From: Misty <nicola@ak.planet.gen.nz>
Subject: IUFO: Alien Artifacts on Mars: Richard Hoagland's Claims Analyzed
Date: 10 Apr 2001 07:47:06 -0400
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Mars: The Cydonian Imperative
Continued
http://www.geocities.com/macbot/imperative5.html
Previous page...

5-15-00

 Science Fiction and Possible Alien Artifacts on Mars: Richard Hoagland's
Claims Analyzed

The latest "conspiracy" to hit the Net concerning possible suppression of
space-science knowledge is author Richard Hoagland's recent "revelation"
that a set of View-Master reels depicts a leaked agenda of Mars "secrets."
Such a claim deserves to be looked at; given NASA's incomprehensible
reticence to "come clean" with their agenda re. the Mars Global Surveyor's
mission objectives, it's not completely unreasonable to look for possible
"leaks." Given the Kafkaesque circumstances, it's only natural to turn to
sources other than NASA for confirmation of our suspicions.

However, Hoagland has looked in the wrong place. The reels he cites as
evidence of a secret Cydonian indoctrination program are segments from a
serialized science fiction adventure series from 1955--decades before the
Viking mission discovered evidence for the anomalies under investigation. So
it would appear Hoagland's claim is decidedly "fringe" from the start; it's
predicated on the assumption that NASA (or some other space agency) has not
only been aware of the Cydonian enigma for much longer than history would
allow, but is confident enough in its estimation of the mystery to begin a
pop-cultural indoctrination, plugging specific ideas at the science
fiction-reading demographic of 1955 in hopes of steering our psychosocial
acceptance of artificial structures on Mars (and elsewhere).

Hoagland's reasoning is exquisitely absurd. In the View-Master slides he
enthusiastically referred to at his recent fund-raiser, a team of plastic
astronauts voyages to the Moon and discovers a pyramidal artifact containing
a scale model of the planet Mars. Hoagland maintains that this is beyond
coincidence, and that the symbolic references to Mars and pyramids
(specifically tetrahedrons, which many argue are inferred by mathematical
alignments at Cydonia) prove a hidden, behind-the-scenes knowledge of the
features at Cydonia, as well as a roughly triangular crater on the Moon
documented by Hoagland several years ago during his investigation of alleged
"crystalline ruins" visited by the Apollo astronauts.

Alien artifacts on the Moon and Mars are nothing new in science fiction. It
comes as no surprise to me that there once existed a series centered around
the discovery of "Mars-like" artifacts on the Moon. Arthur C. Clarke's
famous short story "The Sentinel" describes a very similar situation,
complete with pyramidal overtones. It should be noted that Hoagland, in his
increasingly desperate quest for evidence, completely overlooks "The
Sentinel"--and the movie based upon it, "2001: A Space Odyssey."



Scene from space-adventure serial cited as proof of secret Cydonia knowledge
by Richard Hoagland.

One wonders right away why Hoagland would devote any time at all to an
obscure View-Master drama when "2001," with its lavish detail and
illustrious cinematic history, is so near at hand. I suspect ignoring "The
Sentinel" as "evidence" for Hoagland's pet theories is because citing a
well-known movie would immediately make him look foolish. (After all,
science fiction is generally based on science fact--even if loosely--rather
than the other way around.) But the View-Master reels are just obscure
enough that Hoagland can feel relatively comfortable "discovering" them, and
in so doing creating the albeit tenuous illusion that he's "onto something."

A close look at the purported "symbolic parallels" between the View-Master
reels and the real mystery at Cydonia, however, makes it quite clear that
Hoagland is onto nothing at all. The science fiction genre is littered with
references to pyramids on other planets, a theme that achieves a certain
romantic aura since we tend to think of the Pyramids of Egypt when we hear
the word "ruin." Pyramids are the archetypal "ruin," and as such lend
themselves nicely to stories of extraterrestrial discovery.

I personally own a copy of an obscure, long out-of-print paperback
called--get this--"Puzzle of the Space Pyramids." Its cover features an
astronaut wandering the sands of Mars with enormous pyramids looming in the
background--a "parallel" that outdoes any of the alleged symbolism in
Hoagland's Martian odyssey. I have little doubt that, if faced with "Puzzle
of the Space Pyramids" and some ancient View-Master reels about finding
artifacts on the Moon, Hoagland would have sprung for the former to back up
his fragile, nonsensical claims.

("Puzzle of the Space Pyramids" isn't the only story I can think of that
features pyramids on Mars. Another well-known story is Stanley Weinbaum's "A
Martian Odyssey." And as long as we're being paranoid, why not include Ray
Bradbury's "The Martian Chronicles" as part of the conspiracy? After all,
Bradbury's Martians built sprawling, glass cities suspiciously similar to
the "highly geometric glass ruins" hyped to the point of inanity on
Hoagland's "Enterprise Mission" website. But why stop there? Let's add
"Total Recall," which featured an alien pyramid on Mars, any number of "Star
Trek" episodes, all the Tatoine sequences from "Star Wars" that look vaguely
Martian... Hoagland has created a "conspiracy" that knows no bounds, and
threatens to constitute the whole of Space Age pop-culture if taken to its
logical extreme.)

Michael Bara, writing on his Lunar Anomalies site, depicts Hoagland's
delivery of the "View-Master Chronicles" as a mesmerizing and awe-inspiring
event never to be forgotten, and goes on to challenge the skeptics to
"explain this one!"

Not to pat myself on the back too hard, but I think I just have.



----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----

5-15-00-5-18-00

 Mars Attacks!

Today on "UFO UpDates" Hoagland advocate Mike Bara responded to the above
piece with the following. I find Bara's reasoning utterly lacking. While he
bashes me again and again like I'm some moron incapable of "getting the pict
ure," he refuses to speculate on how, exactly, NASA was aware of Cydonia in
1955--and already hard at work disseminating the information.

For Bara's argument to have any value--even as an exercise in
speculation--one would expect him to propose just how, exactly, a covert
space program (capable of traveling to Mars) could have existed in the early
1950s. Such a program would have involved a great many scientists and
engineers, required launch facilities and factories, etc. In other words, it
shouldn't be especially difficult to start researching this explosive
"discovery" using quite ordinary means. Bara ignores this, preferring to
dwell on the "symbolic parallels," which (as I pointed out in the essay
above) completely fall apart when put into their Space Age context.

Hoagland and Bara's claims require that we interpret "Tom Corbett: Space
Cadet" as disguised science fact. This notion is ludicrous without at least
some confirming evidence of the conspiracy eluded to. Not surpisingly, there
is no evidence (except for some half-baked musings on the Brookings Report,
which didn't even exist in 1955 and some factoids about Project Paperclip,
Nazis, and the never-ending "Masonic connection.")

Several years ago I spoke with Allen Steele, author of the Cydonian science
fiction thriller "Labyrinth of Night." When I asked him about his personal
opinion of the Face, he conveyed extreme skepticism. He had used the premise
of an extinct civilization on Mars as a springboard for his novel. No
conspiracy. No "indoctrination program."

Granted, his novel was written when pictures of the Face and other oddities
were widely available, but the same techniques have been used by science
fiction writers for as long as science fiction has existed. I can think of a
large number of SF novels involving pyramids, Mars, giant rock-hewn faces
and extinct civilizations that have at least the number of "symbolic
parallels" as the View-Master slides under discussion. This whole
"controversy" is so completely idiotic that it's getting vaguely distressing
to see it batted around the Internet. But if Hoagland's past "discoveries"
are any indication, the View-Master drama will run out of steam in a couple
months and will be conveniently forgotten. (Anyone remember Hoagland's
observation of crystal cities on the Moon? Or the buried cities on
Callisto?)

Maybe--and this is a big "maybe"--if the View-Master reels had references to
a degraded human "face" on the Martian surface, accompanied by some
landforms that resemble what we now know is there (such as analogs of the
Cliff, Tholus, and D&M Pyramid), I'd approach Bara's claim with a bit more
timidity. But there are no giant faces or crumbling pyramids, only some
scattered ruins no more impressive as evidence than those explored by Edgar
Rice Burroughs' heroes. (But wait! Maybe Burroughs was in on it, too!)

In short, the parallels "proving" an Earth-Mars "connection" are
conveniently "symbolic." For example (and to Hoagland's considerable
credit), the fictional astronauts discover a small lion-like carving on Mars
(where they able to walk without breathing apparatus). Perhaps
subconsciously realizing how profoundly lame his supposed "parallels" are,
Hoagland wastes no time equating the lion sculpture with the Cydonia Face,
relying on his theory that the right half of the Cydonia Face is feline.

(I find it supremely ironic that Hoagland, the foremost advocate of the
"Malin is Withholding Evidence" school, can claim that the Face has yet to
be imaged with necessary clarity and at the same time claim detailed
knowledge of the Face's right half, which has never been properly
photographed. Hoagland is not content with one controversy; he somehow feels
the need to embellish his own already-controversial claims with
make-believe, an act that never fails to trivialize his own cause.)

While I'm tempted to claim that the "burden of proof" remains with Richard
Hoagland and Mike Bara and let the issue drop, I'm willing to give Bara a
free reign and include his retort for the sake of fairness. I really hope
this is the last I have to post on the topic of Martian View-Master reels. I
expected an angry reply or two, but I simply don't have the time or energy
to endlessly debate this subject with someone whose mind is obviously made
up about the matter. If it turns out I'm wrong I suppose I'll have to deal
with it.

In the meantime, let me go on record with my opinion of Bara and Hoagland's
latest conspiracy: I think it's nonsense--exactly the kind of derailed
blithering that allows people like Mike Malin to dismiss scientific study of
Cydonia by endlessly referring to its popularity within the "lunatic
fringe." The "Cydonian" themes encompassed by "Tom Corbett: Space Cadet" are
interesting to me as a student of the science fiction genre. They're also
all-but-inevitable. But you decide. (Bara's comments are in red.)


***
In the years I have worked with Richard Hoagland, I have come across many
harsh critiques of his work. Uniformly, I have found them to be baseless and
ignorant. I addressed this issue in an article on my web site called "Where
is the informed criticism of Richard Hoagland?"
(http://www.lunaranomalies.com/whereis.htm). Over the years, I have
developed a fairly thick skin for this nonsense. Despite the fact that
Hoagland once admonished me for "suffering fools poorly" I have learned,
especially since the "Robert AM Stephens" idiocy, to let most of this go
without comment. That said, occasionally I get something across my desk that
is so insipid, so utterly fallacious and so arrogant that I cannot help but
respond. A case in point is the recent "critique" by someone named Mac
Tonnies to your mailing list regarding the recent "Tom Corbett" View Master
reels presented by Richard Hoagland in Phoenix.

In the interest of fairness, I thought I would offer my response to this
particularly inane "analysis."

Tonnies starts out this way:

However, Hoagland has looked in the wrong place. The reels he cites as
evidence of a secret Cydonian indoctrination program are segments from a
serialized science fiction adventure series from 1955--decades before the
Viking mission discovered evidence for the anomalies under investigation. So
it would appear Hoagland's claim is decidedly 'fringe' from the start; it's
predicated on the assumption that NASA (or some other space agency) has not
only been aware of the Cydonian enigma for much longer than history would
allow, but is confident enough in its estimation of the mystery to begin a
pop-cultural indoctrination, plugging specific ideas at the science
fiction-reading demographic of 1955 in hopes of steering our psychosocial
acceptance of artificial structures on Mars (and elsewhere).

This is of course, exactly what we have been saying for some time, so it is
difficult to ascertain just what he perceives the problem to be here. In the
"Table of Coincidence"
(http://www.enterprisemission.com/table_of_coincidence.htm) for instance, we
cite a case of these recurring ritual alignments around the imaging of
Cydonia on 35A72. The implication from this is obvious: That NASA already
knew there was something "down there" at Cydonia before they took the
picture. As to the notion of "pop-cultural indoctrination," this is exactly
what the "Brooking's Report"
(http://www.enterprisemission.com/brooking.html) calls for. We are merely
implying that this policy was already in place four years before it's
inclusion in the official Brooking's document. He goes on:

Hoagland's reasoning is exquisitely absurd. In the View-Master slides he
enthusiastically referred to at his recent fund-raiser, a team of plastic
astronauts voyages to the Moon and discovers a pyramidal artifact containing
a scale model of the planet Mars. Hoagland maintains that this is beyond
coincidence, and that the symbolic references to Mars and pyramids
(specifically tetrahedrons, which many argue are inferred by mathematical
alignments at Cydonia) prove a hidden, behind-the-scenes knowledge of the
features at Cydonia, as well as a roughly triangular crater on the Moon
documented by Hoagland several years ago during his investigation of alleged
"crystalline ruins" visited by the Apollo astronauts.

Alien artifacts on the Moon and Mars are nothing new in science fiction. It
comes as no surprise to me that there once existed a series centered around
the discovery of "Mars-like" artifacts on the Moon. Arthur C. Clarke's
famous short story "The Sentinel" describes a very similar situation,
complete with pyramidal overtones. It should be noted that Hoagland, in his
increasingly desperate quest for evidence, completely overlooks 'The
Sentinel'--and the movie based upon it, "2001: A Space Odyssey."

One wonders right away why Hoagland would devote any time at all to an
obscure View-Master drama when "2001", with its lavish detail and
illustrious cinematic history, is so near at hand. I suspect ignoring "The
Sentinel" as 'evidence' for Hoagland's pet theories is because citing a
well-known movie would immediately make him look foolish. (After all,
science fiction is generally based on science fact--even if loosely--rather
than the other way around.) But the View-Master reels are just obscure
enough that Hoagland can feel relatively comfortable "discovering" them, and
in so doing creating the albeit tenuous illusion that he's 'onto something'.

These next paragraphs are laughable. It is obvious that he has never read
"Monuments" or been to the Enterprise web site, or if he has, he
conveniently has forgotten the relevant passages. Hoagland extensively
discussed "The Sentinel" in Monuments, as well as other stories from
Heinlein and others and has commented many times on the relevance of "2001"
in his many appearances on the Art Bell program. In addition, on the
occasion of the 30th anniversary of 2001, he posted on his web site a page
reinforcing the connections between Cydonia and "2001," including the
statement from Clarke that the Monolith was originally going to be a black
tetrahedron. (http://www.enterprisemission.com/arthur30.html) It is obvious
that this guy has not done even the most rudimentary amount of homework on
this subject.

A close look at the purported 'symbolic parallels' between the View-Master
reels and the real mystery at Cydonia, however, makes it quite clear that
Hoagland is onto nothing at all. The science fiction genre is littered with
references to pyramids on other planets, a theme that achieves a certain
romantic aura since we tend to think of the Pyramids of Egypt when we hear
the word "ruin". Pyramids are the archetypal "ruin", and as such lend
themselves nicely to stories of extraterrestrial discovery.

Except that when people think of pyramids, they invariably think of the Giza
type, like we see at Cydonia on the base of the Western Pyramid
(http://www.enterprisemission.com/images/mars/cas-comp.jpg). The Pyramids
depicted in the View Master reels are specifically tetrahedral, linking them
with Hoagland's model of Cydonia. If these pyramids in the story were not
tetrahedral, a type rarely seen, then it would not be quite such a big deal.
Given the influence of the science advisors involved with making of these
reels, which we will reveal in a new article to be posted tonight or
tomorrow, it becomes obvious that this was no mistake or coincidence. The
makers of these reels had a tetrahedral message to send, whether Mr. Tonnies
likes it or not.

I personally own a copy of an obscure, long out-of-print paperback
called--get this--"Puzzle of the Space Pyramids." Its cover features an
astronaut wandering the sands of Mars with enormous pyramids looming in the
background--a 'parallel' that outdoes any of the alleged symbolism in
Hoagland's Martian odyssey. I have little doubt that, if faced with "Puzzle
of the Space Pyramids" and some ancient View-Master reels about finding
artifacts on the Moon, Hoagland would have sprung for the former to back up
his fragile, nonsensical claims.

("Puzzle of the Space Pyramids" isn't the only story I can think of that
features pyramids on Mars. Another well-known story is Stanley Weinbaum's "A
Martian Odyssey." And as long as we're being paranoid, why not include Ray
Bradbury's "The Martian Chronicles" as part of the conspiracy? After all,
Bradbury's Martians built sprawling, glass cities suspiciously similar to
the "highly geometric glass ruins" hyped to the point of inanity on
Hoagland's "Enterprise Mission" website. But why stop there? Let's add
"Total Recall," which featured an alien pyramid on Mars, any number of "Star
Trek" episodes, all the Tatoine sequences from "Star Wars" that look vaguely
Martian... Hoagland has created a "conspiracy" that knows no bounds, and
threatens to constitute the whole of Space Age pop-culture if taken to its
logical extreme.)

Michael Bara, writing on his Lunar Anomalies site, depicts Hoagland's
delivery of the "View-Master Chronicles" as a mesmerizing and awe-inspiring
event never to be forgotten, and goes on to challenge the skeptics to
"explain this one!"

Not to pat myself on the back too hard, but I think I just have.

Again, it is hard to understand what he bases this nasty little tirade on.
We have kept our citations to these View Master reels and 2001, for the most
part. These are not general citations of "Pyramids," but only references to
specifically "tetrahedral" examples. Every "fact" upon which he bases his
"analysis" of our presentation is based is demonstrably wrong.

In examining his web site, it is clear that Mr. Tonnies fancies himself as
some sort of "Cydonia wannabe." He seems to lean toward the wimpish SPSR
line of reasoning, so it is not hard to imagine why he has lashed out like
this. We scared him. He, like so many others, seems to want to be "in" on
something big without taking the responsibility inherent in that quest. If
you want to play in the big leagues, you have to be prepared to go where the
data takes you. There is no room for posers. In his haste to silence the
fears in the back of his mind, he has chosen to fire back at the messenger
to avoid having to confront the message. The connections we have cited are
not tenuous and do not require any sort of speculation on our part. The
information in the View Master reels is neither general nor in need of
interpretation. It shows flatly that there are artificial ruins on the Moon
and Mars, that the key to figuring out those ruins is the tetrahedron, and
that Tom Van Flandern's Exploded Planet Hypothesis is accurate. Each of
these is explicit, not implied, in the data we present.

Despite the fact that Tonnies analysis is at best badly flawed, factually
incorrect somewhat amateurish, we invite him and all your readers to check
out our web site. Later this evening I will send an new article to Keith
Rowland. If he is able to post it by tonight, it will expand upon the themes
already presented and show some new evidence that this View Master Reel is
anything but a "coincidence."

The question now before us is not whether or not this new data is valid. It
now down to "What did they know, and when did they know it?"

Mike Bara



----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----

5-18-00

 More "Corbett"...

Mike Bara's article on the "Tom Corbett: Space Cadet" saga is available on
Richard Hoagland's Enterprise Mission site, complete with illustrations and
some new twists, including what might very well be a legitimate anomaly on
the asteroid Eros. My opinion on the reels' "origin" is unchanged; I'm
tempted to compile a list of science fiction stories with Martian/Egyptian
overtones containing "explicit" references to Cydonia. (It's actually pretty
easy; I urge you to browse a used-book store and take a look at some of the
themes addressed in the period "Tom Corbett" was produced.)



----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----

5-27-00

 Additional Martian Enigmas

Other Martian anomalies in need of rephotographing include the formations
pictured below. Given Malin Space Sciece Systems' recent posting of over
25,000 never-before seen Mars images on the Web, it wouldn't surprise me if
one or two of these has actually been reimaged without public fanfare.
Unfortunately, the "Face of Meridiani" and the "Runway" formations were not
imaged. But dedicated anomaly hunters may yet find new images of the others.



The "Sirisena Face" in Cydonia: an abandoned project?

The "Sirisena Face" is a vaguely face-like formation discovered west of the
Cydonia complex. This feature shares gross morphological similarities with
the Cydonia Face and shares its alignment.



The "Runway" complex, a collection of unusual features located on the slope
of Hecates Tholus, an extinct volcano. The "Runway" is accompanied by a
similar feature known as the "Bowtie."



An enlargement of the "Runway" feature (alternately known as the "String of
Beads"). Note apparent recessed platform, or "basin," and uniform
cone/pyramid-shaped substructures.



The "Radial Complex," a collection of straight lines and rectangular
features.



The "Airport" reveals branching "arms" that seem to connect in a
more-or-less central terminus, reminescent of a modern airport as seen from
above.



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