Re: Face crap

Hal Finney (hal@rain.org)
Thu, 23 Apr 1998 10:37:52 -0700


> the pyramid image is everywhere, heres a site:
> www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/4698/
> it looks a lot like a pyramid, and even if its not a pyramid it definately
> looks like just one rock, or mountain. That image looks like it might be
> modified, but there are links to the original photo, from that site.
>
> danny

The northern part of that pyramid was imaged in the very first Cydonia
strip, at the very bottom, below the "face". It looks like the edge of
a hill, a completely natural object. I like to use the mirror site at
http://www.mars.sgi.com/mgs for the latest images.

I share the sense of surprise and disappointment that the Face fans
are continuing to maintain that the new pictures show evidence of
artificiality. I thought people would have more integrity than that.
No doubt it is difficult to abandon the idea after investing so many
years in it.

Richard Hoagland's web site at http://www.enterprisemission.com has new
blowups of the Mars Global Surveyor images which claim to show structures.
But surprise, they are once again at the very limits of detail in the
new pictures, even though these have many times the resolution of the
old ones. No matter how close you get and how well you see, there is
always going to be a limit beyond which things get fuzzy. It is in that
realm, where the imagination can roam, that Hoagland lives these days.

As an amusing aside, there was a minor controversy over the weekend
when a caller to the Art Bell radio program claimed to be a former JPL
employee who was fired when he accidentally caught sight of pictures which
proved that JPL was covering up the reality of a Martian civilization.
However, the caller, "Kent", was tripped up by Hoagland, who had his
phone call analyzed by David Oates, a so-called "reverse speech expert"
(http://www.reversespeech.com). Oates plays the audio backwards
and attempts to pick out English words in the eerie-sounding noises.
He claims that you can find out what people are really thinking as they
subconsciously tell the truth in their reversals. Using this technique
Oates and Hoagland decided that Kent was lying, and when he was confronted
he admitted the fraud.

Talk about the blind leading the blind.

The third and last Cydonia image will be taken today and released
on Friday. No matter what it shows, Hoagland and company will no doubt
find more to feed their fantasies.

Hal