The key parameter that makes this new image so remarkable, is "when" it was acquired.

If you carefully examine the "data block" for image V0 3814003 on the Arizona State University (ASU) THEMIS website (above), you can immediately ascertain that it was taken by the Odyssey camera "at 4:39 AM," local Martian time. Further reading of the table reveals that the "phase angle" - that is, the geometric relationship between the Sun, the Martian surface directly underneath the spacecraft just east of the Face, and Odyssey itself - was "90.3 degrees." Since "90 degrees" (for a spacecraft directly overhead) would indicate the Sun was literally on the eastern horizon, the slightly greater angle reveals that actually the sun was 0.3 degrees below the horizon when the image was acquired (and even slightly lower at the location of Face itself).

The last line in the table, "Description: Cydonia - face at night" confirms this geometry: technically, then, this "Odyssey dawn image" was actually acquired just before sunrise … with the Sun still hidden below the Cydonia horizon (below).

* * *

A side-by-side comparison (below) reveals the true incongruity of such a brilliant-surfaced object. The official NASA version of the Face from V03814003 (left) is totally "washed out" on the illuminated (eastern side) - even though the image was shot before the sun had risen!; while, in the Enterprise rendition (right), after considerable effort to lower brightness levels, some surface details can just be seen beneath the glare.

Again, for this over saturation of the THEMIS imaging CCDs to have occurred, and under these really dim lighting conditions, "something" about the innate reflectivity of this Martian surface feature -- at this geometry -- must truly be "anomalous." To learn

The major thing to note in this image is the Lander wind cover on the Viking nuclear power generator (light ellipse -- far right): notice that it is just barely visible in this twilight Mars illumination … even though the lighting geometry is ideal for so-called "specular reflection" (the light above the setting sun should be bouncing directly toward the camera) and … the cover itself is painted brilliant white!

Yet, as can be seen, under this illumination this white wind cover is barely noticeable!

Why, under identical lighting (below), is the Face- even allowing for the obviously increased gain settings in the Odyssey camera (to bring out the darker western side) -- so incredibly bright? And why is that inexplicably reflective eastern surface also arrayed in those stark … startlingly geometric … patterns?

The exceptions (below) are in themselves most interesting. It is apparent that their bright sunward-facing surfaces are from polished, mirror-like reflections - probably caused by wind blown sand abrading over time metallic crystal surfaces (or, at least "something" metallic …).

The specular reflections from these close-in features viewed by the Viking 2 camera are on the order of "a few square inches"; the surface area of specular reflections from the Face's eastern side measures several miles in area …

Further contrast enhancement and brightness reduction of the Face on image V03814003 (below), seeking to penetrate the last, still overexposed highlights of this incredibly reflective surface, reveals an astonishing continuation of the "grid-like geometry" noted earlier. This, in turn, is strikingly consistent with a critical prediction, regarding the possibly highly anomalous physical nature of this surface … made over ten years ago.

Mark Carlotto and Mike Stein's unprecedented computerized fractal work on the original Viking images had strongly indicated by 1990 that "something" about the Face was decidedly "non-fractal" -- i.e. in one interpretation, it is composed of artificial surface materials (see below), which are successfully resisting the relentless efforts of the Martian climate to turn them back to dust. The bright "Face highlight" of the non-fractal Face image (left) indicates how much it departs from its far more fractal surroundings ….

In other words, that major portions of the Face were composed of "artificial objects … now showing (through erosion) countless exposed elements of their internal geometric (thus, non-fractal - compared to their Cydonia surroundings) structure …." This was in direct opposition to the prevailing opinion of all other researchers at the time (those who took seriously the tenant that the Face is indeed "an artificial structure") -- who believed (and still do!) that the Face was carved … in other words, "Mt. Rushmore."

In my opinion, to the contrary: Carlotto's provocative fractal results strongly indicate that the Face (or at least large portions of it …) has been built.

But, even further, I began at that moment to also seriously consider an even more extraordinary proposition:

That the Face was, in fact, two "faces," specifically engineered (again, not "carved") as a massive, constructed work of art -- designed (for some reason on Mars) to reflect two distinctly different terrestrial species … hominid and feline.

When the MGS "full Face image" was grudgingly released by Michael Malin in late May of 2001 (below) -- and the feline eastern half overwhelmingly confirmed (even to observers who knew nothing about our ten-year-old prediction) -- we wrote on Enterprise:

"In truth, it is simply wrong that the Eastern (Cliff) half is 'more eroded' than the Western (City) half (above). It is equally wrong that that side (the right) is also more 'irregular.' These are clearly coping mechanisms put forth by those that expected to see a symmetrical 'human' face. The reality is that the Eastern half is simply less familiar than the more commonly seen Western (Viking) half. And, since it is decidedly feline, it is less consistent with many of the hopes and expectations of seeing a familiar, friendly human visage staring back at us from the Cydonia Martian plain. In reality, the Eastern half is significantly less eroded and appears to have more of the original 'casing' on it then the more weathered Western half (above). What the problem really comes down to is that the Cliff side confirms our model -- that that side is feline -- and not 'theirs' (that the Face would be symmetrical, and human) -- and that is a new scientific and political reality that many long-time researchers (and even casual observers) of this decades-long puzzle are having difficulty coping with right now."

Remarkably, the latest multi-spectral Odyssey "dawn" Cydonia image -- V03814003 -- now further supports precisely such a model--

By revealing an inexplicable, "honeycomb-like" pattern on the Face -- visible as a series of "brilliantly reflective, geometric patches"… but only on the eastern side.

This is now totally consistent with our previous analysis: that the eastern half has (by virtue of being shielded by the western side, which has taken the brunt of the sand and wind erosion) preserved a far less-eroded, highly reflective surface of the original Monument. Further, this new pre-dawn data totally eliminates several competing hypotheses put forward in 2001 to "explain" the striking visual asymmetry when the MGS "full Face image" was first released - including, those that speculated that "deep sand dunes" were covering the eastern aspects of the Monument!

Look at this direct comparison (below): between the MGS 2001 black and white image of the Face, and the latest Odyssey pre-dawn color view. As can be seen, "something" about that eastern surface is creating an intensely mirror-like reflection of the pre-dawn Martian lighting - and in a distinctly geometric pattern. Could this merely be some type of inherently bright "scattering" material … like snow?

The object on the left is "Shiprock Butte," a literal sunrise shot of an awesome, wind-eroded surface feature in northwestern New Mexico, considered an analog in the "mainstream" view to the "wind-sculpted natural geology of the Face on Mars." The object on the right is the new Odyssey "pre-dawn" composite image of the Face -- its brilliant eastern side (again, in the dim pre-dawn Martian lighting), clearly overexposed.

This comparison effectively rules out any simple "high albedo, lambert-type scattering surfaces" - such as snow or ice (water or C02) -- as easy explanation for the severely overexposed Face's eastern half. And, if "snow" was present on the Face when the image was acquired (also hardly likely, given the official Martian northern hemisphere date of image acquisition), why didn't this same snow fall on the shadowed side in the Odyssey view … as it has at Shiprock?

Further, as can be seen in this computer-generated "ray trace" rendering (courtesy of Barry Swan, below) - a flat, mirror-like set of parallel reflecting surfaces can reproduce precisely such highly overexposed recordings of the Face's eastern surface … at key geometric angles.

This explanation is reinforced by a comparison of the Face with its closest "next door neighbor," a mesa located just to the southeast (below, right). As can be seen, while the Face's eastern flank again is totally overexposed in the Odyssey view, the mesa right next door is barely lit! Yet, the source of illumination for both objects is exactly the same … the pre-dawn brightening several degrees above the Cydonia horizon.

By the process of elimination, we are inexorably forced to conclude that only some kind of manufactured, highly "directional" surface on the Face -- whereby the angles of all the surviving reflecting elements, despite the curving underlying structure, are aligned -- could redirect the horizon sky glow coherently, vertically, at such a specific angle … and thus produce these startling optical phenomenon seen in Odyssey's VIS camera!

There is the one other equally artificial, but even more startling alternative ….

This would have been possible because of the unique illumination angle of this image…pre-dawn sunlight, shining almost horizontally through a high-tech, now porous, still eroding eastern surface covering -- to be photographed by Odyssey, looking straight down at a 90-degree angle. A good analogy would be the view through a fine-mesh window screen at twilight, into a well lit room -- where the mesh is literally too small to be seen against the massive illuminated pieces in the room ….

The overall effect in this Odyssey view would have been identical to an internal lighting system - producing an imaging effect almost like an x-ray … making visible for the first time the internal architectural structure of the Face on Mars!

One last item on the Face:

This pre-dawn Odyssey image finally allows a direct comparison of key morphological predictions re the eastern side, against the actual lit view … which up 'til now have been based totally on images illuminated from the west. Kynthia, the Enterprise art director for many years, has spent considerable time and effort painstakingly sculpting (in clay - remember that?!), as well as with computer-generated models, what the eastern "feline" side should look like … when we finally had Odyssey's new view.

Below is a direct comparison.

Back to the surroundings of the Face.

If you examine a bit more closely features in the immediate vicinity in this unique Odyssey view, more fascinating "optical anomalies" begin to make themselves apparent. Again, take that "average mesa" to the southeast of the Face (immediate right, below). In this darkened, more realistic rendition of a portion of image V03814003, it is now evident that it too is not behaving exactly like "an average Martian mesa."

In this rotated, close-up, low brightness view (below), the "next door feature's" major characteristic in this pre-dawn lighting turns out to be an amazing, regular geometric "checkerboard" of multi colors! Close examination reveals different axes and different levels to these colors - as if we're looking down through multiple layers of some transparent, actively prismatic substance. The unmistakable "bluish" tints on the southeast (facing the pre-dawn sky) are a further signature of internal scattering of the predominant color of the pre-dawn sky itself ….

The only known material that is a) transparent, and b) can create such prismatic coloration, as well as "a bluish, scattering of sky light" … is glass - a most unlikely substance, I think you world agree, to be found on "a naturally-eroded mesa at Cydonia" ….

There is also, in this un-rotated, lightened version of the same feature (below), a remarkable array of additional, also distinctly "bluish" geometric patterns evident all across the entire upper surface … some even arranged in precise, concentric circles. These patterns clearly outline the formerly highly symmetric nature of this construct! For example, a "straight line axis" -- connecting two of these "concentric circles" at each end -- dominates the overall morphology. This axis is at a 45-degree angle to the image frame and, significantly, is also precisely parallel to the Platform edges of the Face, just north west ….

That this internal-scattering material is likely glass -- the remaining remnants of what must have been a dazzling array of superstructures once built all across this "mesa" -- is evident in the unique nature of its appearance; unlike the Face's "blinding reflections," these geometric patterns are somewhat "more subtle reds and blues, laid over a darker, underlying matrix"… strong indication that only the pre-dawn lighting at this angle is capable of making them apparent against the darker surface underneath (via right-angle internal scattering, as opposed to surface reflections) from Odyssey's 90-degree perspective overhead ….

This critical spacecraft/sun geometry also explains why, in the higher phase Viking western lighting images, these features were not an outstanding "fractal anomaly" in Carlotto and Stein's original analysis; at those higher sun angles, and at Viking's resolution (one half Odyssey's), the surviving, delicate and essentially transparent glass geometry seen beautifully here is essentially invisible!

To the east of this remarkable feature lays another, also completely nondescript Martian "knob" seen in the original Viking views (below). Again, at this unique pre-dawn Odyssey lighting, its true, exquisitely anomalous nature finally is revealed--

As a stunning set of "right-angle glowing features and internal rectilinear geometries," apparently created by a massive array of partially surviving shattered glass cubes! These incredibly geometric features, as can be seen (above), are scattering the blue sky light even more intensely … before another Cydonia dawn ….

Finally, examination of this remarkable pre-dawn Odyssey frame reveals a possible solution to another long-standing mystery about Cydonia (below): the true nature of the "D&M."

Beginning with the geomorphologically anomalous five-sided form presented here from Viking (above), additional Odyssey B&W imagery last year revealed another geometric aspect to this fascinating feature's profound internal symmetry (below).

It was with some interest, then, that we realized that in the bottom left portion of this Odyssey "dawn" image, the "northeast quadrant" of the D&M had, in fact, been imaged … at ~20 meter resolution (roughly twice that of Viking) -- and in color. Perhaps even more important, whereas all previous D&M images (Viking and Odyssey) have been taken with the sun coming from the left, in this image the Pyramid is clearly illuminated from the right - the direction of the not-yet-risen-sun.

It is immediately apparent in this image that the D&M - named by the author after the two original Goddard contract imaging specialists who found it on the Viking imagery, Vince DiPietro and Greg Molenaar --- is as reflective at this viewing angle as the Face itself!

Significantly, the "mesa in the middle" (below), is scattering just about what would be expected in this lighting, while the Face (top) and D&M (below, left) are distinctly far too bright …. Again, differences in height or surface slopes should make no difference here … as the source of illumination is a large, diffuse area in the Martian eastern sky many degrees above the Cydonia horizon (see again, Viking and Pathfinder surface images, above).

Clearly, whatever material is making the Face literally "glow" in this pre-dawn light, is also having the same effect upon the mysterious "D&M" ….

Again, this new view now provides startling confirmation of a hypothesis initially framed in the first edition of "Monuments," now almost 20 years ago: namely, that the D&M is literally hollow - created as a vast, compartmentalized "super condominium" … a true "arcology" on Mars. The ordered geometry - together with the anomalous reflectivity --

* * *

Namely, that all of the nearby features to the Face were either artificially modified, or had some kind of artificial structures built upon them … in the epoch during which the Face itself was first created. That their individual light-scattering properties are also now strikingly "anomalous" is unmistakable. One can only wonder what a similar pre-dawn image, secured by Odyssey … in color … would reveal about my other original discovery … The City of Pyramids itself.

Obviously, this new Odyssey data has opened up new, fundamental questions about the extant and nature of "artificial construction at Cydonia" … and the ultimate nature of what eventual rover missions - or a manned landing itself! -- will one day come to find

* * *

Ideally, one of the two MER rovers currently enroute to Mars (below) could be landed at Cydonia. By virtue of their onboard color CCD stereo cameras, and the sophisticated analytical x-ray and gamma ray equipment that they carry, we'd then know in short order if these anomalous optical features seen from orbit are backed up by true physical anomalies measured on the ground … including, the unmistakable signatures of manufactured, high-tech ruins ….

NASA seems determined to follow their step-by-step, "drip by drip" planned escalation of the interesting discoveries at Mars ... with the "discovery" during the MER missions of present water just beneath the soil … the next step on their "timed-release aspirin" political science agenda, and the "countdown" to 2012 …..

But, NASA is not the only "player" in the game this time."

In December/January, besides the two NASA rovers, three other spacecraft (one piggy-backing on the other) are scheduled to arrive at Mars. These five missions make up a veritable "fleet" of robots currently enroute (below), operated by three separate national interests this time: Japan, the United States and Europe

In the wake of Odyssey's new revelations on Cydonia, obviously, high on our list will be requests of both the Europeans and the Japanese for new, pre-dawn (or, immediate post-sunset) orbital observations of Cydonia with the state-of the art, high-resolution color CCD cameras that both the Japanese and ESA (European Space Agency) missions carry. Though the Japanese (Nozomi) mission will possess a three color CCD camera called MIC ("Mars Imaging Camera"), its capabilities are limited by the overall mission design - which constrains its latitude of coverage of Mars and pixel resolution … the latter to about 60 meters, and only at the equator. Therefore, the ESA "Mars Express" mission is probably our best shot.

Mars Express is designed to take up residence around Mars in late December, 2003 (Christmas night!), in an approximately 7000 by 161-mile, 7.5 hour, polar elliptical orbit (below). For roughly 40 minutes each revolution, centered around periapsis (the

It is the stereo and color capability of the HSRC which interests us here the most.

If what we see in the Odyssey "dawn image" is truly "specular reflection" - i.e. coherent flashes of light from mirror-like, artificial structures on (or underneath) the surface of the Face -- then the brightness of the Face's eastern side will vary dramatically in only a few seconds, as Mars Express flies into and out of these "beamed" reflections.

In short, the capability to finally secure "smoking gun data," regarding the entire Cydonia question, lies within the capability of ESA's new Mars mission. The question is: do they have the political will and interest - against the apparent continuing "cover-up" agenda of NASA and the United States -- to honestly pursue it? And, again, will they be allowed …?

That's where you come in.

If enough readers of this paper, and followers of this continuing Investigation, demand that the Principal Investigator of Mars Express' HRSC -- Dr. Gerhard Neukum, of the Freie Universität Berlin --use the HRSC's exquisite stereo and color capability to secure this vital information … it can be made to happen.

How?

Simply by sending Dr. Neukum (below) a heartfelt e-mail or letter -- outlining the scientific objectives of the new Mars Express Cydonia imaging his instrument can uniquely acquire; by explaining the extraordinary implications if artificial structures are scientifically confirmed on the planet Mars … and-

By reemphasizing the extraordinary, profoundly puzzling Odyssey pre-dawn Cydonia observations described here.

Prof. Dr Gerhard Neukum, Mars Express
HRSC Principal Investigator
Freie Universität Berlin, Earth Sciences Dept., Germany
Tel: +49 30 8387 0579 (secretary: -575)
Email: [email protected]

One last point:

The Aug. 15,2003 issue of Science, probably (next to Nature) the most prestigious science journal in the world, ran an editorial entitled "One Nuclear Leap To Mars." In it the editorial writer discussed the possibility of finding "something bizarre on Mars that would trigger a manned Mars expedition." The last paragraph in particular is the most telling: the writer concludes by saying "perhaps one of the spacecraft now on the way to the Red Planet - one of the two NASA rovers, the Japanese Nozomi Mission, or Mar Express and its associated Beagle 2 -- will [not 'may'] discover something compelling or bizarre … that would shake people into thinking 'We need to go now.'" The last quote being from astrogeologist Jim Rice, of Arizona State University."

And, Arizona State, of course, is the institution which took the extraordinary THEMIS image of this Cydonia pre-dawn ….

Stay tuned.