The face on this eight foot tall sculpted head (right), found in the jungles of South America, is obviously a man of African origin. Thus, we can conclude that people from that latter continent must have visited the former. Unless we take Atlantis into consideration, there is no known link of cultures, no known technology, no written record that can explain this ancient statue. We modern humans also have yet to discover any hint of evidence that transportation between these two continents ever occured - and except for a few Egyptian examples, on the far northeastern side of the continent, no clue that the technology even existed. But still we have this head staring back at us from the past. It is indeed a puzzlement. Science offers no official explanation. There is another Face: surrounded by evidence of an advanced technological culture, far more advanced than our own, on the planet Mars - and Mars did suffer a major catastrophe, one that completely decimated the entire planet surface. Well, almost - there are a few monuments that managed to survive somewhat intact.

There must have been a reason for building a face so large. From religious leaders like Jesus and Buddah, to political icons like Lincoln and Lenin, our planet too has impressive monuments - but nothing anywhere near the scale we find on Mars. Assuming the people who built the huge likeness had a technological advantage, we can also safely assume it was not to a pagan god. In our own history, efforts like this are reserved for our greatest leaders - and worst tyrants. In any case, it appears to have been someone of great influence, and most likely within his own lifetime.

There must also have been an important reason for being so precise with all the angles in the complex, and the pyramids themselves. If pyramid energy was used as a power source, then the pyramids themselves would be collecting and focussing energy from the martian magnetic field - and this would also go far to explain the precision with which the complex lies on the planet surface. Similar ancient sites on Earth are also astonishingly aligned to cardinal points, astronomical alignments, and other cosmic directions. Could ley lines, potentially powerful sources of planetary energy, be the missing piece to this puzzle - and responsible for the civilization's ultimate destruction?

Given a little extrapolation, it is not beyond the scope of reason to surmise from these undismissable findings that it was most likely the very same advanced technological culture that built Cydonia and the identical Avebury site - and also Stonehenge, and probably all of the astounding astronomically aligned archaeological sites all over the world. Perhaps it is neither outside the reasonable stretch of the scientific imagination that this star system was colonized by human beings many thousands, perhaps millions of years ago - and that with all the natural disasters, mankind lost its technological "edge" and fell back into many scattered, primitive societies, developing differently, until only today when we are able to glimpse our not so distant past. Skeptics abound, and are voiciferous. However, until the "missing link" is found, there is no proof for either theory of Man's origin.

The three largest craters on Mars are exactly opposite the red planet from the three largest volcanoes in the solar system. Also, the largest known rift on a planet's surface - Valles Marineris, which makes the Grand Canyon look like a rut in the mud - seems to have been created suddenly. Recent evidence shows that Mars experienced cataclysmic floods on a planetary scale - what little water remains is trapped in the permafrost. Whoever lived there, and built these amazing monuments, their summer home destroyed, the species moved on to a more habitable climate.

The two Martian moons, Phobos and Deimos, are no more than roughly rounded asteroids. No other planet in the solar system - and they could not possible have been formed, as our moon was, at the planet's cohesion. The most likely scenarios are: that they were either stray asteroids caught in the Martian gravity somehow, or remnants of the Martian crust, ejected from the wounded planet at the last great disaster. Mars may have even been a moon of a much larger planet, what is now the Asteroid Belt - know in such speculatve circles as Astra. This theory also holds that Astra was the original and primary home of a Human settlement in this system - Earth and Mars being mere outposts in distant antiquity.

A new theory has developed concerning all the amazing yet ancient archaelogical evidence found on Mars and all over the planet Earth. A very long time ago, perhaps even millions of years ago (when Earth was ruled by the dinosaurs), an advanced civilization of Human beings lived on a planet that was completely destroyed - and has now become our solar system's giant asteroid belt, located between Mars and Jupiter. This planet is known in such speculative circles as Astra.

Whether they, our distant ancestors, evolved in this star system or came here from somewhere else, they had bases on Earth, our moon and the planet Mars (which may have been a moon of Astra at the time), and possibly many other places within our solar system as well.

Then one day, disaster struck. This could have been a natural disaster, or from some technological misuse that caused the planet to explode, or a more natural catastrophy like the impact of a comet so massive that it could cause the breakup of an entire world. In any case, the explosions sent planetary debris flying in every direction. It has even been speculated that there was a great war

This theory, though perhaps far fetched, is not without scientific merit. Mars has three of the largest known craters in the solar system, precisely antipolar from the largest volcanoes in the solar system. This is not a coincidence, rather a textbook example of immutable evidence of extreme geological phenomenon. Something very big hit Mars with such force as to form the largest known craters in the solar system, punching into the planet with such force, and so deep, as to literally blast the crust of the entire other side of Mars out into space

This alone would have caused a terrific hail storm of space debris also caused the facing half of the planet's surface to be pelted by literally billions of meteors and small planetoids (the opposite side of Mars is consistent with later eventual "straggler" debris impacts). In essence, Mars was shot three times with a rifle, and once by a shotgun, at very close range.

The two moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos, are not spherical like our moon. In fact, they're really just giant potato shaped asteroids captured by the red planet's gravity. As far as we know for certain, they could be from absolutely anywhere.

Earth too suffered a major disaster, but it was nothing compared to Mars. Perhaps it was on the other side of the sun at the time, and so only caught a few of the giant stones, in the wake of the destruction of Astra. Still, a meteor storm of this magnatude could easily have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs - and something like this is the current accepted theory behind their demise.

The great flood of Noah is also a real, scientifically accepted and datable event in Earth history. Perhaps it happened then, much more recently. Perhaps both scenarios are true, and Mars only became completely uninhabitable 10,000 years ago - at the end of our last great ice age.

With Earth the only habitable planet left in the star system, the Astra theory supposes that our ancestors made their way here - or perhaps it is only those on Earth who survived the cataclysm Maybe they were hailed as gods. Maybe they were the ones who founded the civilizations we know of as Mu, Lemuria, and eventually Atlantis, Maybe it was these people who went on to build the perfect pyramids, and other sites, now still impressive ruins found all over the world. Maybe all of the above, maybe none - but the once habitable (and quite possibly inhabited) Mars was destroyed, suddenly and violently, sometime very long ago.

Another theory could be that Mars was once a moon of the fabled Astra, (now the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter), In either case, Mars once had enough liquid water to sustain life as we know it, whether millions or merely thousands of years ago. And if an asteroid were to hit the Earth (large enough to erradicate most of our atmosphere), very soon the only sign that it had ever been inhabited would be the giant pyramids, such as are in Egypt and a few other places around the world.

Maybe the civilization we know of as Atlantis, surviving on Antarctica, was the only one in posession of advanced technology though perhaps without the ability (or will) to fully impliment their magic to all survivors of the great disasters ~ while all the other Earthbound Humans devolved into primitive tribal societies just a few generations later, their legends of the stars and kingdoms of the Gods the only remnant of that once great Human Civilization.

Reports in ancient chronicles ~ of the Gods or technologically advanced men from far away, or even the sky (introducing new ways to grow food, build cities, tell stories, heal the sick and govern the people), and leaving as mysteriously as they arrived ~ can only lend support to a theory such as this, which speaks of Humans possessing a technology beyond even ours today, something modern science is not prepared to accept.

When Man goes to Mars in the next century, perhaps the most studied place, and first major tourist mecca, will be the Great Cydonia Plateau, (located at 40.8� N, on the shores of an ancient Martian ocean, now completely dry). Perhaps if we manage to terraform the planet, the site may yet again see the crimson tides, or even blueish skies. Terraforming is a real science and feasible endeavor, that will most likely be the main accomplishment of our civilization as we break out of our shell, and enter the cosmos ~ the survival of our species, and many others as well, ultimately depends on it !

But the red planet may have once already been terraformed, or perhaps naturally acclimated to sustain Human life, as we can see from the ruins of this city on the Cydonian Plain. Other sites are currently being looked into as well, but so far the area around the face has provided enough archaeological anomolies to keep researchers busy for years. But the only way to know for sure, of course, is to send a manned mission to Mars, and investigate up close, on the ground. Who knows all we can learn from such an ancient, perhaps Human archaeological site - the origins of our species within this solar system, or perhaps that we are not alone?

With all the media attention about the now world famous Face on Mars, and subsequent "lunatic fringe" demanding full disclosure NASA has seemingly, if grudgingly, come forward and acknowledged an interest in the site, saying that the many upcoming Mars missions to map the planet's surface will pay special attention to the Cydonia plateau. The Mars Global Surveyor images of Cydonia were, as expected, much clearer and with far greater resolution than the original heart stopping Viking photos. What has been released so far certainly has exquisite resolution and detail, (if not the ideal lighting or image processing that we all hoped for). Face fans accuse NASA and JPL of deliberately skewing the images to make them appear as natural, or desolate, as possible. But what if the features of the monument were somehow, even deliberately, destroyed between the Viking era and MGS - and who could have possibly done such a thing, or would, and why?

Many paranormal reseachers suspect that earlier Mars missions (that supposedly struck an asteroid, or suffered some other mishap, and were never heard from again), were in fact destroyed by aliens who perhaps even have bases on the moon and Mars. There is "circumstantial" evidence to support this, including the image of a strange 25 mile diameter disc shaped object, that was the last thing the Russian probe ever photographed before it lost contact with mission control bases on Earth.

Some investigators are equally convinced that the probes are still in perfect operation, but their findings are being kept from the common public scrutiny ~ and that US Military Black Projects are somehow behind the damage of the Face, or even its destruction. This is bizarre, but not so hard to believe. One thing all of the missing missions have in common is that the spacecrafts coincidentally carried with them the latest in scientific gear, designed to detect planetary data of all sorts. Some suspect the Russian probe was lost to sabotage, (their space agency received anonymous warnings not to launch).

Many Black Projects are known to exist involving technologies and information that would surely be controversial if made public. National security would certainly be the issue, if in fact NASA had gone forward with its space program back in the 1970s (instead of falling victim to congressional turmoil and public apathy) and built space stations in Earth orbit, or on the surface of the moon or Mars. Could the "Powers That Be" have technology that "shouldn't be" ~ at least not yet ?