Unexplained Ancient Structures on Mars: What Are They Hiding?

In 1976, NASA’s Viking 1 orbiter took photos of Mars that appeared to show a human-like face and pyramid-like structures, sparking theories of ancient life on Mars. However, NASA claimed these were illusions, but the public doubted this due to a lack of evidence. The debate continued as more structures were discovered, including a large pyramid three times the size of Egypt’s largest. A professional satellite imaging scientist later concluded that these structures were artificial, further fueling the mystery of life on Mars.
Researchers found pyramid-like structures on Mars that resemble Earth’s pyramids and follow advanced geometric principles. They suggest these could be remnants of an ancient Martian civilization. Despite NASA’s claims that these are natural formations, the researchers argue the precision of the structures is too exact to be natural. The debate continues as more intriguing structures are discovered on Mars, including a monolith on one of its moons and glass tunnels, further fueling theories of past life on the Red Planet.
The Curiosity rover found signs of ancient structures and a possible nuclear war on Mars. It discovered a structure called the Dome and a door-like entrance, suggesting an ancient civilization might have lived there. The soil samples contained xenon 129, a byproduct of nuclear weapons, hinting at a nuclear war that could have wiped out this civilization. These findings have sparked debates among scientists, researchers, and the government, with many unexplained structures still being discovered on Mars.

The year was 1976. NASA sent its Viking one orbiter to space to scan the Martian surface when it captured something unique. A structure shaped like a human face stared up from Mars. The result? The world went crazy. Who built that captivating structure? Was that proof of existing life on Mars? The following day, NASA released a statement saying that the face photograph was an illusion, and they had another photo to back their claim. But something was wrong. The second photo from NASA was a fake. This begs the question, is there something the government doesn’t want us to know about the red planet? Could the structures on Mars have been built by an ancient civilization? Or is everything simply an optical illusion like NASA claimed? We will find out together in this new episode of Secret Origins.

Welcome. For decades, the topic of Mars has been flogged without mercy. With each trip and released photograph, the discussion of whether life once existed on the red planet has grown rapidly. But amid the debate, the world was unprepared for the photograph that NASA released in 1976. A year before the pictures came to light, NASA sent two orbiters to Mars, Viking 1 and Viking 2. On the 25th of July 1976, Viking 1 was scouring the Martian surface, searching for the best landing spot for its robotic counterpart. This was when it took the legendary photographs that would stop the public in their tracks.

In the infamous region of Mars known as Cydonia, there was a remarkable structure. And this is what made it remarkable. It was shaped like a human’s face. This image was first discovered by a NASA scientist who was scrutinizing the thousands of images taken by Viking 1. He noticed something interesting and drew the attention of other scientists in the room. Staring up from the red sands of Cydonia was a massive human-like face. Measuring nearly two miles across, this face-like structure had distinct features. Two eyes, a nose, and a mouth. There was no doubt. This structure looked too peculiar to ignore.

But there was a problem. When NASA released this image for public consumption, they meant for it to be taken as an interesting natural formation. You know, the way the clouds looked like a cowboy’s hat sometimes. However, that is not how the world saw it. Almost immediately, theories exploded from eager researchers and Mars-enthusiastic citizens. To them, this structure looked too precise to be formed by just natural processes. What if this were evidence of an ancient Martian civilization? Did someone or something carve that monument on the surface of Mars? Now, the talk about an ancient race on Mars did not begin today.

In 1877, an Italian astronomer by the name Giovanni Scapparelli drew an explicit observation of the markings on Mars’ surface. He called these markings canali, meaning channels in Italian. However, this meaning was swept under the carpet by the media and replaced with a more agreeable meaning, canals. To these researchers, the markings on the Martian surface did bear a resemblance to canals. With this renaming came a host of speculations. What if an intelligent breed of Martians had built these canals? Obviously, this was not the kind of theory to take lightly, so the government invested big time in growing technology to get more pictures and debunk these claims.

In 1965, the Mariner 4 probe flew over Mars, sending back over 22 pictures. But to the dismay of expectant scientists and researchers, there was not much to see. The pictures retrieved from the Mariner 4 probe looked just like the moon, dry without canals or any other form of life. This watered down the expectations of hopeful researchers. Not until 1976, when the Viking 1 orbiter took photographs that overthrew the bland images from the Mariner 4 probe. It all started when a NASA scientist called Toby Owens was assigned to look for landing sites on Mars.

As he studied the images, a particular photograph called out to him, image 35, A72, the image with the human face. Excited, he called out to his colleagues. Finally, they were making progress. NASA agreed that this would be perfect for public consumption. But the opposite was the case when they released the image to the press. People began to attribute the humanoid head-like structure to having been built by an advanced species. It seems like NASA could not stand such a message gaining traction. So they released a contradictory statement the following day. The day after the face image was released, NASA’s project scientist of the Viking mission, Gerald Soffin, was called on to present the opposing statement that would throw the enthusiasts into disarray.

Taking the mic, Soffin said to the listeners in the press conference, isn’t it peculiar what tricks of light and shadow can do? When we took another picture a few hours later, it all went away. It was just a trick, just the way the light fell on it. Can you believe that? NASA told the public that many other images were taken of the same spot and no face was found. However, they never presented these images to the public. So where was the evidence of the optical illusion they spoke about repeatedly? Nowhere to be found.

But let’s go back to how the face-looking structure was found. Remember Viking 1? The orbiter that was perusing Mars’s surface for a perfect landing spot for Viking 2, its counterpart. Following NASA’s report, Sidonia looked like the best spot for landing. The landscape looked flat, and there seemed to be adequate visibility. In addition, there were additional rock formations and structures to explore, as shown in the images. However, a few days later, Viking 2 landed on a deserted rocky region known as Utopia Planitia. Some of the scientists who were on the project noted one thing.

Utopia Planitia was not the originally planned landing site. For a survey project meant to discover existing monuments or life on the Red Planet, this site looked too barren. If this were truly the case, why did NASA order a change of landing site from Sidonia to Utopia Planitia? Is there more to Sidonia than NASA is letting the world know? The truth is yes. Yes, there is. If you thought the face was the only remarkable structure recovered from the retrieved Viking 1 orbiter’s images, think again. Alongside the humanoid head, there are many other structures that are too incredible to ignore.

Sitting at the top of that incredible list are the pyramids. Pyramids? Yes, you heard right. In times past, the debate has been about who built the ancient pyramids here on Earth. Historians have found the topic inconclusive because of its complicated nature. Some say it was built by ancient Egyptians, while others say they were built by an entirely different civilization. Perhaps a civilization preceding humans. Others say they were built by aliens, since they all follow similar structural formulas despite being continents and decades apart. But despite these arguments surrounding the pyramid, no one saw an interplanetary debate coming up.

Among the pictures captured by Viking 1, pyramids lay scattered in the Sidonia region. That is, not so far from the humanoid head structure. What’s more, many scientists agree that the pyramids resemble the ancient pyramids built here on Earth. If the face on Mars was a raving enigma, the pyramids that lay beside it were even stranger. The pyramids were positioned in a way that looked like a cluster, giving it a city-like feel. At some point, people even called it the city square. In this city square, there is not just a group of pyramids, but some stand out more than others, so much that they had to be studied independently.

One of these unique pyramids is called the fortress and for good reason. It does not look like the other pyramids in the city square, no. Instead, it resembles a collapsed pyramid. But just near the fortress, there is an even more interesting structure, the D and M pyramid. Named after the initials of NASA’s imaging scientists, Vincent Di Pietro and Gregory Molina, the D and M pyramid had features too absurd to ignore. The D and M pyramid is a humongous pyramid with a five-sided symmetry. Over one and a half miles tall, scientists deduce that this pyramid is so big that it is three times the size of the largest pyramid in Egypt.

Can you believe that? But of course, the skeptics rose to the occasion. Despite the D and M pyramid being symmetrical around two different axes and looking so uniquely constructed, counterarguments tried to attribute the anomaly to natural processes. Like the way NASA called the face an optical illusion, they called the D and M pyramid a coincidental rock. This was until a professional satellite imaging scientist came to the rescue. His name? Errol Torun. Torun took the images as a personal project and studied them to his heart’s content. Since he worked for the defense mapping agency, his job description was primarily to study satellite images to confirm which ones were natural or artificial.

And when Torun studied the 1976 images from Viking 1, he arrived at a conclusion that left mouths agape. All the objects in the images, including the face, were artificial. Again, this sent the public reeling. Did this mean they were lied to at first? Upon further study, Torun noted that not only were the humanoid head and the pyramids artificially erected, but the D and M pyramids seemed to be the best work of whoever built the structures. This is what he had to say. The geometric natural hypothesis is thus left with no mechanism that can explain the formation of the D and M pyramid.

This object’s five-sided shape and bilateral symmetry is unlike any landform seen to date in the solar system. Not just this, but the D and M pyramid and the others in the city square were deduced to match advanced geometric principles. To further cement their research, DiPetrio and Molina brought two other seasoned researchers on board, Dr. Mark Carlotto, expert in remote sensing, image processing, pattern recognition, and other space-related endeavors. The second was Dr. Richard Hoagland, award-winning seasoned author and NASA consultant. The addition of these men to the image deciphering team meant one thing.

It was time to hear the opinion of experts and what they had to say about the structures in the images will leave you shifting in your seat. Dr. Carlotto and Hoagland noted that not only did the angles of the D and M pyramid match superior geometric principles, but it also seemed similar to the pyramids found on Earth. How so, you ask. Hoagland pointed out that the pyramids in the images followed mathematical constants such as phi 1.618 and pi 3.14. These are numbers rarely found in purely natural formations. This led to the mind-bending theory.

What if Mars once had an ancient civilization and these pyramids were their legacy? Think about it. These structures clustered around a particular region known as Cydonia. It is not a far-fetched thought to imagine Cydonia as a place once brimming with life. A region where Martians could have engaged in normal daily living activities. Although there is no proof of existing life now, the discovery of these advanced artificial structures points to one thing. There was life in the past. In no time, theories were budding regarding the latest discoveries on the Red Planet. After a closer look at the pyramids of Giza, or Teotihuacan in Mexico, and even the Tiwanaku in Bolivia, scientists decided that there was an uncanny resemblance to the ones on Mars, not just in positioning but also in mathematical precision.

Researchers began to ask, could the same architects have shaped both Mars and Earth? Some other researchers suggest that if an advanced species visited Earth in the past, they might have stopped by Mars as well. What if the pyramids on Mars were a message to earthly beings? But as you would expect, NASA dismissed these claims. Their stance is that the so-called pyramids are mesas eroded by the wind. To the scientific body, these pyramids were shaped to look that way by millions of years of Martian dust storms. However, skeptics refused to buy such shallow debunking.

To them, the odds of such precise geometric formations occurring naturally are too doubtful to ignore. If we were to believe NASA and the pyramids are just natural formations, why do they closely resemble structures on Earth? An even more interesting thought is this. If they are indeed artificial, who built them? Thankfully, the D&M team did not relent in their research. Despite what NASA claimed about the face and pyramids, they felt there was more lurking behind the surface. To find out what this more was, Dipietro and Molinar went back to the original image where it all began, image 35 as 72.

At first, it was a hassle locating the image, but after combing through the Viking image files, they found it labeled as head. To conclude what the truth was, they decided to search for the second image that NASA claimed to portray the face as an optical illusion. But guess what? It was misfiled, nowhere to be found. Eventually, they came across another image of the face, one different from the second image that NASA described to the public. However, the newly found image was even more shocking. This newly discovered image had even more detail and less shadow on the left side of the face.

It gets better. Upon further scrutiny, the second image had two eye sockets, a nose and a mouth, just like the first image. But this was what blew the researchers away. The face-like structure in the second image had two parallel sides. Both sides were deduced to be over hundreds of yards long and straight. What’s more, the edges of these parallel sides are both perfectly curved. This formed the outline for a face and was more real than the first image shown to the public. But there was one more deal breaker. Di Pietro discovered evidence of a pupil in the left eye socket.

Once again, the scientific world was thrown into disarray. What in the world of discoveries was going on? The answer to this question came from the D&M team. Dr. Hoagland and Dr. Carlotto stepped up to examine the images, finding even more detail, teeth in the mouth and a stripe pattern on the frame areas. Now, NASA had to also step up if they were to successfully debunk such detailed findings. The research team put pressure on the scientific body to provide an explanation for these structures. Despite these structures being too precise to ignore, NASA kept insisting that the researchers were cooking up conspiracies.

This was until Dr. Hoagland took the matter to Coast to Coast FM, a radio program with a massive audience. In no time, NASA was placed under intense pressure to revisit Mars and produce new photos of the much discussed structures. And in 1996, they did pay another visit to Mars. In 1996, NASA sent another observer to the Red Planet. But the results were more than disappointing. While enthusiasts expected detailed images to either reinforce or deny the claims, all that returned were excuses. First, NASA’s lead project scientist of the 1996 launch, called Dr. Bevan French, went on air to let people know a shocking fact.

NASA was not guaranteeing any pictures from the observer. Wait, what? But before viewers could even process Dr. French’s hope-dashing broadcast message, they received even more devastating news. NASA suddenly announced that the observer probe had disappeared. Now, there were no new images to refute or confirm the analysis of the face-like structure or the pyramids. The question of the truth hung in the air for years. But this changed in 1998. Two years after the failed Mars Observer Probe mission, NASA returned with a new development. They claimed to have a more detailed picture of the face as requested by popular demand.

But what they presented was too stupefying to accept. The images released on that fateful April 5th, 1998, looked even more grainy than the first image captured in 1976. The images spoke of bad lighting, terrible weather, and multiple enhancing filters. When these grainy images were released, the D&M team was disappointed to the core and did not fail to air their views. People said that the image looked like it was scratched by a cat in her cat box. From that moment, the 1998 images were known as the cat box. It was clear that these photos were manipulated by NASA.

But one thing was not clear. Why is NASA trying so hard to make people give up on the face-like structure from Cydonia? Why are their statements so contradictory year after year? What if they are hiding the possibility of extraterrestrial life existing on Mars? It might shock you to know that the face and pyramids are not the only intriguing structures on the Martian surface. In 2002, NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor captured another bizarre formation. On the Martian surface, an intricate network of crisscrossing lines lay on the southern hemisphere near the region called Lucas Planum.

You could call it bizarre because it looked like an ancient, grid-like city layout. It was not long before this rectangular network of lines was nicknamed the Inca City. As skeptics tried to debunk this structure, researchers countered by pointing to how the Inca City resembled the infamous Machu Picchu in Peru. But NASA insisted that the acclaimed Inca City of Mars was no more than cracked ice. The scientific body argues that over millions of years, dry ice and frost cycles could have carved these patterns into the surface, creating the illusion of a planned city.

Perhaps we would have believed NASA, except that there are even more suspicious structures on the Red Planet. Enter the monolith on Phobos. In 2009, legendary astronaut Buzz Aldrin dropped a bombshell during an interview. While discussing future missions to Mars, he stated, we should visit the moon of Mars. There’s a monolith there, a very unusual structure on this little potato-shaped object that goes around Mars once every seven hours. When people find out about that, they’re going to say, who put that there? Who put that there? Phobos is one of the Red Planet’s moons, and on its surface is the massive monolith that Aldrin talked about.

Estimated to be about 85 meters high, it is unnaturally tall, casting a long shadow across the surface of the moon. Can we call this monument, which looks perfectly structured, a mere geological oddity? Because that’s what NASA says it is, a mere boulder left behind by an asteroid impact. But even the monolith on Phobos is just the tip of the iceberg on the subject of Martian structures. High resolution NASA images have shown the presence of glass tunnels interpreted by some researchers to be remnants of underground transport from an ancient civilization. What about the perceived collapse structure called the Dome? Even this was deduced to be an ancient shelter.

In other images released by the Curiosity rover, a rectangular door-like entrance was discovered. Astronauts and scientists wondered if this door was the doorway to an underground base somewhere, or even more terrifying, the skyscraping anomaly known as the White Tower. This, and many more artifacts on the Red Planet, have shown that there is more to what we have been told. But if an ancient civilization did exist on Mars, what happened to them? The answer lies in this research conducted by Curiosity rover. In August 2012 they arrived on Mars and analyzed samples from the surface.

What they found was jaw-dropping. Rather than normal soil, they found evidence of a nuclear war. The soil contained a large amount of xenon 129. And guess what? There is only one process known to man that creates this isotope, the detonation of nuclear weapons. So if an ancient civilization did exist on Mars, there is a firm chance that they were all wiped away in a nuclear war. As a result, they left behind these structures now known today. But if they did build those monuments, how advanced was this civilization to have erected such magnificent structures? The unexplained structures on Mars are a subject of unending debate between scientists, researchers, and the government.

One side is tugging and the other side is unrelenting. The presence of overwhelming evidence makes it even harder for enthusiasts to side with NASA. From the face to the pyramids and from the Inca city to the White Tower, there is too much unexplained evidence. It is clear that there might have been an ancient civilization on the Red Planet, and to think that this civilization might have been on Earth too. It’s wild. What do you think about these unexplained Martian structures? Whose side are you on? Tell us in the comments. If you enjoyed this deep dive, don’t forget to like the video and subscribe for more mind-boggling content like this.

Keep your minds open, and until we meet again. [tr:trw].