Eyes on Mr. Mars; Speculating About a Strange Formation07/08/88THE WASHINGTON POSTAs the world watched the Soviets launch their ambitiousexploratory mission to the Martian moon Phobos yesterday, another(smaller) group of reporters watched pictures projected on a screenof a less well received mission: investigating the man in Mars."We are not going to announce that we have found life on Mars,"Richard Hoagland, author and founder of the Mars Project, saidyesterday at a press conference at the National Press Club. "But weare going to announce that we have found something so interestingthat it demands we go back and find out about it."What they have found is a face-"a humanoid figure" that appearsto be a three-dimensional formation on the Martian surface.Actually, they didn't exactly find it either. The face wasdiscovered 12 years ago when NASA scientists noticed it in picturestaken about 1,000 miles above the surface of Mars by the Vikingorbiter. It's a rather squarish, masklike countenance with vaguefeatures-male in appearance-one side of it in shadow, staring up. Itis located in the Cydonia region in the northern hemisphere of Marsand measures a mile long.After some scrutiny, scientists concluded that it was a trick oflight and shadow at least, an interesting natural phenomenon at most.They attributed the human interpretation to man's tendency toanthropomorphize, to see human characteristics where they don'texist.But Hoagland and three colleagues-an anthropologist, anelectrical engineer and a former NASA astronaut-believe it could meanmore. In 1983, when Hoagland saw more extensive photos of thefeature, he became intrigued."I thought, suppose this is real? Who did this, and why?" saidHoagland, who upon examining the photos more closely found acollection of objects he now calls "the city." They include apyramid shape and another object he believes resembles a fortress."The close proximity of unusual objects such as these to theface increases the likelihood that this collection of objects is notnatural," Mark Carlotto, the electrical engineer, wrote in a paperthat was published in Applied Optics in May. Carlotto firstsubmitted the paper to the science journal Icarus, which turned itdown, saying in Carlotto's words that it was "OF NO SCIENTIFICINTEREST."Carlotto, who works on this in his spare time, did thesophisticated computer modeling that has led the Mars Project groupto believe that the humanoid figure is a bisymmetrical,three-dimensional object; that, says Hoagland, "adds another levelof improbability" to the notion that this was naturally created."If this pans out, if it's real," Hoagland said a touchbreathlessly, "we're in a whole new ball game. Human history turns apage."Who's buying this? Not many scientists."It's probably something perfectly natural which by accidentlooks like a face," says Carl Sagan, author and Cornell Universityprofessor of astronomy. Sagan was a principal investigator of theViking data and has seen thousands of pictures of Mars."We're talking about a very small feature with lateraldimensions on the order of a kilometer or two. We have to ask howmany such features on Mars are like that? Nobody's claiming that allfaces represent some intelligence. How did all the others get made?... Isn't it more likely that through geological processes you getthese features?"Sagan himself has seen faces in the Martian surface. "There's awonderful HAPPY FACE in the middle of a crater-from which I do notdeduce that there are people who live on Mars who make happy-facebuttons."Both Sagan and NASA officials point out that the patterns of thefeatures could have been caused by wind erosion."Our opinion is that they were formed by windstorms during thelong Martian summers," says NASA public relations official CharlesRedmond. "You could have sharp angular chiseling of the existingMartian landscape." Hoagland, he adds, is being "persistent oversomething he no longer needs to be persistent over."But Redmond is GENEROUS in his characterization of Hoagland."He's certainly a legitimate individual," Redmond says.In fact, Hoagland, 43, has VIRTUALLY NO ACADEMIC CREDENTIALS. Hefinished two years at the University of Connecticut before leaving towork as a curator at the age of 19 at a space museum in Springfield,Mass. "I dropped out to be part of the space program," Hoagland says.He later worked as a science adviser to CBS News and did consultingfor the Goddard Space Flight Center. He wrote the 1987 book "TheMonuments of Mars" and founded the Mars Project, which offersmembership and a newsletter for $25 a year. Today he spends much ofhis time talking about his project and Mars exploration to generalaudiences and schools."I had to be pushed kicking and screaming to take thisseriously," Hoagland insists. "I tried every which way to shoot itdown. There are still times I ask myself, `Are we deludingourselves?' "Now, he and his colleagues are pros at defusing the fantasticalcomponent. At every question put to them-Isn't this justanthropomorphism? What are you defining as life? Whose face isit?-they smile and nod. They've been asked it all before.Anthropologist Randolfo Pozos, executive director of the MarsProject, admits that it is "a REBEL ALLIANCE of people outside theplanetary community" but adds, "We've tried to avoid the fringemovements-the UFO contingent and the New Age movement; the peoplewho say they're channeling messages; the people who say they've ledprevious lives on Mars."They avoid saying what (in the way of artificial intelligence)created the features-or, closer to the fringe, speculating on why."People suspect a variety of things," Pozos says. "You startspeculating and then you have a field day. And THERE'S NO SCIENTIFICDATA."However, scientist and former astronaut Brian O'Leary-who madehis comments at the press conference from Arizona via telephonehookup-TOTTERED A LITTLE CLOSER TO THE EDGE when he enthusiasticallyproclaimed, "I have a strong feeling that in the next 10 years we aregoing to discover extraterrestrial intelligence. I can't go intodetails..." From the back of the room of assembled reporters camean `Oooo-wooo-oo' and some chuckles.But eventually Hoagland revealed: "My own personal point of viewis: If this is real, it was intrusive. They were visitors and theface was INTENDED TO FLAG OUR ATTENTION and then they did what manycultures have done on our earth. They disappeared."They stress that their biggest conclusion is: The existing dataand research are compelling enough to warrant collecting more data.Specifically, they want more pictures of the Martian features eitherfrom the Soviet expedition to Phobos (which seems unlikely) or theU.S. Mars Observer mission scheduled for 1992."I'm sure that if it's possible we will," Redmond says. "NASAhas no objection to taking a further look."
