NASA's official stance on these photo's from Mars Surveryer? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5u-20g7Bwdw

Question

In this video, former Chief Astronomer of the US Naval Observatory Tom Van Flandern, Ph.D. shows new pictures of what appears to be artificial structures on mars taken by the Mars Global Surveyer. Again the link is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5u-20g7Bwdw

Answer 1

A big part of his case is based on the 1976 Viking probe pictures, but those pictures have since been shown to be nothing more than a hill by the European Space Agency's Mars Express. Take a look at the more recent pictures here:

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Mars_Express/SEMINCO7BTE_0.html

He also says the chances of a rock formation that resembles a human face naturally occuring on Mars are 1000 billion billion to one. I ask you, have you ever seen a rock or group of naturally occuring rocks on Earth that resemble a human? There are tons! Here's an article about some in the USA: http://geology.about.com/od/geologyandculture/a/greatstonefaces.htm

As for the other two or three pictures he has to prove there's life on Mars, they look pretty natural and random to me.

Answer 2

Van Flanderen is flat wrong when he says that elongated craters don't occur naturally. On the Moon there are remarkable examples including Schiller (see link below). It kinda hurts his case if he doesn't recall examples like this.

Otoh, the last face he showed is quite remarkable even if it is a natural formation. That one I haven't seen before.

Answer 3

Hi. Most people see what they have been expecting to see. Whether it's a religious image in a piece of plywood or a pattern in surface craters. Would not an advanced intelligence use an advanced method of depicting an image? Hologram perhaps?