sponsored by

Recent high-resolution images from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft have failed to confirm the theorized artificiality of the Face on Mars, or that of its neighboring "City," beyond a reasonable doubt.

However, with so much attention focused on the Face and City, it has been easy to forget that there remain several Martian features that appear to be at least as anomalous and far less dependent upon subjective interpretation. They are known to researchers as The "Cliff," the "Crater Pyramid" and the "String of Beads" (formerly called the "Runway"). As the principal photographic consultant to the independent Mars investigations since 1984, I have long been fascinated by these peculiar landforms and sincerely hope that they will be targeted for high-resolution imaging during the forthcoming Mars Global Surveyor mapping mission.

2x enlargement from Viking frame 35A73
40.35 N, 8.96 W
Two registration marks were removed.
THE CLIFF, located northeast of the Face, is a 2 km-long mesa that rises about 30 meters above a pancake-like "crater pedestal." The Cliff's outlines, surface texture and internal structure differ markedly from that of the surrounding crater ejecta material, indicating that its formation post-dated that of the crater itself. Geologists point out that had the Cliff pre-dated the impact, the debris ejected by the cratering force would have been dammed up on its eastern side, burying, distorting or destroying the Cliff entirely. The exact opposite, however, seems to have occurred:  the terrain on the Cliff's eastern side, rather than being heaped up, appears instead to have been hollowed out, with this hollow area displaying an unnaturally crisp outline. From this depression a smooth, unbroken path climbs in a northwesterly direction to the top of the Cliff, where it makes a hair-pin turn southward along the Cliff's ruler-straight ridge. After wrapping cleanly around the ridgeline, it heads northward to terminate at the Cliff's northwestern extremity.

Another striking aspect of the Cliff's surroundings is the uniquely striated or "plowed-field" texture of the terrain between the Cliff and its crater. Researchers have speculated that this may constitute evidence of the quarrying of material for the Cliff's construction.

Finally, the crater itself appears to incorporate a small pyramidal structure in its rim. It has been argued that this feature marks a key point in the theorized relational geometries of the Cydonia "complex."
 
Portion of  Viking frames 43A01 and 43A03
46.4N, 3.2 W
(Click on image for full resolution stereo view)
THE CRATER PYRAMID, Deuteronilius Mensae, is located about 800 km northeast of Cydonia. Viking imaged this apparently four-sided pyramidal formation situated on the ejecta blanket of a large impact crater. Whereas the Cliff at Cydonia is separate and distinct from its associated crater, the Crater Pyramid actually intersects its crater's rim; yet, like the Cliff, it lacks the expected impact damage or surrounding debris flows. Over a kilometer square at its base and at least 600 meters high, the Crater Pyramid is the tallest object within a 100 km radius.

Below the Crater Pyramid's crater is a similar crater of nearly equal size whose surrounding ejecta blanket displays a unique arrangement of furrows. Unlike natural erosional channels, these do not seem to branch out radially but originate in a straight line running tangent to the crater's bowl. No conventional explanation has been advanced to account for these furrows.

Portion of Viking frame 86A08
34.7 N, 212.8 W
(Click on image for 2x enlargement)
THE STRING OF BEADS, halfway around the planet from Cydonia, in Mars' Utopia Planitia region, is one of the most puzzling features observed to date on Mars.  Discovered by researchers John Brandenburg and Vincent DiPietro in the early 1980s, it was originally dubbed the "Runway" due to its appearance as a tiny, straight line in Viking frame 86A08. When magnified, it turned out to be
a four-kilometer-long string of mounds or pyramids apparently linked by an off-center shaft. The structure seems to be emerging from beneath gently sloping terrain and appears to be surrounded by vestiges of a shallow basin.

Close by, there is another, more clearly defined basin surrounding a "bow- tie"-shaped arrangement of three unnaturally smooth structures about two kilometers in overall length. At the edge of the adjoining mesa, a curious oval formation encloses an apparent gridlike, cellular structure.

According to its discoverers, the String of Beads was located by tracing the course of an ancient water channel to its source. The concept underlying this search was to find a location on Mars which, like the Cydonia area, included mesas bordering what once may have been a large bay or lake.

The "Cliff," the "Crater Pyramid" and the "String of Beads" share at least four key characteristics with virtually all of the Martian anomalies:

1) To the eye they appear distinctly out of character, virtually popping out of the landscape in NASA's 1976 Viking images.

2) They seem to defy conventional geomorphological explanation.

3) They all fall within a limited size range -- about 1-4 km in their longest dimensions. Such a constraint is uncharacteristic of natural landforms.

4) Each is the dominant feature in a grouping of associated anomalies.
 

Note from Anomalous Images: If you would like to see there areas in more detail, please send an email to Dr. Michael Malin, president of Malin Space Science Systems and Chief Investigator for Mars Global Surveyor. During the pause between aerobraking maneuvers, there will be excellent opportunities to obtain extremely high resolution images of these and other anomalous areas on Mars.

Click here to send an email to Dr Malin: