__________________
Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov

__________________
Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov

man on the moon, thank you for that valuable contribution. You've provided a new, and very useful, way to explain the problem.

I've been considering Dr. Plait's comment that the image had very little "faciness," even before it was badly processed. I think that that comment has led me to a better understanding of the original grievance.

You may remember that I mentioned that I was introduced to this image by "a number of angry web pages." I now think that the anger probably wasn't particularly about the "face" itself, but instead was mainly about the "platform" on which the "face" seems to rest.

The "platform" is fairly level and smooth and regular, and it exhibits extremely curious symmetry. Even though I consider the entire landform to be an accident of nature, I have to admit that if someone had shown me a picture of a terrestrial mesa with that particular shape, I probably would've said something like this: "Sure looks man-made to me. I bet a dig would turn up artifacts."

Now, back to your topo map analogy. As I said above, it's very helpful. Try looking at the "catbox" problem this way: The image that was returned by the spacecraft looks like a _photograph_ of a platform-shaped landform, but the image that was used in the press release looks more like a _topo_ _map_ of a platform-shaped landform.

As you explained above, many people can easily get the wrong idea about the shape of a landform, when they look at a topo map. Imagine how much easier it would be for them to get the wrong idea, if you were to actually tell them that the picture is _not_ a topo map, but instead is an aerial photograph!

If you'll forgive some pure speculation, here's my rendition of the thoughts that might have gone through the mind of a hypothetical artificiality believer, when first confronted with the "catbox" image:

No, that isn't a conspiracy claim. Like Dr. Plait, I have no idea what they were thinking when they did the processing. I don't know whether it was accidental or deliberate.

But I do suspect that a bad decision must have been made, a day or two later. If you'll forgive some pure speculation, here's one possible version of the discussion that might have taken place:

No, nothing veiled. It's just what it looks like: a hypothetical question that I hoped would start a discussion about the question of whether it could ever be OK to fight Bad Astronomy with more Bad Astronomy. Jerry and Dr. Plait gave very good answers.

You're welcome.

Shading is something we're used to in great amounts when we're trying to look for relief, but it's easily overlooked because it's not in the forefront of our consciesness. When it's removed it can cause no end of frustrations. If it weren't a difficulty I encountered on a regular basis it probably wouldn't have crossed my mind either, so no worries. It's an analogy (I think you said that), I wouldn't recommend telling people has topo maps of Mars . What a riot that would be!

And don't kick yourself too hard . Keep working on answers. If you can do that...well, you'll go a long way.

Welcome to the board, btw, if you're planning to stick around. You may want to watch how you frame questions/approach people, but asking is never a bad thing. Nor is commenting if you've something potentially contributable.

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None to speak of

I've always thought the original 'face' was likely processed in a way that made it look 'the most human' to spawn interest; and whether or not that is true, I think the entire scientific community is rather chagrin that a major conspiracy theory was launched from such a trivial platform.

If you have followed the Cassini mission at all, you know that raw images are being quickly processed by amatures, and occasionally a jpeg, cosmic ray, or lens blot is highlighted as an artifact. This happens to the professionals as well - so while the original release may have overplayed the topography, I don't feel it is necessary to issue a retraction every time an image is poorly processed. It is reasonable to process the image in a way that highlights the topography to make the point that this is not Easter Island; just as it is reasonable to sharpen or blur boundaries when trying to knit an image of an entire moon from several passes. The alternative: Sitting on data until it is perfect, would mean images are rarely released in a timely manner.

If this were hard data there should be a retraction; but raw and processed images should always be taken with a grain of salt...especially when the an alien face pops out.

__________________
jwj

It's a big universe out there...is it really unwinding, really burning out?

man on the moon, thank you for welcoming me.

One of the reasons why I chose this forum (aside from the obvious connection between badly processed images, and Bad Astronomy) was a desire to face well-reasoned objections, if any could be found. Aside from all the time wasted by basic confusion (which probably would have happened anywhere on the Internet) this has been mostly a good experience so far.

My only real frustration in this discussion is the fact that so many have continued to refer to the selective suppression of shading as a "claim," which seems to mean that they haven't been able to see the effect with their own eyes, even after I attached before-after-slope.gif. I don't understand how anyone could look at that animation and still be unable to see that the 3D shading of the slope has been suppressed, while the 3D shading of the small lump or boulder has been enhanced.

I'm attaching a new image which may be able to help those who have been unable to see the effect, even when they look at before-after-slope.gif. The two frames in this new image are the power spectra (*) of the corresponding frames in before-after.gif. The left frame is from the image that was returned by the spacecraft; the right frame is from the image that was used in the press release.

Can everyone see that the pixels of "snow" have been substantially darkened, in a well-defined band, across the middle of the power spectrum? The fact that pixels in the power spectrum have been darkened means that brightness variations have been _suppressed_. The fact that the darkening in the power spectrum has been mostly confined to a well-defined region means that the suppression was _selective_. The fact that the darkened region is in the middle of the power spectrum means that the _large-scale_ brightness variations are the ones that were selectively suppressed.

Can everyone see it now?

I also want to correct another misconception which seems to be very common here: the idea that the raw image needed some kind of difficult, time-consuming labor-- that it needed to be "carefully calibrated" or "highly processed"-- before it could be understood by normal human viewers. This is completely untrue. Only extremely minimal processing is needed: left/right flip, streak removal, and contrast normalization. My first script only took about ten minutes to write, using 1970s and 1980s technology (Unix shell and NetPBM). I didn't save it, but it was something like this:

Try it yourself, if you have NetPBM; the result is quite decent.

I just ran the above script on a low-end PC from 1997. Total run time was 2 minutes, 11 seconds-- and that's for processing the whole swath, not just the part with the "face." If I can do it in minutes with freeware and a low-end 1997 PC, then surely a professional with high-end 1998 software and hardware also could have done it in minutes, or possibly in seconds.

(*) power spectrum: each pixel depicts the logarithm of the modulus of the corresponding coefficient of the discrete Fourier transform of the image, shifted to place the wavelength=infinity coefficient as close as possible to the center of the power spectrum.

Attached Thumbnails

 

If you are prepared to come here and state, as fact, that Cydonia images were selectively edited to reduce the apparent 'faciness' of it - then you've got some serious questions to answer

1) Why subdue such an image when later images, better images, high resolution images, were always going to be taken, transmitted and released at some point in the future (i.e. HiRISE etc)

2) Why release an unsubdued image just a few hours later

3) Why release the raw image first (which anyone could process themselves) and THEN release an image intentionally processed to subdue details.

4) Why - why do it at all? For what purpose, directed by whom?

What you are inferring by your line of argument is a massive conspiracy of cover up and suppression....only a few hours later to throw it all away.

You yourself gave a link to a page which I have since quoted in this thread, describing the processing done to the very image you claim was intentionally edited to 'deface' it (if you'll excuse the pun). Are you saying that that page is a lie and that something else was done other than what was described

With Post 15, I see no reason why this thread shouldn't be moved to Conspiracy Theory, as that's what's being alleged and discussed.

You say:

Yet, you follow that with:

If that is what you are suggesting, that is a conspiracy.

Conspiracy: the act of conspiring together
Conspire: to join in a secret agreement to do ... (a) wrongful act ...

On that basis, I am moving this thread. Convince me otherwise.

__________________
Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov

Hi Bad Guardian,

I'm at loss what you're driving at: do you believe that Phil Plait is personally responsible for a picure you claim has been fabricated or is this a discussion about a method you discovered how to fabricate desired results in images?

First, let me remind you that the Viking missions took place late in 1976 whereas Phil Plait got a PhD in 1994 - which makes a mismatch of almost twenty years to spin pics.

Second, during my university time (yes, I'm a rocket scientist and no I'm not with NASA) in the early eighties I had the opportunity to listen to lecture of a european astrophisicist by the name of Rudolf Kippenhahn. His topic was the Viking mission and the "face on Mars" issue was raised. He gave the following explanation, why the photograph resembled a face: the software which got the Viking data was instructed to paint any pixel that was garbled with a black dot. One of the dots happened to be at a nostril. When replacing this (which was exactly what some fellow students and me tried after the lecture) with a pixel coloured just the same as adjacent pixels the impression of a face is strongly weakened.
You see, even without your alleged "forgeries" it is much to the eye of the beholder and you don't need Photoshop to support wild claims.

Do you have any facts supporting your idea or is it onyl inference from your method? E.g. I found a way to emulate the same results hence NASA must have faked it.

__________________
Science is not a monument of received Truth but something that people do to look for truth. - Dennis Overbye

So it was really a molehill?

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Doug, I've already corrected that misrepresentation of my position, several times.

I _do_ state, as fact, that the large-scale variations in brightness were selectively suppressed. It's indisputable. You can see it yourself, easily, in the power spectrum. Have you looked at the power spectra in the message to which you're replying? Can you see the well-defined dark band across the middle of the second power spectrum?

I do _not_ use the word "edited," because it isn't the right word. As I explained in the first post in this thread, a very simple image processing algorithm, a certain 1x31 convolution, was responsible for the selective suppression of large-scale variations in brightness. The word "edit" isn't really appropriate for such a simple algorithm. It isn't appropriate to call the "string-lowercase" function a text editor; for the same reason, it isn't appropriate to call a 1x31 convolution an image editor.

I do _not_ state that the convolution was applied "in order to" change the appearance of the landform. As I've explained many times, I don't know why it was done. It may well have been an accident. You're the one who's been trying to turn this into a conspiracy discussion, not me. Please stop misquoting me.

I answered this question, days ago, when Jon asked it. Haven't you even read the discussion? See the message dated 24-December-2007, 02:46 AM UTC, titled "You need to understand which image is which."

Hi Extracelestial, welcome to the discussion.

No, the picture wasn't what I would call "fabricated." It was processed, with a certain 1x31 convolution, and the result of that convolution was deceptive. Before the convolution was applied, the image looked like a lumpy hill sitting on a platform-shaped mesa. After the convolution was applied, the image looked like a lumpy hill sitting on flat ground, with no mesa.

Apparently the photograph was taken, and the press release was issued, mainly because of a controversy among non-scientists. Apparently the 3D shape of the "platform" was part of that controversy. Therefore, the use of a convolution that "flattened the platform" was Bad Astronomy.

And no, of course I don't believe that Dr. Plait is responsible. I addressed the question to him, because he's the world's leading critic of Bad Astronomy. When you want to discuss Bad Fashion, you go to Mr. Blackwell. When you want to discuss Bad Astronomy, you go to Dr. Plait.

We're discussing a picture that was taken on April 5 1998, and processed the next day. The 1976 pictures aren't really involved in this discussion, except for the fact that a good look at those old pictures could have helped the person who applied the convolution, to understand that there really is a "platform" shape there, and to understand that the use of the convolution had caused the picture to misrepresent that "platform" shape, and to decide not to release the badly processed image. Unfortunately that didn't happen.

A rocket scientist? Excellent. Do you understand harmonic analysis, discrete Fourier transforms, power spectra, etc.? I'm afraid that no one else here understands this stuff. Except Dr. Plait, and I'm not sure he's still reading. Have you read the message that I posted yesterday, about the power spectra of the image, before and after it was processed? Can you see, and understand, the indication of selective suppression of large-scale variations in brightness?

Yes! Another example of a deceptively processed, widely publicized image... of the very same landform!

But there's a very important difference. The 1976 "dotting of the nostril" was officially acknowledged as an accident, immediately. As far as I know, the 1998 "flattening of the platform" has never been officially acknowledged as an accident.

If the converse had happened-- if the 1998 "flattening" had been acknowledged as an accident, but the 1976 "dotting" hadn't been acknowledged-- then I'd be deriding the 1976 incident as Bad Astronomy. But in reality, it happened the other way around... so I'm deriding the 1998 incident as Bad Astronomy.

No, I wouldn't use the word "forgery."

Which claim do you think is wild? I'd be happy to discuss any and/or all claims with you, especially since you're a rocket scientist. Have you read the entire discussion?

You can see the evidence in the power spectrum, if you know enough math to understand it. As a rocket scientist, perhaps you do.

If you look closely you'll see more than one band of darkened pixels. There are several bands, all horizontal, at regularly spaced intervals. The central band is the strongest, by far, and the other bands get progressively weaker as you move upward or downward.

Do you recognize this phenomenon? It's called "ringing." It's what you get when you fail to design your convolution as a nice smooth Gaussian, and instead design it as a simple rectangular pulse, with sharp discontinuities at the boundaries. The distance between the bands in the power spectrum indicates that the discontinuities in the convolution (the "edges" of the rectangular pulse) were exactly 31 pixels apart.

If the convolution had been Gaussian, instead of rectangular, then you wouldn't see all those other bands. If the convolution had been any other size, other than 31 pixels, then those bands would be separated from each other by a different amount of distance.

Do you see it? Do you understand it?

Even if you don't understand Fourier analysis, I'm sure that you must know someone who does understand it, since you're a rocket scientist. Show him or her the power spectra that I'm attaching to this message. Ask him/her if the change in the power spectrum does, or doesn't, indicate that large-scale brightness variations were selectively suppressed. Ask him/her if he/she sees "ringing" in the power spectrum. Ask him/her if this kind of "ringing" is caused by failure to use a Gaussian convolution.

You don't need to show him/her the original image; you can just show him/her the power spectra.

Trust me: everything here is very simple and obvious and straightforward, to anyone who knows enough math.

Or don't trust me (after all, why should you?) and show the power spectra to someone whom you do trust, and who knows enough math.
--------
Note: because of the forum server's attachment size limit, I've omitted the left 1/4 of each power spectrum. This isn't destructive, because of the inherent symmetry of power spectra of real images.

Attached Thumbnails

   

Jim, I don't believe that the hypothetical conversation that I posted would qualify as a conspiracy.

Doesn't "conspiracy" mean something that's planned in advance, rather than just a mistake?

In that hypothetical conversation, "Larry" did his job badly, and, a day or two later, his boss decided not to publicize the fact that "Larry" had done his job badly.

That's a bad decision, but it isn't a conspiracy.

Do you disagree?

It does almost seem that a couple of the participants here have been _trying_ to turn this into a conspiracy discussion, but I would argue that they haven't succeeded in doing that, because every time they've falsely attributed a conspiracy claim to me, I've immediately corrected them. It's been quite a challenge, trying to keep these people from turning this into a conspiracy discussion, but I do believe that I've succeeded... so far.

The only message here that could possibly be interpreted as an actual conspiracy claim is the message dated 22-December-2007, 05:08 PM UTC, posted by djellison, in which he indicated that the image called "raw" on the NSSDC web site is actually not even close to raw, but instead has been subjected to "careful calibration and processing." But he hasn't made any further attempt to "push" that claim. I asked him to clarify it, in the very next message, and he never answered. Probably he never really intended to make that claim; I think he was just confused.

In summary, there hasn't really been _any_ serious discussion of conspiracy on this thread. Just a handful of attempts to misrepresent my statements, which were immediately corrected, and a single random accusation against NASA's raw image, which was probably just confusion.

Have I convinced you?

No. Indeed, you emphasize a claim of conspiracy.

A conspiracy requires no planning in advance; a mistake can be made and a conspiracy formed to hide that mistake... which is exactly what you claim.

That's a cover-up involving two or more people, aka "conspiracy."

__________________
Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov

Hi Bad. Guardian,

the dotting of the nostril hasn't been an accident as far as I'm concerned as the algorythm did exactly what it was supposed to do - replace unreliable data with a black dot. Therefore, your allegation of "deceptive processing" is moot.

To the point of me understanding the background of your rationale: my area is propulsion systems (mechanics, aerodynamics, thermodynamics and alike) and therefore my understanding (despite heavy loads of calculus) is superficial at best when it comes to image processing.

Still: I don't get it. What is your point? What conclusion do you get from one picture? And have you seen this mesa on later pictures from other orbiters?

Extracelestial

__________________
Science is not a monument of received Truth but something that people do to look for truth. - Dennis Overbye

Hi Extracelestial, perhaps "accident" wasn't the best word. Instead, I could've used the word "error." Here's my sentence which you quoted, with the word "error" instead of "accident."

Do you like it better this way?

What I meant, by "deceptive," was this: The small dark spot, which would represent a nostril to a normal human viewer, was _not_ present on the surface of mars, but it _was_ present in the image that was used in the 1976 press release. All of the people who looked only at the picture, but didn't read the disclaimer about the black dots, were _deceived_. They were made to think that there was an extremely accurate human face on Mars, when in truth there was not.

Likewise, in 1998: The large dark areas, which would represent the shading of a platform to a normal human viewer, _were_ present on the surface of mars, but they were _not_ present in the image that was used in the 1998 press release. All of the people who looked only at the press release, but didn't download the raw image and process it themselves, were _deceived_. They were made to think that there was no platform shape, when in truth there was.

Do you see the similarity?

The cases are similar, but there's a very important difference. The difference is in what the people would have needed to do, to avoid being deceived.

In 1976, anyone who trusted the authors of the press release could simply read the press release, and see the disclaimer about the black dots being deceptive, and avoid being deceived.

In 1998, anyone who trusted the authors of the press release would read the press release, and _not_ see a disclaimer about the shading being deceptive. To avoid being deceived, a person would have needed to download the raw image, and find a way to remove the streaks, and normalize the contrast, in order to learn that the shading had been changed. But, of course, a person who trusted the authors of the press release wouldn't have any reason to download the raw image, and do his or her own processing.

Do you see the difference? In 1976, you could avoid being deceived, by _trusting_ the authors of the press release. In 1998, you could avoid being deceived, by _not_ trusting the authors of the press release.

Yes, I've seen the newer pictures. None of the new high resolution pictures, taken in the 21st century, showed a "flattened platform." None of the old low resolution pictures, taken in 1976, showed a "flattened platform." In fact there's only one picture that showed the "flattened platform," and that one picture was created from a raw image that did _not_ show the "flattened platform!"

Darn! I'd hoped that I'd finally encountered someone with whom I could discuss the math.

But even if you don't understand the evidence that's visible in the Fourier transform, you can still see the evidence in the actual image, if you look at it. In the message dated 23-December-2007, 09:35 AM UTC, titled "The suppression is selective.", I attached an animation named before-after-slope.gif. This animation shows a small square of the image, including one side of the "platform," and also including a small lump or boulder which is nicknamed "the teardrop." If you look at the "before" and "after" frames of that animation, you'll easily see that the shading of the large 3D shape has been suppressed, while the shading of the small 3D shape has been enhanced.

Can you see the effect, in before-after-slope.gif?

Once you've recognised the effect in before-after-slope.gif, you can easily see that the same effect has happened everywhere in the image: the shading of large 3D shapes has been suppressed, while the shading of small 3D shapes has been enhanced. This is the same effect that caused the dark band that stretches across the middle of the Fourier transform.

By the way, Extracelestial, if you have any interest in learning about the fundamentals of image processing, I can highly recommend the lecture slides by Dr. Alan Peters of Vanderbilt, Lectures on Image Processing (http://www.archive.org/details/Lectu...age_Processing). Dr. Peters has done an excellent job. In my opinion, the word "beautiful" wouldn't be inappropriate for describing this lecture slide series. The math is too heavy for most people, but you'll have no problem with it, since you've had loads of calculus.

The lectures that are the most relevant to the current discussion are the ones about the Fourier transform, convolution, and frequency domain filtering: lectures #6, #7, and #8.

Also, slide #33 of lecture #9 is interesting, because the convolution that appears on slide #9:33 is closely related to the convolution that was used to process the image in the 1998 press release. In fact, I just realized, while writing this, that the script that I included in my second message in this discussion, which implements the 1998 convolution when you set h=31, would implement Dr. Peters' slide #9:33 convolution if you set h=3.

Dr. Peters' slide #9:33 convolution is, in effect, the "endpoint" of the whole series of convolutions that's demonstrated in my original animation. By changing just one line of code in my script, I could make my animation start with an undamaged version of the image (when h=infinity), and then start stepping through progressively more damaging convolutions, going right past the one that was used in 1998 (when h=31), and continuing until the image has been "flattened" as thoroughly as the image in Dr. Peters' slide #9:33 (when h=3).

Hi Bad. Guardian,

you seem to have proof that one picture had been doctored to make it appear as the one at the buttons saw fit. However, you haven't answered me what the point of your work is.

What do you want to prove or refute by this picture?

Extracelestial

__________________
Science is not a monument of received Truth but something that people do to look for truth. - Dennis Overbye

Which gets to one piece of wording that has, I think, contributed to some orthogonality of the discussion here. "Selective" is appropriate in the sense "filtering applied to a selected range of spatial frequencies", but some are taking it in the more usual meaning "applied wherever one feels like it". The selection under discussion is basically in the Fourier domain, not in a decision to remove or enhance certain features in the image per se. Just been practicing this technique looking for diffuse features of various sizes in GALEX grism images...

(And as an occasional practitioner of the art of the press release - it's not at all guaranteed that any subsequent clarification would get very wide press dissemination in any non-WWW context. A few people worry passionately about these issues, but editors don't figure that a whole lot do - and retractions or clarifications all too often litter the back pages of newspapers.)

Yes, you're right. I tried very hard to correct that confusion, but couldn't get people to listen.

Ironically, when Jim moved this thread to the Conspiracy forum, the people who wanted to argue about conspiracies _left_ the thread, and real discussion began!

Cool! Fascinating, isn't it?

Yes, you're right. But I'm sure we all can agree that it's nevertheless important to _issue_ a correction, when correction is warranted... even if you know that the press will ignore it.

Good point New Galactic Catalogue (which nebula are you reffering to?)

There certainly has been some tinkering with the images to enhance or surpress features. in other words, to make it more palatable to the eye. I still remember the pains Viking personell took to adjust the colours of the terrain with a colour scaling table attached to Vikings tank: all to get the right colours of a Martian sunset.
So the "surpression" Bad.Guardian is after is more attributable to one's preconception of how a landscape should look like and I don't see any plot or even conspiracy. Specifically when NASA could gain so much from "hidden" artefacts on Mars - certainly the best budget booster would be to have the remnants of some UFO on another planet: everybody would race to put hands onto it first.

Extracelestial

__________________
Science is not a monument of received Truth but something that people do to look for truth. - Dennis Overbye

Hi Extracelestial, thank you for evaluating the evidence honestly.

Obviously I don't want to prove or refute anything new about the true 3D shape of the landform, using this nearly 10 year old picture, because we have newer pictures which show the shape very clearly. Some of the newer pictures are even stereoptical! Anyone who wants to know the true shape of the landform can just wear some cheap 3D glasses, and look at a picture taken by the HRSC (e.g. http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEM9WG8LURE....html#subhead3).

What I want to prove, instead, is this: The "catbox" fiasco is a nice little object lesson, which clearly demonstrates ethical principles that were stated by Feynman, in his Cargo Cult speech.

As a scientist, you mustn't get careless with your data, not even a little bit, not even when you're trying to combat pseudoscience. When you learn that you've been careless, and that you've published bogus data, you must try to correct your mistake, as well as you can, as soon as possible-- even if you believe that your retraction will bolster pseudoscience. If you don't correct your mistake, it's very likely that the truth will eventually come out (that's how science works) and, in the long run, your failure to retract will have no long term benefit, and will only serve to harm the reputation of your institution.

Feynman said it best. My contribution serves only to make his principles more concrete, by providing an object lesson: a specific event, a fiasco, which happened in real life, because someone failed to follow Feynman's advice.

--------

Another reason why I started this discussion was my desire to share the animation, which is, in my humble opinion, _fascinating_. Watching this animation can give you a certain kind of insight into certain aspects of the math of spatial filtering and the frequency domain, even beyond the level of insight that Dr. Peters' slides can give you.

Look at the small bright feature near the east edge of the image, about halfway between the top and the bottom. Two dark "shadows," above and below this small bright feature, are very prominent in the press release image, but completely absent in the raw image. In the original controversy, the presence of these two "false shadows" was used as evidence that the press release image had been subjected to some kind of digital damage. Now that I've identified the exact algorithm that inflicted the damage, these two "false shadows" deserve another look.

If you watch my original animation, and focus your eyes on the small bright feature near the east edge of the image, you'll see something fascinating. Those two "false shadows" aren't shadows at all. Two "pools of darkness" have coalesced out of the landscape, and they're converging on the small bright feature, from above and below, and they're about to annihilate it. The two "shadows," and the small bright feature, are still visible in the final frame, only because the animation comes to an end, before the two pools of darkness have been able to reach the small bright feature and annihilate it.

Once you've learned to recognise what's happening to the small bright feature, you can see that the same thing is happening to _every_ feature in the image. Every bright feature is menaced by two pools of darkness, and every dark feature is menaced by two pools of brightness. The timing of the convergence of the menacing pools is arranged so that the features in the image are annihilated in decreasing size order, starting with the annihilation of the largest features, and ending, if the animation were to be allowed to continue, with the annihilation of features which occupy only two pixels, leaving only one-pixel features, just like the one-pixel features that you can see in Dr. Peters' slide #9:33.

All this convergence and menace and annihilation is just visual metaphor, of course. In reality, of course, the _only_ thing that's really happening in the animation is that a series of very simple convolutions are being applied to the original raw image. I, personally, find the visual mathematical insight fascinating.

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Note: I had to reduce the size of my animation, from 512x480 to 112x105, when I attached it to the message that started this discussion. In this message I'm attaching a new version of the animation, in which I've cropped the image very severely, so that I can attach the animation without any reduction in size. This new version shows _only_ a narrow vertical swath which includes the small bright feature near the east edge of the image. Once you've learned to recognise what's happening to the small bright feature, in this cropped but unshrunk new version of the animation, you'll be able to see the same thing happening to all the other features, in the shrunk but uncropped original version of the animation.

Attached Thumbnails

 

Hello Bad.Guardian,

and that's it - isn't it? I think your fascination with the mathematical side and your suspicion that something was delibaretley hidden got the better of you and you got carried away.
Honestly, I still don't understand why this topic is in the Conspiracy Section.

Extracelestial

__________________
Science is not a monument of received Truth but something that people do to look for truth. - Dennis Overbye

Hello Extracelestial, I just re-read all of my messages, and I don't see a place where I got carried away. Possibly you're thinking of something that was written by someone else?

I wasn't writing about a plot or a conspiracy, I was writing about an instance of Bad Astronomy.

I don't understand why, either. I started it in the Bad Astronomy Stories forum. It was moved into the Conspiracy Theories forum, later.

I got the same impression... and it wasn't from what you are saying so much as what you are doing.

__________________
Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov

Fairly simple question.

Do you, or do you not claim that an intentional effort was made to subdue detail within the MOC imagery of Cydonia. IF you do - that's a conspiracy and this thread is in the right place.

If not, if no intentional effort were made and your claimed poor image was simply the result of unintentional bad processing - then what's the problem? It was later succeeded by a far better processed image, and the processes for producing both were outlined in full.

So either - you're claiming a conspiracy has occurred, or you're getting in a fuss over nothing.

Doug

Bad Guardian, I am not sure what you're going after either. I thought at first you were confused about the pictures, and as a result thought that someone was trying to supress some information to confuse people purposefully. After you looked at the maps and shading analogy I thought that had been clarified (and maybe part of it was), but something else is still bothering you. Other members have answered the other issues as they've seen them. While you acknowledge most of the answers as useful, it is clear to me none of them have solved your dilemma. If not something already addressed, then what is the dilemma for you?

A conspiracy, as you stated earlier, is an intentional effort by someone(s) to supress key information in a subject or relating or activity. There are many motivations and goals of conspiracies, and accusing people of participating in one is a serious charge.

You've said several times you are not promoting a conspiracy. I'll grant you that, but it is difficult to verify that based on the language of some of your posts. I think you are looking more to determine whether whoever was responsible for this data was honest with it. There is a fine line between analyzing academic honesty and accusing someone of a conspiracy whoever they may be. Be very careful how you state your grievance in this area, it is very easy to be misunderstood.

Before I move on to my point, I realize no one has really taken the time to explain the nature of this forum to you. The rules are discussed, but they don't necessarily lead to a good understanding of the mindset that tends to exist here.

Two things stand out to me:

1) Most people here tend to think scientifically, or at least logically. Above all we dislike dishonesty, misleading, fear-mongeringness. You seem to understand this part fairly well. The fact that you are pursuing a potential case of academic dishonesty demonstrates this as far as I am concerned. I don't think there is an issue here. "Dislike" is a rather weak choice of words, multiply it to beyond "detest" and I think you'll start to get the idea.

2) A lot, and I mean A LOT of people show up randomly on this forum and as their first post claim to have some "new and profound evidence for..." fill in whatever conspiracy or scientific misunderstanding they may believe in. Most of the time those same ideas have been thoroughly blown apart several times in dozens of threads. As a result, there is a very high "wariness factor" of anyone using an accusatory tone about, well, almost anything. Even members who have been around for a while and are relatively "well known" are put through the gauntlet when they suggest a new conspiratorical or anti-mainstream idea. How much more a new person? It's nothing personal, it's the nature of the beast. Conspiratorical may not be a word...but you get the idea.

As I said, most of the statements are old hat conspiracies (Apollo), fear-mongerings (planet X, 2012), or misunderstandings (inflation of the universe, etc). Most of these are based on faulty logic or misunderstandings. Others are just ridiculous. Claims that are somewhat novel or new are usually founded on the same faulty thinking. I don't mean a simple misunderstanding of technical science (though that is a factor) but seriously flawed logic and processing. After some time of constantly discussing and refuting points to the same arguments, one gets very familiar with the topic, and very wary (and often tired) of anyone coming in with "new evidence". After going through this process in a number of different topics, that wariness extends to anyone, and I mean ANYONE (even well established members) suggesting that they have something "new" or "uncovered" or "secret". This is where it affects you.

Being new, you may not realize that. (And I'm assuming here you aren't a sock puppet or otherwise re-emerging former member). But this is what happens. This is the atmosphere you're walking in to. In your mind it may not seem that you are proposing a conspiracy, but from a remote view there are many markers in your posts otherwise associated with conspiracy theorists. Please understand that no one here knows you in real life, and we have only a handful of posts on which to base our understanding of your thoughts and intentions. We can not read your mind. I'm not saying you are necessarily using bad logic or misunderstanding the science so much as the abuse of those things by others causes the "refuters" flags to raise at the slightest provocation.

That said, your statements don't seem to be attacking science so much as blowing the whistle on the academic honesty in one instance of science. That's great! Whistleblowing keeps everyone accountable. Your intentions may be good, but what you must understand is that you are treading close to saying "conspiracy" and set off many peoples alarm bells by doing so. You've answered the accusations/critiques, but only very briefly and primarily as denial of action.

So what is your ultimate question? Let me outline what I understand of this thread so far:

What we know: You have an issue with the alteration and release of data relating to a picture taken of the Cydonia region of Mars.

What we aren't sure of: Are you
--accusing anyone of conspiracy or supression of information for any reason,
--claiming confusion of data by NASA,
--confused by data yourself,
--saying NASA is in some way misleading us as to the nature of the mistake (assuming there was one)
--if so, what was the mistake. In the method of the analysis or in the timing of its release?

What will help work out an answer:

There may be some overlap from above, but bear with me.

1) In your first post you addressed Dr. Plait (Phil) personally: understandable if you are new and entering his forum, but if you are making a personal request for information an email or private message would be a better way to do that. Posting what seems to be a personal letter in a public forum suggests you have a greivance with the adressee that has not been satisfactorily settled. I suspect you wanted to ask his professional opinion rather than accuse him of participating, but the implication is not out of question. Ruling this possibility in or out will help us nail what it is you are trying to figure out.

2) Are you accusing someone at NASA of intentionally supressing information in order to _____ (fill in the blank). We've covered that. I want to say no, and you've said no, but you're driving at something which for all practical purposes seems (from the outside) to look like a conspiracy--which is why the thread was moved.

3) Are you merely pointing out a mistake and someone's potential delay in trying to figure out how to solve it?

That was covered to--people slip, and in this case seems to have been satisfactorily handled on NASAs end--if indeed there was a slip. All the data has been released, confusing as it may seem to sort out on the pedestrian end. If the original picture is still being with held, we have serious cause for concern because the claim is that it has been released. There is nothing stating the original MUST be released, but if one claims it has, when indeed it has NOT, we have grounds to blow a whistle. If this is your claim, say so explicitly and people here (some with very good connections) will help you sort out whether it is true or a misunderstanding.

4) Are you disagreeing with the method of the analysts dealing with their potential mistake relating to the analysis and release of this picture?

It is fine to disagree, I happen to think it speeds progress if it leads to discussion. You've inferred this (disagreement with the description of the method), if this is indeed the case state your disagreement clearly. We have seen the pictures, and tried to answer your questions. We can only answer them so many times before the horse dies though.

5) There is something else relating to something short of honesty, or the appearance of shortness that I am not seeing. This is the wildcard possibility.

What about the answers is not covering your concerns? Lay it out for us, take a few paragraphs if you need to. If you continue to repeat your original claim without expanding and clarifying it, it will quickly slide into the beating of a dead horse which benefits no one.


In short, the people on this forum like to shoot the breeze, talk about science good and bad, and solve problems. To solve a problem, that problem has to be understood. It is probably clear to you what the problem is, and we've addressed what we thought it was. Yet there still seems to be a discrepency. What is it? And just as importantly, what have the answers NOT addressed that they need to?

Edit: Spelling and punctuation fixing aside (about three instances) I added one sentence so I don't sound like the mean jerk I'm not. It's the only full sentence in italics aside from this one. The stand alone italicized words were already there.

__________________
None to speak of

Bad, Guardian,
I would like to add something to Man On The Moons excellent post:

Included in the Rules of The Conspiracy Section- is that you must answer the questions asked of you prior to moving the discussion along.

Man On The Moon asked you some pointed direct questions- that I think will help, if answered, facilitate a lot more understanding between yourself and your readers
Bold Mine: