THOSE MARS PHOTOS LOOK AN AWFUL LOT LIKE HOME JANE ROBISON.

``This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,

This other Eden, demi-paradise

This fortress built by Nature for herself . . .

This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this Antelope Valley.''

I'M quoting, of course, from Shakespeare's original draft version of Richard II, before some clown substituted England for the A.V.

But clearly, the Bard was on to something.

For anyone who lives or who has ever lived in the high desert, you know how closely it resembles the seat of Mars. The high, blistering winds. The blinding, paralyzing red clouds of dust. The strange, desolate, barren landscape. The mind-numbing commutes down below.

God's country.

And now, this demi-paradise of Los Angeles County has lost its place in the sun, upstaged by the upstart Mars Pathfinder mission.

The long-suffering residents of the Antelope Valley - the good people in Lancaster, Palmdale, Boron, Rosamond, Lake Los Angeles, et al. - must sit in silence while the rest of the world goes gaga over dust from another planet.

The 70 scientists ensconced in Pasadena, looking oh so hip in their 3-D rose-colored glasses, have usurped their neighbors to the north with their pint-size, six-wheeled Sojourner rover.

While the world flutters as the Sojourner pops wheelies on an ancient Martian flood plain, Raymond Brooks, 51, of Boron, thinks wistfully of home.

Brooks was visiting relatives in New Hampshire on July Fourth when CNN broke in with the breathless news that the Pathfinder had landed.

``Hey, that looks like our back yard,'' Brooks called out to his wife as he was watching postcards from the edge of Mars on TV.

Brooks has lived near beautiful downtown Boron for 28 years. He still recalls his first impression of the area while driving through to visit relatives: ``Who would be crazy enough to live in this Godforsaken land?''

A year later, he was working at the U.S. Borax mine. ``I decided I could either move out here and make good money and retire when I'm 55, or stay back East and work till I was 106,'' he explained one hot and sunny day in the remote berg of Boron.

He opted for good money in the Godforsaken land.

When Dana Hicks' former husband first set foot in the Antelope Valley, he surveyed the land and said simply, ``It looks like the moon out here.''

He was from Scotland, explained his ex-wife, the collections manager of the Lancaster Museum & Art Gallery. He thought the moors were paradise lost.

Lisa Stapleton, an anthropologist with the Antelope Valley Indian Museum, takes a bemused attitude when JPL scientist Matthew Golombek proclaims, ``This is a historic moment. We have never before gotten a chemical analysis of a rock on Mars.''

``What's funny,'' says Stapleton, ``is that the rock they're now analyzing from Mars seems to be composed mostly of quartz, and is possibly volcanic. All the rocks out here are volcanic and composed of quartz.

``So it's the same thing.''

You know that, Lisa, and I know that. But is it enough to convince June Lockhart to visit Palmdale? Does the matriarch of ``Lost in Space'' get lost in the wonderful, arid land around Lancaster?

Of course not. June grabs headlines visiting the pocket protector crowd in Pasadena. Hey, June, don't bring me down. Take a sad song, and make it better.

``I see thy glory like a shooting star

Fall to the base earth from the firmament.''

Palmdale. Oh, Palmdale. Where is thy glory?

Is there no justice? Is there no money to be made locally? Are there no marketing ploys that would benefit the honest, hard-working people of the great Mojave Desert?

Robert Sennett of Sylmar believes the pictures being beamed back to JPL in Pasadena are really coming from a mock-up site closer to home.

``I'm skeptical, very skeptical'' that the little Sojourner is cavorting around on the Red Planet 120 million miles away, Mr. Sennett told this reporter.

Teams of men dressed like Mormon missionaries have been dispatched to eradicate Mr. Sennett's memory.

But it's an intriguing idea. What if Mr. Sennett is right?

NASA says it spent $266 million to send the Sojourner, which is about the size of a toy wagon, to Mars.

What proof do we have Barnacle Bill isn't really a boulder in Louise and Raymond Brooks' back yard?

On the same weekend the Pathfinder allegedly belly-flopped on Mars, 50,000 people went to Roswell, N.M., and plunked $2 million into the local economy in the hope of finding clues to a possible alien landing 50 years ago.

If people would travel to Roswell, why wouldn't they pile in their vans and mosey on up to the Antelope Valley?

I'm setting up a corner stand on the edge of Lake Los Angeles, where, just like Mars, there is no water. For a fraction of the cost of sending the Pathfinder to Mars - 20 bucks - I'll take your picture on the Martian buttes.

Just look for the signs: ``Party down with Barnacle Bill. Ride the Sojourner. Kiss the blarney red rock.''

For $5 more, I'll beam your pictures from the Red Planet on the Internet.

As Shakespeare once wrote: ``A rose by any other name is Palmdale.''

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Photo: The Red Planet or Antelope Valley? Jane Robison claims the land for the U.S. in her quest for justice and money for Mojave Desert residents.

Jeff Goldwater/Daily News