972 and the image on the right was taken by Mars Odyssey in 2007. Of course, some would argue that the image on the right still looks like an Incan city. After all, the high-res image does do a better job of showing the decaying of the walls, which begs us to consider that the city hasn’t harbored life for many centuries. Perhaps, but let’s stop to consider the fact that no liquid water has flowed on the surface of Mars for billions of years. Are we to believe the Martians dug a really deep well to supply their needs? Better yet, what did they eat?

Those are both worthy questions, considering the fact humans stopped being nomads and founded cities, when they decided it was simpler to domesticate cattle and grow crops. If this were the case on Mars, then these precursors to humans needed irrigation to keep the plants watered and watering troughs to feed their cattle. But we regress … the theory is that we did live on Mars, and that we don’t anymore. Fair enough. So if we left when the water and atmosphere became scarce, then how have the walls of this city remained standing for billions of years?

And yet, there’s another path to follow, where the Martians aren’t humans at all, but rather, a species all of their own. However, this is identically fraught with peril, as they would require the same needs. If aliens exist on Mars surface today, they are microbial in nature, and as of yet, undetectable by our instruments – and considering our small efforts taken so far, this is altogether possible.

The Tunnels Of Mars

Here’s the one that’s difficult to debunk – the tunnels of Mars. After all, who is to say there isn’t an ocean’s worth of water underground, providing life to a whole bevy of creatures we have never seen? Wouldn’t it make sense that there’s no life on the surface of Mars because it exists under the surface, living beside subterranean lakes?

The picture above would seem to hint at tunnels below the surface of Mars, and if the top of these tunnels were covered by glass they would allow sunlight in while blocking out the hazardous desert sand above. However, such a structure would stick out like a sore thumb, and subsequent images by Mars Odyssey would confirm their existence – which they do not.

Still, this says nothing of the probability that life could have survived underground, and might still do so today. In fact, the UFO believers like this story a lot, as it provides an extremely likely origin for the Greys, which are the most common species depicted in alien encounters. 

Now, if the Greys are living under the surface of Mars and they are cut off from the sun’s light, then some of their features begin to make a lot of sense. For example, their large, bulbous eyes would be a needed adaptation to see underground. They would also need to be short and very thin, allowing them to easily wind through underground caverns. As for their oversized heads, they would be needed for the eyes, and the brain would be developed to live in darkened and cooler condition, negating the need for large ears to radiate off heat. In fact, they would only need small, funneled ears in their dark and damp environment.

Would they be aquatic? Maybe, though not necessarily. In all likelihood, no more so than ourselves. And could they be advanced? Again, a possibility, but here’s where we find a a huge stumbling block to overcome. Fire played a huge role in our early evolution (paving the way to the transformation and manipulation of metals), so we could probably assume it would work the same for our fellow Martians. However, underground fires without proper ventilation (as a rule) kill those in the immediate vicinity, due to oxygen depletion and CO buildup in the air. So, how did our fellow Martians master fire underground?. Maybe they never needed to. If they were already an advanced species before they were forced to move underground, they might have already worked around this issue before doing so.

An Interesting Theory On Alien Visitations

If we are to believe that the Greys actually originate from Mars, and that they periodically visit Earth, then an interesting reason evolves for such visitations. By helping us to evolve they could have the aid of another species to resolve their climate dilemma. However, they would need to exert caution, lest the help they give today were to bring a violent species back home to their doorstep.

Flights from Earth to Mars are definitely doable, as are flights the other way. This being the case, the Greys could visit as they pleased and bring some influence upon our race. However, they would want to evolve us past our aggressions before opening the door to greet us, and perhaps that’s what the cat and mouse game has been about all of these years. Then again, the whole theory might hold as much water as the Sahara Desert. Until we are able to delve below the surface of Mars we’ll never know for sure.

What we do know is that on the surface of Mars there are no discernible features telling us that any civilization once stood upon its surface. This isn’t to say it never happened, but rather, that we have yet to find concrete proof. As this is the case, we’ll continue to see signs of life on Mars, but few will ever be as tantalizing as the picture we are about to reveal.

The Man On Mars

Yes, the photo is real, and no, it isn’t a real martian (unless they are only 6 centimeters tall). It’s actually a picture of a small rock, snapped by the Spirit rover in late 2007. Isn’t it amazing how our minds fill in the image to make it into something human?

Just the thought of seeing an alien excites many of us, as it would finally answer the ultimate question, ‘Are we truly alone in the universe?’ The question itself is an enigma, as the only acceptable answer is ‘no’. And why is this the case?

If we find life elsewhere, then we have definitely proved that we are not alone, but so long as we can’t find other life we are forced to accept the fact that we haven’t searched everywhere yet – nor could we ever. The search never ends until we find what we are seeking, and for that reason we’ll never give up. But alas, a small, strange rock that looks humanoid in appearance does not establish the fact life exists on another world.

We’ll continue our search, as no doubt many other countless civilizations out there will do as well, and perhaps someday we will bump into some interstellar travelers trying to answer the same question, ‘Are we truly alone in the universe?’