It is not long since scientists claimed that life on Mars is inconceivable. For some time now that has become 'is scarcely conceivable'. For after the successful reconnaissance mission by Mariner IV we must concede, even if reluctantly, that the possibility of life on Mars is not unlikely. It is also within the bounds of possibility that our neighbour Mars had its own civilisation untold millennia ago. In any case the Martian moon Phobos deserves special attention.
Mars has two moons: Phobos and Deimos (in Greek, Fear and Terror). They were known long before the American astronomer Asaph Hall discovered them in 1877. As early as 1610 Johannes Kepler suspected that Mars was accompanied by two satellites. Although the Capucine monk Schyrl may have claimed to have seen the Martian moons a few years earlier, he must have been mistaken, for the tiny Martian moons could not possibly be seen with the optical instruments of his day. A fascinating description of them is given by Jonathan Swift in A Voyage to Laputa and Japan, which forms Part III of Gulliver's Travels. Not only does he describe the two Martian moons, but he also gives their size and orbits. This quotation comes from Chapter 3:
'(The Laputan astronomers) spend the greatest part of their lives in observing the celestial bodies, which they do by the assistance of glasses far excelling ours in goodness. For although their largest telescopes do not exceed three feet, they magnify much more than those of a hundred yards among us and at the same time show the stars with greater clearness. This advantage hath enabled them to extend their discoveries much further than our astronomers in Europe for they have made a catalogue of ten thousand fixed stars, whereas the largest of ours do not contain above one third part of that number. They have likewise discovered two lesser stars, or satellites, which revolve about Mars, whereof the innermost is distant from the centre of the primary planet exactly three of the diameters, and the outermost five; the former revolves in the space of ten hours, and the later in twenty one and a half; so that the squares of their periodical times are very near in the same proportion with the cubes of their distance from the centre of Mars, which evidently shows them to be governed by the same law of gravitation, that influences the other heavenly bodies.'
How could Swift describe the Martian satellites when they were not discovered until 150 years later? Undoubtedly the Martian satellites were suspected by some astronomers before Swift, but suspicions are not nearly enough for such precise data. We do not know where Swift got his knowledge from.
Actually these satellites are the smallest and strangest moons in our solar system. They rotate in almost circular orbits above the equator. If they reflect the same amount of light as our moon, then Phobos must have a diameter of 10 miles and Demos one of only 5 miles. But if they are artificial moons and so reflect still more light, they would actually be even smaller. They are the only known moons in our solar system drat move round their mother planet faster than she herself rotates. In relation to the rotation of Mars Phobos completes two orbits in one Martian day, whereas Deimos moves only a little faster round Mars than the planet itself rotates.
In 1862, when the earth was in a very favourable position in relation to Mars, people sought in vain for the Martian satellites—they were not discovered until fifteen years later I The theory of planetoids came up because several astronomers suspected that the Martian moons were fragments from space which Mars had attracted. But the theory of planetoids is untenable, for both the Martian moons revolve in almost the same planes above the equator. One fragment from space might do that by chance, but not two. Finally, measurable facts produced trie modern satellite theory.
The renowned American astronomer Carl Sagan and the Russian scientist Shlovsky in their book Intelligent Life in the Universe, published in 1966, accept that the moon Phobos is an artificial satellite. As the result of a series of measurements Sagan came to the conclusion that Phobos must be hollow and a hollow moon cannot be natural.
In fact, the peculiarities of Phobos's orbit bear no relation to its apparent mass, whereas such orbits are typical in the case of hollow bodies. The Russian Shlovsky, Director of the Department of Radio-Astronomy in the Moscow Sternberg Institute, made the same statement after he had observed that a peculiar unnatural acceleration could be confirmed in the movement of the Martian moon Phobos. This acceleration is identical with the phenomenon which has been established in the case of our own artificial satellites.
Today people take these fantastic theories of Sagan and Shlovsky very seriously. The Americans plan further Martian probes, which are also intended to take the bearings of the Martian moons. In the years ahead, the Russians intend to observe the movements of the Martian moons from several observatories.
If the view supported by reputable scientists in east and west that Mars once had an advanced civilisation is correct, the question arises why does it no longer exist today? Did the intelligences on Mars have to seek a new environment? Did their home planet, which was losing more and more oxygen, force them to look for new territories to settle? Was a cosmic catastrophe responsible for the downfall of the civilisation? Lastly, were some of the inhabitants of Mars able to escape to a neighbouring planet?
In his book Worlds in Collision, published in 1950, and still much discussed in scientific circles, Dr Emanuel Velikovsky declared that a giant comet had crashed into Mars and that Venus had been formed as a result of this collision. His theory can be proved if Venus has a high surface temperature, clouds containing carburetted hydrogen and an anomalous rotation. Evaluation of the data provided by Mariner II confirms Velikovsky's theory. Venus is the only planet which rotates 'backwards', i.e. the only planet that does not follow the rules of our solar system as do Mercury, the Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
But if a cosmically caused catastrophe is a possible reason for the destruction of a civilisation on the planet Mars, that would also provide material for my theory that the earth may have received visits from space in the very remote past. The thesis that a group of Martian giants perhaps escaped to earth to found the new culture of homo sapiens by breeding with the semi-intelligent beings living there then becomes a speculative possibility. Since the gravity of Mars is not as strong as that of the earth, it can be assumed that the build of Martian men was heavier and bigger than that of the earth men. If there were anything in this argument, we should have the giants who come from the stars, who could move enormous blocks of stone, who instructed men in arts still unknown on earth and who finally died out.
Never did we know so little about so much as today. I am certain that the theme 'Man and Unknown Intelligences' will remain on the agenda of research until every puzzle that can be solved has found an answer.
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Chapter Eleven - The Search For Direct Communication
At 4 a.m. on 1 April, 1960, an experiment began in a lonely valley in West Virginia. The big 85-ft radio-telescope at Green Bank was trained on the star Tau-Ceti, 11.8 light years away. The young American astronomer, Dr Frank Drake, who enjoys considerable fame as a scientist and acted as leader of this project, wanted to tune in to the radio transmissions of other civilisations in order to pick up signals from unknown intelligences in outer space. The first series of experiments lasted 150 hours. They passed into history as project OZMA, although it was a failure. The experiment was broken off, not because some of the participating scientists expressed the view that there were no radio transmission in space, but rather because it was realised that at the time there was no apparatus sensitive enough to reach the desired goal. OZMA will not be the only experiment of its kind. Possibly a radio-telescope will be erected on the moon that will be able to scan the immeasurable spaces between the stars for radio signals, free from terrestrial interference.