Even worse is their tendency to see objects in ancient art and claim that it is "alien technology".
Puh-leez. The Maya glyph for "book" looks like a hamburger and I don't see them claiming that this mean the Maya had Big Macs.

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"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"Carl Sagan sent a message to ET,
Neil Armstrong walked in the Sea of Tranquility
Steve Squyers built Spirit and Opportunity
Dan Haylen upchucked in zero gravity." -Brent Simon, The Space Camp Song

The issue is that they've convinced themselves that whatever they're looking at is special. Usually, when you bring that up, the response is along the lines of, "Of course those are natural, but anyone should be able to see that [fill in here] is different." They don't (and usually never will) understand that they're making a subjective claim.

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

Cognitive dissonance, otherwise known as rationalizing. If it could power a car it'd be our greatest natural resource.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

I'm not Jay, but the word for me:

Wikipedia: Provenance:

So if someone shows you an image that has a facelike object on the surface of Mars, and claims it means something, they should at a minimum, be able to demonstrate the origin of the image and that it hasn't been damaged or corrupted between there and your eyeballs, i.e. that it really is an image of something on the surface of Mars.

Once that is established, then you can begin considering just how facelike the thing on Mars is and what the implications of it are.

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Or in this case, internal consistency i.e. the face is obviously the same face copied onto different backgrounds. (I assume we are still talking about marsrevealer's prop photos? Thread jumping confuses the addleminded.)

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You're a coward and a liar and a thOOF - Bart Sibrel

Jay, I don't understand what you mean by "provenance", in this context.

I'll agree with the Wiki definition: I mean simply the documented origin, for example being able to say, "That's AS11-39-5903, and I got my copy from the Lunar and Planetary Institute's online digital collection," or, "It's a photograph I bought from the Smithsonian and scanned on my home computer." In the art world it means a documented sequence of ownership that establishes the current owner's legal right to an art object (to discourage theft). In the legal world it means who has had custody of important evidence since it was collected.

In MR's case, his provenance for his photos stops at frame-grab from a television show. The producers don't remember where the pictures came from, and they can't be found in any of the ordinary archives. Thus the meager provenance does not support a case for authenticity.

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

Yes, which is why museums try not to buy artifacts of "Unknown Provinance".

I can say "I am the curator of Roman antiquities, who are you?" in a scarily realistic British accent.
(Just thought I'd share that.)

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"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"Carl Sagan sent a message to ET,
Neil Armstrong walked in the Sea of Tranquility
Steve Squyers built Spirit and Opportunity
Dan Haylen upchucked in zero gravity." -Brent Simon, The Space Camp Song

I was thinking more about Hoagland and the Face(tm) yesterday and wondered where he would even get the idea that something like that would be made artificially. Here on Earth, nobody has ever changed a landform into a monument on such a scale that it could be seen from space¹. Mount Rushmore, for example, is difficult to see from directly overhead at reasonable altitude. An orbiter can't see it at all. And Rushmore is one side of a mountain; it's not like a whole mesa was carved into the faces of George, Abe, Tommy, and Teddy...

My next question would be why such a sculpture would be built. Any ground-based Martian paying homage to the Face wouldn't even know what he was looking at...it won't look like a face from one side, where they would see it from. Blasting a mesa apart takes a huge amount of resources, so there should be at least a worthwhile reason to do so. I doubt the Face was intended as an interplanetary billboard.²

Which brings me to my next question: Building on that scale takes lots of time, lots of Martianpower, and lots of energy. Where were/are the legions of Martian sculptors on harnesses jackhammering away? Where were/are the (probably massive) blasts to carve out sections? (Or, equivalently, the massive laser to shave the mesa from overhead?) Why didn't/doesn't anyone notice a massive landform changing shape? On the scale of engineering mesa-carving is, this work should have been easily visible to an orbiter, and possibly even from Earth.


¹What would be the point? Again, it wouldn't look like anything from the side, which is all you'd see from the ground.

²Which renders the issue of "sibling" Faces, which is what this thread was based upon, moot.

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"WARNING: Being launched into space is hazardous."--Lonewulf

Triplebrick is no longer birdable. It was fun while it lasted.

"N'oubliez pas: l'ours n'est pas un nounours!"--Nounours de Salmonberry

Because he's nuts?

Serious answer; Because he starts with the assumption that it's an artifact, and doesn't bother to think about the hows and whys.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

I've always assumed the theory is that it was put there for us to find, much like the "monolith" in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

On that basis, it would probably be a mistake to land a shipful of homo erectus near the Face.

I wonder what the facebuilders did with all the construction debris? You don't have to look very far at Mt. Rushmore, but the Martian Face seems to be surrounded by an uncluttered, level surface.

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Bring back Firefly!

"It is quite clear that Occam's razor does not sharpen in your pyramid." (Nicolas)

"Still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." (Paul Simon)

;-D

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"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"Carl Sagan sent a message to ET,
Neil Armstrong walked in the Sea of Tranquility
Steve Squyers built Spirit and Opportunity
Dan Haylen upchucked in zero gravity." -Brent Simon, The Space Camp Song

http://img292.imageshack.us/img292/6...lpaperlhw9.gif


Note from moderator: please do not post huge images inline. - ToSeek

http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/482...lpaper1uz9.gif

Um... huh?

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Carl Matherly

Offical Battlestar Galactica Apologist

Named Time Magazine's 2006 "Person of the Year"

You Kill The Point Removing The Images Thanks
http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/5...copypo2mz6.gif

Moderator note: The image is not removed - it's easy enough to access via the link. Meanwhile, I'll cut you some slack because you're new here, but if you override a moderator again, you'll no longer be welcome on this forum.

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The Lion Roars His Phoenix Soars StarMans Home

what point?

have i missed something?

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'The eye can only see what the mind is prepared to accept'

It is extremely impolite to post big images inline, instead you should just include a link. Big images cause a variety of problems such as breaking the formating of the forum (having to scroll sideways to see the ends of lines is bloody annoying), taking a long time to load for people with slow connections, and generally being annoying.

Plus I second Captain Swoop's point, what is your point? Words make a much better mode of communication than just posting big images.

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Girl: Mister Darwin! The stupid people are breeding and taking over the planet!
Charles Darwin: Tut tut, little girl, don't worry! I'll take care of them with my CHAINSAW OF NATURAL SELECTION! Ahahahahahhaha!!!!!!
-QUeen of Wands 12/08/2003

Being one of the forum's few recovering "woo woo's", it would seem that I would be a little easier to convince with a provacative picture of what some would perceive as a face. However, I looked at the large photo up and down and sideways and see nothing but a landscape of rock with a few craters. So what is the point? Show me something I can work with or better yet say something I can hang my woo hat on pal--joe