McCann and Joseph P. Skipper, both researchers into Martian anomalies, call this image "the real smoking gun as to life on Mars." The image was discovered in June, 2000 among the many images posted at Malin Space Science Systems, which has tens of thousands of Mars pictures available for online viewing and examination.
"These structures are actually in excellent condition," says Skipper in an article titled Dissecting The Mars 'Tubes' Anomaly, "where other antiquity anomalies on Mars are heavily eroded, allowing endless debate as to what they truly are, natural or constructs. Note their general uniformity and the uniform spacing of the bands or ridges. Note how one structure here clearly attaches to another and note the shiny round terminating end at the junction point clearly defining it as a constructed hard object as opposed to a natural geological formation of some kind. Note how at least one or more bands/ridges span around both structures tying them together at the junction point clearly demonstrating construction technique. Note the apparent translucent composition of these structures and how entirely alien they clearly are to the geology and topography they are embedded in. There can be no question that these are constructs of some kind. But, made by what or who and for what purpose?"
At Richard Hoagland's Enterprise Mission, Sir Arthur C. Clarke (author of 2001: A Space Odyssey) is quoted as remarking about the tubes: "I'm still waiting for an explanation of that extraordinary glass worm on... [Mars]... How big is it? It's one of the most incredible images that's ever come from space and there have been no [official] comments on it whatsoever!"
