Suppressed Inventions and Other Discoveries (65 page)

The early history of telescopic observation of Mars has been recounted in numerous books. It began in 1877, when Giovanni Schiaparelli observed through his 8.75 inch reflecting telescope, a number of long lines on the Martian surface that connected up to larger dark areas. He described the lines as "canali," which in his native language meant channels. But the translation quickly became "canals," and his discovery of them led to the idea that intelligent beings on Mars must have constructed artificial waterways. While Schiaparelli didn't publicly suggest that conclusion himself, he didn't really discourage others who were promoting the idea, because he had found 113 different canali that were long, straight, and neatly defined. He intricately mapped the planet from years of observation. His maps were the standard for many years, and he gave ancient names from Biblical and classical mythology, along with names from the old geography of the Middle East, to the large surface areas and distinct markings of the planet. The names he gave to the surface features are still e x i s t e n t on maps today.
A distinguished American astronomer, Percival Lowell, decided to dedicate his life to studying Mars. In 1894, he built the Flagstaff Observatory in Arizona, which housed a 24-inch refracting telescope. By 1915, he and his staff had charted nearly 700 canals—a precise network of large-scale construction on Mars that channeled water from the polar ice caps. They were straight, narrow, sometimes parallel, and at numerous locations the canals intersected geometrically. These latter areas were noted to become seasonally dark, and Lowell named them oases, indicating that vegetation and crop growing were abundant. He naturally concluded that there would be attendant cities for the Martian people at these oases.

Lowell understood that the actual waterways could not be seen from Earth, if it were not for the broad areas of seasonal growth lining both sides. It was the combination of both factors that made it possible to see the network of geometric lines on Mars' surface with clarity. Some of the channels were approximately 3000 miles long, and from 15 to 25 miles wide.
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In 1915 Lowell stated to the scientific world, "Mars is inhabited, and we have absolute proof." He proclaimed that the Martian civilization had an intricate and highly advanced irrigation system that could be seen and photographed through Earth-based telescopes. A few pictures had been taken as early as 1907. Lowell's position was so revolutionary to the orthodox views of the scientific establishment, that it received harsh contempt from many, and went virtually ignored by others.

Once every twenty-six months, Earth and Mars are at their closest distance from each other in their orbits around the sun, and in astronomy this is called being in opposition. But because the orbits are elliptical, the most favorable opposition occurs only once every fifteen to seventeen years, and at this time the two planets are at their closest, about 35 million miles distant. To view the extensive canals and markings, an astronomer had to have unlimited patience and determination, and more importantly, an open mind. Like the establishment scientists today, Lowell's contemporaries often lacked such traits. Studying the distant features on Mars through the telescope was difficult and tricky, and could only be done at the large observatories when the local atmospheric conditions and other visibility factors were exceptionally coordinated. But even during the brief periods of favorable opposition, the disk-like image showed a blurring of detail almost continuously, due to the ever-present atmospheric turbulence around both the Earth and Mars.

Our atmosphere is constantly in molecular motion due to thermal activity. To the naked eye, the sky might seem so clear and calm, that a person would assume there is perfect seeing conditions. For looking at stars and nebulae, that would be true, but it's not the same when we view our neighboring planets with a large telescope. Through the high power magnification of a telescope, the barely perceptible dynamics of heat (wind) movement in the atmosphere causes a slight shimmering effect, and while the broad features of a planetary image may be easily recognizable, any fine detail is lost in an almost continual slight blurring. Ever so momentarily, our atmospheric unsteadiness will cease for a second or two. At that precise moment an astute telescopic observer will have a perfect seeing condition, and be able to see in fine detail the planetary image 35 million miles away. Yet these views last but a few seconds, making it extremely difficult to obtain a distinct photograph. Furthermore, the only way that the photographic evidence of the canals can be obtained is when the planet is viewed directly overhead. These observations must be made from the best suitable locations in our southern hemisphere.

Lowell made a special expedition to Chile in 1907 and obtained the first photographic evidence of the canals. His successor, Dr. E. C. Slipher, had better success in later years with observations from South Africa, when camera equipment had improved considerably. The Martian canals are seen on plates VI and XLVII in the book, The Photographic Story of Mars, by E. C. Slipher. The edition I obtained was published by Northland Press, Flagstaff, Arizona, in 1962.

The quality of photographs can always be debated by the establishment scientist who denies everything he has not seen for himself. In reality, the eye is superior in viewing telescopic images in detail, compared to the photographic results when taking telescopic pictures of a planet 35 million miles distant. Dr. Slipher stated in 1962, "The history of the canal problem shows that every skilled observer who goes to the best available site for his observations has had no great difficulty of seeing and convincing himself of the reality of the canals. I am not aware of a single exception to this." A fellow astronomer, Dr. Pettit, confirmed this visual documentation, by reporting in 1953 that "there are moments when the whole canal pattern can be seen on Mars."

Today's literature never fails to mention that the early Mariner probes during the 1960's proved that the canals are non-existent, and that the controversy over the Schiaparelli and Lowell evidence has been laid to rest. It is true that no actual evidence of canals was released by NASA, but it should be realized, that if the picture-taking cameras on those early probes did photograph certain areas showing canals with sufficient clarity, the evidence would not have been released anyway. The fact is, that until Mariner 9, only a very small and unrepresentative fraction of the Martian surface was photographed, and most of that, very poorly. Mariners 4, 6, and 7 never even found the huge 2300-mile-long Valles Marineus canyon on Mars, which is a natural formation. The fuzzy black and white photos that were released to the public lacked any clarity whatsoever. We can get better telescopic photographs of the Moon 240,000 miles away, than those camera pictures taken only a few thousand miles from Mars. An important point to realize is that the probes carried cameras, not telescopes. Even NASA admitted that the cameras aboard the Mariners could not have provided evidence of a Martian civilization from their photographic distance. However, the publicly-released photos were quickly interpreted as disproving the canal controversy.

What are space photographs in reality? The "picture" is relayed back to Earth in the form of numerous dots, contained within a radio signal. The picture has to be reconstructed from this electronic message, by computer imaging each dot into a shade of gray. The first image processing is considered the raw picture, and is basically a washed-out, blurry gradation of gray. Then the imaging team can reassign the gray levels by computer, in order to better distinguish any identifiable spots or features on the raw picture. A slightly improved image is given to the public.

American astronauts have said that the only visible man-made construction on Earth that they could see from their high orbit around our planet was the Great Wall of China. If there were a Great Wall on Mars and it turned up on one of the photographs, the space agency could still release the picture, but without the slightest trace of a wall. With computer imaging, it is easy to fade out features and erase contrast, to the point of an unidentifiable gray blotch. By starting with the original raw, washed-out picture, it is only a matter of re-assigning the gray levels so that the wall never appears during processing. On the other hand, if another photograph shows a natural landmark or feature, that picture can be electronically sharpened and focused to show great detail. We have reached a new state of the art: we can increase or decrease picture quality by subtle electronic brushing.

Now to clarify the situation regarding the canal evidence first discovered by Schiaparelli and Lowell through their telescopic studies. It was only "laid to rest" because authorities withheld official confirmation. Mariner 4 did photograph some straight-line canals, and this was finally admitted some time later by Propulsion Laboratory.
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(JPL NASA.) Dr. Clyde Tombaugh, the scientist who discovered Pluto, also confirmed that the canals were photographed by the 1965 probe. But officially, this type of evidence has never been released. The public was shown computer-enhanced photographs, but the detailed originals were in the hands of the authorities. And if the canals were filmed by that first probe, it is a certainty that they were filmed by later Mariner and Viking probes, yet that information has always been withheld. We'll discuss the censoring aspect relative to the later space missions thoroughly, but first let's continue with the telescopic record.
Dr. William Pickering, the head of Jet conducts all the planetary projects for Early in this century, expert astronomers recorded several anomalies during their observations of Mars. On one occasion, a long series of blinking lights lasting seventy minutes was observed, leading one observatory director to describe the incident as "absolutely inexplicable."
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In 1937 and again in 1949, Japanese experts witnessed a brilliant glow on the surface of Mars, that was as bright as a 6th magnitude star. To be visible from the Earth, these "flares" had to be tremendous. Any type of volcanic activity couldn't possibly be seen from our distance, and so the cause of the brightness remained a mystery. Other strange lights were seen on different occasions.

There was a cloud-like object observed and photographed in 1954, that was in the perfect shape of a W, or an M if we consider that a telescope inverts an image. It was 1100 miles across and remained in a fixed position above the planet for more than a month. (Natural atmospheric clouds will change shape and dissipate within a few days.) At the three intersections of the W, were intense bright spots, or "knobs." Speculation was running high, even at the Carnegie Institution at Washington. It was such a rigid and unusual shape, that there was a strong suggestion of artificial origin.

Throughout the 1920s and 30s, recurring radio signals were picked up coming from the direction of Mars. The spacing and pattern of the radio waves ruled out the possibility that these cryptic signals were random radio noise or electrical disturbances in space, because there was an intelligent coding system to these radio waves. That much was certain, even though they remained indecipherable on our end. Even the famous scientist Marconi, the man who invented the "wireless," picked up these interplanetary radio waves with his advanced experimental equipment in 1921, and later stated that he believed he had intercepted messages from Mars. He emphasized that the transmission wavelength of the coded signals was 150 kilometers, whereas the maximum wavelength used by our transmitting stations at the time was about 14 kilometers.
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Many others had come to the same conclusion over the next few years when intercepting these signals, especially when Mars was in orbital proximity to Earth. And speaking to the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1931, the late Bishop Barnes stated his belief that many other inhabited worlds exist, and that many must certainly be able to propagate interplanetary radio communication. It was such messages that were being picked up now, he said. And when these interplanetary signals were recognized and acknowledged by our Earth, it would be the dawn of a new era of humanity. But at this beginning, he added, there would be opposition between those who welcome the new knowledge and those who deem it dangerous for that information to be known and accepted. And is this not what happened two decades later, when UFOs demonstrated the very existence of life on other worlds? Was it not the beginning of an era of opposition between those who were open and accepting of the new knowledge about space, and those who worked to prevent the truth from coming out?

Along with the later observations of mysterious clouds and lights, the cryptic radio signals led some independent astronomers to conclude that we were being given rudimentary signals from Mars to challenge our thinking about life beyond the Earth. Regarding habitability, there was even more scientific certainty in other telescopic studies. As early as 1926, photographs were taken in ultraviolet light that clearly showed a substantial atmosphere on Mars. Compared with infrared photographs taken at the same time, the pictures proved that there is a dense atmosphere, possibly 40 miles in depth. There are undoubtedly more rarefied layers above this altitude, much like the upper, tenuous atmosphere around the Earth, that would be too thin to be recorded by photography. It has been suggested that the top of the Martian atmosphere might reach 400 miles, by the British scientist-writer Earl Nelson, author of There Is Life on Mars (1956).

The early photographs showing the Martian atmosphere were taken by G. E. Hale of the Mount Palomar Observatory [Southern California] and are reproduced in Nelson's book. There are two immediate and important conclusions that can be drawn from these observations. The surface gravity on Mars must be substantially higher than has been taught, for a low gravity would not be sufficient to retain such a sizable atmosphere. Secondly, with such a dense atmosphere, the sun's energy would interact much differently than orthodox theories suggested, and the temperatures on Mars would be considerably warmer, more moderate, and more Earth-like.