The last transmission from Phobos 2 was a photograph of a gigantic cylindrical spaceship - a huge, apporx, 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.
The cigar shaped craft in the penultimate frame taken by Phobos 2 is apparently the object casting the oblong shadow on the surface of Mars in the earlier photo.
Australian science writer Brian Crowley says that because of the convex catseye shadow - which, because the overhead solar inclination prevented shadow- casting by Martian surface features, implies a shadow thrown on the surface from something in orbit - beyond the orbit of Phobos 2 itself. The shadow - spindle- or cigar shaped - is inconsistent with any possible shadow cast by the moon Phobos, which is an irregular potato shape. One needs little imagination to postulate a giant, hovering cigar- shaped mother craft similar to those documented down the years by UFO investigators.
