“BETTER TO LIGHT A CANDLE, THAN TO SIT AND CURSE THE DARK” —JOHN F. KENNEDY ¹⁾Old proverb

By February 1995, I still did not yet believe that Dr. Sagan would have known about a potential “cover-up” dealing with enigmatic landforms on Mars (or elsewhere in the solar system for that matter). I was certainly aware of Dr. Sagan’s skeptical frame of mind but was also aware of his potential open-mindedness on the subject in general. I figured, at that point, that he essentially had to be coaxed from his skeptical corner and really take the time to realize what he was confronted with. After all, I had been brought up and guided by his skepticism, but also his keen sense of stirring the imagination. I thought it was time he come to grips with what Hoagland had discovered and treat it much like he seemed to treat the whole subject in Cosmos. After all, how could he keep such a secret even if it were true? Let’s look at this for a moment.

There is a sense in America, that since the 1960’s, something has “gone wrong” with the space program. There was an incredible (and lets be blunt) expensive effort to explore the solar system over half a century ago that no longer exists. Perhaps making the exploration efforts via unmanned craft, as we are doing presently, is the answer. Even with that as the vanguard of our efforts, there is clearly a huge mystery when it comes to our exploration when having used actual human beings. Apollo’s 18-20 were virtually ready to go and essentially paid for.  It was said that exploration of the moon was “too expensive”. That might have been true, but since when has the government ever wanted to save money? Or listen to what the public actually wanted? After having spent so much to get the Apollo program started, why the sudden rush (literally) to end it all? The costs and money allocated to the space program today have been argued to have essentially remained the same, even after closing the door on the Apollo program to ostensibly save money. It’s as if someone wants human exploration of space to remain unreachable and expensive—or so dangerous to human life that the new private companies, who are just getting started on manned space flight, will balk at the financial and safety risks to get involved.

In the mid 1960’s, incredible visions were being planned for the exploration of space as outlined in the “National Space Goals for the Post-Apollo Period” report presented to the 89^th congress in 1965 and which Dr. Carl Sagan was involved with. Carl Sagan is listed as a member of the steering committee for consultation on “Biology and the Exploration of Mars”. See also Appendix 2 of this same report where the specific projects Sagan was involved with are listed. Many engineers in the aerospace industry since the 1960’s, including Robert Zubrin, have wondered, “what went wrong” with all of those post Apollo goals? If indeed something “went wrong”, I ask, did Carl Sagan actually know the answer to that question?

Dr. Sagan discusses at some length, in Chapter 23 of his book The Cosmic Connection, the problems with the space program in general and manned space exploration specifically. He also outlines the postponement of Mars expeditions but fully expected some sort of lunar base by the 1980’s. In an earlier chapter of The Cosmic Connection, he writes that he expected orbital human exploration of Mars by 1990. Even Sagan’s conservative estimates were way off the mark. Were his estimates carefully calculated to “kick the can” of exploratory discussion and plans down the road or, was it true that even he did not realize how long the shadows would fall over the space program?

 

 

Many of the post Apollo goals that Sagan outlined in The Cosmic Connection are similar echoes of the recommendations made over half a century ago in the little known National Space Goals for the Post-Apollo Period which was presented to the 89^th congress in 1965.

 

 

This report had bigger plans for human space exploration built upon logical and practical lines of Apollo extension infrastructure. Sagan is not only listed as part of a steering committee but also listed in the report as one of the members of the study group related to the biology and exploration of Mars. It is probable that his consultation for the report ranged further than that. Later, Sagan explained that he advocated for non-manned missions to the moon initially. ²⁾See page 158 of The Cosmic Connection. He also briefed the Apollo astronauts before their journey to the moon. (See Wiki article on Sagan) The briefings probably dealt mainly with bringing back from the moon potential forms of biological contamination, but Sagan evidently was cleared and capable of classified areas as well. (see Project A119) On this point, Sagan was a colleague of Dr. Thornton Page who worked for the C.I.A. Later in this series we will explore those connections with Dr. Page further. ³⁾A quick preview of what we will discuss will be the Walter Cronkite interview of Page and Sagan from the 1966 CBS television report entitled UFO’s: Friend Foe or Fantasy?But, as we shall see shortly, Dr. Sagan was also making predictions about finding extra-terrestrial “artifacts” on the moon. To use his words, “particularly, on the backside…” of the moon. He could very well have been briefing them on this point as well.

Perhaps one of the more interesting things Dr. Sagan treats with in The Cosmic Connection, pages 105-111, is the whole issue surrounding the potential artificiality of Mars’ moons Phobos and Deimos. Unlike the treatment he gives the issue in the 1966 book Intelligent Life in the Universe, written by both he and I.S. Shklovskii, he begins to dismantle the artificial satellite hypothesis that was so elegantly rendered the decade previously.⁴⁾ See chapter 15 in The Cosmic Connection  Using the recent photographs of those moons from Mariner 9 he says things like, “I am not sure what an artificial satellite looks like, but this does not seem to be it…” and “…there is no sign of technology on it…”. Although he does say that the moons appear to be the last remnants of a parent body no longer extant due to collision. If this were true, we may be looking at evidence along the lines of Mars itself as the moon of an exploded planet as per Richard Hoagland and Michael Bara.

At the Enterprise Mission conference, in the early years of this century, I authored a discussion thread entitled “Eisenhower White House Claimed Phobos Was An Artificial Structure” which was devoted on the subject of the Eisenhower administration’s involvement in the hypothesis of Mars’ moons as artificial satellites.⁵⁾Richard Hoagland also wrote an article on this subject at the Enterprise Mission. For additional information on the artificial moons of Mars, see here. My contention, was then, and still remains, that the observations made in the 1950’s of these moons, prompted the famous Brookings report, dated April 18th, 1961, to study the effect on world civilization of discovering something like pre-historic, extra-terrestrial “super artifacts” in the solar system. It’s also interesting to note the Associated Press release from November 26, 1962 entitled “Prof Says Beings From Outer Space Have Visited Earth”. This address of Sagan’s to the American Rocket Society fresh on the heels of the Brookings report evokes a number of questions. For on the one hand, we have the Brookings suggestion that “scientists would be the most devastated” by the news that we were not the first in the solar system, and on the other, we have a small number of scientists (Sagan being not the only one discussing pre-historic, extra-terrestrial artifacts), perhaps in a sort of “trial balloon” methodology, offering up that very possibility of artifacts and artificial moons to the general “unwashed” scientific community itself. It seems odd that scientists seemed to think such things were possible for the artificial moons idea, so why were they so coy when it comes to anything anomalous since? What has changed? Was this some sort of “bait and switch” in the “Brookings” induced environment, which suggested that scientists would disintegrate by the news that we were not the first? Were additional covert studies being conducted in the 1960’s that we have no information on? Was Sagan’s address part of a study to see the effect of such information on scientists? Additionally, was the book, Intelligent Life in the Universe, a part of this covert study on scientific reaction thereto?

Indeed, the following quotation of Shklovskii’s from that work, is revealing in that aspect:

“…the hypothesis that the moons of Mars are of artificial origin has nevertheless been provocative, and thereby has served a useful purpose. It reminds us that the activity of a highly developed society of intelligent beings could have cosmic significance and could produce artifacts which would outlive the civilizations that constructed them…” —page 376 [Emphasis mine.]

In any event, Carl Sagan is quoted in the 1962 Associated Press release as having said to the American Rocket Society that “It is not out of the question that artifacts of these [“advanced technical civilizations”] visits still exist or even that some kind of base is maintained, possibly automatically, within the solar system, to provide continuity for successive expeditions.” The idea of a still extant extra-terrestrial artifact on the moon (and the suggestion of the Brookings report to withhold information regarding discovering alien artifacts) was part of the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey. This very theme of alien ruins and bases on the moon that Sagan brought up in 1962, was re-visited in Intelligent Life in the Universe. Richard Hoagland discusses this point re: Sagan in several places in his book Monuments of Mars: A City on the Edge of Forever. Pages, 67,69, 262, et. seq.

 

 

Here are some quotations of Dr Sagan’s from Intelligent Life in the Universe vis a vis the “artifacts” and “artificial moons” subject that are noteworthy for our continued discussion:

“…it seems possible that the Earth has been visited by various Galactic civilizations many times…It is not out of the question that artifacts of these visits still exist…or even that some kind of base is maintained within the solar system to provide continuity for successive expeditions…FORTHCOMING HIGH-RESOLUTION PHOTOGRAPHIC RECONNAISSANCE OF THE MOON FROM SPACE VEHICLES—PARTICULARLY, OF THE BACK SIDE,—MIGHT BEAR THESE POSSIBILITIES IN MIND…”—page 461-62 [Emphasis mine]  ⁶⁾ On the point of artifacts on the “back side” (Sagan’s words) for forthcoming missions, note how Apollo 8 (with the first humans to see the far side of the moon) radioed back to Houston when crew member Jim Lovell announced after TEI, “There is a Santa Claus”. Notwithstanding that it was Christmas time, it almost certainly was a code which confirmed the unbelievable.

“….they would be artificial satellites on a scale surpassing the fondest dreams of contemporary rocket engineers…..”—page 373

“…that the moons of Mars are artificial satellites may seem fantastic, at first glance. In my opinion, however, it merits serious consideration.”—page 373

“…perhaps Phobos was launched into orbit in the heyday of a technical civilization on Mars, some hundreds of millions of years ago..”—page 374

“if the moons on Mars are artificial…..they are much more likely mute testaments to an ancient Martian civilization than signs of a thriving contemporary society”—page 374

 “..if the asteroids are a shattered planet, we may wonder if some previous technical civilization blew its world apart. We may point out that the destruction of a planet by a technical civilization requires a state of advance—if that is the word—far beyond our present capabilities.”—page 335

 “If, some hundreds of millions of years ago, a Martian civilization was advanced enough to launch 10 million ton satellites, then their works on the planet must have been mighty indeed. Are the sands of Mars today drifting over the edifices and MONUMENTS [emphasis mine] of an ancient civilization? If that society were still extant, it seems likely that we should have some sign of it; and if it is now extinct, evidence of its past existence, character, and achievements can likely be garnered by the first Martian exploration teams.”—page 375

For those of us who have been “anomaly” hunting all these decades, the quotations above are incredibly revealing in many ways. ⁷⁾We will explore this subject in more detail as we proceed in our various articles here at Suburbs of Heaven. Additionally, the December 1959 and February 1960 issues of Astronautics magazine have very interesting bits of information to be gleaned on the artificial moons of Mars hypothesis.

Sagan also spends a great deal of time in The Cosmic Connection, as he did later in Cosmos, on vast astro-engineering projects and the Kardashev scales of civilizations adding his own corollaries to those scales. Earlier, in Intelligent Life of the Universe, Sagan discusses advanced civilizations deliberately igniting stars into supernovae to garner the heavy metal resources from the remnants. The subjects discussed in the latter book are groundbreaking in many ways. Sagan was, apparently, opening a door, lighting a candle, only to help close that door and blow the candle out in the decades that followed. This reticence or obfuscation is detailed in Dr. Stanley V. McDaniel’s The McDaniel Report chapter 8. Dr. McDaniels’s report is crucial in the understanding of the tricks of shadow Dr. Sagan was willing to play.

 Therefore, I ask, not only what happened to those national space goals for the post Apollo period, but to the open minded ideas of potential artifacts in the solar system from a previous “advanced technical civilization”? I think that the answer to both is intimately connected. The excuse, of financial burden, was the convenient fig leaf to stave off what was viewed by the Brookings report as a potential “fall” or “disintegration” of civilization subsequent to the biting of the fruit of world changing knowledge. Perhaps the real problem was the withholding of this information which may, itself, have precipitated that very disintegration to occur. A disintegration in slow motion. A self imposed world security quarantine that may very well be preventing a healthy exploration of an idea that could evolve human perspective up and out of the entrenched antiquated explanations for our existence to escape the rotating feedback flaws of “ancient contradictions”.⁸⁾See page 188 of Cosmos for further insight. The use of the word rotating is deliberate…

Thus, we have the vision for the space program itself as suggested by National Space Goals for the Post-Apollo Period published in 1965, while at the same time, there seemed, contemporaneously, to be a sort of “vision” for the possibility of extra-terrestrial ruins evidenced in Astronautics magazine, Sagan’s 1962 address to the American Rocket Society, Fred Singer’s work, and the baffling (in hindsight) suggestions in Shklovskii’s and Sagan’s Intelligent Life in the Universe, among other mysteries of the 60’s, wrapped in the impenetrably binding grip of the Brookings fear, prior to the very missions to those planets that could confirm the suppositions of Sagan and others. Suppositions that Sagan could not let go of as evidenced by his statements in Cosmos concerning the “Pyramids of Elysium”.⁹⁾See the previous installment of this series where I outline Sagan’s statements regarding the Martian anomalies.

As mentioned in the previous part of this series, I tended to dismiss Sagan’s skeptical frame of mind as an excuse of a form of jealously. This jealously, I assumed, must have arose from he not having been the one to have made the Cydonian discovery, notwithstanding all of his ostensible “open-mindedness” on the subject.¹⁰⁾See part 2 of this seriesI even suspected this kind of jealousy in early 1988 when I first read the part about Sagan and Hoagland speaking together in Richard Hoagland’s Monuments of Mars: A City on the Edge of Forever pages 206-208¹¹⁾See the previous installment of this series where I outline Sagan’s statements regarding the Martian anomalies. I had no idea how wrong I was or what was in store for me because there was something else also bubbling underneath the surface; a picture I had seen a long time ago…a picture I could not quite make sense of…one that could potentially vindicate Sagan as a scientist who “lit a candle in the dark” and played with tricks of light amidst the shadows.

Continue to part 4

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