http://www.enterprisemission.com/ima...01-29-2004.jpg

Can anybody find the orginal Mars Express photo?

The MIBs aren't doing a very good job keeping the Europeans in line.

__________________
"Ignorance has caused more calamity than malignity" H.G. Wells

"Getting lost is part of exploring." Uniqua in "Backyardigans-Heart of the Jungle"

"Trying to wrap my head around creationist astronomy is like trying to ride a unicycle around a Moebius strip: it’s off-balance, physically impossible, full of one-sided arguments, and in the end you don’t go anywhere." Phil Plait

I love it!

NASA sends the rovers to Mars to find evidence of (past) life, but cover up any evidence of life they find!

Yeah, makes sense to me. :roll:

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"As I lay beneath the Southern Cross, the stars tell more than I could" . . . David Meece

I would have been really bad at creating constellations, and I suspect I'm also bad at spelling "constellation." I don't see any sort of pattern in this picture. What's it supposed to be? A Nike swoosh visible from orbit?

Scroll down the page to Gusev Crater
http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/obj...objectid=34532

Thanks Wong.

I love you guys.

__________________
"Ignorance has caused more calamity than malignity" H.G. Wells

"Getting lost is part of exploring." Uniqua in "Backyardigans-Heart of the Jungle"

"Trying to wrap my head around creationist astronomy is like trying to ride a unicycle around a Moebius strip: it’s off-balance, physically impossible, full of one-sided arguments, and in the end you don’t go anywhere." Phil Plait

I am looking into debunking Hoagland's garbage. I don't have a lot of time, but this is really irritating me, so I am doing some preliminary investigation.

He is claiming that NASA is lying about the color of Mars. He asks if it is because there is an image from Mars Express of the Gusev region showing green, and implies NASA is covering up evidence of life.

1) The Mars Express image showing green can be found here.

2) A Mars Odyssey image of the same region can be found here. Note that it is greyscale, and does not contain the entire Gusev crater region.

3) Hoagland compares the two images (well, a complete THEMIS mosaic, and not the one strip I mention in (2) above) side-by-side on his website.

4) Note that the Odyssey image is said to be colorized, and the copyright notice is by Don Davis, a noted space artist. I went to his site, and found this page, where Mr. Davis himself says that Hoagland is full of it. He said:

I have contacted Mr. Davis, and I hope to talk to him about the colorized images.

5) Making an image true-color is difficult, and depends first on the filters being used. The THEMIS filter wavelengths are listed here. This is the filter set in the image Don Davis used. In the quotation above, he also mentions using MGS data, which is from an entirely different spacecraft. I will also send an email to a friend who works at the company who built the visual imager for THEMIS.

6) The Mars Express imager, the HRSC, has an odd filter set. They are listed here. There is a 150 nanometer gap between green and red, which makes true-color imaging difficult from the start; the human eye has overlapping color detectors (cones). I am immediately suspicious of any color imaging done from the HRSC. I am going to send out a few emails to team members about it.

So this is from where I am starting. I don't have gobs of time to spend on this, but Hoagland is making himself very irritating to the real scientists who are very busy doing real work. Hoagland's self-promoting fantasies have gone on long enough without rebuke.

__________________
Phil Plait
The Bad Astronomer
http://www.badastronomy.com
badastro@badastronomy.com

FAR OUT!!! The BA is gonna kick Hoagland's...um...posterior! Why do I suddenly feel a little sorry for our little Hoagy?

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"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov

Don't feel sorry for him. I feel sorry for the people he has duped with his nonsense. Plus, he has way too much stuff for me to tackle, so I have to be pointed and specific.

If anyone has any insight on this issue, I'm listening.

Not quite sure if it could be related in some ways to Hoaglang claims about the possibility of living microorganisms on Mars.What is the validity of this report?
In 1997, Biospherics' President and CEO,
Dr. Gilbert V. Levin, announced his new conclusion that his 1976 Viking Labeled Release (LR) life detection experiment found living microorganisms in the soil of Mars.
http://www.biospherics.com/mars/spie/spiehtml.htm
http://www.biospherics.com/mars/recent/jgeophys.htm
From
http://www.biospherics.com/mars/
They talk also
Solving the color calibration problem of Martian lander images
http://www.biospherics.com/mars/spie...olor_Paper.htm

We can always invite him over and debate the issues right in this forum. I don't think he'd bite, but if he did, a civilized point-by-point discussion over his various claims would be fun. If it did happen it would generate a lot of outside interest, that's for sure.

If you can read his website without your eyes violently crossing and then rolling right out of your head, you're a better man than I am. It's not quite up to the TimeCube standard of incoherence, but it's getting there!

did

Majic is working on what looks like an awesome debunking of the alleged true-color coverup.

Unfortunately, a lot of people think he is harmless, and "pure entertainment", they haven't seen, like i have, the people that fall for his stuff.

He have some people on this board that even think he is harmless- Like Mr. Show in this thread-

http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=10836

I think that's a very dangerous position to take. Hoagland IS a danger. People DO believe him. He needs debunking, but as the BA points out there is just too much... :/

__________________
"Ignorance has caused more calamity than malignity" H.G. Wells

"Getting lost is part of exploring." Uniqua in "Backyardigans-Heart of the Jungle"

"Trying to wrap my head around creationist astronomy is like trying to ride a unicycle around a Moebius strip: it’s off-balance, physically impossible, full of one-sided arguments, and in the end you don’t go anywhere." Phil Plait

Hoagland is in fact doing real harm with this. I won't go into details right now, but he is encouraging people to send email to scientists about the "coverup", and they are indeed sending in emails. It is an impediment to the work being done. Your tax dollars are being wasted because of Hoagland! This is one of the main reasons I am taking this on right now.

Before the Mars rover missions, he constantly asked C2C listeners to petition Congress about his various coverup allegations so this doesn't surprise me. The one bright spot is his recent practice of asking for donations which would seem to indicate his woowoo platform is based on rotting wood and might go under. We can always hope!

I think this website (and board) can make a significant impact to fight this kind of disinfo. Most rational people will tend to research something before jumping to conclusions and in this respect, badastronomy.com is tailor-made to give the fence-sitters something to consider before embracing Hoagland's hokum. I still think a challenge to Mr Hoagland to debate the merits of his far-out allegations on this board couldn't hurt. I'm willing to extend that challenge but won't do it without a "go" from the BA. Hoagland will probably ignore my email anyway but I'm willing to give it a shot. A challenge on C2C when he's a guest would make it harder for him to back down, that is, if they take listener's calls when he's on. The times I heard him spouting on that program, they didn't.

The ability of people to see the alleged "evidence" of an alleged coverup probably produces an illusion of confirmation -- "Ah yes! I can see what Hoagland is saying!" Moreover, Hoagland's overall logic may appear attractive since its underlying form rests on the valid inference Modus Ponens (if p then q, p, ergo q):

1. If the colors are inconsistent, they're hidding something.
2. Look, the colors are inconsistent!
3. Ergo: they're hidding something.

However, while the logical form may be valid, it is unsound in this instance because the first premise and conclusion are false -- the colors are trivially inconsistent for other reasons. So I hypothesize that in this case the combination of visual "(pseudo)confirmation" plus an underlying valid logical argument (albeit unsound in the given instance) produces a perceptual product with high potential for cognitive survival.

I have a question, Is it known if Mr. Hoagland is profiting (financially speaking) from all of this nonsense? I ask this because his web site runs the following claim:

"The Enterprise Mission is a not-for-profit research project supported by open community involvement and donations" (from the Enterprise Mission home page).

If he's personally profiting from people's donations to a "not-for-profit research project" wouldn't that be illegal? Maybe he really believes this stuff and actually puts every nickel into "research"?

The whole thing amazes me...how can anyone actually believe this stuff?

__________________
An open mind is like an open window...without a good screen you'll get all sorts of weird bugs!

If Hoagland's running the operation, he's allowed to pay himself a salary. He also makes money off the royalties from his books, videos, and fees from his personal appearances. Not to mention, he can justify getting his organization to pay for things like travel, etc. fairly simply. The IRS could, I'm sure, find errors in his accounting, but by doing that they'd be reenforcing his argument that the Feds want to shut him up, and they might not find anything illegal (unethical, sure). Certainly, if he had made mistakes, the IRS would only be too happy to ding him for it, but a $1.00 error isn't enough to justify the cost of a thorough audit of the books.

BA, I hope you break the SOB off at the knees. I didn't mind Hoagland at all, until he started spewing his vomit about how NASA deliberately killed the Columbia astronauts. Where's Buzz Aldrin when you need him?

I disagree, somewhat. We have seen what happens when "true believers' come here to debate. They avoid questions, get sidetracked, repeat claims without backing them up, hammer away at details with no attention to broader issues, etc. We have seen this time and time again. A relativity debate went on for 84 pages (!!) and went nowhere, as the latest example. Of course, being attacked by many different people on different sub-topics makes it difficult to stay on track. But it usually boils down to a few issues, which the believer steadfastly ignores.

Anyone who follows the rules is welcome on this board, and that includes Richard Hoagland, and Bart Sibrel, and any person who promotes pseudoscience. But I don't think it would help his cause much, and I don't think it would necessarily help ours either.

How about Archers idea to debate him on C2C?

I have already made quite a bit of progress today. I talked at length with artist Don Davis, who made it clear what is going on.

The image Hoagland claims is from NASA is not. It was done by Don, in his spare time. Don does not work for NASA. The original data come from NASA, but the color processing was not done by NASA. More of Hoagland's claims are intellectually dishonest, as I will show.

The image Don used was from THEMIS, a camera onboard the Mars Odyssey probe. It took multiple filter images, but the best ones are in the red. They have the highest resolution and look the best.

The images come in strips, so Don took several red-filter image strips and aligned them, using an older lower resolution image from the Mars Global Surveyor satellite as a guide. In the picture you can see where the MGS image pokes through because it is noticeably fuzzier.

He then colorized the image by hand, using the multicolor imagery as a guide. He has decades of experience in color and art, and feels that the color is as "reasonably close" to reality as he can get it. Even though it is colorized, he tried very hard to keep the tonal distribution correct.

We know the darker areas are basaltic rock (from mineralogical surveys from orbit), and that they are grey. The surrounding material is lighter in color because it is covered in dust. Wind activity has cleared the dust off the basalt, leaving it exposed and the surface darker. The odd tendril-like structures are where dust-devils have stripped away the dust, again leaving the basalt bare, and darker.

Now, the Mars Express image is three-color imagery which was put together to make a composite image. The image released to the press shows this basaltic rock to be very green! This is clearly what Hoagland is talking about. He implies this green material is vegetation, or life of some kind.

But we know from spectral analysis that the rock is basalt. We also know that basaltic rock is not green! Clearly, the images are not properly calibrated for color and tone balance. Don went as far to say "I would bet money that the dark areas are not green." Basically, when taking three images using different filters and combining them, you have to be very careful about color balance. Anyone experienced in Photoshop will tell you this. I spent quite a bit of time trying to create three-color images using Hubble data, and it's very difficult.

This is where I think Hoagland is being intellectually dishonest. Comparing these two images is not fair; one was done using a single greyscale (what most people call "black and white") image, and colorized to be accurate; whereas the other image, while multicolor, was almost certainly not calibrated correctly to show what the colors are really like.

But by comparing them side-to-side, it strongly implies that the image with more saturated colors-- the green one-- is the true-color image, while in reality the colorized one is more accurate!

I have sent email to several scientists about the Mars Express image, and I hope to get a clear response about the color calibration. When I do, I will post more.

I want to thank Don Davis for talking to me at length about this. Any possible errors in analysis here are mine, not his.

Actually I meant that I would have been willing to call C2C when Hoagland was on and invite him here. While I wouldn't be adverse to listening to such a debate on C2C, I'm not about to start booking fights for the BA! I'll respect the BA's views on this subject re: a BABB debate and don't intend to pursue it.

Sorry Archer. I misunderstood you.

No problemo! During your quest for world domination just give me a slice of the Carolina coast and we'll call it even. 8)

And can structure his salary so that it "balances the books" to eat up any possible "profit"!

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Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

Forgive the change of current topic... but looking at some of the links I came across this : http://www.donaldedavis.com/2004%20new/MERBCLR.jpg

This looks a lot closer than most of the black and white pictures, and seems to be looking over the edge of the crator. Did I miss this, or was it released some where else other than the mars rover homepage?

Ok, I get it now, it's "all 'bout the Benjamins". If this fellow is turning a good profit and can afford lawyers to protect his lucrative endeavor then him recanting anything is probably unlikely.

The accusation regarding the Columbia however, may prove to be his undoing.

__________________
An open mind is like an open window...without a good screen you'll get all sorts of weird bugs!

it's not just Columbia-

# 7/29/99 - Grissom Mercury Capsule 'Reborn' to Ancient NASA Ritual; Evidence Suggests Apollo 1 Astronauts Killed by Same

# 7/20/99 - How Many 'Coincidences' ... Before We Call it Treason?

Warning, he likes to put a LOT of big pics on his pages.

__________________
"Ignorance has caused more calamity than malignity" H.G. Wells

"Getting lost is part of exploring." Uniqua in "Backyardigans-Heart of the Jungle"

"Trying to wrap my head around creationist astronomy is like trying to ride a unicycle around a Moebius strip: it’s off-balance, physically impossible, full of one-sided arguments, and in the end you don’t go anywhere." Phil Plait

You know what gets me? Is if Freemasons/Martians/Uberdorks or whomever it is that Hoagland thinks is running the show, really were running the show, and doing things like sacrificing astronauts in updated versions of ancient rituals, I'd think that we'd have a lot cooler crap in this world, ya know?

I mean, if these guys are going so far as to murder human beings for reasons Hoagland's not quite clear on, then don't you think that we'd have a lot more buildings that had Egyptian themes to them? Maybe even some highly advanced technology that was common place, but no, all we've got is some lame stuff. Buildings look like boxes, cars all look alike, and no nifty gadgets to be found. You can't even go out and buy a laser that'll vaporize a bug at the local hardware store!

If the Illuminati's going to be in charge, then I want cooler crap, and I want it now!

I was unaware of a lot of this stuff. And to think I actually said he wasn't harmful a few days back on another thread! #-o Needless to say .. I WAS WRONG!