Fact On Mars

Mars is the fourth planet from our sun and widely known as the The Red Planet because of its distinct, well, red colour!!!

The planet was given it's name by the Romans in honor of their god of war.

Since early days, I don't quite know when, Mars has been the target of many stories, these peaked in the 50's-60's when the definition of an alien was a "little green man from Mars"!!! There were fictional writings and many "shows" such as Arther.C.Clarke's War of the Worlds which was broadcast "live on air over the radio bringing panic to hundreds of listeners convinced they were aboput to die!!! Later films a plenty with the most recent Mars Attacks being the first comes to mind!!!

Mars, although now dead its surface torn apart by freezing temperatures, and storms that would devestate us on Earth, is thought to be the most similar planet to ours, and hence a target for colonisation for the future.

It was once thought to have been able to sustain life as we know it here on Earth but freak conditions (which could quite easily happen on our own planet) detroying its eco-system.

Studies of the planet using probes as well as modern technology have pointed out the fact that there is a large supply of water around the core of the planet, frozen.

Mars, the background to the mystery

What these pictures showed when they came to light was truly amazing indeed and have been the centre of serious debate since then, a debate which seemed unlikely to go away!!!

These photos apparently, and quite convincingly, show what seems to be a humaniod face staring back up at the Viking ship, complete with facial features!!! This could be the best evidence to date to prove that there IS life out there, and intelligent.

Further study showed a series of apparent structures which have since been given names like "The City" as well as the most famous structure, being calleed "The Face" (how original!!!).

The famous picture of the face. Hey you can't deny it, they're certainly interesting!!! This was one of the photo's taken by one of the Viking landers on its Mars mission in '76

This was the picture that most people reckonise as the face although there are more.

In fact the debate lasted so long that when NASA announced that it was returning to Mars last year there was a cry for them to re-photo the region, just to settle the argument.

Although they were against the idea, they went ahead and photograpged the region. With the advanced technology of present day, and a lower orbit they took detailed photo's of the region.

This is one of the most recent photos, taken by the Mars Global Surveyor ('96/7). As you can see, the pictures are pretty dodgy, BUT they may still be the face!!! As you can maybe make out there is still the presence os a "nose" and I can see where the original photo showed.

After the photo's had been released to the public they appaered in most alien mags, but the one that caught my eye was UFO magazines article on the photo's. They analysed them in detail, complete with photographs to show the points they were making. It was a really good article. When I manage to find the magazine I will bring you the results they came to along with explanations.

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