Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 500
EAN num: 9780140271751
ISBN number: 0140271759
Label: Penguin Books Ltd
Manufacturer: Penguin Books Ltd
Page Count: 384
Printing Date: July 01, 1999
Publishing house: Penguin Books Ltd
Sale Popularity Level: 2219014
Studio: Penguin Books Ltd
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In The Mars Mystery, investigative archaeologist Graham Hancock treats our growing knowledge of Martian topography as a Rosetta Stone we can use to decode mysteries as old as the human imagination. He examines the current landscape of Mars and discovers evidence that the planet was once home to a lush environment of dense atmo-sphere and flowing rivers, lakes, and oceans. He asks questions, based on growing evidence, that cannot be dismissed: Has Mars ever sustained higher forms of life? How might the secret history of Mars be intertwined with Earth's own past and future?
In his most riveting and revealing book yet, Hancock points to the intriguing possibility that ancient Martian civilization is communicating with us through the remarkable structures it left behind. Megaliths found on the parched shores of Cydonia, a former Martian ocean, mirror the geometrical conventions of the pyramids at Egypt's Giza necropolis. Especially startling is a Sphinx-like structure depicting a face with distinguishable diadem, teeth, mouth, and Egyptian-style headdress. Might there be a connection between the structures of Egypt and those of Mars?
Yet, as intriguing as scientists all over the world find the Cydonian discovery, NASA continues to balk at taking a more detailed look at the site and has veiled previous photographs and studies
in a web of equivocation. In The Mars Mystery, Hancock makes a strong case that NASA is motivated by a lingering Cold War mentality and a fear that evidence of alien life will have destabilizing political, economic, and social consequences. In exploring the traces left by the Martian civilization and the cosmic cataclysm that may have ended it, The Mars Mystery is both an illumination of our ancient past and a warning which we still have time to heed about our ultimate fate.
Amazon.com Review:
Mars holds a special fascination for us, because it is the most Earth-like planet we've yet encountered. As we continue to explore the blue planet, geological evidence mounts that long ago water flowed freely across its surface, begging the question: If there was water, was there life? Graham Hancock thinks so. In fact, Hancock, a former journalist and the author of several books, including Fingerprints of the Gods, believes that certain formations on the Martian surface are the remnants of an ancient civilization--one strikingly similar to ancient Egypt--that was destroyed by a cataclysmic deep impact. Further, Hancock claims that NASA's reluctance to give credence to 'The Face,' 'The Pyramids,' and other things people see in images of the Martian surface is evidence that the U.S. space agency is motivated by cold war paranoia and mistrust. Hancock seems to be more fair-minded than many NASA critics, stating that, 'what we see is a mindset, here, not a conspiracy.' And indeed, one is hard-pressed to imagine why NASA isn't agreeing wholeheartedly with Hancock, since his ultimate point is that we should be paying more attention to our planetary neighbors and the skies above, lest we suffer the same fate as the Martians. Hancock raises many intriguing questions in this synthesis of unorthodox Mars theory, but those looking for applications of Ockham's razor had best search elsewhere--Hancock's theories require a leap of faith as surely as NASA's do. --Therese Littleton
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Rated by buyers 
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For centuries, humanity has wondered about our near neighbour in the solar system. From authors to scientists to laymen, the planet Mars has long been a source of wonder and interest. Could there be life there? This book is one of the more recent attempts to argue for the prospects of life on Mars, albeit in the distant past. While this is not a great book in the classical sense- its themes hop around quite a bit, incorporating many seemingly unrelated ideas- it is an essential source of information that the mainstream has either tried to surpress for ages or just simply didn't know about- hence the indignation of some critics of the work.
What makes it credible for me is the authors' incorporation of scientific data and geometric measurements that lend credence to their claims of a global catastrophe on Mars at a time when it had an advanced civilisation. Had they stuck to this theme throughout and developed it a bit further, I would have given the work 5 stars instead of 4. Nevertheless, I feel that the authors have touched upon a reality that is now being revealed too slowly and a little too painfully: that we are not and have never really been alone.
Rated by buyers -
You could read the title as "A warning from history that could save life on earth" or you could read the book and justify that it should have read "A rambling from conspirators that could ignite paranoia on earth."
Joke beside, this was actually very enlightening. I just thought it's be some crackpot ideas about Mars. I was 95% sold on the idea when they got into the mathmatics, which match those of ancient earth monuments. Reading that part alone sent me into shivers with a wide-eyed gaze. The second part which grabbed me was the section on camets and astroids. The truth is straight told and this alone will leave you wide-eyed. Getting into the speculation will just send your eyes drooping from their sockets.
So, the mathmatics and the comets were the best parts of the book. The rest was just filler - getting from one point to another.
Rated by buyers 
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This book is right on the subject for me. Could this be true???? I think so
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This is among the earlier of Graham Hancock's remarkable series of books on unknown Human History. It concerns a possible connection in the ancient human past between Earth and Mars, which the writer postulates hosted a Human civilisation before it got destroyed in a cataclysm caused by a cometary or asteriod impact. Either there was a sister civilisation on Earth, or the remnants from the Martian one escaped and came here to start afresh, and thus Ancient Egypt was where they "unloaded" their legacy. He dated Ancient Egypt's legacy as belonging far back in the hidden mists of millenia untold, linking it to this Martian civilisation, instead of its "official" starting date of circa 3100 BCE. The "story" therefore is remarkable and astounding. But Hancock, in this book, also deliberately deconstructs his previous, equally remarkable and plausible ice-age theory for the destruction of such an ancient technological global, antediluvian civilisation for which he cites the theories of Charles Hapgood and others, and for which overwhelming evidence otherwise exists, transcending interdisciplinary boundaries. This theory was based on the Earth's cyclical axial precession as well as the related possibility of its crust shifting catastrophically, and was at the core of his "debut" book, "Fingerprints of the Gods". His new asteroid-impact theory is as equally as forceful as the axis-shift one he replaces, and such abrupt changes of view could cause doubt in the minds of his readers, even those with superior intellects and education who could reconcile both these aspects of view. He does touch upon this disparity of his on P.254 of the book, but cursorily and briefly.
He treats the example of the present day scarred and desolate planet Mars as a warning for what could happen to our present "high" civilisation now populating Earth. Elsewhere, he also speculates on a conspiracy by the powers-that-be to conceal what happened to Mars - and therefore Mankind's actual history - so as to be able to control their societies, which might otherwise become restive and panick stricken in the face of such knowledge and eventualities. After all, the elites are mature and powerful enough to be able to contemplate awful disasters coolly and in the face - which an ordinary Tom, Dick and Harry can't otherwise even think of, let alone bear! In the last chapter of this book titled "Dark Star", he writes mournfully to the effect that just as humanity seems to be lifting itself to superior levels of cultural, technological and spiritual expression, along comes a global cataclysm forcing them back to square one: to begin as mountain shepherds and hunters all over again, carrying with them the tales of lost Golden Ages of science and culture. This forces him to contemplate mournfully, along Gnostic lines, as to whether God is indeed all-good and love as the "classic" scriptures would have one believe - or whether "He" is a Duality: Evil as well as Good. He then supplies the answers, and so do his other excellent books which I recommend to Amazon readers, "The Lords of Poverty" and "Journey Through Pakistan". The influence of devilish forces aside, it seems we ourselves become The Devil when our lofty achievements get overtaken and harnessed to base desires and consumeristic greed, leading inevitably to some kind of disaster... That is evident right now, in this most critical time recorded Human history has ever known.
Rated by buyers -
I enjoyed this book. I had some problems with some of the odd logic he used in some areas, but I'd still favor this book as a good read. His "Sign and the Seal" book was far better.
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