> >>The processed images of the Face have produced a wealth of evidence
> >>consistent with artificiality, though the controversy is far from over.
> >
> >ROTFLMAO... I'm not even going to touch this one.
>
> While I have no clue what "ROTFLMAO" stands for ("rolling on the
> floor"-something, I guess), I really don't get why this is an "untouchable."
> No one with common sense is saying there are unquestionably alien artifacts
> on Mars. But the possibility is there, and we have the means to _test_ the
> Intelligence Hypothesis in the very near future, using proven hardware.
"...laughing my ass off" is the rest of the acronym. We're not ignoring the evidence, there just isn't any. None. Zero. The only thing going on here is that there's a rock on Mars that kinda looks like a face. So what? I have a potato that kinda looks like Jay Leno. The originator of this nonsense is Richard Hoagland, who richly deserves the "crackpot" title because he spent years hawking this as a great discovery and spreading the "experts are supressing the evidence" meme and other lunacy. Of course Sagan called for more research--he'd say anything to beg for more money. But even he didn't take it seriously.
We'd all be thrilled with some real evidence of life on Mars, as I'm sure many of us were with the discovery of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in that meteorite last year. /That's/ worth study. A funny shaped rock is just a funny shaped rock.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lcrocker.html> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC