On our local chat radio the other night, some guy phoned in and started going on about pyramids on Mars!! I've never heard that one before, but I remember being taught about the Egyptian pyramids when I was at school. I'm sure we've all seen those pictures where they take an aerial shot of the pyramids and superimpose a shot of the stars onto it and they tie in with tremendous accuracy? In fact they are sooo accurate, no-one knows how the hell it was done all those years ago, Britons were still painting themselves blue and running around with clubs and axes. There is a theory that suggests they were built by Aliens who came to Earth, but found we were so far behind them in evolution, we weren't yet ready for their revelation. Well when you think about it, it would make a lot of sense wouldn't it? They build something that they know will last for centuries, build replicas on a nearby planet (eg. Mars) and by the time we discover THEM, we're ready to make their (the Aliens') acquaintance! What do you reckon?


There was also mention of a 'face' on Mars' surface!

There are not pyramids on Mars.

There is a "face"--its a rock formation that if seen from a certain angle looks kind of like a face. Just like if you look at the moon through binoculars it looks like there is a "man" in the moon.

As for the formation of the pyramids, archaologists do know how the Egyptians managed to line them up so perfectly, and it has to do with time. They had no TVs, few books, and little else for mindless entertainment. Those who were so inclined spent their time laying on roof tops (where most people slept back then) staring at the stars. It doesn't take much a jump to apply the same techologies they were already using for surveying to measure the angles of the stars and apply them on land.

The only reason it seems to outrageous to us now is because we are so dependent upon technology to figure stuff out for us. How many people do you know who can, for example, do long division in Roman Numerals, without converting? But people back then had no choice, so they could do those things. I'm not saying people now are stupid--just different.

Aliens had nothing to do with the pyramids and there is a great deal of evidence supporting the idea that the pyramids were designed by astrologers and engineers and built by farm labourers during the off season.

Yo, Blam, there are some cool websites dealing with this topic. Here's one of them:

http://www.zuko.com/Mysterious_Planet/Cydonia_Mars.htm

Who knows---I always thought that when the book "Chariots of the Gods" came out I understood why some people would put some credence in the idea that aliens where here at some point in time.

Thanks for the link Kelley, it was, as Mr. Spock would say, fascinating!

Some claim to have seen them, when I look at the picture I see hills on the Cydonia Plain.

As for that face, I never really did see one, but then I also failed those inkblot tests;

What do you see?

Splattered ink

And in this one?

Splattered ink.

What about this one?

Um, er, looks like splattered ink to me...

A pyramid is a self-supporting structure. Anyone who has dug a hole and tossed the dirt in a pile quickly learns that the pile roughly (and naturally) forms a pyramid shape. Likewise with mountains: Rock and dirt forced upwards due to plate tectonics causes portions of the Earth to become shaped like pyramids. Anything on Mars that looks like a pyramid would more likely be such a natural hill or formation.

If there are any Martians on Mars, then any pyramid they built would only prove lots of Martian manpower and that they are not very technologically sophisticated. Come on, humans built them thousands of years ago with no modern equipment.

The theory that aliens built something that could only be discovered by humans as they advanced (which is straight out of 2001: A Space Odyssey) would much better be something along the lines of a radio beacon set up by aliens. Animals can pile stuff into a pyramid shape (ever seen an ant hill?) But only highly evolved beings can send and receive radio waves. This is why the SETI project is much better suited to finding any advanced aliens out there.

As for the pyramids here on Earth, I always find the claim that the people of that time couldn't build them, and thus must have help from aliens, not only insulting to the human race, but possibly slightly bigoted towards the dark-skinned Egyptians. As mentioned, given enough manpower (which ancient Egypt clearly had) anyone can build a self supporting structure. But notice how no one ever claims that the white skinned ancient Greeks could never have built things like the Colosseum or the Parthenon and that they must have had alien help. Just think about the Parthenon built around 448-432 BC: Twenty-two thousands tons of solid white Pentelic marble went into its construction! And just like the ancient Egyptians, the ancient Greeks also had no modern equipment when they built it. Yet they built this incredible structure, complete with monestrous marble columns, which were built to take advantage of known optical illusions so that the columns would appear perfectly straight and evenly spaced (even though they weren't.)

Thus it appears that the ancient Greeks were far superior than any Martians!