FILE: ARES2.TXT
AUTHOR: Martin E. Arant
DATE: 05-20-89
SUBJECT: Mars Face ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SUBMITTED BY: Martin E. Arant

"The chance of finding intelligent life on Mars is one trillion to one, against!" Considering this view is held by the majority of planetary
scientists and astronomers, is it any wonder that the scientific
community immediately discarded the Martian face as a trick of "lighting
and shadows." Is it any wonder that the search for extraterrestrial intelligence is relegated to the paradigm that ET will FAX home? Before discussing what has been discovered in Cydonia, the importance of the
evidence which has been "unearthed" AND its implications, it is
important to understand why this issue has not, until the recent release
of compelling new evidence, been taken seriously by the scientific
community.

The Viking missions were sent to Mars, in part, to look for evidence of
life, microbial life. No one expected to find artifacts or the evidence
of an ancient civilization. When we take a close look at Mars and its evolutionary history, the reason for this presumption becomes very clear
and totally understandable.

Mars is the fourth planet from the sun, a "terrestrial" planet formed
roughly 4.5 billion years ago from the same basic raw materials as Venus
and the Earth. It is assumed that Mars underwent similar geological
processes as our own planet during its early stages. This included
volcanism, the "outgassing" of a relative thick atmosphere, and the
presence of large amounts of liquid water on its surface. Water erosion
is quite evident from the numerous riverbeds and channels which can be
seen in the Mariner and Vikings photos. There is even growing evidence
that an ancient ocean once existed in the northern hemisphere of the
planet. Whereas the southern hemisphere is heavily crated (almost to
the same degree as the moon), the northern hemisphere is relatively free
of cratering. In addition, the Viking landers found large amounts of
Chlorine in the Martian surface material. It is important to note that
both Viking landers set down in an area that is below the "mean sea
level" of the planet. The past presence of large amounts of liquid
surface water is suggestive of both a past mean temperature far above
the present temperature of -50F and a past surface air pressure much
higher than the todays atmospheric pressure of 500 millibars (roughly
one-half of one percent of Earths surface pressure). The fact that
liquid water cannot exist today on the surface because of low
temperatures and the absence of a dense atmosphere proves that the
Martian environment once was at least "somewhat" more hospitable than it
is today.


Most geological and physical models seem to indicate that this "warm
and moist" period lasted from only a few hundred million years to
perhaps as long as one half billion years. The reasons for this are
based on several well established facts. Mars is farther from the sun
than Earth, is less than one half the size of earth, and has a surface
gravity of roughly one third that of Earth. The geological engine which
has so effectively recycled the Earths atmosphere simply ran out of
steam on Mars. This apparently resulted in Mars "freezing to death"
early in its geological history.

The thick atmosphere, with its warming greenhouse effect, slowly escaped
to space, leaving the planet cloaked in a thin veil of carbon dioxide;
a dry, barren and desolate world, not much more than a rusted-out cog
spinning slowly on the cosmic wheel Not time enough for complex life
forms to evolve. Not time enough for Martians!


The evolution of complex Martian life forms, however, is not necessarily required to explain the existence of intelligent remains on the Martian surface. Could it be that extra-solar beings colonized Mars sometime
in the distant past? Is it possible that they just might have
left a "sign" for us in the form of a human face. The idea is not
quite so preposterous as it initially sounds. Consider This: There are
over one-hundred billions stars in our galaxy alone. That means that
there could be over 100 billion planetary systems, each possibly
harboring a blue-green planet; each one, perhaps, destined to become
home to a advanced civilization. When we consider this possibility,
however, we quickly run into problems. Why would such a civilization
choose Mars instead of Earth? Why did they leave after they colonized
Mars? Why a "human face" on the surface? How could they have possibly
known that the human form would eventually evolve on the third planet
from the sun? But perhaps the best reason for discounting this scenario
as a possibility has nothing to do with the calculation of odds and probabilities. It simply comes down to this: Very few scientists and researchers are willing to get within a light year of "extra-solar
visitors." The subject has been oversold, over-hyped, and over-hoaxed!

If one, therefore, considers the above, one is almost forced
to come to the same conclusion as our planetary scientists and
astronomers: There never has been an intelligence presence on Mars. The question would, therefore, seem to be settled and the subject closed.
There can be no faces on Mars. There can be no pyramids on Mars. There
can be no complex geometric alignments on Mars. In other words, THEY
SIMPLY CAN'T EXIST... Only one problem: THEY DO!

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