Mars Anomalies

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A Brief History

In late 1992, a series of events led me eventually to write, and have published, a volume titled "The McDaniel Report," which is a detailed summary of work done by several scientists (and at least one pseudo-scientific speculator) attempting to unravel the mystery of possibly artificial objects on the surface of Mars. The Report also included in-depth critique of the logical fallacies engaged in by NASA scientists as they ridiculed and utterly rejected any of the data, much of it apparently solid and intriguing, developed by these researchers. The publication of the Report by North Atlantic Books led to my hearing from a number of academically qualified scientists who also found significant data worthy of investigation in the images that had been returned years before by the Viking Mars orbiters. The Preface to The McDaniel Report, although now outdated, will explain my original impetus toward investigating the subject.

Eventually I proposed the formation of a research group, linked by e-mail, dedicated to a thorough scientific approach to the subject of possible artificial objects on Mars, based on the available data and hopefully on further data to come when NASA's Mars Observer spacecraft, launched that same year, reached its destination. This group of highly skilled scientists and experienced professionals became, then, the Society for Planetary SETI Research (SPSR), where SETI of course refers to the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. It was then and is now an SPSR requirement that sound scientific methodology must be applied to the subject, and this led SPSR to distance itself from various speculators who had prior to that time dominated the public's attention.

Yet this careful and legitimate approach to what must certainly be viewed as an entirely legitimate endeavor had little or no effect on NASA's position of ridiculing the entire subject. So it became one of the goals of SPSR to seek a more balanced rapport with NASA and to "normalize" the subject of Mars anomaly research. That proved a rocky road, with some successes and many failures. With the tragic loss of the Mars Observer, the hope for new data was dashed. SPSR scientists had to turn back to the old Viking data, mining it for every bit of information that might have been overlooked in previous research. Many tantalizing new discoveries were made, including particularly the finding of an extremely unusual feature tagged "The Sirisena Quadrangle" after its discoverer, English image processing expert Ananda Sirisena. This feature has the appearance of a large walled enclosure cut into the side of an elongated mesa, with a peculiar star-shaped object at the terminus of the enclosing wall.

The Square Root 2 Rectangle. Similar "mounds" or hills are located at points ABDEG.

Among the most startling discoveries, one having great potential significance, was the finding by Dr. Horace W. Crater of the University of Tennesee Space Institute that a group of similar small objects in the area under consideration constitute a geometric pattern whose chances of random occurrence, tested by a rigorous methodology, are highly unlikely. Although Dr. Crater's work, which has been published in a peer-reviewed journal, has received criticism, those criticisms have been answered in each case and today the work stands firmly as an indicator that there is something unusual (whether artificial or a natural anomaly) on Mars.

It was in connection with Dr. Crater's work that I made my own small contribution to the research. I discovered that the pattern of features investigated by Dr. Crater conforms to a larger geometric figure called a "square root 2 rectangle." In the figure on the right, points A BDEG are the locations on the rectangle where the small, similar mound-like objects (actually about the size of large hills) are located. Based on this potential pattern, Dr. Crater extended his investigation to all the similar objects in the area, only to find that they also are located on significant points of an extended rectangular figure. A full account of that research is located on the McDaniel Report web site.

After a long wait, NASA finally placed the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft, successor to the Mars Observer, in orbit and is now successfully receiving high-resolution images of the surface of Mars. Those of the new images that cover the area in question have revealed nothing inconsistent with the previous research, and some new discoveries have been made, among them the identification of an apparent ice crater by SPSR geologist Harry Moore. Eventually out of the research of over 20 members of SPSR, a definitive book on the subject was published by Adventures Unlimited Press -- The Case for the Face (1998).

During this time, I established a web site "The McDaniel Report Newsletter" to display the research results, the texts of lectures I delivered on the subject in the U.S. and abroad, and other material bearing on the questions of Planetary SETI. After mid-2000, I found that due to my other activities I could no longer continue to update the web site at www.mcdanielreport.com. The site, which is crammed with the history and results of the legitimate, scientific Mars anomaly research, will remain in place, however, for at least the coming year (2001). The SPSR group continues its active research, reports of which are to be found on Dr. Mark J. Carlotto's site. Other sites of SPSR scientists are the following:

John Levasseur's site
James Erjavec's site
The Metaresearch site

--Stan McDaniel