Keys

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by neilderosa</i>
<br />But when you look at the thumbnail size crops I'm using for the catalog, which might be analogous to "seeing it from a greater distance," we notice that the eye appears more well defined, and the facial shading more pronounced. Since I've noticed this phenomenon in several faces, it may indicate that the faces were meant to be seen at different scales, as was discussed by rd and others.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Yes, this is a very interesting question. I spent quite a bit of time thinking about this. But, I kept coming back to the same thing. While it's true that something can look more like what we think it is as we get farther away, it's also true that there's no reason why we shouldn't look at it right up close, too. Also, it's is true that both pareidolic and real objects behave the same way, and therein lies the rub. That's why I kept arguing that the whole "angle of observation" issue was overblown. "The Gaurdian" could be pareidolia too, even though I'm the one who first posted that picture and name for that feature.

rd

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">As the new and higher resolution images from HiRISE begin to show that the Tubes are obviously natural in origin,[rd<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

I'm not aware of any HiRISE images of the tubes yet. But I tend to agree that this may happen re: the tubes at least. That’s the whole point of testing scientific hypotheses; they must falsifiable. And it stands to reason that some will be proven false, but some will not. We won’t know until the necessary and sufficient tests are made.

Another interesting point is that now that some of the HiRISE images are in the range of 600 mbytes in size, this may cut down on the number of "civilians" scrutinizing them, at least until the technology able to handle them becomes more accessible to the general public, and the amateur "anomaly hunter." I find that scrutinizing the images I have already done is much more time consuming than it used to be, and that may be a factor in causing me to wind down the project. Although curiosity is the countervailing factor, and it may prompt me to continue.

I want to point out a couple of amazing phenomena; one physical and the other sociological.

First the physical one.

Awhile back Trinket posted this image as a possible artifact. Not his words but that was the implication.

TRA000878-1410 Terra Sirenium symbol.



My sense if that because of lack of detail and other possible explanations (e.g. errosion, in this gullied crater) the evidence is weak. But that's not the reason I'm re-posting it.

The next crop of the same object shows a straight line, but as this crop and the next clearly indicate, the line is in the image and not in the object. That is to say, due to the varying resolution of the adjoining image segments of the HiRISE image, there is the appearance of a straight line between them. But clear thinking inspires us to realize that this is not something actually on Mars in the terrain. Obvious? I’m beginning to wonder.





Now here is a real straight line I’ve posted before, that by all indications actually is in the terrain on Mars. This in my opinion amounts to a smoking gun since there is no known geological process that can produce such a form. (This line is a few hundred meters long, and on an old geological surface).



Here is the sociological point. Tom mentioned a few times that he was afraid that this forum was being monopolized by artificiality advocates with little or no opposition. That may have been true at some time in the past, but it has not been true since I’ve been involved in this project. The opposite is true—overwhelmingly.

I’m reminded of a little scene from a Tim Allen movie. Jim Belusci is trying to teach Tim enough karate to enable him to defend himself in an upcoming epic (for him) battle. But Tim is overwhelmed by the demanding and uncompromising courage and hard work necessary, so he goes over to the punching bag and starts poking around it, ineffectually punching the bag instead of working on the real problem.

Neil

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by neilderosa</i>
<br />some of the HiRISE images are in the range of 600 mbytes in size, this may cut down on the number of "civilians" scrutinizing them, at least until the technology able to handle them becomes more accessible to the general public, and the amateur "anomaly hunter."<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">One day I spoke to one of the people who is actually working on the software for the HiRISE project, and they are very cognizant of the problem all this new data is creating, regarding bandwith and examining the shear size of the data. They are highly motivated to get it right. Their goal is to make it so that the user can quickly find and download just what they want, rather than all of these mega images. I'll be curious to see how far they take it over the coming months.<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">I find that scrutinizing the images I have already done is much more time consuming than it used to be,<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">This is one of the classic trade-offs in microscopy. We want to keep zooming in, but it's never totally clear when we've gone past the point of being able to see the "forest for the trees". In other words, where do we <b>really</b> want to look at it from? It's not as obvious as it might seem. For instance, what if we had another order of magnitude in magnification so that the pixel size was 2.5 millimeters. Three pixels needed to resolve something would mean we're seeing pebbles the size of our little finger nail. That would be like lying on the ground with our face about a foot away from the earth looking at little rocks. That would be an insanely large amount of data to look through all of. One would have to have a reason to do that that would be totally different from the reason we've used up to this point.

I'm sure they put a good amount of thought into this idea up front, and this is the trade-off they came up with. But even still, it could take hundreds of years to "catelogue" every three 25cm pixels they're producing unless it's automated in some way. And that may be the way to go. I have a friend who recently got a patent for an automated software test accelerator that goes through complicated programs at speeds we never dreamed possible just 10 years ago. So, I believe the technology exists to sort through the data, it's just a question of who gets involved and when. Maybe if that one smoking gun was <b>really</b> found and the paradigm shift of "living beings existed on Mars" was fully disseminated to the general public, the floodgates of modern technology would be open.

rd

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by neilderosa</i>
<br />This in my opinion amounts to a smoking gun since there is no known geological process that can produce such a form. <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">I'm not so sure about that. If the material was "crystalline" for instance it would certainly break like that. Like silicon. It breaks down one of the atomic vertices, assuming it was not amorphous. That's how we used to produce samples for cross sectioning, by chipping away at the edge of the silicon wafer (used to make semiconductors) with a pointed instrument. It would make a perfect break down the 1,1,1 or the 1,0,0 atomic plane.

Now, I don't know if silicon exists on mars, but if it did or something like it did, and it was one piece large enough, and its atomic structure wasn't amorphous.........

I should add though, that I don't remember what is done to the raw silicon to make the perfectly crystalline form of it, or if it's conceivable that such a large crystalline piece could exist in nature. I'm just speculating on what might cause such a straight line break.

Main Entry: <b>sil·i·con </b>
Pronunciation: 'si-li-k&n, 'si-l&-"kän
Function: noun
Etymology: New Latin silica + English -on (as in carbon)
: a tetravalent nonmetallic element that occurs combined as the most abundant element next to oxygen in the earth's crust and is used especially in ferrosilicon for steelmaking, in other alloys, and in semiconductors

rd

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Now here is a real straight line I’ve posted before, that by all indications actually is in the terrain on Mars. This in my opinion amounts to a smoking gun since there is no known geological process that can produce such a form. (This line is a few hundred meters long, and on an old geological surface).
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<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Now, I don't know if silicon exists on mars, but if it did or something like it did, and it was one piece large enough, and its atomic structure wasn't amorphous.........

I should add though, that I don't remember what is done to the raw silicon to make the perfectly crystalline form of it, or if it's conceivable that such a large crystalline piece could exist in nature. I'm just speculating on what might cause such a straight line break. [RD]
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

I'll concede that RD is something of an expert on the subject of examining crystalline structures under an electron microscope. But even he, as an uncompromising opponent of the artificiality hypothesis for Mars, concedes in all honesty that his objection is limited to microscopic crystalline structures.

The implication is still that there is a good possibility that this is a smoking gun, unless by expert geological testimony, we can be shown that such a natural structure is possible. I suspect (no, I conclude from experience) that of those experts able to answer the question definitively, the fear factor and / or the pusillanimity factor overrides all interest in the truth of the matter, present company excepted of course.