phobos mystery

Why does Martian Moon Phobos generate intense interest? In 1959, Russian Samuilovich Shklovsky, an astronomer, suggested Phobos may be artificial, since he concluded the moon's orbit was decaying and could only be due to a very low density, possibly, even hollow. Buzz Aldrin, former astronaut, touted Phobos to President Obama as key to permanent space settlement. Aldrin also stirred interest with comments about the Phobos monolith. Richard C. Hoagland declares Phobos an artificial satellite that orbits three times a day around Mars just 4,000 miles above the surface. The orbit of Phobos is lower than any other moon in the solar system. Hoagland views grooves detected on Phobos as an object coming apart at the seams due to the pull of gravity.

The fate of the Russian Phobos 2 satellite probe is most astonishing, "the last transmission from Phobos 2 was a photograph of a gigantic cylindrical spaceship -- a huge, approx. 20km long, 1.5km diameter cigar-shaped 'mothership', that was photographed on 25 March 1989 hanging or parked next to the Martian moon Phobos by the Soviet unmanned sonde Phobos 2. After that last frame was radio-transmitted back to Earth, the probe mysteriously disappeared; according to the Russians it was destroyed - possibly knocked out with an energy pulse beam." A You Tube video covers the story of Phobos 1 and 2 here.