At the time I wrote my first article about the so-called face on Mars [See Surprising, May—ed.], NASA was in the process of sending a probe to that planet. 

     The probe referred to as Mars Observer blasted off in September 1992 but never reached its destination because it either blew up or was lost, according to the news reports.  However, since then several interesting bits of information have been made public.

     First, because the face itself is so interesting, claims about the pyramidal structures nearby are often not discussed.  There are several of them about ten kilometers from the face.  These objects have sharply-defined features which makes them seem to stand out from the other large mesas in the photographs.  Most of the mesas have rounded corners like the type anyone would expect from weathering due to wind action or possibly running water.  Why are the pyramid-like structures so close by?  If there's really no connection, shouldn't they show up somewhere else or not at all?

     Some people seem to believe that the angles of these structures are set up in such a way as to suggest a design.  Richard Hoagland did a study that indicates that the angles match the ones found at ancient Egyptian pyramids and other places like Stonehenge. 

     Of course, this proves nothing by itself.  But is that also just another coincidence?

     Another fact that has disturbed some people and was hardly reported in the mainstream press about the whole situation was the fact that NASA had plans to encrypt the data.  The encryption was not used on any other planetary probe until this one.  How come?

     NASA never explained the decision, but it does seem to violate the letter if not the spirit of the laws in this country.  Since the taxpayers are in effect paying for the probe, why shouldn't they have access to the data?

     Of course, now that the probe is lost or destroyed, there's no problem about secret data.  But the fact that the government decided to use secret codes seems to imply that they might have had something to hide.  But is this also just another one of these coincidences?

     Unfortunately, no one will ever know, because the entire affair is over now.  Nor is it likely that the government will send a probe to Mars any time soon, so the questions will have to remain unanswered for now.  The odds against finding an alien civilization on Mars are extremely high, let alone human-like faces waiting to be discovered.

     And yet, after looking at the photographs, one cannot help but get an eerie feeling that maybe there's more to this than meets the eye.

Contents