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From: Lan Fleming <apollo18@swbell.net>
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2000 12:12:38 -0600
Fwd Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2000 19:49:31 -0400
Subject: Latest Misinformation at Space.com


I have sent the following letter to Space.com:

The June 13th article, "Mars Face Breaks Under Questioning" at

http://www.space.com/opinionscolumns/opinions/ford_000613.html

was filled with factual errors and opinions disguised as fact.
First, it should be pointed out that the "Inca City" formation
is not in Cydonia as Mr. Ford asserts. Cydonia is at
approximately 41 degrees north latitude while the "Inca City" is
near Mars' south pole.

A second and more serious error was Mr. Ford's claim that the
Viking images of Cydonia were taken when the sun was "very low
in the Martian sky" while the MGS image was taken when the sun
was about 25 degrees above the horizon." The truth is that the
second Viking image of the Face was taken when the sun was at an
elevation of 27 degrees -- roughly two degrees higher than its
position when the MGS took the image.

Much, if not most, of the difference in the appearance of the
Face between the Viking images and the MGS image is due to the
difference of the sun's azimuth when the pictures were acquired,
not its elevation. The two Viking images were taken when the sun
was to the left and above the top of the "head" relative to the
Face while the MGS image was taken when the sun was almost
directly below the "chin." The illumination of the Face in the
Viking images was therefore the kind of illumination under which
we usually view faces while the illumination in the MGS image
was more akin to someone holding a flashlight under his chin to
give his face an eerie and grotesque appearance.

Third, Mr. Ford implies that MGS took more than one image of the
Face by using the plural, "pictures." There was only one MGS
image of the Face, taken under extremely bad lighting
conditions. And that image was first released to the public by
JPL in an "enhancement" that was so improper that the Face
appears to be a shallow depression in the ground rather than the
400-meter high landform that it is known to be. Mr. Ford
provides a link to a Goddard web site displaying this improper
enhancement, but of course, he makes no reference to Dr. Mark
Carlotto's web site, which does provide a series of images
describing a correct enhancement process:

http://www.psrw.com/~markc/marshome.html

I find it very disappointing that news sources such as
Space.com, when publishing articles on the Face controversy,
seldom reference this information. It is even more disappointing
that NASA would publish what appears to be an intentionally
falsified "enhancement" of an image on what is supposed to be an
educational web site.

Mr. Ford claims that "these" MGS "pictures" showed no
resemblance to a Face. Since he doesn't seem to know that there
was only one MGS picture of the Face, it is difficult to tell if
his opinion is based on actually looking at the sole MGS image
of it (properly enhanced). But in any case that is only his
opinion. As for myself, I immediately identified the Face in the
raw MGS image (not the poor JUL enhancement) when I first saw it
about an hour after NASA posted it on the Internet and before
NASA had announced that the image had actually captured the Face
- something that had by no means been certain beforehand. I was
able to identify the Face only because of what I perceived as
the resemblance to one of the landforms in the image to a face.
Proper enhancements of the Face have since then revealed
additional features resembling those of a face not visible in
the old Viking images -- namely, a ridge running down the center
of the landform where a nose would be expected on a face and
ending with two depressions resembling nostrils, also correctly
positioned for a face.

Ford concludes his article by indiscriminately attacking all
Cydonia "enthusiasts" as ignorant. Given the numerous errors in
his article, however, it appears he should be more concerned
with his own deficit of knowledge.

  Lan Fleming
  Society for Planetary SETI Research