19.5 Degrees - "Hyperdimensional Physics"

Shaun Barrett · 2002-03-11 18:20:53

There's a group of people called the "Enterprise Mission", as many of you will already know. Their head honcho is Richard Hoagland, who has been instrumental in bringing the Face on Mars to the public's attention.
I've looked at every picture of that "face" and still can't decide if it's artificial or not, though I've looked hard at close-ups of other so-called structures near the "face" and have decided they're just natural rocky outcrops.
However, Richard Hoagland also claims to have stumbled upon a new branch of physics which hypothesises that rotating bodies, particularly planets, can somehow siphon energy from "higher dimensions" (see string-theory, I suppose) into our 4 dimensional continuum.
I know, I know .... "just another crackpot theory", I hear you mutter!
But here's the rub: According to "hyperdimensional physics" theory, this higher energy should appear at 19.5 degrees from the equator of the rotating planetary body. If you look at our solar system, Earth's largest active shield volcano, Mauna Loa, lies at 19.5 degrees north; the largest volcano in the whole solar system, Olympus Mons on Mars, lies at 19.5 degrees north; and the biggest and longest-lasting surface feature on Jupiter, the great red spot, lies at or very near 19.5 degrees south. I believe there is also a large atmospheric disturbance on Neptune at about 19.5 degrees from its equator, though I'm less certain of that one.
The space establishment has long-since declared Richard Hoagland "persona non grata", i.e. he's been written off and none of his research or opinions will ever be discussed in polite company again! There is, in fact, open enmity between Hoagland and NASA in particular; they just don't like each other!
I like to think I'm as level-headed as the next man, and maybe Mr Hoagland is as crazy as NASA thinks he is, but look at those 19.5 degree coincidences!!
Or ARE THEY coincidences?!
Any thoughts on this, or that "Face on Mars"?

Adrian · 2002-03-11 18:50:05

This 19.5 degree thing, at least in my first impressions, seems to be a typical statistical trick of looking for results and discarding everything else. I'm sure that if you look at any latitude on all the planets you'd find something interesting, especially if allowing for things that are 'nearby'.

As for the Face on Mars, it's just a rock formation - frankly, I'd be surprised if there *wasn't* a face on Mars - there are millions of square kilometers there, there's bound to be something that looks artificial.

Shaun Barrett · 2002-04-08 02:10:12

I've seen a number of grainy photos of Lunar scenes and Martian scenes which Richard Hoagland and company present as "astounding evidence" of artificial constructions. Even with the greatest of open-mindedness (something difficult to maintain in conjunction with the obligatory scepticism we owe to ourselves), I could see absolutely no hint of anything other than natural features!
Close-ups of the so-called "city" which lies close to The Face, have revealed nothing which could be realistically described as artificial, and yet the positioning of the "pyramids", which constitute the "city", had been put forward as a plan based on the mathematics of triangles, squares, pentagons, and the transcendental numbers e and pi. The fact that the artificiality of these pyramids is now totally discounted by all but the most zealous believers, should have sounded the death-knell of the Cydonia hypothesis. Yet, the Enterprise Mission carries on regardless.
With most of its main features demolished, the whole Cydonia thing should just fade away; and maybe it soon will.
But that damned Face still keeps pulling me back for one more look! I know, I know ..... it has to be just another mesa. Still, there is something so artificial-looking about it that I can't quite get the doubts out of my mind. It's probably just the last vestiges of the hypnotic hold the old "romantic" Mars has had on the human psyche for so long, and the lure of the myth of ancient Martian civilisations.
What would it take to break the spell? I don't know. What I do know is it's not up to NASA to prove that every rock on Mars is a natural feature! And how could they, without going there and examining it up close? And proving it IS artificial would take a full-blown expedition too. So, I suppose for the forseeable future I'll simply put it in the "too hard tray" and forget about it. But maybe now and then I'll pick it up, roll it over in my mind, and wonder about it .... just because it feels so good!
Anybody else feel the same way?

RobS · 2002-04-11 23:47:18

Has anyone been to New Hampshire and seen the natural face in the White Mountains? You have to stand at exactly the right spot and you see the poifile of a face very, very clearly. Move 100 feet up or down the road and the face becomes natural bumps in the rock. They used to have the profile on NH license plates.

The Mars face is the same thing. At certain lighting angles it looks like a face. At other angles it doesn't.

When I was a grad student in planetary science at Brown in the 1970s, us grad students used to look at the pictures in magazines of socalled evidence of intelligent life on the moon and Mars and laugh and laugh. The bulldozer tracks on the moon were caused by rolling boulders. We found it all very amusing and utterly silly.

Besides, whose to say such faces shouldn't have three eyes instead of two? Why a nose at all? Why a mouth below the eyes and not above them? We make all sorts of human-centered assumptions when we see these "faces." If there were the face of a beetle on Mars, would we even recognize it?

-- RobS

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#1 2002-03-11 18:20:53

Re: 19.5 Degrees - "Hyperdimensional Physics"

#2 2002-03-11 18:50:05

Re: 19.5 Degrees - "Hyperdimensional Physics"

#3 2002-04-08 02:10:12

Re: 19.5 Degrees - "Hyperdimensional Physics"

#4 2002-04-11 23:47:18

Re: 19.5 Degrees - "Hyperdimensional Physics"

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