The whole issue of Cydonia as a possible landing site was dropped as soon as the pictures became public. This is quite surprising considering that it was a far better and more interesting candidate than Utopia (where Viking 2 ultimately landed), According to Carl Sagan: "there was a significant chance of small quantities of liquid water there." There can be only one reason for the sudden dismissal: they didn't want anyone to know about the strange monuments found there. Any proof of anything beyond what is considered to be accepted human history would be controversial in the extreme. But is it possible that Cydonia was not left alone, but actually highly classified at the highest levels? And what could already seem more ridiculous, more easily dismissed, by serious "respectable" science? To quote the movie Contact, ironically written by Carl Sagan, "first rule of government spending: why have only one, when you can have two at twice the price?" How many missions could there possibly be that the public at large knows nothing about? And how many of the supposedly malfunctioned spacecraft, are actually alive and well?

The only way that "we the people" would have gotten anything anywhere near full disclosure from the Mars missions would have been if all of NASA's wildest hopes and dreams had come amazingly true - that Mars was, as previous data had suggested, capable of supporting life as we understood it in the 1960s and 70s. If Mars had moss or algae, or even insects - big business would have been instantly involved and there would certainly be people there by now. Imagine, another tiny island to be conquered - completely isolated from outside interference and no pesky indeginous inhabitants to lay claim to the wealth of resources to be found on an entire planet - not to mention the strategic military and political values. Perhaps science and civilization have been given a back seat to these interests.

Ever since man began sending missions to Mars, nearly all of them have mysteriously failed. It seems that if they manage to make it into space at all, they break down somehow, or all contact is lost, or they crash onto the surface of the planet, never to be heard from again - sometimes under such mysterious circumstances as to raise the eyebrows of ufologists. One perhaps intentional effect of all this staggering disappointment is that the public at large, though perhaps at first intensely curious about the red planet, ultimately has no idea of the controversial reality. Many suspect that this was far too convenient to be true, as it only served to decrease attention and increase the distance between the public and that arm of the space program - and if there really are monuments on Mars, the powers that be have no intention of sharing that information with the general public. It is also especially highly likely that what can be found out on the subject is only the smallest fraction and most easily dismissable aspect of the entire story. Who knows - perhaps, as ufologists suggest, there really is sentient life on Mars, occasionally shooting down whatever probes of ours they can.