Cydonia Quest

The Occasional Journal

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Entry No. 3 - 25th January 2004

Spirit's Weird Rocks & Opportunity's Initial Oddities

Regular readers of the Enterprise Mission (TEM) website will know that they have been pointing out many weird looking rocks in the panoramic shots taken by the Spirit rover on Mars. Some of them look like possible mechanical fragments such as the example below.

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To date TEM have been working their way through panoramic shots of the Martian landscape taken from Spirit and the objects they have been studying are just a little too far away to see clearly. The temptation is to wonder whether these objects would be as weird looking close up. Well, the Spirit rover has also taken many images looking down at the ground and these close-up shots of smaller rocks reveal that they can be equally as weird.

Here are modest enlargements of some anomalous objects that the Spirit rover passed over before it went haywire. I have hyper-linked these images to the source material, which can be reached by clicking on each image.

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The obvious question is, could these weird items actually be artefacts from the hypothetical civilisation we see at Cydonia? They could certainly be small heavily corroded and sand blast pitted components of mechanisms. One of the examples above even looks suspiciously like a fossil.

JPL scientists are confident that they can get the Spirit rover back to full robotic health in a matter of days and weeks. Before Spirit's difficulties mission scientists were expressing disappointment that they had landed in the wrong place and were ready to make Spirit scoot off over the horizon. We are often admonished not to rush through life, but to sometimes stop and smell the roses along the way. Spirit's mission scientists seem to have started out with a preconception of just what they wanted to find in Gusav Crater and in their rush to find it have been in danger of missing possibly wonderful things right under their noses. Perhaps Spirit's temporary breakdown is God's way of telling them to stop rushing, but to stop and make a closer investigation of the anomalies along the way.J

If Spirit's anomalous looking stuff isn't enough the first pictures sent back by the Opportunity lander today suggest other possible artefacts. The landing site is not rich in rocks but JPL are very excited by a nearby pavement of angular slabs which will be investigated very shortly. Other panoramic images show slopes covered with low furrows and ridges. In some places such as in the image below there is a rectilinear, cellular and archaeological feel to some of these arrangements.

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The following display was prepared by "Bones", a regular contributor to the Enterprise Mission conference forum. In this display the contrast has been turned up full blast to show these ridge and hollow patterns in this and other panoramic images to their best. The result is very intriguing to say the least. It could be geology, but it would be completely short-sighted to rule out possible archaeology. (I've reduced in size "Bones" original display, but the basics are still clearly visible).

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For researchers of Martian anomalies it looks like we are going through interesting times. Readers should keep an eye on developments on TEM's front page (click µµµ) for further breaking news. Cydonia Quest will attempt to keep up with developments on these Journal pages.

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