The Mars Mystery: The Secret Connection between Earth and the Red Planet »

Graham Hancock has traveled around the world writing books and filming movies on archaeological discoveries and their connection to our distant past. He is the author of the best-selling Fingerprints of the Gods and The Sign and the Seal.

June 1998

Graham Hancock is best known for his 1992 international bestseller The Sign and the Seal, which documented his real-life quest for the lost Ark of the Covenant. Now, in his latest book, The Mars Mystery, Hancock concentrates his efforts on the mysterious planet Mars. For years Mars has been a source of awe and speculation for humanity. Ravaged by asteroids and comets, Mars is a bleak, cold, lifeless planet. But has it always been like this?

Using information unearthed by recent Observer, Pathfinder, and Mars Global Surveyor missions, The Mars Mystery examines the planet's current landscape to show that it may have at one time been home to a thriving environment that included rivers, lakes, oceans, and a dense atmosphere. Based on growing evidence, Hancock asks the question: Has Mars ever sustained higher forms of life? How might the secret of Mars be intertwined with Earth's own past and future?

In his most riveting book to date, Hancock discusses:

• How comets or asteroids may have obliterated a sophisticated civilization from the face of Mars less than 20,000 years ago
• How Mars's current landscape may have once been a lush environment
• The likelihood that Earth would survive a similar collision with a comet or asteroid
• How megaliths found on Mars express the precise mathematical relationship pi, the "golden ratio," and closely mirror the geometry of the pyramids at Egypt's necropolis
• What structures on the surface of Mars, which appear to have been constructed with precise, mathematical sophistication, may be telling us.

With abundant evidence that life at one time may have existed beyond Earth, NASA continues to delay taking a closer look at telling sites on Mars. The Mars Mystery details Hancock's case that NASA fears discovering evidence that alien life exists, due to the destabilizing political, economic, and social consequences it could have here on Earth. With the author's examination of traces left, perhaps, by martian civilization and the powers that ended it, The Mars Mystery is both a closer look at ancient martian history and a warning of Earth's possible fate.