April 4, 1998: Cities On Mars - Richard C. Hoagland

Richard C. Hoagland, former museum space science curator and NASA consultant, joins Art Bell in the first hour to present his Cities on Mars claims about Cydonia, Mars Odyssey color infrared data, and possible intelligently designed artifacts. Hoagland presents what he calls near-certain evidence of architectural ruins beneath the surface of Mars, derived from daytime color infrared data captured by the Themis camera aboard the Mars Odyssey spacecraft. The thermal imaging penetrates through fine dust particles that have accumulated to depths rivaling the Grand Canyon, revealing geometric patterns of structures below.Image processing specialist Keith Laney, who performs work for NASA's Mars Web Program, explains how he acquired the data and processed it using advanced multispectral software from Kodak's Research Systems division. He describes being guided to the pristine image by a NASA-affiliated figure using the screen name BAMF, later identified as Noel Gorlick, manager of the Themis computation center at Arizona State University. Comparisons between Laney's processed version and the publicly released version reveal significant degradation in the official data.Art examines the images on his website and declares without reservation that image number two depicts a city. A side-by-side comparison of downtown Cairo photographed from the air and the Cydonia infrared data shows striking similarity. Corroborating data from Russia's 1989 Phobos 2 mission displays the same grid-like patterns, and celestial alignment calculations place the site's origin at roughly 300,000 years ago.