Welcome, respected viewers, to Science and Spirituality on Supreme Master Television. Although the surface of Mars appears to have been barren and lifeless for eternity, scientists are closely studying the geological and geochemical data from the red planet for evidence of it having had a biosphere similar to Earth in the past.

Dr. John Brandenburg, a theoretical plasma physicist from the United States, believes that a humanoid civilization once lived on Mars, a theory called the Cydonian Hypothesis. He is one of the authors of “Dead Mars, Dying Earth,” a book concerning Mars’ past and the lessons its history holds for our planet’s future. In this second and final part of our interview with Dr. Brandenburg, we continue our intriguing discussion with him about our planetary neighbor.

In 1976, the US spacecraft Viking Orbiter I recorded images of Mars. One image, from a region called Cydonia, taken has astounded many astronomers, cosmologists and other scientists – a likeness of the human face on the planet’s surface. What’s even more amazing is that later additional “faces” were found in other regions of Mars. Dr. Brandenburg now provide more insight into this phenomena.

In your opinion, what are the most profound and significant findings from the Mars research?

The fact that we know so much about Mars now says a great deal about the human race, that we are a very curious people who are intent on finding truth. I think the most significant thing that we have found basically is the “Face” on Mars because that tells you what Mars’ climate was like for most of its history, right there, in one statement, one eloquent statement. It says that Mars was alive and had a climate like Earth’s for most of its history.

So, has NASA taken images of Cydonia again in its most recent mission?

Yes, they have, and they look just like the old pictures. The object is quite eroded. If you’ve seen any archaeology before it is spruced up, it looks pretty rough because it’s old and it’s been eroded. Nature tends to take whatever we make and reduce it to dust and gravel, and the same thing has happened. But we see evidence of details, anatomical details and structural details that indicate to me that it is artificial.

There are also other “faces” in Utopia. They have taken a new picture of one of them and it looks very much like the “Face” in Cydonia and it is a “face.” I think it will be established probably within the next four or five years that there was and is life on Mars, and we will start talking about bacteria. Then, they will move on to talking maybe about fish fossils that they have found.

By investigating Mars, we are on a collision course with life; life and death in the cosmos.

Where is Cydonia?

Cydonia is right here in this area. It’s right on the shoreline of what would have been the ocean. What’s also interesting is there’s a kind of hotspot of radioactivity in this area. So two great disasters happened on Mars, one here and then this asteroid impact happened here, and Cydonia was right in between them. That’s very puzzling. Why would so many bad things happen in one area of Mars that just happens to have had archaeology in it?

In the Cydonian Hypothesis, the hypothetical Cydonian civilization did not look very advanced. It didn’t look like they had any level of technology beyond Egypt when they built the pyramids. The occurrence of the radioactive hotspot on Mars in the Mare Acidalium, near the Cydonia Face which is basically to the west of it and then the Lyot impact basin to the east of Cydonia means that two tremendous catastrophes on Mars happened in almost the same geologic area and they basically bracketed Cydonia.

So that’s very puzzling. One starts to examine various science fiction scenarios for what could have really occurred there. We’re like Sherlock Holmes, investigating the scene of some occurrence, wondering why the dog didn’t bark.

So we continue to look at the Mars mystery and it’s a wonderful thing to be living in this age where we’re finally getting the answers to all these mysteries we used to wonder about. They used to think there were canals on Mars. Well, there weren’t any canals but there are water channels. There’s everything on Mars that they actually imagined there was but it isn’t quite the same as they imagined it.

The famed US astrophysicist Dr. Carl Sagan supported searching for life in the Universe. One of his most memorable quotes is: “We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.”

Will you share with us some of the outcomes of your interactions with Dr. Carl Sagan?

He was very encouraging to us simply by being interested. I found him to be an eminent scientist and a very clear scientific thinker. Much of the Cydonian Hypothesis owes itself to his questions. He basically, by his questions and his reasoning back and forth with me, he enabled me to formulate the hypothesis in a much better manner than what I otherwise would have. His support was vital in getting NASA to actually take new pictures (of Cydonia).

When we return, we will hear from Dr Brandenburg about the urgent signals nature is sending us that Earth is on course to become like the present-day Mars. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

Welcome back to Science and Spirituality for our program regarding life on Mars and Earth. Dr. John Brandenburg now addresses the connection between the two planets in relation to climate and environment.

So how did you conclude that Earth is dying?

We are losing biodiversity. One of the signs of health of any ecological system is how many different little ecological niches does it have? Does it have a place for tree frogs? Does it have a place for birds nesting in the trees? How many different types of trees, etc.? And Earth is losing that.

We are going from being a rainbow of colors to being just one color, one kind of tree, no tree frogs, one kind of bird, etc. We’re losing the different species that have always been part of the Earth. We’re losing the fact that Earth is a family of life and that family is losing members, and we should be very concerned about that. However, I remain an optimist. I believe the human race can solve these problems.

So what does the relationship between Mars and Earth mean to you as a scientist and what should it mean to Earth’s citizens at large?

We should be careful with the planet we have but we should learn as much as possible from the story of life and death on Mars.

One of the most chilling scenarios in your book is stated on page 153. It says, “The world we know is like the Titanic.”

Yes.

“It is grand, chic, high-powered, and it is effortless through a frigid sea of icebergs. It does not have enough lifeboats, (No) and those that it has will be poorly employed. There’s a reason why interest in the Titanic has been revived. It is the exact metaphor for our planet. On some level, we know we are on the Titanic. We just don’t know we’ve been hit.” Can you elaborate on that?

Well, my co-author, Monica Paxson, who is a brilliant woman, and I, both ended up thinking about that same analogy simultaneously and it seemed like such a good metaphor. On the Titanic, there were a whole mixture of passengers, a lot of whom were very poor. When the Titanic went down, the lifeboats were basically for the rich people.

If the Sahara Desert expands into the Sahel and even into the Congo Basin, it will be the poorest in the world who suffer. They will have to move to find new places to live. They will be the ones who will run out of food because they don’t have enough water to raise their crops. The rich societies have power to adjust to changes in climate. The poor societies do not.

A tragic example is the impact of the great earthquake in Haiti versus in Chile and the economic difference between Chile and Haiti is quite large. And you could see that even though the earthquake was much stronger, the Chileans have reacted as a society in a much more organized and functional manner. Order was immediately restored.

And so just by extrapolation, if the world’s climate changes by raising a few average degrees, the Sahara expands, various rivers start drying up, parts of the world that will be mostly affected by this will be near the equator and where life is hard already. I really think that we must do whatever we can to avoid this happening.

What is your view of the role of spirituality in connection with the current crisis on our planet?

As a Christian, the First Commandment is to love our neighbor, to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves. If our neighbors are going to suffer great dislocation because we’re burning a lot of fossil fuel, then obviously our religious duty is to change our behavior so that our neighbors do not suffer great dislocation or hardship. That is just the first duty of anyone who wants to act in love towards their neighbor, which is the great Commandment.

On behalf of Supreme Master Television and our viewers, I want to thank you for sharing your wisdom with us.

Thank you so much for coming up and talking to me. (Alright) Great pleasure.

Once again we express our gratitude to Dr. John Brandenburg for speaking about his in-depth research on Mars and championing the protection of our one and only planetary home. We wish him the very best in his future research endeavors.

For more details on Dr. Brandenburg, please visit “Dead Mars, Dying Earth” is available at

Loyal viewers, we thank you for joining us on Science and Spirituality. Words of Wisdom is next, following Noteworthy News. May Heaven’s light always embrace our planet.