The Ancient Alien Question (36 page)

The big question, of course, is whether life is a cosmic imperative, which would mean that the Bible and so many other religious texts are likely true when they say that God created life. And even though the Universe created life, was God helped by “gods”—extraterrestrial beings—who assisted the Creator by sending life throughout the universe, making this not only a scientific, but a religious mission, to help create life everywhere?

The debate as to whether such alien probes were ever sent out normally focuses on the so-called von Neumann probes, named after Hungarian physicist John von Neumann, who wrote about self-replicating machines. In the realm of space exploration, such probes would use the raw material of the galaxy they’re exploring to make copies of themselves, which would then head off elsewhere into space to collect more data. (The monolith of Stanley Kubrick’s epic film
2001: A Space Odyssey
was actually a von Neumann probe. The film was meant to start with scientists explaining how von Neumann probes were the
most efficient method of space exploration, but Kubrick cut the opening segment from his film.) Many people believe that such self-replicating—or von Neumann—probes would be the most efficient means of space exploration.

We have sent a number of manned missions into space, but we know that our efforts could best be described as a cumbersome exercise. With our very basic space-traveling technology, we know that in order to go farther, we can, at the moment, only rely on robots, which are easier to send across longer distance. Still, robots are extremely limited when it comes to deep-space exploration. For that, what is required are machines that are able to make copies of themselves, as they progress on their voyage of discovery—in other words, seeding. The smaller the self-replicating machines, the easier they would be to deliver. As it happens, the best piece of “nanotechnology” that we have on planet Earth is DNA.

The Case for Mars

Was there ever life on Mars? NASA communications expert Maurice Chatelain was one of several people who believe that the pyramids that grace so many ancient monuments are an extraterrestrial legacy. From the late 1970s onwards, their camp has focused on finding clear evidence of artificial constructions elsewhere in the solar system, as this would seriously strengthen their argument.

The best candidate for housing an ancient civilization is Mars. The expression “little green men from Mars” is part of our daily vocabulary. In 1974, the magazine
Icarus
ran a short article by Mack Gipson, Jr., and Victor K. Ablordeppy, which reported that “triangular and pyramid-like structures have been observed on the Martian surface.” The discovery was made in the Elysium Quadrangle of the Red Planet. The authors noted
that these structures cast triangular and polygonal shadows, suggesting a pyramidal structure. Still, the authors seemed to favor a natural explanation, as “steep-sided volcanic cones and impact craters occur only a few kilometers away.” The four pyramids were paired, facing each other across a plain.

Leading American astronomer Carl Sagan decided to comment on these structures in 1977, initially innocently writing that “the largest are three kilometers across at the base and one kilometer high.” He made a comparison to artificial structures on Earth: “...much larger than the pyramids of Sumer, Egypt or Mexico on Earth. They seem to be eroded and ancient and are, perhaps, only small mountains, sandblasted for ages. But they warrant, I think, a careful look.”
⁴
That was all that was needed to create controversy and generate speculation. In 1996, Robert Bauval and Graham Hancock abandoned their usual exploration of the Egyptian and Mexican pyramids and devoted an entire book to the Martian anomalies. They wondered, “Could they be the first sign, as many independent researchers claim, that Mars is marked by the ‘fingerprints’ of an ancient extraterrestrial civilization?”
⁵

The shape of this Martian debate transformed when an area of the Martian Cydonia region was photographed by the
Viking 1
space probe, on July 25, 1976. When the photographs were later analyzed by NASA, people saw an area approximately 2 miles long and 1 mile across that seemed to resemble a human face. NASA—for some reason that, in retrospect, should be classified as unwise—decided to announce this “quirk of nature” in a press release six days later. Despite the humoristic tone that NASA tried but perhaps failed to convey in the news release, some people wondered whether it could indeed represent an artificial monument.

In July 1976, the
Viking
space probe photographed something the camera suggested to be a face. For many years to come, until NASA sent another space probe to Mars and re-imaged that region, this image led to enormous speculation that a Martian civilization had been discovered.

The most notable advocate of this theory became the American journalist Richard Hoagland. In his 1987 book,
The Monuments of Mars: A City on the Edge of Forever
, Hoagland interpreted other nearby surface features as remnants of a ruined city and artificially constructed pyramids. In short, he argued for the artificiality of the so-called Face on Mars by arguing that other nearby structures could likely be artificial, too. Bauval and Hancock’s
The Mars Mystery
was largely a repetition of Hoagland’s theory, but brought it to a wider audience, riding high on both authors’ recent best-sellers. Hoagland, Hancock, and Bauval each drew a parallel between the Martian structures and the pyramids of Earth—specifically the Great Pyramid—thus convincing many that there was a connection between the
two structures; namely, that there was an alien component to the Great Pyramid.

As quickly as the Martian Face became popular, it disappeared. The Mars Global Surveyor probe in 1998 and 2001, and the Mars
Odyssey
probe in 2002 photographed the “Face” under completely different lighting than the
Viking
probe had in 1976, and at much higher resolution. The new photographs made the structure now look very little like a face, although for some observers, this was “clear proof” either that the images had been doctored, or that, in fact, Earth’s powers (the United States of America?) had bombed the Martian surface somewhere between 1976 and 1998 to destroy evidence of the extraterrestrial civilization.

The obliteration of the Face on Mars also killed the interest in Martian pyramids, even though they continue to rule certain conspiracy-loving corners of the Internet. So what to make of the Martian pyramids? We only have—and perhaps only ever will have—photographic evidence at our disposal. These are the same photographs that convinced some that there was a face. Even skeptics saw the face; they just felt it was a natural anomaly, a trick of light, or a photographic illusion—or a combination of all three. When it comes to seeing the pyramids, many observe that, unlike the Face, these structures do not seem to have withstood the test of time. Those claiming that there is clear evidence of a pyramid on the Martian surface argue that the pyramids are partially destroyed—which makes them, in my opinion, extremely difficult to maintain as “clear evidence,” for a heap of rubble or a natural hill are difficult enough to distinguish when you are in front of them, let alone when seeing them from miles up in the sky.

Hoagland and a Russian author, Vladimir Avinsky, both wrote about pyramidal hills in the Cydonia region, but what for one was a clear pyramid was not seen as such by the other. Of all contenders for the honor of being named a Martian pyramid,
the most famous is the so-called D&M Pyramid, which actually looks nothing like a pyramid, if only because it has a pentagram as its ground plan. (Not a single pentagram-based pyramid has ever been discovered on Earth.) The name of this pyramid derived from its discoverers, Vincent DiPietro and Gregory Molenaar, computer scientists working at the Goddard Space Flight Center near Washington, D.C. Adding to the pyramid’s fame was its relative proximity to the Face (10 miles) and the fact that it was almost aligned perfectly north–south, like the Great Pyramid of Egypt. The pyramid was massive: almost 1 mile on its shortest side and 2 miles on its long axis, and half a mile high—roughly five times the height of the Great Pyramid. This seems to be not a structure built by hands, but with elaborate machines—as our extraterrestrial neighbors would have had. But if these pyramids were indeed built by the same people who built pyramids on Earth (as most of these authors, Hoagland foremost, argued), why do we not see such gigantic pyramids on Earth? I would find it grossly unfair that alien visitors build gigantic pyramids on Mars, but only big pyramids on Earth...

Anyway, no one was debating whether there was
something
there, but was it (a) five-sided, (b) a pyramid, and (c) artificial? Neglecting these questions, Hoagland and others felt that pointing out other anomalies or regular shapes on the photographs strengthened their case. They then draw lines between the various structures and concluded that, together, they proved the presence of a city. Hoagland even identified a city square in this complex.

In the final analysis, it is impossible to argue that there are no pyramids on Mars—it’s impossible to prove a negative. But it is equally clear that any analysis purely based on aerial photography, as has been proven both on Earth and in the case of the Face on Mars, is highly tenuous. As to the D&M Pyramid, it is most likely a natural hill, seeing as it doesn’t really look like a pentagram when you look at it without Hoagland’s white-line
pentagram drawn on top. But the debate of Martian pyramids will only ever be answered when humans mount an archaeological expedition to the Red Planet, and so it may linger for many decades to come.

Before returning back to Earth, let us quickly note that the moon also has had its fair share of extraterrestrial pyramid fever. A pyramidal structure was seen in the Sea of Tranquility by Soviet space engineer Alexander Abramov, who claimed that it was positioned exactly like the pyramids at Giza. The area was the very region the astronauts of
Apollo 11
landed in on the first trip to the moon in July 1969. In my humble opinion, the article may have been solely intended to create controversy—a piece of Soviet propaganda to argue that perhaps the Americans were hiding a major discovery from humankind. Several Americans have added to this speculation, including Fred Steckling, whom we single out for arguing that his photographic analysis had revealed possible pyramids in various craters; one image had been shot by the
Apollo 8
mission, the other during the
Apollo 16
mission. These are indeed
all
anomalies on photographs, but they are at best indications of anomalies on the ground, and nothing more, until we go back to the moon and do an on-site inspection.

These photographs, whether taken on the moon or Mars, are all interesting, and
could
point out evidence of extraterrestrial structures, and they
should
be analyzed and discussed. However, extraordinarily complex theories have been proposed that so far remain unsupported by evidence. These photos are not proof of anything. They cannot prove that we were not alone, but it
is
clear that in recent decades, an enormous amount of discoveries have been made that show that life is a cosmic imperative. Even though life on Mars might not have evolved to the stage where it
built superstructures, Mars definitely once had microorganisms, some of which have been found on Earth. And all indications are that life on Earth itself was alien in origin. We
are
the aliens.

Chapter 8
Evidence of Nonphysical Contact

The Gate of the Gods

Twenty miles outside the city of Puno, on the borders of
Lake Titicaca, is the Puerta de Hayu Marca, or Gate of the Gods. The “gate”—sometimes nicknamed “stargate”—is in truth a carving in natural rock, measuring 23 feet in height and width, with a smaller alcove in the center at the base, just under 6 feet in height. Ancient traditional names for the site are Wilka Uta, meaning House of Divinity, and Altarani, the Place With the Altar. The name the Spanish used for it was the Devil’s Doorway.