When We're Right, We're Right ...
Part II (Revised and Expanded)

Mars Odyssey Infrared Image of The Hydroates Chaos Region of Mars (Enterprise Mission Enhancement)

NASA's major announcement today -- regarding "massive reservoirs of water (ice) on Mars," detected by Mars Odyssey -- should come as no surprise to regular visitors to Enterprise. However, the long-range implications of that announcement extend far beyond all official comments made so far .... They go, in fact, to the heart of NASA's entire future plans for exploration of the Red Planet ... and should make it increasingly obvious, even to the most sceptical, that "life" -- in one form or another -- is waiting for us even now, both on and under the reddish sands of Mars ....

In the wake of our latest posting regarding the first findings from the Mars Odyssey spacecraft (See "It's Only a "Whole New Mars" -- to Them"), we have received numerous emails and faxes critical of our story. Most of these communications were both rude and derisive, and particularly vicious compared to the usual feedback we receive from our numerous critics. We tend to get much more rancorous attacks the more obvious it is that we are right, so the intensity of these attacks hardly surprised us. What did concern us was just how unfocused and feeble most of this criticism was.

With unanimity (and predictability), our critics steadfastly ignored the flat-out confirmation of our Mars Tidal Model that was included in the piece, and instead preferred to focus on the infrared image of the Hydaspsis Chaos region of Mars. (Why would they want to focus on the specific predictions we got right, after all? It doesn't serve their agenda.)

During the course of reading through these nasty comments, it became clear to us that most of these "armchair geologists" not only did not understand what they were seeing, but also completely misunderstood (or deliberately misrepresented) just what it was about this data we found so fascinating. In many cases, they accused us of immediately claiming that the geometric block-like features in the IR image were artificial, which we flatly have not done -- yet.

Rather than simply stand back and allow the usual suspects to spew their venom without rebuttal, we've decided that a bit more explanation is in order here. After all, if those who spend their time combing every word we write -- looking for the slightest flaw -- aren't "getting it," we feel that perhaps those that are truly curious can use a better understanding as well.  And, with the passage of a couple of months and more analysis ... we now know more.  As, apparently, does NASA ....

For the most part, the attacks focused on our (supposed) inability to recognize "simple geology."  The attackers also criticized us for not providing a context visible light image of the Hydaspsis Chaos region in our piece. One article even blatantly accused us of being "unscientific" for not including such an image. Of course, this critic carefully made NO mention of the fact that NASA, at its initial Odyssey press briefing, also failed to provide such an important context image (the THEMIS team has now rectified this matter -- and Viking context images are part of EVERY THEMIS image Web release).  This, in spite of the fact that the THEMIS folks had their remarkable nighttime IR image for over a week before the press conference, not to mention the budget and staff to easily do a search for such a visible companion image from the Viking archive. We did not have the luxury of those resources (and still don't!) -- certainly not in the few hours immediately after seeing what the THEMIS team presented, and the posting of our initial article ... which we clearly characterized as a "preliminary assessment" (meaning: "more analysis and documentation to come") in any case

Viking/Odyssey context image provided by Lan Fleming. Why couldn't NASA provide this?

But again, when we read through the criticism, it became obvious that the critics literally had no idea (!) why this nighttime IR image was so fascinating, and so potentially important.

They assumed (we gather, from many of their naive comments) that we were expecting to see blatant evidence of artificiality in the broader context image, when it was discovered (and in the visible light spectrum). We weren't. What is key to understanding the bizarre nature of this area is the buried formations -- the underlying structure beneath the Martian surface features, revealed for the first time at this roughly "Viking" resolution by Odyssey's IR imager.

Just for the sake of argument, let's review one natural geologic model for this kind of formation for a minute. One of the arguments these amateur geologists seem to fall back on is the tired, old, "frost wedging" comparison

This is an example of typical frost wedging here on Earth. The forms are caused by repetitive freeze and thaw over many years. The ground eventually forms cracks, or weak points, sometimes in vaguely polygonal patterns like you see above. The melting snows find their way into these fissures, slowly wearing away the ground in between the harder blocks and creating water filled channels for runoff. This is a slow process, and as you can see the wedges are very shallow. But the important thing to remember is that the softer soil is pushed away by the flowing waters, which eventually shapes the harder stuff into the polygonal forms we see above. In other words, the runoff flow creates the shapes.

Now let's consider Mars.

In our now substantially validated Tidal Model, what happened to Mars was quick and cataclysmic. In a very short period of time, starting with the fateful day of the destruction of Mars parent planet, "Planet V," the Red planet took a beating almost unparalleled in the history of the solar system. That first day she lost better than half her atmosphere, experienced floods of biblical proportions, was bombarded with literally miles of Planet V's debris, and lost her ability to sustain higher forms of life. Within a few months, if not weeks, virtually all of the remaining water on Mars was either frozen in place as surface or subsurface water ice, or sublimated to the poles. So whatever sculpting took place was rapid and intense. Since "frost wedging" would have taken by definition decades to accomplish its erosive process, it seems unlikely that it can be attributed to what we see here.

Look again at a close up of this nighttime IR data from Mars Odyssey.

Remembering that dark is "cool" and bright is "warm," this image makes no sense in terms of conventional geologic models. Casting aside for the moment NASA's silly explanation that the "mesas" are "dust covered," which is why they are "cooler" in this image (dust -- collecting deeply on the TOPS of flat, windswept mesas ... on a planet where the winds can exceed three hundred miles per hour ..!?), take a good look at the edges of these tantalizingly regular "cells." Note that they are all brighter by a factor of at least ten than the interior of the "mesas" they encircle. If, in fact, the walls of these mesas are made of the same stuff as the interior (rock?), then they would be expected to have pretty close to the same heat-emissive properties as the interiors, even if there were a little dust on top. Instead, we see a dramatic difference in the amount of heat retained by these precisely defined, amazingly geometric "walls," compared with their very cool interiors. For conventional geologic models, this is a Big Problem.

How can a natural "ring" around a "mesa" be made of something completely different than the interior of the mesa itself -- since mesas are carved (in natural geology) out of pre-existing bedrock?! And how can the (shadowed) channels between the mesas now be brighter (warmer!) than the windswept (exposed to wind AND sunlight), rocky tops?  The channels should collect and trap significant amounts of sand and dust over any interval of time -- which should then act as insulation, producing dark (cold) channels.  In fact, the entire situation is reversed -- to NASA's own now-admitted bafflement (see below).

Enter the Mars Tidal Model.

In our take on this remarkable region, Hydaspsis Chaos was a "dumping ground" for some of the huge volumes of water that were released from the sudden severing of Mars' prior gravitational relationship (orbital lock) with Planet V. As this catastrophic flood unfolded, the sudden orbital release dumped trillions of tons of water, massive boulders, dirt, silt and sediments all over this (and every other) low-lying area on Mars. The rushing "tidal waves" would eventually slow to a trickle, but not until they left literally trillions of tons of miles-deep debris, muds and sediments in their destructive wake.  The finest sediments -- initially deposited in catchments between more resistant areas of rock -- would later be worn away by the remaining flows ... before the planet then literally froze.  And, after a period of drying, the incessant Martian winds would then continue to erode -- but at a MUCH slower pace, and for literally millions of ensuing years -- what those last flood waters only started ....

Anything standing above ground before this almost inconceivable cataclysm would have been simply obliterated by the sudden floods.  As these raging waters ebbed, the remaining flows have found their way to narrower and narrower rivers and streams, constrained somewhat by the previous geology, eventually carving out the shapes we see here by removing much of the initial sediments deposited between the "mesas."

Ok, so at this point no difference really between our model and conventional processes, right?

Well ... our model assumes that the area Odyssey and Viking imaged is covered now with a (relatively insulating) "hard mud" to a significant depth (at least several kilometers).  The initial flood of water could not have gone on too long after the initial cataclysm (because the the sudden loss of atmosphere, and the freezing temperatures), so there would have been relatively little post-catastrophe erosion from remaining, flowing water ... before those waters froze. Mud and sediments, unlike exposed bedrock, do not retain heat, so it would be expected (in this model) that these deep sediments would now show up in any nighttime IR image as a "dark" or "cool" area -- just as we see here over most of the nighttime IR image!

But, if simple geologic theory were not enough, there is further proof in this same image that we are looking at a huge "mud flow," rather than exposed planetary rock.

Just "above" the "mesas" in this nighttime image (to the West, since North is to the right) are two modest impact craters, each a couple of hundred feet across. In both cases, in the infrared they have brighter (warmer) rims than their surroundings, and dark (cool) interiors. This is as it should be -- if the crater rims are (warmer) exposed outcrops of underlying bedrock, uplifted by the initial impact process, and the bowl-shaped interiors have trapped (cooler) blowing dust and sediments, which now appear dark because of their thermal insulating properties.  

But ... something's NOT quite right with this "standard" geological picture.  If you compare the brightness of the crater rims (the "exposed rock" in the impact model), they are only slightly brighter than their surroundings.  They are certainly not as brilliant as the (presumed) exposed "mesa rock walls" of the Chaos region just to the east! It's as if the craters were created, not in bedrock, but in an ancient layer of insulating mud! If the impacting objects had struck a hard-pan surface, presumably the underlying rock would have been shattered and been raised -- exposing it as brightly as the edges of the nearby eroded "mesas." But it has not.  The IR signature of each crater rim seems curiously "dull" -- as if the thermal emission was coming from something with a much softer, far more insulating nature than bare rock (which is exactly what these nighttime IR images are supposed to reveal!).  It, in fact, appears exactly like clods of friable (and thus insulating) sediments ... instead of deeply excavated (by the cratering process) bedrock!

Thus, these completely unexpected IR crater signatures neatly reinforce our model ... that this region is in fact a deep flood plain of overlying mud and sediments, with the ancient bedrock now buried literally miles below the surface.

So, these simple craters reveal remarkable, independent confirmation for our basic "massive flood" scenario: that these cannot be simple "exposed, rocky mesas," now covered with accumulated windblown dust, but rather, that this whole area (and the other "chaos" regions?) is one massive mud flow from the ancient cataclysm that rent Mars from its mother planet ~ 65 million years ago, from its orbit of Planet V.

And if this area is indeed covered to some depth in ancient sediments, then the simplest reason the interior of the mesas are now dark (cool), is not because they are composed of the same material as the much hotter "walls" [and are covered with dust on top (please!)] -- but because they are literally "catch basins" -- filled in with those same ancient muds ... still contained within the current IR-bright "walls!"  

The latter, then, are simply composed of some much more heat retentive material ... arrayed in a stunningly regular, geometric pattern of amazingly uniform thickness -- and stretching for literally hundreds of collective miles around each "mesa!"

Thus, these Hydaspsis Chaos "mesas" (from the new Odyssey observations) do not appear themselves to have been shaped and eroded by the vast tidal floods gauging out pre-existing bedrock into intricate geometric forms, but by the tidally-released sediments flowing around and over pre-existing sets of resistent "walls" composed of a heat-retentive "something" ... walls clearly now already in place before the catastrophe itself!

So then, the next question must become: what kind of natural geologic process forms such "walls" -- with regular, uniform thickness and intricate (and opposing!) geometric patterns -- that can be "filled in" by massive mud flows of the type we now see here?

The short answer is ... none.

There is however, a perfectly viable alternative scenario. Let's consider what would happen on a planet like ours if a sudden cataclysm on the scale of what happened to Mars were to occur.

If the Earth's rotational axis suddenly shifted, or if the collapse of the Ross Ice Shelf resulted in massive amounts of water suddenly (aided by onshore winds) inundating habitable coastal areas, everything above ground would be swept away almost instantly in the resulting massive floods. Large buildings would be crushed and tossed aside, leaving only their foundations below the ground. If this happened in an area the size of say, the Los Angeles basin (below), then all one would expect to see would be the remnants of these former rising structures, arranged in a hauntingly geometric pattern indicated by their remnant foundations.

If you then flooded that whole area with miles-deep sediments, the hollowed-out cores of these former skyscrapers and other structures would also fill with sediments -- and initially the whole LA Basin would become one big, featureless sea of mud!

But, on Earth, as rain and wind began to erode away these newly-formed deposits, eventually the eroding sediments would sink low enough to reveal the preserved foundations of the former artificial structures. At this point, the waters (and wind) would take the path of least resistance, as they always do, and flow around the massive base foundations of these former structures. Yet, protected from this erosive action by the basement walls, the interior sediments would remain where they initially were trapped ... to dry, and form a series of essentially level "mesas" to any aerial observers -- separated by the former streets between the buildings! 

Thus, our hypothetical post-cataclysm LA Basin would strikingly resemble in the infrared, from an aircraft or from space, exactly what we are seeing in this nighttime Odyssey Mars image (though, on a much smaller scale) -- even down to the geometric "crennellations" on the "mesa" walls ...!

This, we now must argue, is almost exactly what we are seeing in this nighttime Odyssey Hydaspsis Chaos image!

It is increasingly apparent that these bright, intensely geometric outlines (the curiously-even "walls" of the so-called "mesas") are, in fact, the exhumed foundations of former massive artificial structures -- all that remains after the ancient raging floods completely leveled the original structures' towering upper levels. Strikingly, these once vast buildings -- measuring literally miles across! -- are now, we believe, marked only by the surviving foundations of the same type of "arcology" we see at another Martian site--

Cydonia itself!

If you plot these two collections of highly geometric objects (see graphic), the scale and layout of each is essentially identical.  The major difference, between this buried "city of arcologies" located at Hydaspsis Chaos, and those still lying above ground at Cydonia, is the huge difference in the erosion mechanism which ultimately destroyed them. 

At Hydaspsis Chaos, the destruction was obviously caused by unimaginable water and resulting sediments -- which then safely buried (and thus preserved!) the foundation outlines of the former arcologies themselves.  At Cydonia, the erosion mechanism has apparently been wind-carried sand and blowing sediments -- dust -- which over the millennia have literally ground down the former massively enclosed, artificial living structures.  Clear signatures of each respective mechanism have been left at each respective site -- which the latest Cydonia MGS images, and the Odyssey THEMIS nighttime IR image, have now convincingly revealed.

Like the Sphinx of Egypt, the Hydaspsis Chaos arcologies -- at least their remaining foundations -- seem to have fared far better than their Cydonia counterparts.  By being buried long ago, and only "recently" (in terms of Martian history) unearthed through wind erosion, the pristine geometries of these ancient foundations have been carefully preserved.  What lay above those intricate geometric structures, however, has been forever lost ... unless, in other places on the Red Planet, entire preserved arcologies were buried in the cataclysm ... only now to slowly be revealed to Odyssey's sensitive IR detectors ....

The interiors of these "mesas," then, in the Odyssey image appear cool because they are made of a very different (soft, insulating) material than the foundation "walls" themselves: the dried up, captured muds from those massive, ancient flows that shattered the former history of Mars ... and an entire, almost unimaginable Martian civilization.

So what we've found in the Odyssey infrared of Hydaspsis Chaos are the ancient foundations of "something" far more crucial to our eventual understanding of this entire shattered planet, far more relevant to the search for who we ultimately are ... than mere "frost wedging."

It is precisely these remarkable structures, if not answers, that NASA was obviously looking for themselves ... when they took ... and then released ... THIS specific Odyssey IR data as their "first nighttime image" -- precisely 13 years (to the day!) after the Russians took their own provocative Phobos 2 IR images just a stones throw away from this same area.  Is it truly an "accident" that this first IR image -- from a mission named literally after Arthur C. Clarke's famed epic of extraterrestrial intelligence's formative involvement with Mankind -- should be a set of buried artificial structures which (if we have now read the Odyssey IR correctly!) can teach us so much about Cydonia itself, if not the history of Mars destruction ..?!

We think not.

The last nail holding in place this increasingly tattered assertion, that these intricate, highly ordered Hydaspsis Chaos forms are somehow the product of a "simple Martian geology" has been removed, not by us -- but by NASA itself.

At two recent Mars Odyssey public lectures, one held at JPL's Von Karmen Auditorium, the second at Pasadena City College (in room 333, of course), Dr. Roger Gibbs, the new Odyssey Project Manager, provocatively showed this same baffling IR Odyssey image, and flatly admitted that he and the entire Odyssey team had "no idea how to interpret it."

"Why does a channel have no dust, and the top of a mesa does?" he asked rhetorically. He then asserted that the working model was that the "channels" somehow "collapsed around the 'mesas.'"

Again, this is silly. Clearly now, the exposed "channels" were literally scooped out by an erosive process which attacked the softer, drying mud ... but left the hard, geometric foundations -- each containing its own reservoir of trapped sediments -- of the ancient arcologies essentially intact.

Somehow, Gibbs and his colleagues can't publicly (or won't -- just yet ...) consider a non-natural explanation for these impossible features, even while blandly admitting "It [the IR image] really asks more questions than it answers." Clearly, if the explanation for Hydaspsis Chaos was "simple geology," as some of our critics still maintain, it seems to be a "geology" well beyond the leadership of the Odyssey Mars mission ... if not of NASA's best planetary minds.

Based on our surprising discovery of these remarkable, literally buried similarities between Hydaspsis Chaos and Cydonia, some of our critics would be wise to not so quickly dismiss other, even older and similar geologic anomalies on Mars -- like Mariner 9's so-called "Inca City."  Some critics have pointedly used the MGS images of "Inca City" in an attempt to dismiss Hydaspsis Chaos -- as an "obviously similar natural set of features." They would be well served to withhold judgment, until we get an Odyssey IR look at this other remarkable collection of equally "geometric" figures -- particularly since Odyssey's latest GRS (Gamma Ray Spectrometer) results have revealed a massive accumulation of frozen water underneath that site ... in fact, draped around both Martian polar regions  -- the obvious "cold-trapped" remnants of Mars two former tidal oceans!

As we have just seen, quick and dirty interpretations of new spacecraft data -- based on flawed judgments, lack of experience, or even outright bias against "artificiality" -- can end up making such "shoot from the hip" critics look plain stupid. The attempt to use Inca City as a means to dismiss Hydaspsis Chaos is a prime example.

To expect ancient, highly eroded archaeological "ruins" on another planet -- and ones of potentially immense scale -- to look as clean as a recently excavated dig on Earth, is not only naive in the extreme ... it's not even logical. As you can see from the image below, "Inca City" compares very favorably (in terms of straight geometry) to well-known archeological ruins on Earth, like the Anasazi structures in Chaco Canyon. Even though Inca City is on a much larger scale and completely unexcavated, this does not mean that artificiality should be ruled out a priori -- certainly not based simply on existing visible light data.

As noted previously, an IR study of this formation is crucial to determining the underlying structure that -- even heavily "mantled" -- presents such a compelling geometric comparison to our own terrestrial monuments. It's bad enough to dismiss the sand and frost-covered "Inca City" as "natural" without a closer study of the entire area; but to then cite it as some sort of "proof" that the Hydaspsis Chaos images have a similar "natural" explanation, is almost criminally idiotic.

As should now be obvious to everyone, what lies just beneath the surface sometimes tells a completely different story ....