The Man Who Dreamed up a New Moon for Mars
Ferox doesn't exist, but that didn't stop photographer Nicolas Polli from documenting the journey to visit it.
- 01In June 1944, two geologists in the Swiss Alps unearthed a black, 125-pound meteorite that turned out to be from Ferox, Mars’ third moon. At least, that’s what photographer Nicolas Polli would have you believe.
- 02*The Forgotten Files: A Journey to the Hidden Moon of Mars 1976–2010* is an archive Polli created containing hundreds of convincing, black-and-white photographs that depict scientific research, space missions, and even the alien surface of Ferox itself. And it’s all completely fabricated.
- 03Polli developed the idea a couple years ago, as images increasingly began fueling the spread of hoaxes and fake news across the web. Desiring to better understand how people critically evaluate imagery online, he picked a topic most people know little about—the celestial bodies orbiting Mars—and started inventing his own facts. (“It’s very easy to fake something about space,” he says.)
- 04Polli steeped this tale in scientific-sounding jargon and wrapped it all up in a convincing visual identity: more than 300 archival-looking images he shot over six months in 2016. "Since it looks like what I’m saying, people trust it, because they have clichés about how certain things should look in a certain era and period in history,” he says.
- 05He recruited friends and family to serve as actors, dressing them in white suits and directing fake experiments in and around his studio in Lausanne, Switzerland.
- 06He even collaged together Google Earth images of the Swiss Alps and real photos of Mars to simulate the kind of images a satellite or rover might capture of its rugged, extraterrestrial landscape.
- 07And though Polli throws in clues the images aren't real—an anachronistic pair of shoes here, a surprising lack of safety gear there—he still gets contacted by folks hoping to get in touch with IEMS. "Today we’re bombarded by images and information, and we trust almost everything because we don’t have time to get too deep into the information," he says.
- 08IEMS never existed, but if it had, its story would have ended like this: On August 6, 2008, an IEMS probe accidentally landed in a deep crater on Ferox, more than 20 miles off course. It couldn’t get out—a $2.5 billion mistake that effectively halted the search for life on Mars' third moon. Polli's fake archive brilliantly illustrates this tragic tale, stirring the imagination as much as any sci-fi TV show or film ... BS or not.
Laura Mallonee is a writer for WIRED covering photography. ... Read More
TopicsAMP Stories
Meet the Guy Who Left the SETI Institute to Talk to Aliens
Some scientists don’t think it’s worth sending messages out to alien life. Douglas Vakoch isn’t one of them.
Sarah Scoles
Green Bank Observatory Embraces Its Alien-Hunting Future
The billionaire-backed Breakthrough Listen SETI project is keeping a beleaguered telescope running—at the expense of other science.
Sarah Scoles
This Special Message to Space Is a Music Lesson for Aliens
The transmission, Sónar Calling GJ273b, explains Earth's concept of music, from basic addition up.
Emma Grey Ellis
It's Not a Spaceship—But 'Oumuamua Could Have Passengers
Observations suggest the interstellar asteroid is encased in a dry, carbon-rich crust that could have protected a water-ice core from being vaporized as it passed our sun.
Robbie Gonzalez
LinkedIn Won’t Be Expanding Its Data Centers in the Next Year
Despite the ongoing AI boom, LinkedIn is holding the line on compute spending. Instead, it’s challenging engineers to make every GPU count.
Paresh Dave
OpenAI’s Hacking Debacle Comes Down to Human Error
If the generative AI giant had followed well-known security best practices, it’s likely that its AI agent would never have escaped to the open internet and hacked multiple companies.
Lily Hay Newman
Welp, Nobody Saw SpaceX’s Falcon 9 Rocket Crash Into the Moon
Although no one captured a direct image of the impact, scientists have detected signals confirming the rocket hit the lunar surface. Orbiters could provide the first images of the crash site in the coming days.
Jorge Garay
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 Rocket Is About to Crash Into the Moon—and It Could Be Visible From Earth
The impact will kick up a plume of debris so high, it’ll likely be visible through some telescopes. Astronomers will be watching.
Nathaniel Janowitz
A Civilian Plane Crashed in New Mexico. Was the Military’s Tech to Blame?
Drone warfare is making the skies more dangerous, even for airplanes far from the battlefield.
Jeff Wise
AI Scammers Are Better at Building Trust Than Humans
Researchers pitted a person against a Claude agent and found that, after a week of texting, the AI chatbot was more effective at creating “exploitable trust” with others.
Andy Greenberg
Top Newegg Promo Codes and Coupons for August 2026
Enjoy up to 10% off your entire order with today’s Newegg promo code and discount codes. Save with the latest deals for gaming PCs, laptops, and computer parts.
Molly Higgins
The SpaceX Falcon Lunar Crash Is a Warning for Moon Bases
The risk of more debris hitting the moon is on the rise as the space race heats up.
Javier Carbajal