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  • Our celestial neighbour, the planet Mars.

  • Astronomers once considered Mars to be a long barren and geologically dead rock in space.

  • But since the arrival of our probes beginning in the 1960s,

  • the planet has come alive for us.

  • It does not reveal the inactive and worn down landscape

  • astronomers and planetary scientists had expected.

  • Nevertheless, investigators continued to apply geologic concepts

  • based on their understanding of the Earth and the Moon.

  • They could only see volcanism, erosion, surface movement and surface collapse,

  • all punctuated by episodic impacts from space over billions of years.

  • What force created the sharply cut gouges and depressions across the surface of Mars,

  • looking as if a giant trowel descended to scoop out material,

  • at radically different and irreconcilable depths.

  • Running north to south, we see massive interwoven scratches or grooves

  • extending hundreds of miles.

  • And how remarkable that a planet only half the diameter of Earth

  • exhibits canyons on a scale dwarfing anything seen on our own planet.

  • And mountains that would tower over Mount Everest.

  • Today, no planet outside the Earth has received more attention than Mars,

  • but the mysteries and theoretical contradictions have grown spectacularly.

  • For decades now, investigators have wondered

  • why the two hemispheres of Mars look as if they were formed in different worlds.

  • A southern hemisphere dominated by craters,

  • a northern hemisphere with only sparsely scattered craters.

  • And note, the contrasting crustal depths of the two hemispheres.

  • Shallow crust in the North, much thicker crust in the South.

  • Why would a planet evolving in isolation display such a profound dichotomy?

  • It's as if, some unknown force excavated the northern crust miles deep.

  • The hemispheric removal of crustal material

  • requires a force external to Mars, acting on the planet.

  • But when it comes to external events

  • scientific convention has only one thing to work with:

  • random collisions.

  • Could a planetoid or huge asteroid crashing into Mars

  • have removed millions of cubic miles of crust?

  • A shattering impact

  • is all that theory would allow.

  • But what would Martian history look like

  • were we to include electrical events?

  • Events on a scale sufficient to sculpt the surface of the Red Planet from pole to pole.

  • Of all the enigmatic features in the solar system

  • perhaps none provokes greater amazement

  • than Valles Marineris.

  • The largest canyon on any planet or moon,

  • the deep trench complex stretches a third of the way around the planet,

  • hundreds of times larger than the Grand Canyon.

  • It would reach from San Francisco to New York and beyond.

  • Prior theory of planet formation had never anticipated such a chasm on a small planet.

  • What natural force excavated this colossal trench?

  • With the arrival of the Mariner probes,

  • NASA scientists thought the chasm could have been cut by water erosion,

  • though nothing even close was ever achieved by water on the known watery planet Earth.

  • In any erosional hypothesis, three million cubic miles of material were removed.

  • 3,000,000 cubic miles! And it had to go somewhere.

  • Neither the means of fluid drainage, nor the vast outflow required are in evidence.

  • Now, we know that Valles Marineris reaches to a greater depth

  • than any outflow channel originally envisioned.

  • And the tributaries imagined by some

  • turned out to be cleanly cut alcoves and stubby depressions.

  • They are not connected to feeder streams at all.

  • One portion of the Valles Marineris system, in particular, underscores our point here.

  • Planetary scientists acknowledge that Hebes Canyon,

  • much larger than our Grand Canyon, is an inseparable part of Valles Marineris.

  • The scientists have now acknowledged it was certainly not created by water.

  • Hebes Chasma: "a fairly large canyon in the Valles Marineris complex that has absolutely no inlet or outlet on the surface."

  • Nor is it plausible to suggest that surface spreading

  • created the massive caisson of Valles Marineris

  • with its repeated morphology of sharply scalloped walls.

  • The surface was not torn, it was carved

  • and the detailed images imply a removal of material

  • along the entire length of the chasm,

  • a process clearly illustrated by the neatly machined so-called tributaries

  • all the way up to their rounded, cleanly cut terminations.

  • Whatever formed the canyon complex could not stop at the margins of the primary channel,

  • but added irregular craters and crater chains, and surface grooves and gouges.

  • So, the question can not be escaped.

  • Is there anything known to science today

  • that can account for the extraordinary profile

  • of Valles Marineris?

  • There is an explanation well-known to science

  • though it's never entered the geologist's lexicon.

  • Lightning!

  • In the plasma laboratory, it's power is demonstrated

  • in electric discharge experiments.

  • But the form unfamiliar to conventional science today is the cosmic thunderbolt.

  • It was the brilliant engineer Ralph Juergens, who first suggested decades ago,

  • that cosmic thunderbolts carved Valles Marineris.

  • "..This entire region resembles nothing so much as an area zapped by a powerful electric arc advancing unsteadily across the surface..."

  • With the benefit of more recent data,

  • electrical theorist Wallace Thornhill returned to this extraordinary possibility.

  • "Valles Marineris was created within minutes by a giant electric arc sweeping across the surface of Mars...

  • ...Rock and soil were lifted into space and some fell back to create the great, strewn fields of boulders first seen by the Viking and Pathfinder landers."

  • Yes, the electric hypothesis will unnerve many scientists

  • but it is the only hypothesis that meets the test of direct observation.

  • Here is a scar left by an electric arc on a piece of wet wood.

  • Electric discharge provides a direct and complete explanation for the Valles Marineris.

  • The so-called tributaries of the valley were cut by secondary streamers of the discharge.

  • That is a typical signature of an electric arc when it cuts a surface channel.

  • And here is the scar from electric discharge to an insulator.

  • Notice in particular the network of secondary streamers to the left;

  • a perfect counterpart to the western edge of Valles Marineris.

  • It was long held that this remarkable region on Mars

  • was the result of uplift, fracturing and spreading.

  • And from a distance, it did look like fracturing.

  • But with a closer view in front of us, it is simply irrational to cling to that interpretation.

  • Material has been cleanly removed, exactly as in the discharging to the insulator.

  • The evidence now available demands a new perspective,

  • a larger field of view.

  • In Thornhill's interpretation,

  • the discharge took the form of a plasmoid,

  • not unlike the plasmoid from which the spiral galaxy is formed.

  • Plasmoid simulation

  • On his website, Thornhill noted how the discharge effect

  • spiraled upward to the East and downward to the West,

  • an effect that shows up quite clearly on the elevation map given on his website.

  • In fact, if we extend the view of the elevation map,

  • we see an even larger effect.

  • It seems that the spiraling trails to the East and West nearly completed two circles

  • as they swung back to the trench itself.

  • But one difference between the northern and the southern extension stands out.

  • The northern extension is entirely constituted of ravines and depressions,

  • while the southern extension consists of ridges and mountainous terrain.

  • For this unusual contrast, electrical experiments offer a startling explanation.

  • It was George Christoph Lichtenberg who in the 18th century first showed

  • that electric arcs create ravine networks on more negatively charged surfaces

  • and elevated ridges on more positively charged surfaces.

  • Could it be that simple?

  • ...that a cosmic thunderbolt carving Valles Marineris

  • acted on two regions of different charge, negative to the north and positive to the south?

  • If such was the case, the only plausible cause of the charge differential

  • would be an electrical exchange between Mars and other charged bodies in the past.

  • And what was the relationship of these events to the hemispheric dichotomies,

  • the removal of crustal material to the North and the densely cratered southern hemisphere?

  • In the electrical interpretation, the violent excavation of the surface to create Valles Marineris

  • would have created immense deposits of sediment on surrounding topography.

  • And indeed, we see that previous craters in the region were completely buried,

  • with only the largest craters appearing as outlines penetrating through the deep deposits.

  • It's apparent that the released material had a net drift to the West,

  • since the blanket of deposited sediment stretches all the way to the eastern flank

  • of the towering Olympus Mons.

  • Keep in mind as well that an electric discharge

  • at energies necessary to create the chasms of Valles Marineris

  • would have ejected great volumes of rocky material into space.

  • Much of the rocky debris would have fallen back to litter the Martian landscape.

  • And indeed, shattered rock of all sizes across the surface of Mars is a long-standing mystery.

  • And the mystery is resolved by electrical events on a continental and even hemispheric scale.

  • Given the energies of the events

  • considerable volumes of material would have surely escaped the planet altogether.

  • And what might this tell us about the Mars-Earth connection

  • in our reconstruction of ancient events?

  • Or the surprising discovery that rocks from Mars have fallen on our own planet?

  • When Meteorites Fell from Mars

  • One of the great surprises of the Space Age

  • was the discovery that certain meteorites had arrived from the planet Mars!

  • Initially, most scientists rejected the idea outright.

  • For rock to escape Martian gravity,

  • they could only imagine an asteroidal impact

  • blasting rock into space at more than three miles per second!

  • That is five times the muzzle velocity of a hunting rifle.

  • The energies would either pulverize or vaporize the rock.

  • But the question was eventually settled by gases trapped inside a suspect meteorite.

  • The gases bore the atmospheric signature of Mars.

  • Martian meteorite

  • "The trapped gases match these that Viking measured in the martian atmosphere."

  • By 2003, at least 30 meteorites had been identified as Martian.

  • But how could the removal of rock from the Martian surface have occurred?

  • Planetary scientists began to offer exotic speculations

  • based on mathematical models.

  • No one seems to have wondered if the vast debris fields of Mars

  • might point the way to discovery.

  • Even the smaller rocks viewed here from space would weigh tons on the Earth.

  • We have proposed that in a former epoch of planetary instability

  • electric discharge excavated the Martian surface miles deep,

  • throwing massive quantities of rock into space.

  • This would mean that most of the Martian rocks reaching Earth

  • would have come from well below the surface

  • and would not even bear the atmospheric signature of the planet.

  • So, it is not unreasonable to suspect that the planet Mars was not a small contributor

  • ... but the greatest contributor to meteoric bombardment of Earth in ancient times!

  • On this question, ancient testimony holds a surprising answer!

  • Worldwide accounts describe apocalyptic wars of the gods

  • punctuated by lightning and falling stone!

  • Rocks from space falling on the Earth have no connection to lightning and thunder in our own time,

  • but the ancient connection is clear.

  • In many different languages meteorites and exotic rocks were called thunderstones,

  • or thundereggs,

  • said to have fallen in the great wars of the gods.

  • It seems that the answer lies with the worlds first astronomers.

  • They insisted the rocks from space

  • were hurled by the warring thundergod, the planet Mars.

  • "The ancient Babylonians specifically referred to meteorites falling from the planet Mars."

  • "You hurl the towering stone... You hurl the stone in fury."

  • From one land to another ancient sky worshipers celebrated the planet Mars

  • as the cosmic prototype for the warrior on Earth.

  • It seems that rocks encircling Mars,

  • when Mars loomed huge in the heavens,

  • appeared as a fiery retinue of warriors

  • with ablazing countenance.

  • The terrifying Maruts of Hindu literature

  • derived from the same Indo-European root as the Latin Mars.

  • They are the sons and companians of the Hindu Rudra,

  • "the Red One"

  • who could hardly be other than Mars itself.

  • The Marutas hurled in the heavens bringing blasts of fire,

  • of lightning and falling stone.

  • "The glittering army..."

  • "Armed with lightning spears..."

  • Babylonian astronomical traditions

  • declared precisely the same thing of Nergal, the planet Mars.

  • "Raging demons with awesome numbers run at his right and at his left"

  • the texts say.

  • In the same way, the classical poet described the dwelling of the Greek Ares,

  • the Roman Mars,

  • ringed by a thousand Furies.

  • Just as a horde of Berserkers,

  • or the furious Valkyries,

  • accompanied the devine warriors in archaic traditions of Germany and Scandinavia.

  • Phobos

  • For many years, our claim has been that catastrophic electrical exchanges

  • between Mars and other planets at close range

  • removed immense volumes of rock, dust and debris from the surface of the Red Planet.

  • But now planetary scientists face an additional challenge.

  • The surface of the Martian moon Phobos

  • reveals a chemistry very close to that of Mars itself.

  • Scientists now say that Phobos is not the captured asteroid that they have once thought.

  • Like the meteorites from Mars,

  • even this moon seems to be composed of material

  • blasted from the planet's surface.

  • "Observations from Phobos appear to match the types of minerals identified on the surface of Mars."

  • "This moon might itself have originated from material thrown into orbit from the Martian surface."

  • Theorists envision rocky debris orbiting Mars after a major impact event,

  • then gradually accreting into the observed moon.

  • But, it is surely more likely

  • that collisions of rocks in orbit would progressively wear them down

  • not create a moon...

  • The idea of gravitational accretion followed by meteoric impact

  • is, in fact, contradicted by the most visible surface features of Phobos.

  • Imagine the secondary collision

  • that impact theories required in order to create the gigantic Stickney crater

  • 5.6 miles (9.01km) in diameter,

  • almost half the diameter of Phobos

  • along the axis of the supposed impact.

  • The trivial gravity of the moon could never hold together a loose collection of rocks

  • experiencing such an event.

  • Parallel channels and crater chains running in every direction.

  • Is it a coincidence that everything required to fuse material in the implied way...

  • has already been demonstrated by electric arcs in the laboratory?

  • Pinching material into spherical shapes -

  • the same electric force that produces parallel channels and crater chains.

  • Electric arc experiments

  • It should not surprise us that a body fused electrically into a rough sphere

  • would continue to attract the surrounding dust

  • created by the prior catastrophic events on the Martian surface.

  • But no popular theory has explained how Phobos acquired a surface layer of dust

  • or fine grain estimated at a hundred meters deep.

  • Even moderate vibrations

  • created by the larger supposed impacts

  • would immediately have propelled collected dust grains back into space

  • due to the rock's minuscule gravity.

  • Enhanced colors suggest electrical sorting of dust

  • The available evidence points directly to the very center piece of ancient fears

  • ... the cosmic thunderbolt ...

  • and the ancient story of the great warrior in the heavens

  • of his raging companions

  • and of hurled stone does not end here.

  • Scarface

  • No surface feature on any body in the solar system

  • is more recognizable than the great scar of Valles Marineris.

  • And it appears, that ancient nations preserved the story about this memorable scar.

  • The scarred face of the Aztec god Xipe,

  • the celestial model of the devoted warrior,

  • is not easily forgotten.

  • And many cultures recall a legendary warrior or giant

  • recognized by his distinctive scar.

  • But could this scared god really have been the planet Mars?

  • Scarface was the name of a legendary Blackfoot indian warrior

  • also called Star Boy.

  • His counterpart among the Pawnee was the great warrior named Morning Star

  • not Venus they say, but the planet Mars.

  • The Greek Ares personified the lightning weapon

  • and the Greeks identified the god as the planet Mars.

  • When wounded in battle he rushed to Zeus with the shout of a thousand warriors

  • to display the deep gash.

  • In the different cultures, the warring god appears alternately as a hero vanquishing chaos monsters

  • and a rogue warrior or dark power.

  • We see the two aspects of the warrior archetype in the Hindu Indra,

  • famed for the cosmic thunderbolt.

  • And the giant Ravana,

  • who is said to have been permanently scarred by the thunderbolt.

  • Greek poets knew the monster Typhon as the owner of a lightning weapon

  • but also as the lightning scarred god.

  • And the same is true of the giant Enceladus,

  • alternately said to have been scarred by the thunderbolt of Zeus

  • or the spear of Athena, which meant the same thing.

  • We have good reason to ask, therefore,

  • if the scar-faced theme derived from remembered events

  • when planetary gods waged battles in the sky

  • and the planet Mars acquired it's unforgettable wound.

  • Olympus Mons

  • In it's sheer size the towering Martian mountain Olympus Mons

  • dwarfs anything seen on Earth.

  • The great mound on the Tharsis Rise stunned planetary scientists

  • as it rose through a dust cloud to greet the Mariner 9 mission in 1972.

  • Almost as flat as a pancake,

  • Olympus Mons is three times the height of Mount Everest

  • and as wide as the entire State of Arizona!

  • From its discovery onward,

  • planetary scientists interpreted Olympus Mons as a classic shield volcano,

  • comparing it to the great shield volcanos of the Hawaiian islands.

  • But, Olympus Mons is as large as the entire Hawaiian island chain of mountains,

  • from the sea floor to their summits.

  • Numerous features distinguish it from any shield volcano on Earth.

  • It's steep scarp rises up to 4 miles (6.43km) high.

  • No shield volcano offers a counterpart to this towering cliff.

  • (Belknap Shield Volcano) The defining feature of a shield volcano

  • is the gentle extrusion of fluid or low viscosity lava.

  • Shield volcanoes do not present a scarp

  • and a scarp 4 miles high is simply out of the question.

  • "The scarp is of unknown origin."

  • "This steep cliff around Olympus Mons is peculiar and not characteristic of terrestrial shield volcanoes."

  • In fact, one engima after another leaps out at the observer.

  • A blanket of incredibly fine, filamentary ridges and ravines,

  • a surrounding aureole,

  • exhibiting sharply cut ridges and channels

  • and stupendous carved blocks.

  • "The origin of the deposits has challenged planetary scientists for an explanation for dacades."

  • Subsequent to its formation, much of the aureole to the East

  • was apparently buried by equally enigmatic activity in the region.

  • Indeed, the Tharsis Rise as a whole is a long-standing enigma,

  • 2,500 miles (4,023 km) across and more than 6 miles (9.65km) high.

  • A vast bulge of this sort has no place in the standard evolution of an isolated planet.

  • "The origin of the Tharsis Rise is not well understood."

  • Planetary scientists still debate the enigma,

  • but if Mars formerly engaged other charged bodies at close range,

  • the great bulge is the very deformation we would expect.

  • We have claimed that the surface of Mars was sculpted by electric discharge

  • in an epoch of solar system instability and planetary violence.

  • Yes, this is an outrageous idea,

  • but Olympus Mons itself has all the characteristics of a lightning blister.

  • Such raised bell-shaped blisters can be found on the caps of lightning arrestors

  • after a cloud to ground strike.

  • And we find them in other natural settings as well,

  • they're elevated fulgarites, what some have called fulgamites.

  • The discharge that creates raised fulgurites

  • is often followed by lesser strokes along the same ionized path

  • creating overlapping pits on the top of the formation,

  • just like the circular craters on the summit of Olympus Mons.

  • On the Martian mountain the smaller craters center on the walls of the larger

  • and are cut to a greater depths, as if with a cookie cutter.

  • The material that forms the raised fulgarite is scavenged from the surrounding surface.

  • The result is an encircling depression or moat.

  • This characteristic is so clear and obvious as to raise an critical question...

  • Is there a moat around the base of Olympus Mons?

  • Planetary scientists say there is a moat,

  • but that its remains are only slightly visible to the West

  • and the rest of the moat had been buried by later deposits of material who's origin is still debated.

  • They explain the moat as being an effect of Olympus Mons

  • sinking into the local terrain over long spans of time.

  • But is another explanation possible?

  • The features of Olympus Mons are, in fact,

  • a perfect fit to an electrical interpretation down to numerous details.

  • Several years ago, Wal Thornhill conducted a laboratory experiment

  • to demonstrate the effect of an electric arc

  • on a positively charged, or anode clay surface.

  • At moderate power, the electric arc raised a circular mound from the surrounding material

  • to create both, a moat and an encircling fluid aureole extracted from the clay,

  • while also carving a crater on the top of the mound

  • and cutting pits and gouges in its flanks.

  • As the power was increased,

  • the arc briefly stopped moving and burnt a smaller circular crater

  • within the pre-existing crater, leaving a glowing spot.

  • Scaled up to an interplanetary discharge,

  • that glowing spot represents a duration and temperature

  • sufficient to melt the floors of the Olympus Mons caldera craters

  • and to produce their remarkably flat surfaces.

  • The Olympus Mons aureole also has it's analog on the aureoles of lightning blisters

  • showing concentric scarring.

  • This distinctive pattern directs our attention to a stunning,

  • highly enigmatic counterpart on the Olympus Mons aureole.

  • In conventional terms, the similarity can only be accidental.

  • And, here is an equally profound mystery.

  • Much of the original aureole was overwritten by subsequent scarring.

  • It is only necessary to look closely at the images

  • to see that the overwriting was achieved by a force acting from above

  • with no regard for previously formed ridges and channels.

  • That's the trademark of the electric arcs acting on a surface.

  • In an electrical interpretation of Olympus Mons,

  • successive strokes from a cosmic lightning bolt

  • lifted the peak and carved the craters on the summit.

  • The Olympus Mons caldera illustrates the effect of a sputtering, rotating arc,

  • superimposing flat bottom craters on the summit of an anode blister.

  • It's rapid movement will frequently cut steep terraces

  • into the walls of the superimposed craters.

  • We see the effect most clearly on the caldera walls of neighbouring Ascraeus Mons.

  • On a planetary scale a cylindrical rotating electric discharge

  • can be seen as an array of smaller cylinders.

  • A good example is the cylindrical Earth auroras

  • formed by curtains of smaller discharge cylinders.

  • When electric arcs sputter across a surface

  • they will often stick momentarily to one spot,

  • creating a distinctive scalloping effect,

  • an effect evident on the caldera walls of Olympus Mons

  • and even more evident on the caldera walls of Hecates Tholus to the North.

  • Cleanly cut scalloping is not apparent on the walls of shield volcano calderas.

  • The highly filamentary blanket on the summit of Olympus Mons

  • is to be expected if an 'interplanetary' arc

  • created a focal point of negative charge

  • on a positively charged surface -

  • like the fine filamentary tail of a comet moving through the weak electric field of the Sun.

  • Here we would look for a similar effect on the massive cloud

  • of dust and sediment that fell upon the region.

  • Radial filaments, perhaps even electrically fused material

  • would have poured over the flanks and scarp of Olympus Mons

  • to fill the surrounding moat as a permanent record of the movement of charge.

  • In truth, no shield volcano on Earth replicates the morphology of Olympus Mons.

  • Yet, the pattern is repeated more than once on the Tharsis Rise of Mars,

  • not just superimposed craters and terracing,

  • but as seen in the laboratory experiments with electric arcs,

  • a spectacular array of surrounding pits and deep surface gouges.

  • And most extraordinary is the fact, that the expansive carved surface seen here

  • reveals not a single opening to the great voids that are supposed to lie beneath the surface

  • - the voids into which scientists have assumed these pits and gouges collapsed.

  • Collapsed pits are typically quite obvious

  • revealing either their connection to local fissures

  • or openings to cavernous space below.

  • Examined critically. the supposed shield volcanoes of Mars

  • do not reveal the expected features.

  • This may not exclude the possibility of active volcanoes in the planet's violent past,

  • but with higher resolution images

  • the spectrum of engimas has broadened spectacularly.

  • Electrical events are scaleable,

  • and it should not surprise us to find that events similar to those producing Olympus Mons

  • occurred on a smaller scale, as well.

  • In fact, the surface of Mars is replete with small mounds surmounted by craters.

  • Abundant cratered mounds remain mysterious to planetary scientists.

  • Many of these mounds are remarkably similar to raised fulgarites.

  • In many instances, we see the cratered mounds surrounded by moats or barrow pits.

  • An electrical explanation may be the only explanation that can withstand scrutiny.

  • Most of the formations are under half a mile in diameter.

  • Where we see one cratered mound we typically see others,

  • sometimes by the hundreds,

  • even by the thousands.

  • We see strings of cratered mounds

  • and we see parallel strings; an unresolved geological enigma,

  • but an enigma that reminds us of the parallel streamers common to electric discharge.

  • Many of the higher resolution images are quite recent

  • and yes, it is too early to impose any sweeping interpretation.

  • But, the greatest mistake would be to ignore the converging lines of evidence,

  • evidence that points to planet-wide electrical sculpting of the Martian surface

  • not that long ago.

  • Electrical Sculpting of Mars

  • Is it possible to identify the events that shaped the surface of the planet Mars?

  • A planet of vast but unrecognized landscapes,

  • vista after vista eluding every attempt to explain them.

  • Scientists labour to solve the mysteries through text book theory,

  • but if, as we have claimed, the cause was electrical,

  • they will never get the expected answers.

  • Many details of a new interpretation come from laboratory experiments with electric discharge,

  • but how far can this new interpretation take us

  • toward an understanding of Martian history?

  • One advantage of the electrical perspective

  • is that its every implication can be tested against massive layers of evidence now available,

  • including wide-ranging experiments with electric arcs.

  • Lab discharge between two spheres

  • Anode (Positive charge)

  • Cathode (Negative charge)

  • If as weve proposed, Mars was immersed in hemispheric discharge,

  • the planet can be viewed as a laboratory in space

  • for testing the electrical hypothesis.

  • Lichtenberg Figures

  • As seen in lightning displays,

  • electric arcs exhibit dendritic branching called Lichtenberg patterns.

  • These look very much like the dendritic erosion created by flowing water.

  • And electric arcs exploding across a surface can produce sinuous channels

  • that also resemble fluid erosion.

  • Lab discharge to wet wood

  • But there are differences.

  • In electric discharge to a solid surface

  • the electron pathways frequently create dark spotting,

  • or chains of craters, running along the channel floors or close by.

  • The presence of crater concentrations in relation to surface channels

  • offers a fundamental test of the electrical hypothesis.

  • In electric experiments, we also see coronal streamers

  • radiating perpendicularly from the primary discharge channel.

  • Both, the cratering and the coronal discharge

  • are keys to a new understanding of the Martian surface.

  • Martian Channels:

  • scalloping; crater chains; alcoves; pseudo-tributaries

  • Did electric arcs cut the great channels on Mars?

  • Nirgal Vallis is some three miles and more in width and 250 miles in length.

  • Yes, it did look like a dry river bed

  • when first seen by the Mariner 9 mission in 1972,

  • but the original confidence of planetary scientists soon gave way to doubts,

  • then to contradiction.

  • "It is not clear how this channel formed..."

  • A river can take many twists and turns along its path

  • but its tributaries will not look like the blunt alcoves of Nirgall Vallis.

  • Martian channels exhibit the predictable features of an electric scar.

  • Rotating cylindrical arcs

  • sputtering along the primary discharge path

  • produced scalloping of the channel walls

  • with sharp angular projections that are inconsistent with fluid flow.

  • The same process left overlapping craters and alcoves

  • that make no sense in terms of familiar erosional patterns.

  • We see virtually identical craters, alcoves and sharply cut stubby gouges along Nanedi Valles.

  • Nanedi Valles: "The valley's origins remain uncles"

  • Numerous other Martian rilles underscore the same enigma

  • and the unanswered questions grow year by year.

  • Nirgal Valles "tributaries"

  • Electric arc to wood

  • "Collapsed Lava Tubes"

  • Planetary scientists identify depressions such as these, as collapsed lava tubes.

  • Lava tubes form as flowing molten rock cools and hardens at it's surface,

  • insulating the lava below so it continues to flow in a tube that eventually empties.

  • When an empty lava tubes collapses,

  • the result will be an entrance to a lava tube cave.

  • A good example is "Barker's cave" in Australia.

  • So, a cave entrance is the first thing to look for on Mars.

  • The second thing to look for is a rubble field created by a collapsing roof.

  • And a third thing to look for is abundant outflow

  • since the emptying of a lava tube requires an outflow region.

  • Lava outflow

  • But in reviewing innumerable instances of claimed lava tubes collapse on Mars

  • we find no cave entrance,

  • no rubble field from a collapsed roof

  • and no outflow.

  • The depressions stand alone

  • with literally nothing to support the theoretical interpretation.

  • Like any fluid, lava flow follows topographical relief,

  • always running downhill.

  • The channels seen here change directions randomly in apparent disregard for topography.

  • They make 90 degree turns unrelated to surface gradients.

  • And they also cross over each other with no disturbance of either.

  • These depressions can not be collapsed lava tubes,

  • but what are they?

  • What you see here is not the planet Mars.

  • It is a surface affected by very high voltage, but microamp current,

  • creating a complex of gouges and craters.

  • Again, in electrical terms

  • craters and channels are inseparable companions.

  • "Fractured" Terrain

  • In responding to the mysterious channels and depressions on Mars,

  • many planetary scientists thought they saw spreading and fracturing

  • and, indeed, evidence of fracturing is present on Mars as seen here.

  • Here there are no associated craters or crater chains

  • and the nature of the stresses acting on the surface is an open question.

  • Planetary scientists think in the same terms when considering the region of Avernus Colles.

  • They identify the channels as cracks or fractures.

  • But why the concentrations of craters and crater chains?

  • A rotating electric arc traveling across the surface can alternately sputter forward

  • to produce linear chains of craters,

  • or advance on a continuous path to cut channels as if by a router

  • with uniform depth and parallel sides.

  • As seen in laboratory experiments with electric discharge channels,

  • here, the channel width will be the width of the rotating arc

  • at it's contact with the surface.

  • VEMASAT Laboratories, Earth

  • Avernus Colles, Mars

  • Crater Anomalies

  • The question of crater formation on rocky planets and moons must be re-opened.

  • The impact explanation would mean it is only necessary to count craters

  • in order to calculate the age of a surface.

  • But electric discharge on an hemispheric scale

  • could quickly create a surface that looks a billion years old

  • to those counting craters.

  • Plasma scientist Dr. J. C. Ransom of VEMASAT-Laboratories

  • conducted a series of experiments with electric arcs.

  • Electric discharge produced surface cratering patterns

  • closely resembling those observed on planets and moons.

  • Even a surface darkening and central bumps or mounds of so many craters on Mars

  • were present in the laboratory experiment.

  • Electric arcs can also produce cratering patterns that could never be produced by impact.

  • Complex terracing of crater floors and crater walls

  • are a common effect of a rotating electric arc

  • or discharge streamer.

  • Across the surface of Mars we observe countless examples of exotic terracing.

  • Impact theory was never able to resolve the mysteries.

  • So-called bull's eye craters

  • with a central crater inside a larger crater

  • are surprisingly common on Mars.

  • Could this be a rare accident?

  • That explanation is reduced to absurdity when two such craters are seen side by side.

  • In fact several bull's eye craters appear within the same region of Mars.

  • But an ionized discharge path of lightning does allow for subsequent discharge along the same path.

  • The bull's eye crater

  • is a logical extension of the electric model.

  • And when it comes to improbable events side by side

  • these two craters with central peaks each terminating in another crater

  • will certainly never be explained by impact.

  • Impacts do not create hexagonal craters.

  • But look closely at this region of Mars

  • and you'll see several hexagons,

  • an observed form taken by rotating plasma

  • as seen in the planet Saturn’s electrified polar hexagon.

  • In an extended discharge,

  • systematic cratering, pitting, or etching can be the norm.

  • That's why in industrial applications

  • electric discharge machining can achieve exceptionally dependable results.

  • The microscopic pitting of electric discharge

  • can give a consistent depth

  • and a remarkably smooth surface

  • despite the fact that the surface is entirely constituted of craters or pits.

  • The same effect can be observed on seemingly smooth surfaces

  • in the northern hemisphere of Mars,

  • surfaces that have been excavated miles deep.

  • But look more closely with the help of recent high-res images

  • and smooth surfaces are revealed to be nothing more than fields of small

  • densely packed craters.

  • The baffling crater field seen here,

  • like so many others on Mars,

  • is a perfect counterpart to an electrically machined surface.

  • Martian region in high resolution

  • Electric discharge machining (electron microscope)

  • And don't underestimate the scale of this dilemma for planetary scientists.

  • We witness a pattern at both, the low points and the high points on Mars.

  • From the bottom of Zunil crater in the depressed northern hemisphere

  • to the highest point on Mars, the summit of towering Olympus Mons.

  • Here no grasping for conventional explanations such as a dune field

  • could possibly account for what leaps out at the observer.

  • The baffling crater fields seen here,

  • like so many others on Mars,

  • is a perfect counterpart to an electrically machined surface.

  • Electric discharge machining (electron microscope)

  • Lightning's Dendritic Forms

  • Lightning in slow motion

  • More than two centuries after Benjamin Franklin flew his kite,

  • the origin and behaviour of lightning continues to amaze and to puzzle the lightning specialists.

  • Lightning will occasionally imprint it's distinctive form on terrestrial surfaces,

  • Lightning strike on a sidewalk

  • and even on the skin of humans.

  • In the laboratory, the counterpart to lightning is the Lichtenberg figure,

  • perhaps the most common and fascinating form taken by electric discharge.

  • Dendritic means tree-like branching

  • and dendritic forms can be easily confused with fracturing.

  • The dendritic patterns seen here are not fracturing, as the term is normally understood,

  • but electrical break down channels on a polycarbonate plate.

  • Georg Christoph Lichtenberg appears to have been the first to demonstrate the different forms

  • taken by dust on positive

  • and negative surfaces.

  • A line of investigation later followed by others but with no impact on planetary science.

  • Late in the 19th century, industrialist Lord William G. Armstrong explored the power of electricity

  • to produce exquisite forms on surfaces of different charge.

  • The feathery qualities of Lichtenberg figures on a negative surface

  • could be compared to the more dendritic patterns on a positive surface.

  • "Captured" Lightning

  • At Stoneridge Engineering, the technology of Lichtenberg figures has produced an art form,

  • lightning captured in clear acrylic blocks.

  • The blocks are bombarded by electrons from a 5 megavolt particle accelerator

  • arriving at nearly the speed of light

  • but, coming to a stop within a fraction of an inch into the block,

  • a cloud of trapped negative charge.

  • Here, the event producing the dendritic channels is triggered by a simple stroke of a metallic pin.

  • That is all it takes for a breakdown of the insulating material

  • and a nearly instantaneous release of charge and dendritic channels.

  • A millisecond lightning storm frozen into the acrylic block.

  • The branching of the electron channels is a spectacular fractal pattern,

  • apparently occurring all the way down to scale, to the molecular level.

  • From what we have earlier presented

  • it is evident that planet-wide electric discharge

  • created vast regions of raised Lichtenberg figures on Mars.

  • Mars: dendritic ridges

  • Laboratory experiments show that in regions of positive charge

  • dust will typically gather into raised Lichtenberg formations

  • standing out from the surrounding terrain.

  • In fact, sharply sculpted dendritic ridge systems

  • are abundant on Mars

  • showing up wherever the highest energy events are implied.

  • The great trench of Valles Marineris is an extraordinary example.

  • Here, we find the raised Lichtenberg figures exactly where we would expect them,

  • running down from sharp cliffs and high points

  • in predictable patterns, stretching for hundreds of miles along the trench.

  • Yet, strangely, the mystery receives almost no mention by planetary scientists.

  • We also observe dendritic ridges on the great mound of Olympus Mons,

  • both, on the miles high scarp

  • and on the caldera walls.

  • In fact, the mystery is global.

  • We see the same pattern on the walls of major rilles.

  • We see it along the so-called fractured terrain of Noctis Labyrinthis.

  • And everywhere on Mars we see the dendritic patterns

  • reaching down from towering cliffs and mesas.

  • We even see such ridge systems descending from the rims of large craters,

  • opening the door to a much broader perspective on crater formation.

  • Scalloping

  • In the hypothesis presented here,

  • many craters on Mars were produced by the same electrical events

  • that created chains of craters and a great variety of channels or rilles.

  • As a discharge column sputters across a surface,

  • it's diameter will vary with discharge energy

  • and a narrowing or pinching by the induced magnetic field.

  • The pinching effect will be most strongly focused at the point of contact with the surface.

  • The sputtering arc will leave a unique signature in the form of scalloped walls.

  • Popular explanations say that surface collapse must have produced these crater channels.

  • But scalloping effects on Mars are by no means limited to chains of craters.

  • Planetary scientists cannot agree on the forces that created this bizarre channel network

  • north of Valles Marineris.

  • Other channels, that are said to have been caused by fluid flow,

  • either water or lava, exhibit the same scalloped walls.

  • Similar neatly cut scallops appear on the cliffs of towering mesas.

  • And the so-called calderas of the great mountains of Mars

  • reveal the same pattern.

  • Even the celebrated Victoria crater,

  • supposedly formed by impact,

  • exhibits alcoves and scallops similar to those of the great rilles and valleys.

  • And the scalloped walls of Zunil crater

  • are virtually indistinguishable from the scalloped walls of Valles Marineris.

  • Scallops and Ridges

  • Additional patterns enter the picture, as well,

  • including a consistent global connection between scallops

  • and dendritic ridge networks.

  • The explanation appears to lie in the fractal nature of cylindrical current sheets.

  • Current flow can metamorphose into secondary cylinders

  • and fractal-like sub-structures

  • to be pinched by the induced magnetic fields

  • into a narrow highly focused discharge.

  • We see this interplay of different scales

  • in the cylindrical currents of Earth's auroras

  • as charged particles enter and exit the polar regions in an electric circuit.

  • Invisible current sheets, magnetically pinched at Earth's poles

  • divide into visible curtains of secondary cylinders,

  • all dancing in the turbulence of Earth's upper atmosphere.

  • The same electromagnetic structure arising from charged particle movement

  • will at times be seen in the electrified tails of comets.

  • In the larger scale events carving the surface of Mars,

  • we envision multiple columns of charged particles

  • being pinched into a narrow discharge at the surface.

  • This established principle will be crucial to comprehending the giant Valles Marineris

  • with all of it's accompanying chasms.

  • Smaller scallops within larger scallops,

  • they are the imprint of pinched cylindrical currents,

  • constituted of smaller cylinders.

  • The pattern occurs repeatedly and is surely no accident.

  • Consider the consistent relationship between the scalloping effects

  • and Lichtenberg ridge systems.

  • The most prominent of these dendritic forms

  • are those that separate the larger scallops.

  • The smaller dendritic ridges define the boundaries between smaller scallops.

  • At both scales, the ridge networks can be seen as the final events

  • in catastrophic discharge activity

  • as charge redistribution gathered and fused lose material

  • into the familiar Lichtenberg patterns.

  • In this revisioning of Martian history

  • contradictions find a unified resolution

  • in an electrical cause.

  • Enigmatic craters,

  • crater chains,

  • dendritic ridges,

  • scalloped craters,

  • calderas and rilles -

  • all are connected to the observed behaviour of electric discharge.

  • Negative Lichtenberg Figures

  • Here is an image of electric arcing to a negatively charged surface

  • capturing the feathery discharge glow, or corona.

  • The corona is constituted of extremely fine hair-like filaments radiating from the primary streamers.

  • On a surface affected by electric arcing,

  • experiments show that regions of localised charge

  • can attract dust or sediment into a record of the electrical activity,

  • or discharge pathways, down to many fine details.

  • Martian surface

  • Here is a ridge complex on Mars

  • covering thousands of square miles.

  • The ridge forms have puzzled planetary scientists for more than a decade now.

  • Since standard geology does not include such forms,

  • this unique behaviour is a logical test of the electrical hypothesis.

  • Examined closely, we see perpendicular hair-like filaments illuminated by the Sun

  • confirming that electric discharge attracted dust into raised relief.

  • Martian surface

  • This exotic formation was produced electrically by D. Z. Parker on a CRT screen

  • showing a gathering of dust in a region of previous discharge activity.

  • The ridge with its fine filaments

  • offers a striking counterpart to the baffling Martian formations.

  • Surface Etching

  • We have suggested that the northern hemisphere of Mars

  • was eroded electrically to a depth of 5 miles or more,

  • as seen on the global elevation map.

  • It is only reasonable therefore to look for transitional zones

  • on the margins of the more depressed or heavily eroded regions.

  • If the erosion was electrical,

  • what should we expect to find,

  • particularly in the regions that separate the low lying northern latitudes

  • from the elevated and densely cratered southern hemisphere?

  • We should expect to find what we do find -

  • vast regions from the equator northward

  • showing the predictable phases of electrical erosion.

  • First electric arcs raking across the surface

  • created a network of channels

  • cutting the region in discrete blocks.

  • Then the arcs acting on the sharp edges of the blocks

  • continued to extend the Valley floors

  • leaving separate angular islands.

  • The islands standing out above the newly excavated terrain

  • were then progressively eroded into various pyramidal forms

  • then mounds as electric arcs continued to erode the sharp edges.

  • And finally the remaining mounds were etched away.

  • Just as industrial applications of electric discharge machining

  • can erode high points to produce a flat surface.

  • All that is left of the earlier Martian plains

  • are the few scattered remnants of sculpted mesas and bluffs

  • disappearing altogether in a flat depression farther to the north.

  • This transitional process can be observed across great distances on Mars

  • with a consistent pattern,

  • highly cratered elevated plains to the south

  • giving way to isolated blocks,

  • then mounds,

  • then a smooth lower terrain that characterizes so much of the northern hemisphere.

  • Blueberries

  • In early 2004, the Mars rover "Opportunity" returned images

  • that alone could alter our ideas about the recent history of the solar system.

  • The rover had landed in a crater

  • and scattered around the walls of the crater were a multitude of BB-sized spherules.

  • Their blue-grey colour set them apart form the reddish hue

  • of the iron-rich Martian soil.

  • Thus, the informal name given them: blueberries.

  • As "Opportunity" rolled across the Martian landscape it found a profusion of the little spheres

  • that apparently occupied the Martian surface by the trillions.

  • But how were they formed?

  • Not long after the discovery of the Martian blueberries,

  • Dr. Ransom set up an experiment to test the effects of electric arcs

  • on different materials.

  • He obtained a quantity of hematite roughly comparable to the Martian soil

  • and blasted it with an electric arc.

  • The results are quite spectacular.

  • Embedded in the soil were perfect counterparts of the Martian blueberries.

  • From what is now known about the Martian surface,

  • it's clear that if the planet was engulfed in electric discharge,

  • the spherules are a predictable effect.

  • Mars

  • VEMASAT laboratories

  • Ransom's experiments did not end the investigation either.

  • Cameras of the rover "Opportunity" captured a flat floored channel with parallel sides

  • from both walls of the channel we observed jagged razorbacks.

  • One more feature with no place in the geologists' lexicon.

  • But Dr. Troy Shinbrot, and his colleagues at Rutger's University,

  • recently produced this very form, razorbacks, in electro-static experiments.

  • And the researchers did indeed see a direct connection to the razorbacks recorded by "Opportunity".

  • Shortly thereafter, D. Z. Parker also produced razorbacks

  • on the charged surface of a CRT screen.

  • Both, the razorbacks and the blueberries, point to electrical events.

  • And electrical events are scaleable.

  • Formations created on a small scale can also appear on a much larger scale.

  • In fact, our orbiting cameras have found numerous craters with domes or spheres resting within them

  • looking very much like the spheres and craters of Ransom's blueberry experiments.

  • The pictures seen here of domed craters on Mars

  • are from the "Mars Global Surveyor".

  • But in contrast to the rover's blueberry images

  • the domed craters range in size from a hundred meters or less

  • to a mile or more in diameter.

  • And the pattern occurs even on a larger scale.

  • In the polar region of Mars the domed craters are up to many miles wide.

  • It is surely reasonable to ask if the tiny blueberries, and the far more massive domed craters,

  • were produced by the same electrical force

  • acting on widely different scales in an earlier phase of global electric discharge?

  • One thing is certain, if it was electricity that sculpted the Martian surface,

  • the events were vastly more dramatic than planetary scientists have ever imagined.

  • Symbols of an Alien Sky

  • Episode Two The Lightning-Scarred Planet Mars

Our celestial neighbour, the planet Mars.

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