Page 13 of Flying Saucers Magazine - October 1959

What many astronomers have privately suspected has now been shown to be true-Phobos and Deimos, the two tiny moons of Mars (named Fear and Terror by the original discoverers because of the fact that their strange unnaturalness inspired these emotions), are intelligently made satellites! Here are the facts which have the scientific world in an uproar of conjecture, and the rocket men in a tizzy of anxiety to "go there and find out for sure."

WHEN we speak of the two tiny moons of Mars, we embark almost immediately upon the fantastic. The story of Phobos and Deimos (meaning rear and Terror) begins with Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels. Long before astronomers suspected the existence of the two satellites, Swift described them with a frightening preciseness in his presumably fictional account. He was specific concerning their small size, their extremely low orbit, their fantastic orbital speed, and their artificial appearance.

It was an American, Hall, who discovered the two moons in 1877. His fellow astronomers did not believe him when he announced his discovery, but when they trained their telescopes on Mars, and sought to disprove his claim the two moons were clearly visible to all who looked.

The most striking feature of the tiny bodies was their high "albedo," or reflective power. They were much brighter than they should have been. If their composition was similar to Mars, or to our own satellite; if made of the same substances; they should have been less bright. Instead they possessed an albedo which could only be due to a highly polished or otherwise brilliantly reflective surface.

Probos is less than ten miles in diameter, and Deimos is less than five miles. Both of them revolve around Mars exactly in the plane of its equator, that is, precisely around its middle, unlike any of the satellites launched from Earth The condition that exists there is not duplicated in any other satellite orbit anywhere in the solar system. It is almost beyond the realm of possibility through anything but deliberate plan.

Mars revolves on its axis in 24 hours and 37 minutes, only slightly longer than Earth. Yet, Phobos revolves, in its turn, around Mars in 7 hours and 39 minutes, so that it completely circles the planet approximately three times a day-andnight period. To an observer on Mars, Phobos would, on a particular night, be seen rising in the early evening, hurtle across the sky at visible speed, set, and rise once more before morning! There is no other satellite in the solar system which has a faster period of revolution than its parent body. That is, none but artificial satellites!

Lately, with interest in satellites heightened, astronomers have been paying more attention to the moons of Mars. In 1945, however, even before the satellite era, American astronomer Sharpless took very careful observations of Phobos and Delmos and when he had finished, compared his results with similar observations made fifty years before by Russian astronomer Struve. Phobos wasn't where it should have been! Its orbit had shifted 2 1/2 degrees! As astronomers measure movement in space, this is a fantastic deviation. It is not at all natural, and not explained by any natural condition of the Martian system, atmospheric, gravitational, or what have you.

The change in Phobos' orbit was a slowing down. As it slows, it is getting closer to Mars' surface. This means that if the process continues one day (very far in the future) the satellite will crash to the surface.

What is slowing Phobos down? It cannot be atmospheric pressure, or friction, because Deimos would likewise be slowed by the same factor, and it is not being slowed! Tidal forces have been suggested, but English astronomer Jeffries has produced precise mathematics to show that Phobos is not slowed by Martian tides, either of water or solid matter. Russia's Skhlovsky has proved by his figures that it cannot be Mars' magnetic field, nor its gravitational field which is producing the slowing down process. Not even the pull of the sun or any other solar system body is responsible.

There is only one explanation, and for a normal, natural spatial body, this is impossible-Phobos, for its size, must be hollow, and of extreme lightness. It must be only a thin skin of metal, absolutely round and rigid. And if this is so, it cannot be anything but man-made! Man as he must have developed on Mars, eons ago!

Today, apparently, only the most primitive of plants exist on Mars Any intelligent beings who may have lived there once are now extinct, or have left the planet. Millions of years ago, Mars had an oxygen-rich atmosphere, capable of supporting a civilization. Gravity is much less than on Earth, and any race living on the planet would have had a much easier job of conquering space. The task of building Phobos and Deimos, although a tremendous engineering problem, would not be impossible. Today's Earth engineers working on Mars, could place such a satellite in orbit, building it by accretion in a slow, centuries-long process. If we could do it, so could intelligent Martians.

American satellites now being launched contain several units. One of them is a sort of aluminum-foil "balloon" which would be ejected from the mother-satellite and inflated in space. The purpose of this "balloon" satellite would be to provide a larger reflective surface from which to "bounce" radar radio and television waves so that signals could be relayed from it to any point on Earth from a single station It would do away with the necessity of "networks" of radio and television and would provide a "radar inspection device which would detect any object launched from anywhere on Earth with no possibility of secrecy. ICBMs bearing atomic warheads could be detected within seconds of their initial launching, and counter-rockets automatically launched and guided to intercept them.

There are so many practical uses to which such artificial satellites can be put that the necessity to the Martians for such engineering projects as Phobos and Deimos are quite understandable. If Martian civilization was highly advanced, such satellites as actually exist would be a must.

Today both Russia and the United States are feverishly preparing rocket probes to approach both Mars and Venus for the purpose of a closer investigation of these two planets. The discovery that the Moons of Mars are artificial has made it mandatory. No longer can we believe that we are alone and unique as intelligent life in the Cosmos, and not even in the Solar System; If not now, at least in the past If the moons of Mars are super-engineering constructions of a highly technical race, what marvels can we learn from them? What wonderful advances in our science can we attain by an inspection of the remaining relics of a dead race which achieved the heights of technical advancement? Here before us, in space, lies a mighty treasure house of actual scientific development, which when made accessible to our scientific minds, can advance our civilization many thousands of years in a few short lifetimes, or even in a few decades!

Have the Martians, either facing death on a dying planet, or migration to another world, or even another solar system, left "time capsules", giant "pyramids" containing records, museums of science, records of achievements, formulae, working models for us to explore once we reach the red sands of their once fertile soil?

Are the "sons of God" who came unto the "daughters of men" on this planet and produced "mighty men of old", the migrating Martians whose most likely goal would be the rich, new, youthful planet Earth? Are we the descendents of those mighty engineers who left their gigantic "satellite monuments" in the skies of Mars, migrated to Earth, amalgamated and absorbed into the original primitive race of "first men" of Earth and reduced to savagry, to struggle back through thousands of years toward the scientific eminence they once possessed? Are we now on the brink of "going back" to the world of our previous civilization, to look with awe upon the relics and monuments of our incredibly ancient forebears? It is all very awesome to think about, and it is these thoughts, and the possibility that they may be true, which in part stimulates our present-day rocket scientists, astronomers, chemists and intellectuals to devote billions of dollars and lifetimes of energy toward the conquest of space, toward a personal voyage to the other planets of our system, toward the factual confirmation of the startling truth for which we have now more than suspicion to guide our thinking.

Whatever the relationship may be, at least one thing is certain-there once was an intelligent civilization on Mars, and it built two gigantic monuments to their greatness which are right there before our eyes as proof-and as a brilliant pair of beckoning lights that seem to flash a message across forty-million miles saying: "Come see what we did, ages ago. Come ponder over our graves. Come and claim the legacy we have left to you!"