Losing face on Mars.

[Soapy Sam]

http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=dn10131&feedId=online-news_rss20
Recent ESA/ Mars Explorer photo of the Cydonia "face" reveals - *GASP!*- a hill.

[Mojo]

Well maybe, as someone (I can't remember who) has suggested, the face has got into a really bad fight since it was first photographed.

[Demigorgon]

It's obviously a conpsiracy by the Bush administration. They had the rover go up there and ride around all over the hill and distort the precious face in order to preserve the idea of man being unique in the universe.

[pmckean]

Not sure why this is considered news.

Gasp! Cydonia face confirmed categorically as a hill in detailed 1998 photos is ONCE AGAIN confirmed as a hill in brand new, even more detailed 2006 renderings.

What am I missing?!

[uruk]

The need for woos to believe that the ESA is covering up the truth just like NASA.

[Molinaro]

Not sure why this is considered news.

Gasp! Cydonia face confirmed categorically as a hill in detailed 1998 photos is ONCE AGAIN confirmed as a hill in brand new, even more detailed 2006 renderings.

What am I missing?!

The 1998 photo was taken by NASA.

The new photo was taken by the European space agency, after having received hundreds of emails from Europeans saying they don't believe NASA.

[Anacoluthon64]

Not sure why this is considered news.

Gasp! Cydonia face confirmed categorically as a hill in detailed 1998 photos is ONCE AGAIN confirmed as a hill in brand new, even more detailed 2006 renderings.

What am I missing?!That, despite the 1998 analysis, this (http://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Records-Humanitys-Encrypted-illustrated/dp/0620308869), among similar, was published early in 2005. The "face" plays an important role in this fairytale masquerading as archaeo-astronomy. Supposedly it was put there expressly to let us know that we are not alone and as a pointer to our origins.

No doubt, these latest composites will be ignored or dismissed as "fabrications" with equal facility.

'Luthon64

[Loss Leader]

Luckily, the human brain is hard-wired to see faces everywhere. So it won't be too long before something else comes to take the place of this ridiculous myth.

[Just thinking]

Just another pretty face ... only this time on Mars.

These sculptors really get around (http://astro.wsu.edu/worthey/astro/html/im-indian-heads/indian.html).

[Apathia]

Damn! First the Old man of the Mountain lost his face and now Cydonia!

Nostrildumass predicts thousands will still see an alien face at Cydonia.

[Foster Zygote]

That, despite the 1998 analysis, this (http://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Records-Humanitys-Encrypted-illustrated/dp/0620308869), among similar, was published early in 2005. The "face" plays an important role in this fairytale masquerading as archaeo-astronomy. Supposedly it was put there expressly to let us know that we are not alone and as a pointer to our origins.

No doubt, these latest composites will be ignored or dismissed as "fabrications" with equal facility.

'Luthon64

Did you (or anyone else) read the reviews? The writer of the first even manages to work magnetism into the first sentence. The list of books also bought by purchasers of this book is interesting too.

Steven

[Anacoluthon64]

Did you (or anyone else) read the reviews?I wrote the earliest one. The lesson to be drawn from the reviewers' ratings is that you either love the book or hate it. I do think it's unfortunate that Amazon doesn't allow one to give a zero-star rating. It was uphill all the way reading that book.

'Luthon64

[Brown]

Be sure to check out the images at http://www.badastronomy.com/.

It still looks like a face, I guess. Actually, it looks like some guy wearing a "Planet of the Apes" mask (Charlton Heston "Damn Dirty Apes" version) who got hit in the head with a shovel.

[KingMerv00]

Be sure to check out the images at http://www.badastronomy.com/.

It still looks like a face, I guess. Actually, it looks like some guy wearing a "Planet of the Apes" mask (Charlton Heston "Damn Dirty Apes" version) who got hit in the head with a shovel.

Phil's great. Ever seen his "Lenin Shower Curtain"?

http://www.badastronomy.com/pix/lenin/face_440_hilite_inset.jpg

And here he is making fun of Hoagland and the Mars face:


Sure, it looks a little like a face, but not a whole lot. Of course, if you’ve based an entire website (http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/hoagland/conclusions.html) on the idea that it really is a Face, and that there is a city near it, and this holds the key to a new type of physics that will allow you to build faster-than-light drives, control hurricanes, and tear toilet paper exactly along the perforations, then you might be motivated to say it still looks like a face.

LOL...w00t Phil!

[Foster Zygote]

I wrote the earliest one. The lesson to be drawn from the reviewers' ratings is that you either love the book or hate it. I do think it's unfortunate that Amazon doesn't allow one to give a zero-star rating. It was uphill all the way reading that book.

'Luthon64

Sorry, the writer of the last... I didn't realize they were in reverse chronology.

Great review BTW.

Steven

[Dustin Kesselberg]

I always thought the "face" didn't exist and was an illusion of shadows?

[TjW]

In related news, General Francisco Franco is still dead.

[Soapy Sam]

Evidences?

[Cuddles]

Of course it is just a hill. It's a hill designed by psychic aliens who knew exactly the resolution the first cameras sent to Mars would be and designed it to look like a face only then. They obviously knew that this would immediately be accepted as proof of [insert conspiracy here], and assumed no-one would bother sending any more cameras after such convincing images were seen.

[Deetee]

The latest pictures confirm without doubt that the hill is a face. Earlier pictures made it erroneously look like a humanoid entity. Now we can see it is a Vogon face, right down to the detail of the ventral spiracles and the submental notches.

[Skeptic Guy]

The Woos won't be placated. They will now think the conspiracy has now reached its claws into the European scientific community.

[Soapy Sam]

Well- the Illuminati are Bavarian, after all!

[Skeptic Guy]

Well- the Illuminati are Bavarian, after all!

Shhh, you aren't supposed to put that in print! Didn't you read your handbook?

Jeeze, how are we supposed to keep this all secret if you keep saying this stuff?

[grayman]

Posted my thread before I noticed Soapy Sam started this one three days earlier. Man, I need more coffee.

[Anacoluthon64]

Great review BTW.Why, thank you. Actually, it was removed by Amazon without any notice a few days after it was originally vetted, accepted and posted. I had used the word "crank" twice, and "loopy" once, which were abruptly deemed offensive or provocative, but I suspect that it had more to do with fevered mouse-clicks on the "Report this" link by a team of self-appointed proponents of the book's barminess. It was another fight to get the review accepted again after making the amendments.

In the meantime, the authors are reported to be beavering away at a follow-on work. IMO, it is not wise to expect that they've rescinded any of their odd ideas, least of all the meaning of the Cydonia "face."

'Luthon64

[Deetee]

Awesome review indeed!

[rwguinn]

Anybody notice that in This (http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060926.html) picture, the "Face is in the lower right corner. Moving directly to the left, the next hill looks like a skull...

What could this possibly mean?:eek:

[Anacoluthon64]

Awesome review indeed!Thank you, too.

Moving directly to the left, the next hill looks like a skull...

What could this possibly mean?:eek:That the sculptors didn't bury their models well enough?

'Luthon64