More on Hoagland's Mars

Message number 2788 in "ParaNet UFO"
Date: 05-29-91  12:45
From: ParaNet(sm) Information Service
To:   All
Subj: More on Hoagland's Mars

EID:1068 1ac3a24c
MSGID: 1:104/428 5e8cc069
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ParaNet File Number:
Reprinted from Air & Space Smithsonian, June/July 1991.
                            FACE OFF
In 1976 the Viking I orbiter, flying some 1,100 miles above Mars,
photographed  a  region called Cydonia. Close inspection  of  one
frame  revealed  what looked like a human face  gazing  soulfully
into eternity. A Viking project scientist showed the image to the
press, dismissed it as a trick of light and shadow, and the  Face
On Mars was forgotten-for a while.
  Three  years  later,  Vincent DiPietro  and  Gregory  Molenaar,
computer  imaging  specialists  at NASA's  Goddard  Space  Flight
Center  in Maryland, analyzed a computer enhancement of The  Face
and decided it merited a serious look. Science raspberried  them,
but  it was too late. A new subculture had been born. Today,  two
groups-the  Mars Project in Santa Cruz, California, and the  Mars
Mission  in  Wytheville, Virginia-exist solely to push  the  idea
that  The Face and nearby structures may be monuments left  by  a
long-vanished intelligent civilization.
  Of  the  two  groups, the latter,  founded  by  science  writer
Richard  Hoagland, is the more energetic. Hoagland wants NASA  to
reshoot  Cydonia when the Mars Observer returns to the planet  in
1993,  and he pursues this vision with zeal reminiscent  of  Burt
Lancaster  in  The  Rainmaker.  Like  many  people  involved   in
missionary  work  on behalf of fringe topics,  Hoagland  believes
he's  being thwarted by higher-ups intent on muffling the  truth.
In  this  case, the higher-ups are at NASA. In a 1989  letter  to
Representative  Robert Roe, then chairman of the House  Committee
on   Science,  Space,  and  Technology,  Hoagland  charged   that
"political   obstacles,   within...NASA  have   blocked   serious
consideration of this evidence for 13 years." The  latest-alleged
outrage  involves  the  cancellation  of  a  documentary   called
"Hoagland's  Mars"  that was produced by  NASA's  Lewis  Research
Center in Cleveland, Ohio.
  Hoagland's  version of what happened goes like this:  In  March
1990  he  was  invited to Speak to a group  of  Lewis  employees.
During  that visit, Lynn Bondurant, educational  programs  chief,
interviewed  him  about  The Face with  a  documentary  in  mind.
Hoagland was pleased to learn that Bondurant would "give our work
a  fair  airing,  putting it in context of the  history  of  Mars
explorations."  The program was scheduled for a January  6,  1991
satellite transmission for PBS stations, says Hoagland, when NASA
"pulled the plug." Why? Because "the planetary science  community
hit the roof. They were absolutely furious that this subject  was
going  to  be legitimized." Now, Hoagland says,  the  program  is
being  recut to "put me in the same camp as Percival Lowell-as  a
well-meaning buffoon."
  A  source  close to the production says the  program  is  being
revised  "to present other views on The Face." That's probably  a
good  idea,  because the script I have doesn't present  the  full
pageantry  of  Hoagland's ideas. It covers his  belief  that  the
arrangement  of  The  Face  and  surrounding  structures  reveals
encoded  mathematical  constants,  but it fails  to  mention  his
wilder  extrapolations. Hoagland and geomorphologist  Erol  Torun
argue  in  a  self-published  paper that  the  constants  give  a
startling  insight  into planetary physics. The  theorizing  gets
pretty  dense:  "The  'tetrahedral  geometry'...is  revealing  an
equivalent   higher-order   mathematical   topology:   i.e.,    a
vorticular'two-torus'energy flow.... "
   The  bottom line is this: the entities who built Cydonia  were
trying  to  tell  the universe about a  "new  physics"  that  may
involve "a hitherto unknown relationship between two of the  four
basic forces of the Universe-gravity and electromagnetism:  i.e.,
a 'Unified Field.'"
   Coincidentally,  the miracle math of Cydonia conies into  play
in   a   mind-device  called  the   N-Machine,   which   Hoagland
enthusiastically  promotes. Invented by physicist Bruce de  Palma
(brother of Hollywood director Brian), the N-Machine, as Hoagland
puts   it,  "generates  more  energy  out  of   the   interaction
between 'space' and the hi-speed rotation of a spinning mass than
[is]  required  by  the motors  that  mechanically  rotate  those
masses."  Hoagland dares to say that from which  most  physicists
recoil: 'We may be talking about energy coming from nothing."  He
has  been  flogging this miracle device on "For The  People,"  an
overheated  radio talk show in Cedar Key, Florida.  Hoagland  and
Chuck  Harder,  the show's host, get  pretty  imaginative.  After
cancellation of "Hoagland's Mars," Harder said, "I gotta  believe
one  of the reasons...'Hoagland's Mars' has been put on  ice  has
got to be because of the Middle East thing.... Once your  program
would  be transmitted...the press would jump on it, and it  might
steal some of the thunder from Bush's ''project.'"
  Hoagland  replied,  'Well,  it's  even  more  disturbing   than
that....'Hoagland's  Mars' is the opening gun to a whole new  way
of life that taps a virtually inexhaustible energy source for the
benefit  of mankind. We are about to go to war...over a  resource
that is really useless."
  Hoagland:  buffoon  or Einstein of the 1990s?  Only  time  will
tell. For those wanting a closer look, Hoagland's own version  of
"Hoagland's Mars"-with all the theories-is available from  Curley
and Company, Signal Mountain, Tennessee.
                      -Alex Heard
END
PARANET FILE NAME: CYDONIA2.TXT
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