-Caveat Lector-
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Amherst, NY (October 17, 2000)-Gary Posner, a consultant for the Committee
for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) and
executive director of Tampa Bay Skeptics, probes the credentials and claims
of Richard C. Hoagland in the November/December issue of Skeptical Inquirer.
Hoagland, a science writer, is the author of the 1987 book "The Monuments of
Mars: A City on the Edge of Forever"-a book that lays out his vision of an
ancient Martian metropolis, an idea based on images of supposed "ruins"
shown
in a 1976 NASA Viking mission photo.
The "Face on Mars" is an outcropping of rock in the Cydonia region of Mars.
The Viking 1 Orbiter photographed an image of this geographic feature in
1976. Catalogued as Plate #035A72, it shows a formation with the vague
appearance of a human face. When the photo was released to the public, there
was a surge of speculation that the image revealed an artificial structure
built by intelligent life. In 1998 NASA released a Mars Global Surveyor
image
of the same outcropping. With different lighting and much higher resolution,
this image clearly shows that the "Face on Mars" is nothing more than a
natural geographical feature. Nevertheless, the wild claims persist, along
with accusations of a NASA cover-up.
Richard Hoagland has been a lighting rod in this charged atmosphere of
anything-goes speculation and innuendo. But unlike many who see an ancient
extraterrestrial culture and a cosmic message to humanity in the Cydonian
rock, Hoagland is not easily dismissed. After all, he seems to have the ear
of NASA and a list of accomplishments in the history of space exploration.
He
has given two talks to NASA employees following the space agency's own
investigation of the "Face on Mars," he was the first to conceive of a
possible ocean beneath the crust of the Jovian moon Europa, and he was
responsible for the Pioneer 10 and 11 plaques-humanity's calling card to any
intelligent beings who might stumble on these probes in interstellar space.
All of this adds a lot to Hoagland's credibility-if you take the
interpretation of the above-mentioned events at face value.
Gary Posner decided to investigate these accounts of Hoagland's
contributions to astronomy and space exploration, looking to place
Hoagland's
own image into higher resolution.
As for his NASA appearances, a March 1990 appearance at the NASA's Lewis
Research Center in Cleveland, OH, Posner found that Hoagland was asked to
talk as part of an "employee perk" presentation series, not because NASA was
seriously examining his ideas. Posner's questions to NASA also revealed that
a later appearance in September also seemed to be more for novelty and
entertainment than forging ahead in space science.
In July 1990 on the "For the People" radio program Hoagland proclaimed that
"Carl [Sagan] for many years has been taking public credit for the Pioneer
plaque which, of course Eric Burgess and I conceived." In November of that
year he claimed that "Carl. was involved with Eric Burgess and me in the
design of [the] message." But according to Posner in 1990 correspondence
between him and Carl Sagan, Sagan stated that "Eric Burgess and Richard
Hoagland did no more than suggest to me that a message be put aboard Pioneer
10 and 11.Frank Drake and I. did the design, and I was responsible for
getting it through the White House and NASA approval process."
As for the hypothesis that there are oceans beneath the surface of Europa,
none other than Arthur C. Clarke states in his 2010: Odyssey Two that the
idea "was first proposed by Richard C. Hoagland in the magazine Star & Sky
("The Europa Enigma," January , 1980)." However, Clarke himself seems to
have
been mistaken. John S. Lewis first proposed the idea in 1971 and several
other scientists published articles in agreement during the 1970s. Posner
found that Ralph Greenberg, a professor of mathematics at the University of
Washington in Seattle has been trying for years to convince Hoagland to set
the record straight-without success.
Founded in 1976 by Dr. Paul Kurtz of the State University of New York at
Buffalo, the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the
Paranormal (CSICOP) encourages the critical investigation of paranormal and
fringe-science claims from a responsible, scientific point of view and
disseminates factual information about the results of such inquiries to the
scientific community and the public. It also promotes science and scientific
inquiry, critical thinking, science education, and the use of reason in
examining important issues.
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