Whitney Striber published this fascinaating NASA photograph on Unknown Country yesterday with a comment that includes the following.

Every time something strange is photographed on Mars (including the famous "face"), NASA debunks it. If we're ever able to actually set foot on the red planet in the future, we'll hopefully be able to find out for ourselves. But as long as we have to rely on images from NASA satellites or the statements of astronauts (although some of them have been more forthcoming than others), we'll remain in the dark.

Whitney seems like a nice enough guy. He's made a career of making the mysterious almost accessible, but this time he overstepped his mark. Will we only know the truth about Mars when we see it with our own eyes? Perhaps. Unfortunately, this logic involves transporting billions of people to an inhospitable planet where we have thus far succeeded in transporting no one. So the we would seem to be Whitney. We have the evidence of a fascinating photograph, but the photograph came from NASA and NASA now debunks not the photo, which it stands by, but the uninformed interpretation of it. How can we know the truth if NASA won't agree with us? Not trusting NASA, I'll admit, has sometimes been good advice and, according to Whitney, we can't rely on future reports by astronauts either, because they're all in cahoots, so who or what can we trust? Why, our own eyes, of course. Our own untrained eyes. Well, Whitney's eyes, anyway.

There's an old Zen saying that seems to apply here. If I pee, how will it help your bladder? We can change that now. If Whitney pees — on Mars — how will that enlighten us?