Bryan Christie Infographic of Mars missions

http://i.imgur.com/GoCGR.jpg
Gorgeous visualization of the Mars missions, and their rates of success. Clicking on the image will toggle it between lower and higher resolution versions. Thanks to Boing Boing.

Maori on Mars

THE MYSTERY OF THE LOST MAORI TRIBE.

THE NIGHTMARE BEGAN late one night in 1796, when the NGA MAIA tribe literally vanished from the face of planet Earth. Gone, every single man, woman and child! Scooped up as easy as fish in a net by intergalactic slavers and transported across space and time to a screaming nightmare on Mars. Taken to slave until death, joining millions of other godforsaken creatures abducted from all over the Universe, building the mountain-size FACE ON MARS for the bizarre, raven winged OMEGONS.

Full article

Website says the series is due to go straight to DVD, but amazon.com hasn't got it, and the film-makers' website gives no contact information.

Weekly World News, best tabloid in the universe, going belly up

Let's face it, the only tabloid that ever had space news these days was the World Weekly News. No more chances for would-be debunkers to make snotty remarks about the Face on Mars being on the front of the tabloids, not in a world where Lindsay and Britney sell more than Bat Boy (will he ever become George Bush's son-in-law?) The paper is shutting down suddenly, and staff are bewildered. With Hillary as a strong contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, how will we know what our alien overlords think about this?

Hang the X-Files posters at half-mast. We really did want to believe that the World Weekly News was taking place in our world.

LINK

UFO Articles in the Weekly World News, available on their
archive area on America Online (keyword: WWN) as of 3/10/97

"Aliens Gave Face On Mars A Face-Lift! ... and it looks great!"
The Famous Face on Mars has had a face-lift, a startling new photo taken by a NASA space probe reveals!

Images beamed back to Earth earlier this year by the Mars Global Surveyor are radically different from those taken when the mysterious monument was first discovered in 1976 and even from high-resolution photos taken just two years ago.

"There are signs of a chin implant, the jowls have been tightened up, the nose is more aquiline and aristocratic -- even the eyes appear less cavernous," declares Dr. Robert Preakwood.

REST OF ARTICLE

"Forget About The Face On Mars... Nasa Probe Has Spotted The Butt On Mars!"

Spanking-new photo beamed back by NASA's Mars Odyssey space probe shows a spectacular, previously undiscovered monument on the Red Planet that's been dubbed the Butt on Mars.

The adjoined pair of giant boulders -- measuring close to 1.2 miles in width -- look uncannily like human female buttocks -- so much so that flabbergasted scientists believe the structure must be the handiwork of intelligent life forms.

Excited experts are dying to get to the bottom of the mystery.

REST OF ARTICLE

Joel Achenbach says, "The Face was first photographed in July 1976 by the Viking 1 orbiter, and the image distributed by NASA, with the helpful caption "Face on Mars?" No one paid much attention until the Weekly World News put it on the cover in 1984."

True or False that it was the first paper to show the Face? Remember, decades ago the WWN did try to run with the pack, before they decided that deliciously pure fiction was the way to go. Anyone have any images of the Face on Mars as Pee Wee Herman or Ted Kennedy? I saw them alluded to in a google, but didn't find any.

Thanks to UFO Updates

7/27 Update: BoingBoing reader Nathan Cobb offers a sobering perspective on some of the realities behind the real-life stories that the WWN salted the paper with.