I know that this is not very much related to technology or starships... but the people that pay the most attention to that [the posters to this forum] would be most likely to be capable of responding to this post. In short, I apologize if this is the wrong place to post.
Anyway, I was watching the TNG episode "Contagion" during one of the scenes while the Enterprise and the Romulan ship was in orbit, there was a fair view of the planet between them. I didn't catch it at first so I replayed the tape... it looks like there is a face, similar to the one from the Mars surface on the surface of the planet. Is this an injoke?
I really don't think it is possible. I thought the photos of the face weren't released until '94, which is well after this episode was made in '89. Or is my timeline off?
Anyone have any comments on this that can help out.
PS: to make this a little more technical, I am extremely curious about the diagrams that Picard was looking at during the beginning of the episode, were they just Yamato status reports, and if so was there anything interesting on them?
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Hmmm... haven't seen the episode in a while, but my guess is you're imagining things. You can find a face in just about any pattern.
Posted by aneurysm (Member # 906) on :
While this doesn't answer your question it may help. The first season of "The X Files" had an episode called "Space" that featured the face as a part of the story. The episode originally aired in America on the 12th of November 1993. So I'm guessing that the face must have been made public some time before that.
Posted by Griffworks (Member # 1014) on :
I recall seeing pics of The Face in a magazine sometime prior to joining the USAF, which was in August of '91, so it was at least out there for public consumption prior to that time.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
I think "made public" and "made publicly available" are getting confused here. The photos were released as soon as they were taken, in 1976. NASA even used the term "a face on Mars" back then, although that was meant to be a joke.
The pics were then more or less forgotten until some chaps at Goddard played computer enhancements on the images in the early eighties. And then all conspiracy theory hell broke loose.
Contrary to urban legend, none of the photo material was considered confidential originally, or withheld from study. The early nineties marked the time when we first got better photos to disprove the "faciality" of the rock formation, which is why it became topical again.
Anybody working on the 1989 "Contagion" could have had access to the original or computer-enhanced photos, either through the net or more probably through some National Geographic or Popular Science images.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
Oh, and now that we're at it...
...Is there any basis on the claim that the comet tail in DS9 opening credits was tailored to feature images, too? Like the face of Spock, as Phil Farrand sez? I haven't been able to spot anything like that in the comet yet. But as the tail probably was 100% computer generated, it would be simple enough to insert in-jokes there.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Ever since I read that rumour over at Nit-pickers central back in 1997 I've tried desparately to see a pattern - and every time DS9 comes on and I watch the credits - I think "I should bring that up at Flare".
Has anyone seen anything?
Wasn't it supposed to be the pictures of the original cast in the dust? Was it a group shot? I thought it was individual head shots?
Posted by SoundEffect (Member # 926) on :
I *think* I know what is meant by the face in the DS9 opener. If it's what I'm thinking, you can almost make out a Spock face similar to the backdrop of the Star Trek III poster. It's when the particles from the comet are moving one way, then the camera pans across the tail debris and for an instant, we see the debris head-on and there appears to be something akin to facial structure there, but it is a stretch in my opinion. I think that's where the rumor came from.