Saturday, November 14, 2009

The Face On Mars..

This controversy has been going on for many years, but I am sure this post will set the record straight once and for all. There are several reasons why we want to believe there is a face on Mars. Outer space is vast, and the immensity of it all can make us feel very small, a mere pinhead in the totality of it all. We want to feel important. We want to feel like a part of the universe, and seeing a face on Mars would give us a connection that would make us feel like an important part of the grand scheme of things. It is human nature to express dominance over it's surroundings, and a face on Mars would be like "Yeah, we conquered mars". Albeit, it was a millenia ago and we don't have the technology now, we see a human face, so it had to be us.

Well I hate to bust the space bubble, but it boils down to imprinting. All animals (including humans) come out of the womb and as soon as they are able, the "imprint" on on their mother's face. When mom is not available, they imprint on the first face they see. It is instinct to look for 2 eyes, a nose and mouth on an oval shaped blob. They may not have the best of vision, but that face is ingrained into their brain. This is what they will look for when they are hungry, scared, cold or lonely. Animals never really grow out of this deeply seeded instinct, although it is not needed as much as we grow older.

An example of this in my life, is we have a faux sponge painted wall in the bathroom of our house. I can guarantee that the paint was applied in random motion with varying amounts of paint and pressure. Yet. when I look at the wall, I can see areas that resemble human faces or bodies better than I could draw if I sat down with paper and pencil. Some are very small and only require a few paint dabs for my brain to decipher them as relevant. A brain will fill in the blanks to satisfy it's need to make sense out of apparently random facts and figures.

Now I am not discounting the whole alien theory, or the theory that there have been several technological superior civilizations that have lived and died right here on Earth, I am just saying not to bank on the face on Mars to be the evidence...