“Okay,” I replied. “This conversation doesn’t go beyond the three of us, agreed?”
Ed and Trent agreed enthusiastically.
“I was working at JPL, the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California. That’s where the Mars Rovers are controlled and where all of the digital information from the rovers is processed. The rovers have photographed evidence of a past civilization on Mars.”
“I’ve seen the photographs,” Trent said, “but I didn’t notice anything that would suggest an ancient civilization. Besides, Mars’ atmosphere is less than one percent of Earth’s and is mostly carbon dioxide. There’s basically no oxygen and no plants to generate it.”
I smiled. “So let me ask you a question. In the photographs, what color was the sky?”
“Red,” Trent replied.
“And why was the sky red?” I asked. This was a logic trap, and Trent was walking straight into it.
“Red dust in the air,” Trent replied.
“If the atmosphere on Mars is less than one percent of Earth’s, how can there be dust in air that doesn’t exist?” I asked. Both Trent and Ed stared at me, dumbfounded. “In order to get to less than one percent of the atmosphere on Earth you have to get up to around 100,000 feet above the ground. That’s also above the atmosphere.”
Ed sat back with his mouth open. “I have a friend, a test pilot, who’s been up that high.”
“And what did he see?” I asked.
“He said the sky was black, not blue. Something about the air scattering the light and filtering out the red wave lengths making the sky appear blue from the ground.”
“That’s correct,” I replied.
“So the atmosphere on Mars is denser than we’ve been told?” Trent asked.
“It’s more like Earth’s atmosphere at around 15,000 feet,” I replied. “The rovers have also photographed large dust devils moving across the Martian landscape.”
“Yes,” Ed said. “I’ve seen a program on the science channel where they showed a series of dust devils up to a thousand feet high.”
“Exactly,” I replied. “Swirling air has to have a certain density in order to suspend dust in the vortex. Below a certain density you can’t lift the dust off the ground.”
Ed’s shoulders slumped as he said, “Huh.”
“Why would they lie about the atmosphere on Mars?” Trent asked.
“They don’t want people to know there is life on Mars. It generates too many questions regarding our own beliefs about life, religion, academic theories and political power structures. Once telescopes were invented, scientists have been observing seasonal changes on Mars. We’ve been seeing the same change of seasons at the JPL for several years now.”
“But everything in the photos is brown and red,” Trent said. “There’s no green on anything.”
“That’s because Daryl Spinoza at the JPL shifts all of the color to the red side of the scale before any photos or videos are released.”
“Isn’t that time consuming?” Trent asked.
“Not at all,” I replied. “All of the images are digital, meaning each pixel is represented by three binary numbers, representing the intensity of red, cyan and yellow. The numbers are always in the same position, so Daryl wrote a program that simply adds a number to the red value, shifting everything into the red side of the color scale.”
“So the sky on Mars isn’t really red?” Trent asked.
“It’s blue, just like it is here.” I could almost feel their heads spinning. I know mine did when I first found out about Mars.
“And the brown rocks?”
“Most of them are covered with green moss and lichens that change with the seasons.”
“And the green moss uses sunlight to convert carbon dioxide into oxygen,” Trent replied.
“Mars has a breathable atmosphere,” Ed stated.
“Yes, it does,” I replied.
“Wait a minute,” Trent interjected. “For there to be moss, there has to be water.”
“There is. That information actually comes from the Mars Orbiter, not the rovers. I’ve seen photographs of water in melt pools, huge conifer trees along the edges of massive sand dunes and evidence of migrating animals of some kind.”
“Trees and animals?” Ed shouted.
“Hey,” I said. “Keep your voice down.”
“Why?” Ed said, “We’re the only ones who speak English within two hundred miles.”
“Good point,” I said.
“Trees?” Trent asked.
“Yep.” I replied, “From the size of them on the photograph, they are about twenty feet across at the base of their trunk and close to a thousand feet tall, very similar to the giant Sequoias in California.”
“Bloody hell,” Trent said, “and animals, too?”
“The Mars Orbiter tracked a large herd of animals traveling single file for over three days between water melt pools.”
“Bugger,” Trent replied. “Animals need to eat. What are they feeding on?”
“In the late 1800’s astronomers mapped a huge canal system on Mars that changed color with the seasons. It turns out those are massive moss and lichen fields that feed the animals,” I replied. “The moisture in the air condenses at night to form dew, and the dew waters the moss and lichens on the ground and on the rocks.”
“And the ancient civilization?” Trent asked.
“The rover photographed a large pyramid with a sphinx in front of it,” I said.
“Just like in Egypt?” Trent asked.
“Almost,” I said. “The head on the sphinx is different, but my understanding is that the head of the sphinx in Egypt was re-carved at some point. It used to be larger.”
“And that’s in a photograph?” Ed asked.
“Not anymore,” I replied, “Daryl Spinoza digitally modified the photo so you don’t recognize the sphinx, but yeah, it’s clearly there on the original.”
“Can’t an expert tell that the photo has been modified?” Trent asked.
“Ordinarily, yes,” I replied, “but Daryl is an absolute master at graphics. He modifies the photo pixel-by-pixel. When he’s done every expert on the planet will testify it is an untouched original.”
“Let me guess,” Trent said, “the face on Mars?”
“Really is a face,” I replied. “Carved out of a mountain, just like Mt. Rushmore, only larger.”
“Now I know why John asked me to guard you from harm.” Ed said.
“There’s probably more to it than that,” I replied. “Tomorrow we get to see what’s inside the cave. That’s when the rest of the story may be revealed. From what I have learned about the ancient civilization from 63,000 years ago, they had an outpost on Mars. The same people who built the pyramids and Sphinx in Egypt may have built similar structures on Mars.”
CHAPTER 9
After breakfast I returned to my tent and activated my iPhone. I had created an app that tracked the surveillance satellites anywhere around the planet. I checked my watch and made a mental note of the windows where there would be no satellite coverage. I tucked my iPhone into the inside pocket of my jacket and exited my tent.
“Did the guardian come to a conclusion regarding my requests?” I asked Trent.
“He has,” Trent replied. “He says if you screw this up we’re all going to die.”
“If I screw this up?” I asked.
“Not his exact words,” Trent replied, “but words to that effect.”
“Does he say we can make it to the cave in four hours or less?”
“He said he can. He doesn’t know about the rest of us.”
I laughed. “Just how old is he, anyway?”
“Best guess?” Trent said. “Ninety, ninety two?”
“And he’s going to beat us up the hill?”
“Hey,” Trent said, “don’t under estimate him. They live a very different sort of life in this part of the world.”