The ‘D&M Pyramid’

The so-called
D&M Pyramid

Close to the ‘Face’, DiPietro and Molenaar noticed a number of angular peaks. Some of these appeared to be geometrically regular and they dubbed them ‘pyramids’. One in particular, to the southwest, appeared to possess impressive geometric characteristics. It can be seen on image 035A72, to the right of the ‘Face’ and a better view of it was obtained from image 070A13. From the shadow, it can be calculated that the peak stands some 500 m above the surrounding plain.

Richard Hoagland dubbed it the D&M Pyramid, in honour of DiPietro and Molenaar, and the name has stuck. The better photograph reveals it to be roughly pentagonal with apparent bilateral symmetry. The supposed main axis points towards the ‘Face’; the southwest angle points towards the ‘city’ and the northwest angle towards a circular feature referred to as the ‘tholus’, named after its resemblance to the Tholos tombs of the Aegean Early Bronze Age. A variety of mathematical relationships have been claimed for the angles and the ratios between them, involving the square roots of two and thee and the relationship e/π. These relationships are impressive, but they depend on an assumption that one face of the ‘pyramid’ has been damaged at some stage and that its shadowed face is as apparently smooth as the undamaged faces.

Warning: the next bit contains maths and talk of pixels

When viewed on a pixel-by-pixel basis, the ‘straight’ edges can be seen to diverge from their supposed lines by up to two pixels (which, at the resolution of this photograph, is equivalent to 86 m). Moreover, the sides that ought to be of identical length for the ratios to be correct are not. The southwestern base measures 21.6 pixels (calculated as the hypotenuse of a triangle whose two other sides are 12 and 18 pixels on the image), which calculates to be approximately 930 m; the northwestern is 23.7 (i.e. √(11² + 21²)) pixels or 1020 m. This is a difference of almost 10%. Similarly, the northern and southern faces, which ought to be identical are 27.2 (√(8² + 26²)) and 30.8 (√(7² + 30²)) pixels respectively (or 1170 m and 1325 m), a difference of more than 13%. The calculations performed by Erol Torun are based on Mark Carlotto’s enhancement of the image, which interpolates data between pixels; the figures calculated here are based on the original data, lengths of side being calculated by applying Pythagoras’s Theorem to a direct count of pixels on Viking Orbiter frame 070A13. The margin of error in each calculated length is not greater than one pixel, so even allowing for this (and therefore accommodating Carlotto’s enhancements), we cannot state that any two sides are of equal length. The data, poor as they are, will simply not support the assertion. On this basis, we can discount the geometric evidence supporting the contention that the ‘D&M Pyramid’ is an artificial construction.

Newer photographs leave nothing to be proved

A 1998 image of the D&M Pyramid

Moreover, the same Mars Orbital Camera frame that rephotographed the ‘Face’ in 1998 also clipped the northwest corner of the ‘D&M Pyramid’ (at the bottom left of the image reproduced here). This confirms the analysis of the Viking Orbiter frames, that there is no convincing evidence for artificiality whatsoever in the feature, even though only a small part of it is covered by the image. The sides are not smooth in any sense, the base does not consist of straight lines, nor is there a sharp angle at the corner or between ‘faces’, at least on this part of the supposed monument. In archaeological terms, the case can be considered closed.

This page was last updated on 17 August 2007
Written by Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews