Mars: Sidonia (skeptical view). Martian Sphinx, history Martian face

Martian sphinx- Image number 35A72 received from the American Viking automatic station, which showed a 1500-meter image made of stone resembling a woman’s face. E. Martian face, the face on Mars D. Martianes Gesicht, Marsgesicht … Explanatory ufological dictionary with equivalents in English and German

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The optimism of supporters of the existence of life on Mars was brought back to them... by the same Viking photographs that so recently seemed to have buried their dreams. Only one of them has become widely known - a “photo portrait” of a strange Martian formation, very reminiscent of a woman’s face.

On July 25, 1976, the disappointment and despondency inspired by the lifeless landscapes among the operators at the Mission Control Center was so great that they, with almost complete indifference, captured this image, number 35A72, received from the Viking. A huge female face looked at the operators from the surface of distant Mars. So what? I still remembered the example with “channels”, I had a vision of straight lines on the red planet, and now I saw a woman, apparently due to fatigue.

Almost immediately, at a press conference held on the same day, NASA officials dubbed the unusual “face” in the image a “bizarre play of light and shadow,” assuring that in the photograph taken a few hours later, nothing similar was visible in this area.

Subsequently, independent researchers, not without malice, noted that “a few hours later” it was pitch black over Sidonia and there was really nothing left to see there. Moreover, in the archives it was never possible to find other photographs of Sidonia taken shortly after frame 35A72. And only 17 years later, in 1993, NASA managed to obtain official recognition that such a picture never happened at all.

But a few years later, in 1979, another (incorrectly registered and placed in a completely different folder) frame of the same area, numbered 70A13, was discovered, taken 35 days after the first from a different angle, under different lighting, but just as clearly demonstrating human facial features. However, this discovery happened without any publicity, since in 1976, through the efforts of NASA, the public obediently swallowed the version of the “play of chiaroscuro”, the story was forgotten, and the strange shot was successfully buried in the archives.

The glory of the discoverers has fallen Vincent Di Pietro and Gregory Molenaar, who was working at the Space Flight Center at the time. Goddard. They found 10 images of the area they were interested in. This:

Using a special software they managed to obtain an enlarged and more detailed image of the “face,” which made it even more human-like. In addition, having increased the clarity of the images, they discovered another mysterious structure on the ground - a five-sided pyramid of a very regular shape 15 kilometers from the “face”.

Inspired scientists naively believed that their discovery would be of interest to NASA, but they came across a more than obvious reluctance of the agency's leadership to discuss signs of intelligent activity on another planet.

The head of the Viking program, K. Snyder, the same one who leaked the valuable photograph, did not hide his irritation, saying that “the discovered image is just rock formations that have taken on bizarre shapes as a result of the play of light and shadows.” Soviet academician Sagdeev warmly supported this idea, saying that there will be no new self-deception, such as happened with the channels. They also did not refrain from studying photography at the Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry. According to the candidate of geographical sciences R. Kuzmin, “it’s all about oblique lighting, the light of the low-lying Sun casts shadows from ordinary tubercles, and as for the nostrils and the necklace on the face, these are ordinary interference that arose during the transmission of the image to Earth!”

Indeed, according to the laws of probability theory, the insidious play of light and shadow can suddenly create any image, one on the entire planet, right down to the inscription “Hello, earthlings.” But if this is not a real image, then you just need to change the direction of the lighting and the whole effect will immediately disappear.

However, 35A72 and 70A13 were made on different turns and the sphinx did not disappear! Having received two photographs in their hands, American specialists began computer construction of a stereo image. For some reason, the nostrils, necklace, and other points that were considered interference did not disappear in the new image, but the computer confidently drew the pupils of the eyes and even the teeth in the slightly open mouth!

By 1981, Di Pietro and Molenaar, having achieved nothing at NASA, published the book “Unusual Objects on the Surface of Mars” on their own. This book gave rise to a whole movement of independent researchers of Sidonia, who made a lot of discoveries over the subsequent years, including about two dozen “correct” objects, the relative positions of which are subject to curious mathematical patterns.

One of the most important roles at this stage was played by the work of the person who joined in 1985. Brand Carlotto, a highly qualified specialist at Analytical Sciences Corporation, professionally engaged in cleaning and restoring images from X-rays, remote sensing footage and satellite photographs. The methods of fractal image analysis developed by Carlotto, which have repeatedly proven their effectiveness in a variety of applications, convincingly confirmed the highest degree of anomalousness and “unnaturalness” of the Martian “face” and other objects of Cydonia.

The "Martian Sphinx" is by no means the center of the region called Cydonia ( Cydonia). It is located approximately 15 km. north of the mathematical center of Cydonia and inclined approximately 30 0 relative to the Martian meridian.

In those days, it was still very difficult for us to compete with America in the field of computer graphics, but the solution found by Samara scientist Vladimir TYURIN-AVINSKY was liked for its simplicity and clarity even overseas. Thanks to working with a plasticine copy of the sphinx, he achieved just such a form in which the effect of resemblance to a human face did not disappear in any lighting. Now it has become possible to estimate the approximate size of the giant. The length from the chin to the hair is 1.5 km, the width is 1.3 km, the height from the desert surface to the tip of the nose is 0.5 km!

As you understand, it is simply impossible to find anything like this on Earth. No,” the skeptics said again, “such a giant can only be built by a very powerful civilization, but it is not on Mars, and if it were, then why would it need a statue that can only be seen from Space? And the Sphinx again became a coincidence, only now not of light and shadow, but as a result of the weathering of rocks. With a certain degree of stretch, one could agree with such a statement if this were... an isolated case.

If the image of a woman’s face somehow immediately caught the eye, then attention was paid to the structures located 7 km from the sphinx a little later. Structures is an understatement; Tyurin-Avinsky counted as many as 11 pyramids (4 large, 7 small) in this place, an entire “city”! They don't look like the results of volcanic activity or anything else. If these are just volcanoes, then there is no visible crater, lava flows on the walls or around them, and these volcanoes have too regular a shape: three-, four-, pentagonal, sharp edges and a peak. About 10 years have passed since his research, computer technology During this time, it has gone far ahead, so what entire institutes once worked on has become possible for just one programmer. The specialist who had to be contacted with this request processed the image, and... now one of the most powerful computers to date shows a three-dimensional image of the Acidalia Planitia on Mars. Almost all the most daring forecasts were confirmed.

Moreover, instead of 11 pyramids and buildings, 19 appear on the diagram, “road” lines and a strange round platform appear. The “roads” are clearly not just laid out randomly, two of them approach the pyramids, and three immediately converge to the circle in the center of the “city”. The dimensions here are amazing: the largest central pyramid is almost ten times (!) larger than the famous Pyramid of Cheops in Egypt. If the pyramids are at least somehow close and understandable to us, then the purpose of the “circle” with a diameter of a kilometer can be debated ad infinitum: a cosmodrome, a training ground, an accelerator-type laboratory, a filled-in crater, the central square of the city?.. Judging by the abundance of suitable “roads”, the last option is the most preferable. Again, based on the fact that two “routes” stretch to the “pyramids,” we can say that they were not used (or were used not only) as religious buildings and tombs (the roads to the Egyptian tomb pyramids have long been overgrown).

This is how we imperceptibly began to use past tense verbs. Indeed, there is no doubt that the “city” was built a long time ago and is currently uninhabited. How is this known? Judge for yourself: large meteorites do not fall on the surface of the planet very often, but in the photographs of the “city” you can see at least two direct hits of such meteorites on the left large pyramid and at the crossroads of the “roads”. Neither one nor the other was restored, probably because there was no one to restore it!.....

Everyone was waiting for new photos. And so In 1997, the American Mars Global Surveyor station entered orbit around Mars.

In September, the camera shutters opened and the automation took its first test pictures...04/5/1998 at 12:39 - PST "Mars Orbital Camera" installed on the "Mars Global Surveyor" successfully photographed the Cydonia region, and received images of the "Martian face" high resolution. The image was transmitted to Earth on Sunday. It was processed by Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS) at 9:15 am and, along with the raw image, was transferred to the Laboratory Jet Propulsion(JPL) for online release. The image was taken during the spacecraft's 220th close approach to Mars. At that moment, the Face, located at approximately 40.8°N, 9.6°W, was 444 km away from the spacecraft. The "morning" Sun was 25° above the horizon. The image has a resolution of 4.3 meters per point, i.e. 10 times higher than that obtained from the Viking.

Yes... There were no new details of Martian architecture in the photo. Moreover, on the surface of Mars there was not even something that even skeptics believed in the existence. Of course, the most ardent critics did not admit the presence of real roads and pyramids in the sands there, but they also agreed that on Mars there is “something resembling a sphinx, roads and pyramids.” But the fact of the matter is that even this did not turn out to be on Mars. In place of the “city” photographed by the Vikings, there turned out to be ordinary rough terrain! Instead of a sphinx - a small hill!

Looking at this image, it is quite clear that typical news headlines on this topic looked something like this: “NASA wipes face off the surface of Mars.” The humor is that these words can be taken literally. The experts from the space agency seem to have gone a bit overboard in the hasty processing of the image, so that a hill more than 300 meters high (this is reliably known from measurements of the shadow in the Viking images) began to look like a cluster of hills.

When intentional distortion of a digital photograph through computer manipulation has been proven independent experts, the JPL space center was forced to officially admit this fact, as evidenced by the corresponding comment on JPL-NASA website. This confession states that the photo was put through low-pass and high-pass filters before being released to the public. As you know, a high-pass filter preserves the outline of the object and suppresses other details in the image.

To establish what this photograph might actually look like, three specialists professionally involved in computer graphics and image enhancement independently took up the matter: Boris Starosta, Mark Carlotto and Mark Kelly. The programs used for restoration do not adjust the image to the user’s tastes and assumptions, but “simply” calculate how the same image looks at different intensities and angles of illumination. Since all the specialists used different programs, the more convincing was the result they obtained, showing the clearly artificial origin of the “face of Mars” (on the left is a negative photo of JPL, where the details appear in more contrast; in the center is the result of the restoration of the Starosta; on the right is Carlotto’s result; Kelly’s result is presented computer animation on the website of astronomer Tom Van Flandern Metaresearch.com.

Due to the great excitement surrounding the “Face,” it was decided to re-photograph the Qidonia area. On April 8, 2001, the Mars Global Surveyor at 20:54 (UTC) flew so that it could capture the Face, located 165 km away and at a distance of 450 km. The resulting photo has a resolution of 2 meters per point. (If there were objects the size of a regular passenger jet on Mars, they would be visible at that scale.)
The new photograph "Faces" covers an area of ​​3.6 km. The sun illuminates it from the lower left.

You can judge for yourself whether there is something there or not. Moreover, now you can

"Odysseus" continued to study Cydonia. On April 12, 2002, new photographs were taken of this remarkable area. They are in good agreement with photographs of the same area taken by Viking (70A11+70A13) in 1976 ().

And I will end this page with a photograph of the “face on Mars” taken by Odysseus on 04/12/2002. But this is not the end of the story.

The “Martian Sphinx” is by no means the center of the region called Cydonia. It is located approximately 15 km. north of the mathematical center of Cydonia and inclined approximately 300 relative to the Martian meridian. (Photo 7)

Supporters of the existence of life on Mars were inspired by the Viking photograph - a “photo portrait” of a strange Martian formation, very reminiscent of a woman’s face.

In 1979, the disappointment and despondency inspired by the lifeless landscapes among the operators at the Mission Control Center was so great that they, with almost complete indifference, framed this image, number 35A72, received from the Viking. A huge female face looked at the operators from the surface of distant Mars. So what? I still remembered the example with “channels”, I had a vision of straight lines on the red planet, and now I saw a woman, apparently due to fatigue.

Very little time passed, the “optical illusion image” was bought by a certain West German programmer, who, without thinking twice, entered its parameters into the computer in order to bring the image closer, to look at it not from an orbital height of hundreds of kilometers, but from only one and a half kilometers. When the computer printed the result, he... was stunned - the optical illusion completely disappeared, a woman was really looking at him! For its unblinking gaze directed to the sky and its characteristic “ancient Egyptian hairstyle,” this statue received the nickname “Martian Sphinx.” The sensation simply could not help but hit the pages of the press, after which, as always, denials immediately appeared.

Photo 8. Viking photo of the Sidonia region. You can see the Face, the pyramids of the “city”, the sheer wall (cliff).

Photo 9. Location of the Sidonia region (40.8* N.L., 9.6* W.D.)

The head of the Viking program, K. Snyder, the same one who leaked the valuable photograph, did not hide his irritation, stated that “the discovered image is just rock formations that have taken on bizarre shapes as a result of the play of light and shadows.” Soviet academician Sagdeev warmly supported this idea, saying that there will be no new self-deception, such as happened with the channels. They did not refrain from studying photography at the Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry named after. Vernadsky. According to the candidate of geographical sciences R. Kuzmin, “it’s all about oblique lighting, the light of the low-lying Sun casts shadows from ordinary tubercles, and as for the nostrils and the necklace on the face, these are ordinary interference that arose during the transmission of the image to Earth!”

Indeed, according to the laws of probability theory, the insidious play of light and shadow can suddenly create any image, one on the entire planet, right down to the inscription “Hello, earthlings.” But if this is not a real image, then you just need to change the direction of the lighting and the whole effect will immediately disappear.

And NASA workers rummaged through thousands of photographs and found one more, previously rejected, photograph (70A13), taken on a different orbit and, therefore, at a different time. Although the Sphinx was barely visible, it nevertheless did not disappear! Having received two photographs in their hands, American specialists began computer construction of a stereo image. For some reason, the nostrils, necklace, and other points that were considered interference did not disappear in the new image, but the computer confidently drew the pupils of the eyes and even the teeth in the slightly open mouth!

In those days, it was still very difficult for us to compete with America in the field of computer graphics, but the solution found by Samara scientist Vladimir TYURIN-AVINSKY was liked for its simplicity and clarity even overseas. Thanks to working with a plasticine copy of the sphinx, he achieved just such a form in which the effect of resemblance to a human face did not disappear in any lighting. Now it has become possible to estimate the approximate size of the giant. The length from the chin to the hair is 1.5 km, the width is 1.3 km, the height from the desert surface to the tip of the nose is 0.5 km!

Photo 10. Another image of a structure that resembles a sculpture of a human face, only it was photographed in another area of ​​Mars - in Utopia.

As you understand, it is simply impossible to find anything like this on Earth. No,” the skeptics said again, “such a giant can only be built by a very powerful civilization, but it is not on Mars, and if it were, then why would it need a statue that can only be seen from Space? And the Sphinx again became a coincidence, only now not of light and shadow, but as a result of the weathering of rocks. With a certain degree of stretch, one could agree with such a statement if this were... an isolated case.

Photo 11. Computer reconstruction of the Sphinx and the “City”

If the image of a woman’s face somehow immediately caught the eye, then attention was paid to the structures located 7 km from the sphinx a little later. Structures is an understatement; Tyurin-Avinsky counted as many as 11 pyramids (4 large, 7 small) in this place, an entire “city”! They don't look like the results of volcanic activity or anything else. If these are just volcanoes, then there is no visible crater, lava flows on the walls or around them, and these volcanoes have too regular a shape: three-, four-, pentagonal, sharp edges and a peak. About 10 years have passed since his research; computer technology has come a long way during this time, so what entire institutes once worked on has become possible for just one programmer. The specialist who had to be contacted with this request processed the image, and... now one of the most powerful computers to date shows a three-dimensional image of the Asydalian Plain on Mars. Almost all the boldest forecasts were confirmed (Photo 11).

Moreover, instead of 11 pyramids and buildings, 19 appear on the diagram, “road” lines and a strange round platform appear. The “roads” are clearly not just laid out randomly, two of them approach the pyramids, and three immediately converge to the circle in the center of the “city”. The dimensions here are amazing: the largest central pyramid is almost ten times (!) larger than the famous Pyramid of Cheops in Egypt. If the pyramids are at least somehow close and understandable to us, then the purpose of the “circle” with a diameter of a kilometer can be debated endlessly: a cosmodrome, a training ground, an accelerator-type laboratory, a filled-in crater, the central square of the city?.. Judging by the abundance of suitable “roads”, the last option is the most preferable. Again, based on the fact that two “routes” stretch to the “pyramids”, we can say that they were not used (or were used not only) as religious buildings and tombs (the roads to the Egyptian tomb pyramids have long been overgrown).

This is how we imperceptibly began to use past tense verbs. Indeed, there is no doubt that the “city” was built a long time ago and is currently uninhabited. How is this known? Judge for yourself: large meteorites do not fall on the surface of the planet very often, but in the photographs of the “city” you can see at least two direct hits of such meteorites on the left large pyramid and at the crossroads of the “roads”. Neither one nor the other was restored, probably because there was no one to restore it!…..

Photo 12. Image of the Sphinx, Viking (left) and MOS (1997). The third photo is a negative.

In September, the camera shutters opened and the automation took its first test images...04/5/1998 at 12:39 pm - PST The Mars Orbital Camera installed on the Mars Global Surveyor successfully photographed the Cydonia region and received high-resolution images of the Martian face. The image was transmitted to Earth on Sunday. It was processed by Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS) at 9:15 a.m. and, along with the raw image, was transferred to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for release on the Internet. The image was taken during the spacecraft's 220th close approach to Mars. At that moment, the Face, located at approximately 40.8°N, 9.6°W, was 444 km away from the spacecraft. The “morning” Sun was 25° above the horizon. The image has a resolution of 4.3 meters per point, i.e. 10 times higher than that obtained from the Viking.

Photo 13. Positive and negative image of the “Martian Sphinx”. MGS April 1998

Yes... There were no new details of Martian architecture in the photo. Moreover, on the surface of Mars there was not even something that even skeptics believed in the existence. Of course, the most ardent critics did not admit the presence of real roads and pyramids in the sands there, but they also agreed that on Mars there is “something resembling a sphinx, roads and pyramids.” But the fact of the matter is that even this did not turn out to be on Mars. In place of the “city” photographed by the Vikings, there was ordinary rough terrain! Instead of a sphinx - a small hill! At first, Internet regulars accused NASA of misinformation, saying they were photographing the wrong areas. Then came conclusions and hypotheses of a different direction, it was assumed that:

a) The Sphinx never existed, its previous photographs were fakes... No, this is too rude, there were few falsifications in this story.
b) There were no falsifications, but only an unconscious craving for the mysterious; everyone “wanted” to see “something like that” on Mars. What about computers that don't care? And what you put into them, they will give out... Well, this is partly true. But take a closer look at the previous photographs of the Sphinx - did we all “seem to”? No, the resemblance to an artificial structure was clearly striking! I’m ready to agree that all this is a random game of nature, but in the new photographs this game is not even there. Where did she go?..
c) Perhaps the real sphinx and the “roads” have simply been covered with dust in the two decades since the previous photograph was taken? We know little about the frequency and intensity of dust storms on other planets... But in 20 years, collapse huge kilometer-long structures!? Although if you look at big pictures NASA looks like there's something there, but it's pretty covered up.
d) If the sprouts of a new civilization survived to this day (for example, in the darkness of dungeons), then they could well not only build pyramids, but also destroy them. For thousands of years they stored and preserved their buildings, and all this in order to destroy everything in a decade, or even faster. It would be logical to assume that the main reason was the “invasion” of research vehicles from Earth. A secret must remain a secret, no matter who keeps it...

Due to the great excitement surrounding the "Face", it was decided to re-photograph the Sidonia area. On April 8, 2001, the Mars Global Surveyor at 20:54 (UTC) flew so that it could capture the Face, located 165 km away and at a distance of 450 km. The resulting photo has a resolution of 2 meters per point. (If there were objects the size of a regular passenger jet on Mars, they would be visible at that scale.)
The new photograph "Faces" covers an area of ​​3.6 km. The sun illuminates it from the lower left.

In November 1994, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the main US space agency, officially declared: “The Sphinx and pyramids exist on Mars.” All these years, secret work was going on in the bowels of NASA; the Viking's images were analyzed by the best computers. And only after a hundred cosmologists said a resounding “yes” did a sensational press conference take place. The age of the Martian pyramids was determined from nine thousand to 500 million years.

Back in 1961, 15 years before the flight of Viking 1, Richard Hoagland from the Brockevens Institute (USA), commissioned by NASA, made a report on the traces of an ancient civilization on Mars. This 178-page report, “The Estimated Consequences of Human Space Exploration,” stated that in the area of ​​the Cydonia Plain on Mars, traces of objects of clearly artificial origin are visible - the Sphinx and the pyramids around it.
In the area of ​​the Elysium plateau, Mariner 9 discovered a field of quadrangular pyramids. In the southern polar region of Mars, geometrically regular structures called the “Inca City” have been discovered. In the northern hemisphere of Mars, in the region of Cydonia, a “city of pyramids” was photographed and ten kilometers from it the Sphinx depicting a woman’s face with a tear on her cheek. This face has an ancient Egyptian hairstyle!

The location of the Martian complex is, in principle, comparable to the layout of the Mexican pyramids in Teotihuacan, Uxmal, and Palenque.

It is clear that the age of the Martian city is ancient. Large meteorites still very rarely visit planets. And here there are two direct hits on the left large pyramid and the crossroads. But some roads are built to bypass meteorite craters. So, people built this city in spacesuits?
The Viking images revealed another Martian Sphinx in the Utopia region, surprisingly similar to the first. And new pyramids were discovered in the Deuteronilus area.

More about pyramids on Mars

So, we have finally found another pyramid, albeit a tiny one, outside of Egypt and Mesoamerica. Are there others? It should be taken into account that sometimes the concept of “somewhere else” can be interpreted very broadly - for example, “beyond our world” or “somewhere else in the Solar System”. Here we have to remember the already mentioned Maurice Chatelain, one of the few who are convinced that the pyramids are of extraterrestrial origin. Since the late 1970s, the camp of supporters of this theory has been focused on searching for an answer to the following question: if representatives of extraterrestrial civilizations did visit Earth, is there indisputable evidence of the existence of artificial structures on other planets of the solar system? It is clear that a positive answer would seriously strengthen their argumentation system.

The best candidate to be the “cradle of ancient civilization” is Mars. It is not surprising that the first artificial objects that were discovered there (as some believe) are... pyramids! In general, humanity, especially science fiction fans, have been interested in both Mars and the pyramids for a very long time. One of the films of the British science fiction series Doctor Who, shown in 1975, was devoted to this topic. The plot mentions Ancient Egypt, as well as the last pharaoh Sutekh the Destroyer, imprisoned in one of the pyramids and now awaiting release to bring death to all living things . Thus, the main storyline of the work is based on the theory set out in the documentary novel by Zachary Sitchin “Wars of Gods and Men”. In 1990, the American science fiction film “Total Recall” starring Arnold Schwarzenegger was released, which also mentions the forgotten pyramid complex. The basis for this action film was Philip K. Dick's story “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale,” first published in 1966. And the list goes on for a very long time.

Pyramids on Mars (on the left side of the photo)

The first “real” pyramid on Mars was discovered in the Fields of the Blessed on the Red Planet. In 1974, a short article by Mac Gipson Jr. and Victor C. Eblordeppi appeared in the journal Icarus, reporting that “a triangular pyramid-like structure had been discovered on the Martian surface.” The authors noted that this elevation casts cone-shaped polygonal shadows. True, the authors themselves seemed to prefer to see a natural hill in this image, describing it as “a pointed volcanic cone with a crater.” Four such pyramids have been noted on the plain. Subsequently, one of the leading American astronomers, Carl Sagan, somewhat recklessly commented on these images, unwittingly offering a somewhat ambiguous interpretation of the discovery. His article stated: "The largest of these elevations is 3 km in diameter at the base and approximately one kilometer in height." And his next remark already allowed those wishing to draw a conclusion about the artificial origin of the strange hills, since he made the following comparison: “...They are much larger than the Sumerian, Egyptian and Mexican pyramids on Earth. They appear to be very ancient and have suffered significant erosion and sandstorms over the course of their existence. It’s possible that these are just small mountains, but in my opinion they require careful study.” This was enough for various disputes to immediately begin and all sorts of speculations to be put forward. In 1996, Robert Bauval and Graham Hancock, forgetting for a while the Egyptian and Mexican pyramids, devoted an entire book to Martian anomalies. Its meaning boils down to a rhetorical question: “Could these structures, as many independent researchers believe, be the first evidence that we have encountered the “fingerprints” of an ancient extraterrestrial civilization on Mars?” (16).

With the same speed with which the “Martian face” became popular, with the same speed it disappeared from the field of view of participants in the discussion about its origin. The fact is that the interplanetary probes “Mars Global Surveyor” in 1998 and 2001, as well as “Odyssey” in 2002, took pictures of the same area, but under different lighting and with much better resolution than the “Viking” for a quarter of a century back. In new photographs, the same object no longer resembles a human face very much. However, for some observers, such images became "clear evidence" that the new image was faked, or that the governments of earthly powers (apparently the United States?) somewhere between 1976-1998. bombed the object with missiles in order to destroy evidence of the existence of an extraterrestrial civilization.

The disappearance of the “Martian face” from newspaper pages almost completely killed the interest of earthlings in the pyramids on the Red Planet. So, what do we know about the Martian pyramids? For obvious reasons, we only have (if any) photographs of these objects. These are the same photographs that convinced many of the existence of the “Martian face.” In the end, even skeptical researchers saw it, although they argued that it was a natural anomaly, or a bizarre trick of light, or an optical illusion, or a combination of all three reasons. When it comes to the “seen” pyramids, even a fleeting glance at them is enough to say that, unlike the “Martian face,” all of them have not stood the test of time. In other words, everyone who claimed that they had clear evidence of the existence of pyramids on the Martian surface noted that these “pyramids” were badly destroyed. In my opinion, this greatly reduces the value of such “hard evidence”, since it is very difficult to distinguish a natural hill from a pile of ancient ruins, even when you are standing next to it - let alone an image taken with a video camera from a height of several kilometers!

In addition to Hoagland, the Russian author Vladimir Avinsky also wrote about pyramidal hills on Mars, but what one calls a “real pyramid”, another does not consider a pyramid at all. In a word, there is no clarity here either. Of all the contenders for this high title, the most famous is the so-called “Pyramid of Di Pietro - Molenaar”, or briefly “Pyramid of D and M”. It is completely unlike a pyramid in our understanding, unless the “creators” of this structure intended to make its base look like a pentagram. True, no pyramids with such a base have been found on Earth. This object was named after the names of its discoverers - Vincent Di Pietro and Gregory Molenaar, scientists from the Goddard Space Flight Center. This “pyramid” gained fame due to its proximity to the “Martian face”, as well as the fact that it is oriented almost exactly along the north-south line, “just like the Great Pyramid in Egypt.” Of course, readers of the original documents may not entirely approve of the fact that this “pyramid” is extremely huge: the shortest side is 1.5 km long, the pyramid stretches 3 km along the axis, and is almost 800 m high - about four times the size of the pyramid Cheops! It is quite obvious that if this structure is of an artificial nature, then it was built not with “bare hands”, but with the help of the most advanced mechanisms, which, apparently, alien visitors to the Red Planet must have had. However, if all these Martian pyramids were built by the same beings who built them on Earth, as Hoagland, Percy, and many other authors claim, why, one wonders, do we not see similar gigantic structures here with us? Whatever you want, I find this extremely offensive - aliens built giant pyramids on Mars, but on Earth they are just huge ones...

In any case, when talking about the fact that “there is something there”, no one answers the questions: a) why does the above-mentioned pyramid have five sides? b) is this a pyramid? and c) is it an artificial structure? While Hoagland and Co. refuse to answer these questions, they think their position will be strengthened by noting other possible anomalies in photographs of the Martian surface and correct forms. They draw connecting lines between various objects and claim to have found “evidence” of the existence of a real city on Mars. Hoagland even “discovered” a “town square” in this complex!

Concluding our analysis, it should be noted that it is impossible to say that there are pyramids on Mars, just as it is impossible to say the opposite. It is quite obvious that any analyzes made on the basis of aerial photography data will be extremely approximate and inaccurate, as shown by examples from earthly reality and the case of the “face on Mars”. As for the pyramid D and M, it is most likely just a natural hill or mountain, since if you look at it without the pentagram painted by Hoagland on its top, you will not see anything like it. Ultimately, the debate about the Martian pyramids can be resolved only after an expedition of earthlings lands on the surface of the Red Planet and conducts archaeological research there.

Before returning to old Earth, let’s quickly note that the Moon also received its share of “pyramid fever.” Soviet space engineer Alexander Abramov stated that in the Sea of ​​Tranquility he observed a pyramid-shaped object, positioned in the same way as the pyramids in Giza. It was in this area that the Apollo 11 astronauts landed on the moon in July 1969 during their first expedition to our closest cosmic neighbor. This statement, in my opinion, was ordinary Soviet propaganda, and the article by a Soviet scientist was intended to raise doubts: whether the Americans had hidden a discovery of extreme importance from humanity. However, some Americans, for their part, added fuel to the fire. Among them, it is worth mentioning Fred Steckling, who argued that in some photographs in various craters objects are clearly visible that may well be pyramids. One of these photographs was taken by astronauts from Apollo 8, the other during the Apollo 16 expedition. You can’t argue with this: in both images, some anomalies on the surface are indeed noticeable, but that’s all. Whether there is something more behind this can be judged, again, only after we return to the Moon and conduct thorough research on the ground there.

The object, similar to a stone sculpture of a human face, was first photographed in 1976 in the northern hemisphere of Mars by the Viking-1 interplanetary station. The image was taken in a region of Mars called Kydonia, and the “face” is located 15 km from its center. This is an area between the northern plains and southern mountains with many different types of hills. The publication of the photographs sparked fierce controversy surrounding the origin of this formation. Numerous TV shows have been filmed documentaries, "face" has been mentioned in many science fiction works. Some researchers argued that this is nothing more than a play of light and shadow on an ordinary hill and the quality of the image is very low in order to draw any conclusions about the formation of the object. Others saw in the Martian “face” a similarity with the face of the Sphinx in Egypt, and in addition, they saw Martian pyramids and a whole city nearby.

In 1998 and 2001, another American spacecraft, Mars Global Surveyor, took new photographs of this area. Both images were of higher quality than the Viking photos. They showed that the “face” turned out to be a mountain destroyed by the Martian atmosphere, which has little resemblance to the outlines of any face. However, discussions about this object and the area as a whole continued.

In 2006, the Mars Express, owned by the European Space Agency, set off for new photographs of Mars. He took a series of photographs of Cydonia with the latest camera, which later made it possible to recreate three-dimensional images of the surface. Some of the new photographs clearly show the same “face”. Enthusiasts received confirmation of its existence and again pointed to the correct edges of the “pyramids” and the outlines of the roads. In addition, new photos raised new questions: the outlines of a skull are clearly visible in the photographs. Due to the poor quality of early photographs of Cydonia, the skull was simply not visible. Meanwhile, skeptics continue to doubt the man-made origin of all these objects and point to their natural formation. The argument is the fact that air masses move intensively on the surface of Mars, forming various kinds of storms and vortices. Such exposure can transform the breed into the most bizarre shape.

It remains to be noted that the debate between ufologists and skeptics will continue until a clear answer is received to the question of the origin of these formations. And this, apparently, will not happen soon. All presented photographs can be downloaded from high quality from the official website .

The story began on July 25, 1976, when NASA operators received images transmitted to Earth by the Viking 1 apparatus. In the photograph numbered 35A72, taken during a flight over the Martian region of Cydonia, something resembling a female face was discovered. Such a huge sphinx, facing the sky. NASA made a mistake by publishing the photo and claiming a bizarre play of light and shadow. Like, in other photographs taken a few hours later, there was nothing like that...

However, after a few hours, night fell over Sidonia, and it was no longer possible to photograph anything. In addition, there were no other photographs from Viking-1 in the archives. Under pressure from such arguments, NASA admitted that it really wasn’t, they had lied. True, such recognition was made only 17 years later, in 1993.

Ufologists, naturally, rejoiced: aha, that means there was an ancient civilization on Mars after all! The situation began to get out of the control of those in power. It was urgent to give a clear refutation. After all, aliens cannot exist, because, as they say, there can never be.

Measures also had to be taken because in 1989, photograph number 70A13 was discovered, taken by Viking 35 days later from a different angle. The woman’s face had not gone away, still looking into space. It became clear that there could be no talk of any random play of chiaroscuro.

Then NASA, on orders, produced a fake. In 1997, the Mars Global Surveyor apparatus entered Martian orbit. It was he who allegedly transmitted clearer images of the Cydonia region to Earth. On them the face turned into an ordinary hill.

However, NASA computer scientists went overboard with the fake. The height of the Martian sphinx, which previously was, judging by the shadows, 300 meters, has shrunk greatly. How could this happen? No way. So it's fake.

Yes, it’s fake, the NASA computer scientists threw up their hands. We were told to do it and we did it. We ran the photo through graphic filters.

Yeah, the ufologists said, if it comes to falsification, it means something is fishy here. The excitement flared up with renewed vigor.

Then NASA made another attempt, this time more professional. And so on April 8, 2001, the Mars Global Surveyor flies over the sphinx itself to capture as much detail as possible. And supposedly it’s captivating.

In the latest photo, it seems that the face is truly a random natural formation. The eye sockets, mouth and nose are somehow too indistinct. But there’s just one problem: the photo strongly resembles the result of 3D graphics programs. The image seems “plastic”, unnatural.

Moreover, the pyramids, clearly visible to the left of the Sphinx, change their outlines. The edges, which were smooth, became mutilated and crooked.

Now new images have gone viral on the Internet. Anti-ufologists rejoiced: there was no civilization on Mars! There really can never be aliens! Anyway, no one will check whether the device really transmitted these pictures. Anyone interested in trying to gain access to the NASA archive? Even if they let you in there, they still won’t show you what’s hidden.

Or perhaps you have your own rocket and robotic probe capable of reaching Mars and transmitting images? No? There is no way to check information that comes from only one source - from NASA.

And this time the photographs were professionally doctored. Yet computer graphics no longer the same as before. You can draw anything.

Ufologists still not convinced? Then, on April 12, 2002 (just in time for Cosmonautics Day), Odyssey also took a photo of the Sidonia region. The results are approximately the same as those from the Mars Global Surveyor. Apparently, the same workers produced the images using the same computer program.

Why can we claim falsification? Everything is very simple: on the fake, unlike the 1976 photograph, there are no traces of meteorite falls!

That's it, finita la comedy. Gotcha, handsome guys. They forgot to make small craters.

And all efforts are only to convince the population of planet Earth that the photo of 1976 is nothing more than an accident, a mistake, an illusion, a play of light and shadow, etc. The question is, if someone, even after so many years, is very eager to prove that there was no life on Mars, then, apparently, he really needs it.

Meanwhile, another face has been discovered - a giant relief carved into the rocky Martian plateau. There is certainly no doubt about it - the real face of a girl of the European race.

A bronze or copper statue depicting a seated man stretching out his hand was also found.

The facts literally scream truth. But, the truth is, it is unprofitable. That's why it remains somewhere out there - on another planet.