Customer Reviews: Read 78 more reviews...
 What a showman! August 11, 2008
I prefer to believe that the simplest answer is generally the one that is correct, until proven otherwise. This is a concept known to science as parsimony. It is a preference for the least complex explanation of an observation.
Are all of the objects on Mars depicted in photos created by a race of aliens hundreds of thousands of years ago, and were the pyramids at Giza and the Sphinx created by the same aliens? And is NASA and JPL and the NSA, as well as the rest of the powerful governments on Earth all involved in a huge coverup for no apparent reason?
Or were those blurry photos, taken from planetary orbit using 1970's low-res technology, just rocks and shadows of rocks?
Hoaglund jumps to the conclusion that martians built all of these things. He is not a scientist, and offers no testable proof of anything, nor does he demonstrate any evidence of critical thinking.
Analogously, using his brand of so-called logic, it might seem reasonable to a weak minded person to state that, because one sees an image that looks like the Virgin Mary on a waffle, God or Mary must have put it there, or it must be an omen of some sort. It couldn't possibly just be a random shape on a waffle, right?
Hoaglund is not a scientist, but he is a genius at marketing and making money. He rediscovered the concept embodied in the quotation of Tusser, "A fool and his money are soon parted."
I was a fool to read this book, I'm glad I didn't buy it.
 Irrelevant and long debunked January 24, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
The book introduces interresting thoughts and is provoking in that aspect, but the "evidence" presented has been debunked not only by NASA but proponents and opponents of NASA and JPL. I could spend the day giving you a varitable works cited of how many minds have debunked this book, but seriously, search Amazon for the tons of books that have better theories and more compelling evidence. The facts about mars alone are more interresting than this guy's analysis of public domain images NASA released at the end of the 70's. To put it simply, It's similar to seeing shapes in clouds, it's not really a pony or a plate of mashed potatoes, what this book is suggesting is that YES, if the clouds look like a pony, TADA! IT'S A PONY. Pick it up for $1 or less but don't fall into the trap.
 Makes one a believer - almost. December 24, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Carefully written, well-organized and complete with lengthy and detailed circumstantial evidence and reasoning to lead one to the conclusion that perhaps a civilization of intelligent beings lived on Mars at one time.
Seeing is Believing December 15, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The most compelling part of Dr. Hoaglands thesis that Mars contains structures that were intelligently designed is by far the pictures. He ads to this stunning visual evidence with mathematical evidence, that, while more obscure, is equally compelling. I would quarrel a bit with his conclusion that they must have been put their by a civilization that didn't originally come from there.
The jury really should be out on whether Mars ever supported intelligent life. When/If humans ever get there and start doing some archaelogy, then you can say. But the point is made over and over again in his book that there are many anomalies on Mars that can only be artificial.
 The accumulation of evidence is impressive October 29, 2007
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Hoagland does his homework. He is very detail-oriented, and he cites several examples of NASA obfuscations, image manipulation, and yes, outright lies. The first was Jerry Soffen's statement that the face was a "trick of light and shadow", and NASA took another picture "a few hours later" that showed it was a rock. We know this was impossible because of the location of the orbit. With 30 years of improvements in imaging technology, we continue to see blurry pictures of this face.
The Viking lander images also show a blue sky with a very earth-like terrain. But, we have had to live with 30 years of intentionally red-shifted images of the Martian landscape.
Many critics seem to dwell on one issue - the accuracy of his geometric calculations. They are all missing the entire point. After the anomalous structures were identified, the idea of a (dimensionless) mathematical message was theorized. When this theory was tested, the geometric relationship between the structures was repeated over and over. So, the accuracy of the measurements is not an issue because the values "have" to be correct as they fit the repeated geometry.
The most important part of pure science is prediction. Hoagland has made several predictions that have been later observed (the hexagonal patterns on Saturn) or proved (liquid water on Mars).
This book is filled with a detailed history of the space program and the struggle for public disclosure of the real story of Mars. People who refuse to accept it are not capable of accepting it.
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