Apples and oranges

One of the members of our astronomy club is very big on Martians.

An unreconstructed Art Bell fan, he has an entire (actually quite interesting) lecture he presents at Club events from time to time on various natural artifacts on the surface of the Red Planet, and how much they resemble artificial objects (not, I hasten to say, that he actually argues that the are. He just has a very active and vivid imagination, to which he freely and happily admits. And what, after all, is wrong with that?).

Like most with an especially heavy emotional investment in the possibility that there may once, long ago, have actually been a Martian civilization, he is especially protective of the famous Face on Mars- long since shown by subsequent pictures to be a mere trick of shadowing.

I tend to be somewhat amused by such stuff, and- as you might have guessed- tempted to patronize those who go in for it. But doing so is not entirely reasonable. For all we know, maybe there were Martians a long time ago. It's just that I'm a bit more of a skeptic than some who share my passion for the astronomy of our solar system. I'd like it to be true, too; it's a fascinating and even tantalizing idea. But I don't want to believe as much as my friend.

But I have to admit that I have my own favorite Martian feature, about which I am rather protective, too. And now it is under attack.

To the barricades!

The Martian crater Galle in Argyre Planitia is better known as the "Smiley Face on Mars." I take it as not only as a wry suggestion of Intelligent Design, but also of a sense of humor on the part of the Designer somewhat more whimsical than we are usually usually attribute to Him. I do not take it as evidence of ancient Martians.

It proves absolutely nothing. But even if one is a rank atheist, and sees the Smiley Face (like everything else) as an accident, it's an accident that is worth a good chuckle.

But alas, the Smiley Face (aka "Happy Face") is under attack. A European Space Agency probe has taken a picture of Galle from an extremely shallow angle, from which the features which comprise the Smiley Face are not visible. Somehow, this article takes this as evidence that the Face has somehow been "exposed" as not really being there- a mere optical illusion, like the other, more famous Face on Mars (admittedly, the false color pictures of the Smiley Face in the article do make it a bit harder to make out).

Which is, of course, poppycock. The second picture of the Famous Face clearly demonstrated it to be merely a trick of lighting. But every picture taken of the Smiley Face from a sufficent distance for its features to stand out - whether directly overhead, or or even from various angles- shows it to actually be there.

Every single one. The most that can be said to the contrary is that in some, the right eye is hard to make out.

And no one questions that every single geographical feature which comprises the Smiley Face is, individually, real. What does that prove? Nothing. But the fact remains that you have to go out of your way to find a way to photograph the thing so that it doesn't show up.

What does it mean, anyway, for the Smiley Face to be there? Certainly nobody thinks there's a literal sculpture in natural rock of the constituent parts of the face, which is the only thing a picture such as one taken by the ESA probe could disprove. As the article itself points out, nobody argues that the Smiley Face- unlike the "other" Face on Mars- is artificial. But what cannot be denied is that neither shadowing nor the angle from which the picture is taken dissipates the image, unless the picture is taken as a close up so extreme that as to be the equivalent of photographing a single dot in a single letter of a single word rendered by an old-fashioned office printer, and claiming on the basis of that photograph that it could not be a part of a printed word.

The Smiley Face is an actual feature of the surface of Mars. It is not a trick of lighting, and that it's possible- with difficulty- to take a picture of Galle in which it is not obvious, that is more an artifact of the idiosyncratic distance and angle from which the picture is taken than a fact about Galle itself.

Sure, the Smiley Face not as easy to pick out from a partial picture taken close enough in. But to argue that it's merely an optical illusion for that reason- because it doesn't show up in the picture taken from this close, and from this shallow angle- is absurd. Many an item here on Earth which is recognizable from a distance may not be as easy to identify from closer by. By definition, features visible only from above are visible only from above- and photographing them from too close and too shallow an angle for the features to be discerned obviously isn't playing fair. In fact, it might well be considered "cooking the evidence!"

In short, the alleged "debunking" of the Smiley Face on Mars is not only bogus, but transparently so. The Smiley Face- unlike that other, better-known Martian "Face-" is unmistakably there. It is no mere trick of lighting, and the perspective from which it appears to best advantage is from directly overhead.

Directly overhead is the one perspective from which neither shadows nor peculiarities of angle can distort the image. To view it from directly overhead is to view it head on.

It doesn't become less there because it's possible to hide it by photographing it from close enough and from a shallow enough angle. If that were the case, crop circles, for example (which I have no doubt are the work of pranksters rather than extraterrestrials) wouldn't be there, either. And who would recognize a picture of the Grand Canyon taken from a height of two feet?

That the Smiley Face on Mars is real is beyond dispute. It's a whimsical natural feature which is apparent almost however you photograph it- just as long as you photograph it from far enough above to show the whole thing, and from a deep enough angle not to artificially distort it. Shadows do not contribute to the illusion, because there's no illusion for them to contribute to.

Just God- or nature, or chance, or to whomever or whatever one is inclined to ascribe such things- giving us, intentionally or accidentally, something to chuckle about. And since nobody claims that it's more than that, why are some people so anxious to debunk it- and on so lame a basis, at that?