SUBJECT: CITIES FOUND ON VENUS                               FILE: UFO2796


BY MIKE JONES for SUN


Futuristic Cities have been photographed on Venus by the spacecraft Magellan, 
but astonished NASA scientists are trying to keep the incredible discovery 
under wraps.

The photos were taken in October as Magellan descended into the dense Venusian 
atmosphere and reached a point approximately 10 miles from the planet's 
mountainous surface.

Maps

"We didn't expect this at all," says NASA project engineer who has asked that 
his name not be used for security reasons.

"There was no hint that anything lived or had lived on the planet while 
Magellan orbited it the last four years."

During its four years circling Venus, it relayed a massive amount of 
information about the second planet from the sun.

This included the make-up of the planet's atmosphere and amazingly detailed 
maps of the surface, including towering mountain ranges and volcanoes and a 
rocky surface littered with craters.

The mission was declared a success this summer and, having no way to bring 
Magellan back to Earth. NASA decided to gradually lower the spacecraft to the 
surface of Venus.

The spacecraft was expected to either break up or burn up when it got to 
within 90 miles of the surface but did not.

Not only was it not destroyed, it continued to send data back to the Jet 
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.

No life

At least six sprawling cities were photographed, appearing like fairly towers 
silhouetted on the horizon against an immense sun.

However, there were no signs of life.

Venus' dense atmosphere, consisting mostly of carbon dioxide and sulfuric 
acid, sis poisonous to human and animal life. Surface temperatures have been 
recorded as high as 900 degrees.

If life as we know it ever existed on Venus, it has long since died out, 
scientists believe.

"But that doesn't mean that some other sort of life might not exist," says Dr. 
Nelson Burton, a California physicist who has followed the progress of the 
space probe.

"It would have to be capable of functioning in a poisonous atmosphere almost 
as dense as water, with high enough temperatures to cause paper to burst into 
flames on contact." There are certain insects and bacteria on Earth capable of 
enduring such conditions, Burton adds.

NASA big shots apparently want to withhold details about the discovery of 
Venusian cities until they have studied the photographs closely.



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