The Face on Mars and Cydonia Region Revisited 1998
by Mark Lerner
[Dateline: May 7, 1998. Here are key resources so you can study the entire Mars controversy. Richard Hoagland's web site: www.enterprisemission.com Richard Hoagland – author of The Monuments of Mars – has been the chief spokesman for over 15 years concerning ancient ruins on Mars. Art Bell's web site: www.artbell.com Art's Coast-to-Coast nightly (Mon-Fri) radio show reaches 10+ million people world-wide. He often has Richard as a guest and other researchers, investigators and scientists about ruins on Mars, the esoteric, the unexplained and the paranormal. We ran Art's chart with a special story on him in our Sag/Capricorn 1996 edition. Tom Van Flandern's web site: www.metaresearch.org/vanflandern.htm Tom Van Flandern is a professional astronomer (doctorate from Yale, who worked for 20 years at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C.). He has been on Art Bell's radio show several times to corroborate Richard Hoagland's analysis of recent pictures coming from Mars – as well as to discuss his unique theories about Mars being a moon of a former planet that exploded in the current "asteroid belt" during ancient times. On America Online, consider a visit to PARASCOPE. It's a great site concerning conspiracies, UFOs, enigmas, earth and space mysteries and the like. (On AOL, simply type in PARASCOPE in the keyword area.) To fax Dan Goldin – head of NASA – dial 202-358-2810. To fax reporter John Holliman at CNN, dial 404-681-3578. To fax Ted Koppel of ABC's Nightline show, dial 202-222-7976 or 7680. Many people are irritated with Dan Goldin's attitude about finally resolving the puzzle of ancient martial ruins. John Holliman and Ted Koppel have covered this story over the years. They may be open to hearing your opinions. Richard Hoagland's Enterprise center can be reached if you dial 888-338-8581 (phone, not fax).]
Our Virgo 1993 cover story was dedicated to the pending arrival of the Mars Observer spacecraft (late August 1993). I wrote an extensive article about the Face on Mars and Cydonia Region controversy – along with astro-information about famous people on Earth connected to Mars (Ray Bradbury, astronomer Percival Lowell, Schiaperalli, the Italian astronomer who first saw "canals" on Mars, H.G. Wells, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert Heinlein).
It was an exciting time. Anyone interested in discovering whether there really were ruins from an ancient civilization or "ET" outpost on Mars were eager to find out what the photos coming from the Mars Observer would reveal. But just as the spacecraft reached the red planet and had to make a crucial maneuver, NASA "lost contact with it." It was never heard from again – as far as the public knows.
Then last year the Mars Pathfinder and its robotic Mars-rover wowed us with pictures from the surface of Mars. And we awaited the arrival of Mars Global Surveyor, the new craft that would be taking photos of the entire surface of Mars over a few years. Finally, this past April 1998, after much reluctance on the part of NASA, photos were taken of the Face on Mars and the larger Cydonia region of which it is a part.
Let's Go Back To 1976
Before explaining what happened in April 1998, we have to let the novices reading this understand some of the basics of this phenomenal story.
During America's bicentennial celebrations in July 1976, we happened to land a wonderful spacecraft on Mars called Viking 1. You may not remember what occurred, but that vehicle (and a companion, Viking II, shortly afterwards) beamed back stunning pictures from the surface of Mars. We were able to see, on our TV screens, the pinkish-red martial landscape and sky, rocks, boulders and sand.
In the hundreds of photographs taken by Viking 1 before landing, a couple of them revealed an astounding image: there was something that looked distinctly like a Face (similar to the Sphinx of Egypt in certain respects), jutting up from the Cydonia region on Mars. Along with the face, and not too far away, lay very unusual landscape patterns, some appearing like pyramids or artificial ruins.
Over the years, Richard Hoagland – and many other experts in photography and research analysis (Mark J. Carlotto – author of The Martian Enigmas – and Stanley McDaniel – author of The McDaniel Report – are just two prestigious examples) – rigorously explored the possibility that these "images" on the surface of Mars were actually ancient ruins – not mere tricks of light and shadow.
However, NASA and the USA media in particular have been trying to undermine and make fun of this new group of martial esoteric geologists and photo-experts. Nevertheless, the subject is serious in the utmost and it is always surprising to wonder why there isn't a forceful determination within our country – politically – to finally get to the bottom of this. NASA's moves over the years about the Face and Cydonia "ruins" have been weird, contradictory, mysterious and secretive. This civilian organization, supposedly serving the American people, has clearly NOT been completely forthcoming about what it knows about Mars. And many people feel this is because of religion and what would happen in America and on Earth if we finally knew we "were not alone" and that an ancient civilization had existed on Mars. So, whether true or not, there are hordes of conspiratorialists who believe that NASA regularly lies to us and conceals much of what is going on. After all, there are NASA launches that are top-secret, when we are blasting spy satellites into space for the Defense Department, etc.
We Now Return To April 1998
Let's set this stage astrologically for a moment. NASA declared – after at one point saying it wouldn't take pictures of the Face and Cydonia, in order to conserve the battery life of the cameras! – that it would take 3 sets of photos via the Mars Global Surveyor cameras – in early-April, mid-April and late-April. Of course, wouldn't you know that for the first two sets of photos, Mercury would be retrograding – and in Aries no less (sign ruled by Mars)! In addition, during the first photos (April 4-5), Mars and Saturn (frustration; blocks; limits) would just happen to be conjunct – also in Aries. In fact, Mercury, Mars and Saturn were all together within 1-2 degrees during the first set of photos of the Face and Cydonia region in nearly 22 years.
What happened next truly represents the shadow side of Mercury Retrograde (Rx). A first photo of the Face on Mars was revealed to the public by NASA. It seemed to show almost nothing of any kind of Face at all – just a bunch of scratchy lines, that reminded Art Bell of a box of kitty litter! There was an overwhelming feeling that the whole subject now could be considered dead and buried, that Hoagland and all the other researchers were totally wacko and that nothing was in the Cydonia region at all.
TV stations, The New York Times and USA Today all raced to cover this story – mocking Hoagland and everyone else who had put over 15 years of effort into the search for ancient ruins on the surface of our traditional planet of war. The newspapers printed the first photo – that seemed to show a kind of sandbox area, with a few ripples here and there. However, there was one giant problem: the first photo released by NASA was un-enhanced or poorly taken, missing about two-thirds of its full photographic content (to show light, contrast, detail, etc)! This is a fact – first discovered by Hoagland and then confirmed by many other experts since then.
Perhaps 12-14 hours after the first, un-enhanced photo was released to a ravenous media in search of debunking the story, a second and now enhanced version of the same photo was released by NASA. This one was much more elaborate, shocking and extraordinary to Hoagland, astronomer Tom Van Flandern and many other researchers. What had first looked like a box of kitty litter was now a giant mesa with something still looking like a Face! [Naturally, our media never reported anything about the enhanced photograph. They had their first "weak" one and made their disparaging comments. That was it, in their opinion. However, real news was coming across the air waves, thanks to Art Bell, Hoagland, Van Flandern and others.]
Of course, NASA and the logical scientists still dismiss the premises of Hoagland, Van Flandern and others. But the second and particularly third batch of photos in April – the final set arriving on Richard Hoagland's 53rd birthday – focusing on the Cydonia region (not the Face) – also seemed to support the contention that there are some kind of ruins on Mars! [If you go to Hoagland's web site, listed at the beginning of this article, you can see many of the new photos and make your own judgment.]
NASA continues to stonewall the situation, not commenting on the possibility of ancient ruins on Mars or eliminating it entirely as foolishness. However, over the next few months, the Mars Global Surveyor can still photograph the Face and Cydonia region about every 9 days and your faxes and contacts to the appropriate officials might help that occur.
NASA's Chart
The chart we are including comes from Edith Hathaway's book Navigating by the Stars (page 214). Edith reports in her footnotes that NASA was signed into law on July 29, 1958, sometime between 7:55AM and 4:47PM, during President Eisenhower's office hours. A Noon chart is used because it is mid-day and reveals the power of NASA into the world.
This is not the time for a full analysis of NASA's chart. What you want to note is that Mars was located at 5+ Taurus – closely square to the powerful Sun in Leo. This astro-fact is startling on its own.
Think about it. We have this on-going, 22-year controversy about Mars in the USA and around the world – whether ancient ruins exist there that we can investigate, photograph and explore – and the chart for NASA reveals an almost precise, aggressive, waxing Sun-Mars square in fixed, power signs!
Now Add On The Sun And Mars Placements For Richard Hoagland And Art Bell
Here we find something remarkable. Richard Hoagland was born on April 25, 1945 with the Sun at 5 Taurus (conjunct NASA's Mars exactly and squaring NASA's Sun). Art Bell – who has brought Richard Hoagland's views onto his radio show perhaps dozens of times in the last few years – is born just two months later on June 17, 1945 with Mars at 5 Taurus (conjunct NASA's Mars exactly and squaring NASA's Sun). The odds of this happening due to chance appear to be ridiculous.
There is some purpose behind NASA, Hoagland and Art Bell all sharing a dynamic presence at 5 Taurus in the zodiac. In addition, as the third set of photos arrived from Mars Global Surveyor (April 24-25, 1998), it was Richard Hoagland's birthday and the Sun was transiting 5 Taurus (NASA's Mars placement and square to NASA's Sun in Leo).
Why This Cover Story Now
As many of you are reading this, the Sun and Mars are close together in the sky. This is the time of a Sun-Mars Conjunction (exactly on May 12 at 21+ Taurus) – a powerful merger that only occurs every two years. The Sun and Mars have been near union from late April and will remain within 4 degrees of conjunction until the end of May. "Mars" on all levels is percolating within the psychic atmosphere of humanity.
It is crucial that we know whether there are actually ancient ruins on the red planet. And for the skeptics in the audience, you need to realize that if ruins exist, they may be millions of years old. Therefore, highly eroded and hard to see and decipher. Probably only a trip there by humans or an advanced photographic explorer that can scan the features at Cydonia from close-up will solve the riddle to everyone's satisfaction.
Keep in mind that a closer look at NASA's natal map reveals that the Sun and Mars create a tense T-Square formation with Neptune at 2+ Scorpio. Presently, Neptune has made a station at 2+ Aquarius in May 1998 – squaring NASA's Neptune exactly (!) and right at the open end of the T-Square, transfiguring the T-Square into a Fixed Cross or crucifixion. Neptune will continue to ignite and rattle the NASA chart in this way from 1998-2000. And remember that Neptune is the planet of mysteries, magic and miracles – plus both Mars and Neptune are channels for the "6th Ray" in Esoteric Astrology, a ray vibration of dedication, devotion, idealism and fanatical zeal (a powerhouse during this last 2,160-year Age of Pisces). Remember, too, that President Clinton is born with an exact Mars-Neptune conjunction rising in Libra. One way or another, he may become a catalyst in the eventual revelation-disclosure that there are ancient ruins on the red planet.
New Meaning For The Nostradamus Quatrain Concerning 1999
In closing this time, please ponder one of Nostradamus' most famous quatrains (see page 5 box). Out of the hundreds of quatrains written by this incredible prophet from the 1500s (we ran a six-part series on Nostradamus in 1990-1991), this is one of the few – or only one – where a specific date and year are mentioned. Nostradamus was looking at 1999 in the 7th month and that is very close to the massive Total Solar Eclipse of August 11, 1999 in Leo – which will contain a Fixed Cross in the heavens (linking Sun-Moon in Leo; Mars in Scorpio; Saturn in Taurus; Uranus in Aquarius). The pattern is very close and the path of totality of the eclipse races across the Atlantic Ocean, through Europe, the Middle East and on to Afghanistan and Pakistan – areas of great volatility.
Researchers have always wondered why Nostradamus indicated that Mars* would be ruling "happily" or supporting the "good cause" (depending on the translation from the French of the 1500s) during the summer of 1999. Mars is usually involved with strife, violence, war, inflammation, fever, separation and the like. *Some translators of the quatrain replace the word "Mars" with "war."
However, if the Earth and Humanity are going through severe trials and tribulations next year – as the Millennium nears – wouldn't a realization that ancient ruins do exist on Mars be an incredibly happy and upbeat event? It would probably be the greatest discovery in the history of the world. Humanity would finally realize that it is not alone in the cosmos and we might make the decision – as suggested by the late scientist-astronomer Carl Sagan – to design a human mission to Mars (by members of many nations), a journey that would symbolize our ability to create global peace – not war (Mars) – on Earth as we move into the new space frontier of the 21st century.
Keep tuned to this station in future issues as we will be updating you on photographs from Mars Global Surveyor and elaborating on this fascinating extraterrestrial debate.
Copyright 1998 by Mark Lerner.
All rights reserved.
[Mark Lerner is the publisher of Welcome to Planet Earth magazine. Please contact him at PO Box 12007, Eugene OR 97440 or via e-mail at Markgobear@aol.com]
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