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- Reprinted from Air & Space Smithsonian, June/July 1991.
-
- FACE OFF
-
- In 1976 the Viking I orbiter, flying some 1,100 miles above Mars,
- photographed a region called Cydonia. Close inspection of one
- frame revealed what looked like a human face gazing soulfully
- into eternity. A Viking project scientist showed the image to the
- press, dismissed it as a trick of light and shadow, and the Face
- On Mars was forgotten-for a while.
- Three years later, Vincent DiPietro and Gregory Molenaar,
- computer imaging specialists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight
- Center in Maryland, analyzed a computer enhancement of The Face
- and decided it merited a serious look. Science raspberried them,
- but it was too late. A new subculture had been born. Today, two
- groups-the Mars Project in Santa Cruz, California, and the Mars
- Mission in Wytheville, Virginia-exist solely to push the idea
- that The Face and nearby structures may be monuments left by a
- long-vanished intelligent civilization.
- Of the two groups, the latter, founded by science writer
- Richard Hoagland, is the more energetic. Hoagland wants NASA to
- reshoot Cydonia when the Mars Observer returns to the planet in
- 1993, and he pursues this vision with zeal reminiscent of Burt
- Lancaster in The Rainmaker. Like many people involved in
- missionary work on behalf of fringe topics, Hoagland believes
- he's being thwarted by higher-ups intent on muffling the truth.
- In this case, the higher-ups are at NASA. In a 1989 letter to
- Representative Robert Roe, then chairman of the House Committee
- on Science, Space, and Technology, Hoagland charged that
- "political obstacles, within...NASA have blocked serious
- consideration of this evidence for 13 years." The latest-alleged
- outrage involves the cancellation of a documentary called
- "Hoagland's Mars" that was produced by NASA's Lewis Research
- Center in Cleveland, Ohio.
- Hoagland's version of what happened goes like this: In March
- 1990 he was invited to Speak to a group of Lewis employees.
- During that visit, Lynn Bondurant, educational programs chief,
- interviewed him about The Face with a documentary in mind.
- Hoagland was pleased to learn that Bondurant would "give our work
- a fair airing, putting it in context of the history of Mars
- explorations." The program was scheduled for a January 6, 1991
- satellite transmission for PBS stations, says Hoagland, when NASA
- "pulled the plug." Why? Because "the planetary science community
- hit the roof. They were absolutely furious that this subject was
- going to be legitimized." Now, Hoagland says, the program is
- being recut to "put me in the same camp as Percival Lowell-as a
- well-meaning buffoon."
- A source close to the production says the program is being
- revised "to present other views on The Face." That's probably a
- good idea, because the script I have doesn't present the full
- pageantry of Hoagland's ideas. It covers his belief that the
- arrangement of The Face and surrounding structures reveals
- encoded mathematical constants, but it fails to mention his
- wilder extrapolations. Hoagland and geomorphologist Erol Torun
- argue in a self-published paper that the constants give a
- startling insight into planetary physics. The theorizing gets
- pretty dense: "The 'tetrahedral geometry'...is revealing an
- equivalent higher-order mathematical topology: i.e., a
- vorticular'two-torus'energy flow.... "
- The bottom line is this: the entities who built Cydonia were
- trying to tell the universe about a "new physics" that may
- involve "a hitherto unknown relationship between two of the four
- basic forces of the Universe-gravity and electromagnetism: i.e.,
- a 'Unified Field.'"
- Coincidentally, the miracle math of Cydonia conies into play
- in a mind-device called the N-Machine, which Hoagland
- enthusiastically promotes. Invented by physicist Bruce de Palma
- (brother of Hollywood director Brian), the N-Machine, as Hoagland
- puts it, "generates more energy out of the interaction
- between 'space' and the hi-speed rotation of a spinning mass than
- [is] required by the motors that mechanically rotate those
- masses." Hoagland dares to say that from which most physicists
- recoil: 'We may be talking about energy coming from nothing." He
- has been flogging this miracle device on "For The People," an
- overheated radio talk show in Cedar Key, Florida. Hoagland and
- Chuck Harder, the show's host, get pretty imaginative. After
- cancellation of "Hoagland's Mars," Harder said, "I gotta believe
- one of the reasons...'Hoagland's Mars' has been put on ice has
- got to be because of the Middle East thing.... Once your program
- would be transmitted...the press would jump on it, and it might
- steal some of the thunder from Bush's ''project.'"
- Hoagland replied, 'Well, it's even more disturbing than
- that....'Hoagland's Mars' is the opening gun to a whole new way
- of life that taps a virtually inexhaustible energy source for the
- benefit of mankind. We are about to go to war...over a resource
- that is really useless."
- Hoagland: buffoon or Einstein of the 1990s? Only time will
- tell. For those wanting a closer look, Hoagland's own version of
- "Hoagland's Mars"-with all the theories-is available from Curley
- and Company, Signal Mountain, Tennessee.
- -Alex Heard
- --
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