From Mike Pickett:

Re: Epic crash may explain Mars’ two faces (June 25): Actually there has been a paper addressing the “two sides of Mars.” I wrote a paper entitled “Evidence for a Pre-Adamic Catastrophe” and addressed a rather obvious scenario to explain the peculiar “faces of Mars.” My paper was presented in-absentia to a Symposium in Southern California back in 1976. In that paper I used available NASA data from the Library at the University of Alaska, Anchorage, to show that not only was only ONE side of Mars hit by debris, but the craterization data could be used to estimate the amount of debris that had impacted Mars.

I then used some rather simple physical mathematics to determine the size of a planetary object that would have produced that debris, under the assumption that the planet predicted by the Titius-Bode law had exploded. My calculations were startling in that even with only the early NASA figures about craterization, one could extrapolate to a planet about 2. 5 times the mass of Jupiter having enough material to impact Mars in one sudden pass, then settle into the asteroid belts.

My paper raised quite a stir at the time, and some scientists from Scandinavia requested a copy, but nothing further was ever heard about the project. Needless to say, my not having an advanced degree, even though I had been a competent participant in the early stages of the aerospace program working for North American Aviation, would have brought suspicion about my ability to do research. The fact that North American hired me in the capacity of “Research Engineer” was probably not enough to impress scientists. I probably did not have enough “Pedigree” to warrant any great curiosity in my work, and other speculations in the paper were a bit embarrassing as I look back on them now. Here is the thing, though, like David Archibald said of his recent paper about Solar Cooling, any High School Student could to the math and science I did. They just needed access to the U of A library and its incredible body of NASA documents.

If anyone is interested in my work, I think I could open the paper, scan the essay and references (this was back when IBM typewriters were about all we had), and submit it for further study. I might even re-type the project. I could easily submit all the Symposium paperwork proving it was presented at the time claimed.

Of course the conclusion begs the question as to why Planet 2. 8 might have detonated, but that is the nature of the Universe. Questions usually lead to answers and further questions. I personally think one could do some serious work with planetary alignment ephemeredes and the principles of resonance applied to solar systems.

Mike Pickett
Math Department
Institute for Extended Learning
Colville, WA