The Sphinx by Bob Mayer

Author:Bob Mayer [Mayer, Bob]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 1621252213
Amazon: B0083X4XNQ
Publisher: 47North
Published: 2012-12-10T11:00:00+00:00

"At least they have no backup ships," Kincaid muttered. The "Face" on Mars, a massive structure two and a half kilometers long by two kilometers wide, and over four hundred meters high, appeared next.

"I wonder what that thing is," Kincaid said.

"We've taken quite a few shots of the so-called Face," Forrester said. "To those pictures we've applied bit-error correction, reseau removal, and brightness alteration. Then we've projected the images to a standard Mercator view. Two things we didn't do that had been done with the previous photos of the Cydonia region—and which caused much of the controversy whether there was an actual 'face'—were contrast/brightness enhancement and image sharpening. The reason we didn't do those is that using those techniques would create different images, depending on the monitor on which they were viewed, and NASA didn't want to get embroiled in the controversy.

"Another problem with much of the earlier imaging was the problem of accounting for shading. For example, light on one side of a slope can greatly distort the image of a hill. To account for this, we use a technique called

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shape-from-shading. We have even been able to project images of the Cydonia region so that it appears as if you are viewing it from a ground-level view." Kincaid waited, still not having received an answer. He often wondered about these men who called themselves scientists—to Kincaid they were technicians, experts at their field of study but with little interest in fields outside their own, and worse, little imagination.

The image of a "face" on Mars had been noted as far back as the 1970s, when the first Viking orbiter had taken pictures. The fact that NASA had never investigated the strange anomaly further until now and called it a natural phenomenon Kincaid knew lay with the influence of STAAR.

"So what is it?"

"Here." Forrester turned his laptop so Kincaid could see the screen.

"Looks like a bunch of rubble," Kincaid said.

"It is," Forrester said.

"Rubble of what?"

"We have no idea."

"Can you print me a copy?" Kincaid asked.

"Certainly." Forrester hit the enter key on his laptop. The printer hummed and a piece of paper rolled out. Kincaid looked at it. Something wasn't quite right. He grabbed a magnifying glass and studied the image. He pulled open a file folder and retrieved an image of the same area made by Surveyor before it was destroyed. He put the two side by side and began comparing them.

"What the hell is that?"

There was something in the new image, to the side of the solar panels and Fort, in the direction of the Face. It wasn't there in the earlier Surveyor picture. It could be an equipment problem, but Kincaid had a feeling it wasn't.

"Can you get a better image of this spot?" Kincaid

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asked, pointing to the small, darker-colored area that disturbed him.

"I can try different spectrums," the scientist said. "Also, we'll get some slightly different angles due to Hubble's and Mars' relative positions changing. Not much, but some." He typed in some commands. "By the way, you were quite correct about the Face.

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