Overall, I think it is rather nice, if so far an enigma. I am sure some of you are either horrified or overjoyed by its presence. I am also sure that there are few foolish enough to try and explain it away as geology. More data will be forthcoming, as the MRO has been tasked to photograph each of the sites  So somewhere, there are people who already have a theory which somehow connects these “dots”. And for the basically confounded, don't fret- there are more "dots" coming on these very pages.  It's a thankless task, but somebody has to do it.

Meanwhile, a surprising number of webpages  have weighed in with opinions . One would not think that these holes would be as intriguing as the Face, but perhaps there is a sense that they are the New Game in town.  One current favorite theory is the "tar pit", another is the  upwelling of  lava from a lava tube. Apparently any theory is preferable to confronting the truth of the Deception. Most people seem to sense there is something not quite exactly right about the explanations, to judge by the discussions, so perhaps there is hope after all. For the Truth. Now that  the MRO team has  announced that all of these features will be targeted, we might provide some comparative data. There are also those who wonder if the cross is something that was "drawn in" by NASA. I cannot buy into that option myself. I have never found another example of that kind of tampering, and it is extremely unlikely that it could be done undetectably^{*see note at bottom of page}, not to mention how catastrophic the discovery of such a high-profile trick would be to NASA credibility. 

My initial comment here was, " I can't concoct any scenario where adding it would be of benefit to any agenda."   Now that I have examined a few more of these "holes", however, I am beginning to suspect a pattern. Read on. It is a little strange to be back-quoting myself, but it seems more honest than simply replacing the text without comment, and maybe it will help somehow." So , more data will be welcome. I doubt we will   get Cydonia quantities of photos of this "hole", so theories are going to continue to proliferate."   Aha. We are indeed getting unexpected amounts of data- they released another MRO  image of  the  "Annie" hole a mere three months after the first one.  Why do that instead of a new image of one of the others, which had already been promised ?   This could easily be construed by the suspicious as a reaction to Something S0mebody Said.  "But what you see here is most likely what you'd see there ."  Gee, was it me? Hmm. What might the pattern be?

There are, according to the  Distinguished Scientists, at least seven of these "holes" or "skylights" -the latter is what one paper calls them, which is curious in itself. That's the paper everyone cribbed the illustration from, showing  illegible dots on some Odyssey images. I made you a better one, from Mars Express images. Since those lab guys apparently don't get out much, they gave all the holes girl's names. Not clear on why they did, but it does make the image names shorter. I tagged them for you. When I do find out where the names came from, I'll mention it here. I love that sort of trivia.

	It is starting to look more and more like these girls are going to be getting a lot of attention. Since at least four of the features are not even holes (we will look at Wendy shortly), one has to wonder what the agenda might be, beyond the standard ABT protocol (Anything But Truth). Until I can find a good explanation for why the names were chosen I will continue to be annoyed by them, but I'll use them anyway.

	The long and winding update: Below is a piece of another image, PSP_002000_2025, taken from the "browse" JPEG in the MRO archives. This is the top of one of the narrow strips. I don't know anything about it, but  I saw the black part and thought, "Oho! Hole!", and grabbed it for comparison. Topmost,  unaltered. In the middle, reversed- compare it with the reversed workfile at the top of this page. You will notice that this one does not shadow or overhang like that one does. At bottom, I gave it a  radical stretch, meaning I ignored the higher values and stretched only the dark part, which is why the background got completely whited out. This is about the same as what the MRO people say they did to the "hole". In this case, as you can see, there is a slope there. If the Arsia "hole" was indeed a hole, there should be more similarity between this image and that one.  I will redo it from the RAW file strip ( it is on 6.1 RED, you need not download all 26 strips)  when I find the time. One of the other websites talking about the Arsia Hole claims the RAW file yields naught but noise values inside the dark area, but I doubt that, based on what I've seen so far. Their example shows the typical "texture" of parallel lines that is commonly found on the Martian surface- you've already seen plenty of it on the images here. That is not random, nor distortion, so it says nothing about content.
	PSP_002000_2025 comparison
	click on it for a bigger view, if you want.

		Oh, look- they changed the movie. This is a screengrab from a quick workup of  the  new MRO image of the Arsia Hole, PSP_004847_1745, released 8-29-07.  I hope these Holes aren't being groomed by someone  on the Inside as the New Cydonia for Conspiracy Theorists. In any event, the layers of Faces and the quasi- totem pole on the right side all seem more akin to what one normally finds on Mars than a big cross.    Obviously, one or the other image is incorrect, so it needs to be sorted out.  Unless...  this is  an example of how radically these tolas displays can morph, but we won't assume anything like that. Yet. The only reason I post this one is to provide context for the comparison pictures. I realized that in this case, even poor quality data had value, because no matter what turns out to be the "problem" with the two files, there are so many points of clear correspondence that it would be verging on the absurd to continue to believe that this site is a Hole. You could not reasonably expect to get the same random anomalous features appearing in the dark area on both. Therefore, they are not image flaws, whatever they may be. I actually did the newer image twice, so the section below with the letters on it is from the first attempt, but the the one above and the other close-up are from the second version.
	The Two Images (unenhanced)
	I tagged the two image sections  below with letters, but I  have no idea what the features actually are, except for C, which is a ground line rather than an imaging streak. The most interesting items are F and G, because they are in the supposed Void. This makes a pretty strong case for the faceted appearance of the version with the cross. The shot above, as different as it is from the previous version, still echoes the "glass paperweight" look, albeit in a different way. We will get to the bottom of this. Ouch. That pun was unintentional. For now, check out the comparisons below. More data is imminent- the esa has photos of all seven of the Holes, taken by the Express. I'm on it...just keep reading.
	Below,  the top part from the cleaner second enhancement of the newer image. I hope you can see the woman with the Nefertiti hat on the right, facing right, and the smiling red girl with the blue eye in "section G". Unless I find some solid evidence of  NASA tampering, I have to allow equal weight to all possibilities ( including me screwing up somehow)  for the differences between the newer image and the first one. This one was much easier to enhance, despite their claims about how much fuss they went to with the first one, so there are definitely differences between the two files. But they both look like the same place. And neither looks like a hole. If I was asked to choose, I would say that the new view is the more accurate one, which is perverse, given that NASA was  apparently trying to use the new picture to reinforce the notion that it is a "hole". The fact that the first image is  so  clear actually makes me cautious about it- I trust my work, but given that the original is not of particularly good quality, the results surprised me, so I'll hold back a little with a Reagan-esque "Trust, but Verify" attitude toward it until I have more to compare it with. The alternative would be to consider it some sort of Pentecost Miracle because of the timing of the release, which I believe about as much as I do the average Jesus-on-a-tortilla-chip item for sale on e-bay™. But  no theory is excluded at this point. The newer image, however, is completely compliant with the norm for other Mars images. It is the less anomalous anomaly. I DO believe the cross shape is there, somewhere. and in fact if you look carefully you can see the  geometry of it within the details on the newer image. But its singular clarity on the first image is still odd.
	Bigger
We are really just getting started on this particular mystery...the story is about to become much more complicated. Let's examine some more of the Holes, and see if that helps make sense of it all...

This is a useful example of fakery, I think. it is a piece of a picture I made and sent to the British contingent of the esa  ( who had just lost the Beagle II), with the explanation that their lander  had, in fact, taken a single photo before it expired. To their credit, they liked it. But  would you think the alien (his name is Del) was real? The background image is  a Pathfinder one- there weren't any Rover images yet.
* Do you really believe all of the ghost and UFO photos you see? The abilities of Photoshop in those situations are a bit overrated. What one pixel geek can do, another can detect.