| Article: 42166
Newsgroups: sci.astro
From: [email protected] (Tom Van Flandern)
Subject: Re: Why would aliens draw FACES on Mars?!?
Organization: The Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA
Date: Sun, 29 Aug 1993 17:21:53 GMT
Sender: [email protected]
[email protected] (Luca De Alfaro) writes:
> On Earth there are (among other animals) humans, and they have sometimes
> dug human-like faces in the ground. Good. But why should "martians" do
> the same? What to the "face-believers" think? ... If someone has some
> better insight into why they are so excited by a face on Mars, I would be
> interested in knowing.
Although I don't qualify as a "face-believer", I think I can answer
Luca's question.
Few if any of the people who have examined the face and think it may
be an artifact attribute it to present-day martians. Only a few even
attribute it to past martians.
The general opinion of those who are optimistic about the abundance
of intelligent life in our galaxy is to suspect that interstellar travelers
visit suitable terrestrial planets on occasion for exploration and mining.
I know of no valid scientific argument that would allow us to conclude that
such a thing is improbable.
The suspicions are that these interstellar visitors built bases on
planets they mined. If the latest visit to Mars was within the past three
million years, the visitors would have been aware of humans on earth. Some
even speculate they had something to do with promoting the presence of
humans on earth.
The "face" on Mars is atop a base or platform of considerable
height. Interpreting this anomaly as an artifact, one would have to assume
that the platform was some sort of utilitarian structure. Ornamenting the
top with smaller structures that resembled a human face was then done for
purposes we can only only guess at, but was presumably either an architect's
sphinx- like signature, or was designed to attract human attention when we
reached this stage of exploration of the solar system (ala Arthur Clarke).
While reciting this speculative notion, I should mention the
writings of Z. Sitchin (e.g., "The Twelfth Planet"), whose expertise is
translation of the original Sumerian texts that pre-dated the so-called
"sacred writings" of each of the major cultures now on earth. Those
original writings are not entirely fictional because they describe the
locations of ancient cities and events, a few of which have now been
verified.
Where Sitchin departs from all other scholars is in his willingness
to use the best modern translation for the concepts described in the ancient
writings. For example (and pivotally), while traditional scholars may
translate a phrase as "the gods ascended to the clouds in their fiery
chariot" and assume that the story is a myth, Sitchin translates the same
phrase as "the extraterrestrials took off in their spacecraft" and takes the
writers literally.
Proceeding in this way, Sitchin recovers the stories of the garden
of Eden, the flood, the tower of Babel, Sodom & Gomorrah, and many other
stories preserved in the oldest writings of all cultures as literal history
with an interesting extraterrestrial twist to them.
Although there is little evidence to support Sitchin's version of
the translations (there is some evidence, but it's weak), there is equally
little counter-evidence. The stories support the notion that
extraterrestrial visitation is commonplace on time scales of hundreds of
thousands of years. One of the strongest supporting experiments is that of
Robert M. Schoch of Boston University [Schoch, R.M. "Redating the Great
Sphinx of Giza." KMT, Modern J.Anc.Egypt 3, 52-59 & 66-70 (1992)], who
reported to the Geological Society of America that the original Sphinx at
the base of the Great Pyramid at Giza in Egypt is at least 9000 years old
(i.e., dates back to at least the last ice age, judging from extensive water
erosion evidence in the rocks in this otherwise desert region).
My own interest in these topics is to filter out the influence of
personal belief systems and to form valid scientific hypotheses and perform
or encourage the falsification tests that would shed some light on their
validity. MO was going to provide an excellent falsifiability test of the
martian anomalies. In my recent book, I propose a fairly definitive
falsifying test of the Sitchin translations in the form of sampling sediment
from the bottom of the Dead Sea for evidence of long-lived radioactivity
that must remain from the use of nuclear detonations at Sodom & Gomorrah in
ancient times, according to the translations.
I don't assume anything about these hypotheses except that, as
scientifically viable and falsifiable theories, they are deserving of
serious attention and testing; and undeserving of the ridicule that usually
attends them. We should not be telling history how it was, but asking
observations and experiments how it was (and is). Let the results speak for
themselves. -|Tom|-
--
Tom Van Flandern / Washington, DC / [email protected]
Meta Research was founded to foster research into ideas not otherwise
supported because they conflict with mainstream theories in Astronomy.
Article: 42728
From: [email protected] (George William Herbert)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.sci.planetary
Subject: Re: Mars Observer Update #2 - 08/25/93
Date: 7 Sep 1993 03:41:03 GMT
Organization: Retro Aerospace
In article <[email protected]>,
Tom Van Flandern <[email protected]> wrote:
> Let me address the "scientific analysis" issue here. [...]
>Another test was the fractal analysis, using software
>designed to detect artificiality, written to find camouflaged buildings and
>objects on earth. In that test, three Cydonia formations tested as likely
>"artificial".
Fractal analysis also false-alarms on a number of natural terrain features
on Earth, at a statistically significant rate. That it says that these
features are likely "artificial" is meaningless unless that exact program
is also tested against the rest of the Mars surface and the Earth's surface
and the rates of false alarms studied.
> "Photoclinometric analysis (also called "shape from shading")
>indicates that the Face actually has the three-dimensional structure
>apparent on the Viking frames. The Face is quantitatively unique within its
>setting, with a fractal signature curve strongly indicating possible
>artificial origin. Facial details difficult to explain from a geological
>standpoint are coherently related in terms of possible artificiality.
>Application of a wide range of techniques for analysis of the Face, both
>qualitative and quantitative, have turned up mutually reinforcing results
>consistently supporting the likelihood of artificiality. The weight of the
>evidence for the possibility that the Face is a product of intelligence
>justifies adopting the *working assumption* that the Face is artificial, for
>the sake of prediction and test."
I have just addressed the fractal signature. The geological details
are by no means hard to explain from a natural standpoint; similar formations
exist on earth, and given enough time one is bound to occur which is
more or less symmetrical. The Wind is a powerful sculptor.
> On NASA's (lack of) research, McDaniel says:
> "Among the many possibilities open to NASA for further research are
>those listed below.
> * locating additional frames showing the object illuminated at
>different sun angles.
NASA has indeed done this, results negative.
> * applying computer enhancement techniques to bring out additional
>detail
NASA has indeed done this, results negative.
> * investigating the surrounding terrain to determine the presence or
>non-presence of other anomalous features
NASA has indeed done this, results negative.
> * measuring and evaluating the relationships between other features
>of interest, if found, and the Face
NASA hasn't done this to my knowledge. However, the concept of seeing
relationships in the geometric layout of geological features was quite
significantly debunked when an independent researcher was able to derive
a set of mathematical relationships seemingly as significant as those
Hoagland has identified by taking a random Landsat photo of earth and
applying similar methodology.
> * measuring the dimensions and internal geometry of all landforms of
>interest in the area
Again, until the fractal software used on these objects is widely tested
on Earth and Mars geography, this is scientifically meaningless.
> * searching for similar objects elsewhere on the planet
NASA and thousands of graduate students have pored over every image available
of Mars, and haven't found anything they considered "neat" enough along
those lines to go write a book about.
> * applying new techniques and advanced algorithms for computer
>enhancement as those become available
I.e. "Don't get on with your life, concentrate on this thing here because
we think it's neat!"
> * soliciting the participation of experts in other fields than
>geology, such as cartography, classical mathematics, symbolic communication,
>anthropology, archaeology, and aesthetics.
NASA and USGS have cartographers, they do maps of various places we've
explored. I've personally talked to two applied mathematicians who
thought that the logic and mathematics used in "investegating" Cydonis
were bunk. I've talked to field archaeologists about it and they
said that they'd seen equally wierd things in Landsat photos which they
had bothered to check out on the ground, and come up totally empty.
Sending them to Mars to generate the same results would be a bit expensive.
> To make the claim that a genuine scientific investigation has been
>undertaken, NASA would have to have done all or most of the things listed
>above. But none of these possibilities appear to have been explored by
>NASA, either in 1976 or later. In contrast, independent researchers have
>explored all of them, with increasingly positive results."
To the contrary, many of the above were indeed explored by NASA, and the
nearly uniformly negative results discovered by professional planetary
scientists lead me to believe that a bunch of relative amateurs are
making mistakes in basic science and methodology.
> After reading the McDaniel report, enough specific details are given
>to justify drawing some conclusions. Paraphrasing your own words, Bill, one
>can point to specific documented actions by NASA in the report that would
>justify saying of NASA's actions: "Scientific"? Right ;-) NASA is
>interested in one thing only - money. Its investigation of the Cydonia
>anomalies was about on the level of "Chariots of the Gods".
I really have to read the McDaniel report sometime, but if your posting
contained its essential charges, they're bunk. It's not science, it's
ignoring a lot of good science which was done (and came up with negative
results), and it's getting really old.
> That problem is of far greater concern to me than anything Richard
>Hoagland has to say. -|Tom|-
NASA is far from perfect, but those scientists and engineers working
there that I've had chance to meet are professional, curious human
beings. If there was something there that stood up to scientific
testing, which has been applied, they'd be going ape over it. It
didn't, and they aren't. It's interesting, we should image that area
at better resolution (hell, we should image the whole planet at better
resolution...), but it's not by any means worthy of coming to a
"working conclusion" that the features are artificial.
-george william herbert
Retro Aerospace
Article: 42695
From: [email protected] (Wolfram Kresse)
Newsgroups: sci.astro
Subject: The Cydonia-face - and why it isn't one.
Date: 6 Sep 1993 15:40:01 GMT
Organization: TU Darmstadt
Sender: [email protected] ()
Yet another article containing pro and contra against the Face on Mars.
(How often was this discussed so far?)
Well, I really *wish* I could believe it's artificial, but after looking
at the two *original* pictures from Viking I there are several reasons why
it can't be:
If you look at the *whole* pictures you can see several elevated, flat
platforms in the area around the 'face'. On some of these platforms
are hills and other, more elevated regions. If you compare these
platforms with the face you can see: The face is nothing more than
another, smaller platform with some hills on it: The bright reflecting
stripe at the side indicating the height of these platforms (the one
from the face and the others in the surrounding) has the same thickness.
Well, you all know of the ability of the human brain to detect common
things in shapes one sees. So, if you see the pictures of the face
everywhere it is very easy to see a face in them. Especially if the
contrast and the bright- ness of these pictures are altered in a way
that it can't be something else but a face.
I cut the face out of the original pictures, eliminated the
noise-dots, increased the size (_not_ by interpolating, just by
plotting the same pixel twice or four times), put them both on the
screen and altered the contrast in both directions. (I can post the
C-Program with the 'face'-parts of the two Viking-pictures, if some of
you are interested; the noise-reduction is quite good, although I
figured the algorithms out for myself :) The resolution of the
Viking-Images is just not good enough to see eyeballs or teeth or
whatever: One eye has a diameter of probably 3 or 4 pixels, the mouth
is about 2x10 pixels. If you interpolate it to get a higher
resolution, well, maybe if you use the 'right' algorithm, you can make
everything out of it.
Another important thing: the face is deinitely _not_ symmetrical: If
you look at the face closely you must see that the right 'eye' is far
too low / the left 'eye' is far to high positioned. And if you vary
the contrast you can see that the left eye is nothing more than the
shadow of the left 'eyebrow', another small hill on the face-platform.
And I'm repeating again: I hoped that the face could be a proof for
intelligent life on mars, but after looking for the original Images
(35A70 and 70A13, hope I remember correctly) and analysing them after
I found them, I had to admit that it's just a natural phenomena. Sorry.
bye
Wolfram
--
+-------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |Wolfram Kresse * E-Mail: [email protected]|
| / \ +--------------------------+---------------+--------------------+
| o o |"Meeneemeeneemeenee" |CU l8r, LE g8r!|
| < |"Yes,that's right,Tweeky."+---------------+
| ___ +-----+----+---------------+
| / \ | 8^) | =) |
+-------+-----+----+
Article: 70332
From: [email protected] (George William Herbert)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: CNN covers itself w/ glory
Date: 25 Aug 1993 00:34:32 GMT
Organization: Retro Aerospace
Notice! long included body followed by long history of the Face
controversy. If you're not in the mood, skip the article 8-)
You have been warned.
In article <[email protected]>,
Kenneth Anderson <[email protected]> wrote:
>I agree with you that CNN should not be spending time reporting about the
>"structures" on Mars. At this point in time, the status of the Mars
>Observer is much more important. However, I have to disagree with you
>on your claim that the "Face" effort is pseudoscientific. Take a look
>at the book Monuments of Mars by Richard Hoagland. In it he documents
>everything that he and his colleagues did to analyze the Viking photos.
>All of the people working on this original effort were scientists. They
>used state-of-the-art techniques in analyzing the photos. They document
>all of there assumptions, they state their hypothesis, they document the
>experiements, and report the results. They have kept their work extremely
>scientific, and in my opinion their efforts do not deserve the label
>"pseudoscientific crap". Now then it is true that the tabloids have reported
>on this "face" with all sorts of weird stories, but that does not take
>away from the hard scientific work that was performed. Hoagland can not
>stop "fringe" people from joining in on this effort and trying to bring
>"New Age" interpretations to it.
>
>For me the jury is out. It was my hope that the Mars Observer camera would
>be able to take at least one photo of the Cydonia region during its mission
>and that one photo, (hoping for such factors as no dust storms, proper
>lighting, etc.) with the enhanced resolution would put to rest the issue
>one way or another. With the resolution of that camera, it would be
>readily clear as to whether the "face" is actually a face, or if its just
>a bunch of rocks, just like your Triceratops, however cool looking, was just
>a cloud.
>
>However, to restate what I previously said, I agree with you that the whole
>idea of NASA trying to cover something up is ridiculous and that while
>NASA is trying to regain communications with the Mars Observer, the "face"
>should not even be mentioned on national news programs.
Hi Ken. Just to let you and anyone else who hasn't been on sci.space
for a long time know, here's my background on this issue, and some
research I've done on it, and what I believe is actually happening.
In early 1988, UC Berkeley's SPACE (Students Promoting Aerospace
Careers and Education, quite an acronym-stretch... 8-) student group
hosted a debate and meeting between Richard Hoagland and several
planetary scientists at NASA Ames who'd been working on
photointerpretation of Viking images, in conjunction with people at
JPL and elsewhere.
Hoagland went first and gave a reasonably straightforwards
presentation, talking about his initial work on interpreting the
images, the followup outside image enhancement, and listing a number
of the interesting site layout features at the Cydona site. He left
out the tail end of his book, the part where he heads off into left
field speculating about aliens (and in fact admitted that he'd been
off on a tangent with that). He finished by complaining that NASA
wouldn't even run image enhancement algorithms on the Cydona images.
He was followed by the NASA scientists, who immediately launched into
a vehement attack upon pseudoscience in any form or manner, raking
Hoagland and several previous pseudoscientific writers across the
coals for confusing the public etc. They managed to nearly entirely
miss Hoagland's actual arguments, however.
The initial presentations ended and people moved forwards with a
general debate, wherein Hoagland complained mightily about NASA's
having impeded his work all these years and the NASA people saying
that the enhancements Hoagland's crowd had done were totally wrong.
They mentioned that they'd done the enhancements and gotten negative
results. Hoagland didn't believe them.
The lively debate finally broke up about 10 pm, and Hoagland drove
back to catch the plane back to LA. The NASA group decided to join a
bunch of us students for Pizza and a bit of beer. We all marched off
to LaVal's Pizza Northside in Berkeley.
After a little while, we'd been talking and I asked the scientists why
they hadn't just given Hoagland the enhancements that he wanted, or
publish them or anything to squash the face groupies?
"We have too hard a time publishing any negative results."
Hoagland didn't know that they'd run these enhancements prior to the
debate. Afterwards, I think didn't believe they'd been run, because
the NASA people weren't being at all cooperative and he thought they
were either incompetent or doing a coverup.
We are now past that which I have hard evidence for, and are headed
into what is partially confirmed by the above discussions, several
followups, and other information sources, and partially my speculation.
The Face phenomena was based on some sketchy and unreplicated image
enhancements of the "Face", and mathematical relationships among
geologic features around it. NASA's professional image enhancement
people got opposite results from those the Face group got, and at
least one planetary scientist took a random earth surface site photo
and determined an equally impressive set of mathematical relationships
to those claimed at the Cydonis site. Both the legs of the claims of
something abnormal there are therefore disputed and likely wrong.
The problem isn't that there is any basic question as to wether
there's something at the site or not. The problem is in the way the
development of the "Face" story was handled by its proponents and
detractors.
When Hoagland started writing about what he'd found, naturally people
at NASA took interest. They looked at the site and the images, ran
some image enhancements, and got negative results. "Good." they said,
"No big deal, we can relax." They neglected to let Richard Hoagland know.
Hoagland kept it up. He bothered NASA for the raw data and for them
to do enhancements. They said "go away"; they did the work, thought
he was a flake, and didn't want to deal with him. Hoagland thought
they were just being head-in-sand skeptics, so he kept working on it
and brought in some image enhancement people from outside.
Eventually, he got the raw data and they did some work which suggested
that the face might be very face-like, and traced out the complex web
of other geographic relationships of the site.
The official NASA position was to ignore all of this. Unofficially,
the word got through the grapevine that the scientists had tested this
all and gotten negative results. Nobody published, though.
The situation essentially deteriorated since then. The planetary
science people have perfectly good results saying that Hoagland's
wrong, and are pissed that they keep having to tell people he's wrong.
Hoagland kept going around promoting the idea among those who weren't
"in the know" about the negative results; i.e. everyone on earth who
isn't a planetary scientist. Given that Hoagland was slowly getting
better and better evidence for his claims, and that there was no
official release of negative evidence disproving those claims, people
believed him.
Richard Hoagland is, I believe, wrong. He's also a lousy scientist.
That's not a bad thing; most people are lousy scientists, and I've
been wrong a whole lot before myself. He also has a mindset which
tends towards solutions which distinctly violate Ockhams' Razor.
THis, I object to, but again it's pretty common today. People love to
see conspiracies, UFO's, whatever.
The planetary science community* is, I believe, right. They're also
lousy sociologists. This is to be expected; few people are really
wide-horizoned enough to realize the far-reaching effects of what
they've done. They didn't realize that their lack of public
counterevidence, combined with Hoagland's continued advocacy, would
cause the phenomena to blossom.
I think that the science community should accept a lot of the blame,
for operating in a manner that negative results are so hard to
publicize. I think that Richard Hoagland should back off and reexamine
things with some degree of trust in NASA's results. Together, they
all managed to make a massive mess, and it's everyone's fault.
-george william herbert
Retro Aerospace
Article: 70385
From: [email protected] (P. Douglas Reeder)
Newsgroups: sci.space,alt.sci.planetary
Subject: Huntress on MacNeil/Lehrer about Mars Observer
Date: 25 Aug 1993 08:15:16 GMT
Organization: Div, Grad & Curl
The MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour featured the Mars Observer problems as its
lead focus story tonight (Tuesday). After a 3-4 minute backgrounder
which included short takes from the news conference at JPL this
afternoon, Robert MacNeil interviewed Dr. Wesley Huntress, NASA
Associate Administrator for Space Science for at least eight minutes.
They covered most of the factual material that has been previously
posted here. No change in the situation had occured, as of whenever
the show went to tape. An effort has/will be made to to observe the
insertion burn with ground-based infrared telescopes. Huntress stated
that if no burn occurs, there is some chance for another rendezvous
with Mars in 8-10 months.
Coverage was relatively good, though the backgrounder did say "This
latest mishap is part of a growing problem for NASA these days:
projects going astray. From the explosion of the Challenger, to the
Hubble Space Telescope, which was launched with a flawed mirror, to
the Gallileo Jupiter probe, another spacecraft bedeviled by technical
glitches." Three minutes into the inteview, MacNeil did ask "A group
of scientist today in Washinton, including some who had former
associations with NASA, complained that you weren't paying enough
attention to the signs of intelligent order on Mars and that NASA has,
they claim, has made up its mind, there ain't any life there, and
doesn't want to know, and doesn't want that assurance challenged." to
which Huntress responded that they would love to find evidence of life
or former life on Mars, and that data is published openly. MacNeil
followed up more specifically, asking about photography of the alleged
face and other alleged figures, to which Huntress replied that they
did intend to image the sites, but at the highest resolution, aiming
was tricky.
Huntress answered the questions well, though he had a tendency to
answer a different or slightly diffent question than the one asked.
Doug Reeder Internet: [email protected]
Div, Grad & Curl USENET: ...!tektronix!reed!reeder
programming & derivative work
I am actively seeking scientific programming contracts.
Article: 70523
From: [email protected] (Jeff Bytof - SIO)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Mars Face Follies
Date: 26 Aug 1993 01:12:04 GMT
Organization: San Diego Supercomputer Center @ UCSD
I think this Mars face stuff is interesting, and maybe the NASA
scientists should sit back and let these folks form a political
constituency and dog and picket Congress and the President until they
get what they want.
I don't personally believe that these are artifacts of another
civilization, but the mystery they provoke is highly reminiscent of
the driving motivation to get to Mars starting in the last 1800's to
almost the present: canals, green spots, erroneous observations of
oxygen and water vapor in the Martian atmosphere.
I would not, if I were a scientist, embrace any of the "face cultists"
or promote their beliefs. I just would not stand in the way and when
pressed for my position say "there's a lot we don't know yet" or "you
know as much as I do".
The apparent failure of MO and the conspiritorial interpretation given
it by the cultists could concievably enhance interest among the public
for the next attempt at Mars.
-Jeff Bytof
Article: 70814
From: [email protected] (john m hughes)
Newsgroups: sci.space,alt.conspiracy
Subject: Re: MARS OBSERVER & PLAYING DOWN CONSPIRACY (longish)
Date: 27 Aug 1993 08:21:32 GMT
Organization: University of Arizona, Tucson
In article <[email protected]> [email protected] (R
Ross Holder Jr) writes:
>I apologize if this matter has already received its share of attention, but
>if someone would be so kind as to delve into it again so I can satisfy my
>curiosity it would be appreciated. There have been some references in
>sci.space to the "silliness" of the NASA conspiracy theory, the coincidental
>loss of the two Russian probes prior to this, etc. Yet there exist a group
>of scientists (forget their name) who actually suggest that NASA was
>avoiding examination of the "face" and pyramids on Mars. Am I to understand
>that the skeptics find this notion truly absurd, and if so on what is this
>attitude based (beyond the notion that neither governments nor their
>agencies are capable of such complicated fascades)? Can it be
>authoritatively said the the loss of three successive missions to Mars is
>mere coincidence?
>--
>_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
>R. Ross Holder, Jr. | Office Phone: (204) 474-6520
>The University of Manitoba | Internet: [email protected]
>News Department, The Manitoban | [email protected]
As others have pointed out, the loss of one of the Russian probes is known
with relative certainty (a software/control error, as I recall). The other
more than likely failed due to a system fault of some sort. In a recent
status posting on MO in sci.space.news it was pointed out that MO and the
recently dead NOAA-13 both shared a primary oscillator which had previously
exhibited a severe failure mode. They fixed it on the NOAA craft before
launch, but apparently MO was already in route when the cause of the
trouble was finally pinned down to a faulty batch of transisters.
As for the "face" and the "pyramids", well, I happen to have a scan of
one of the photos. So, I took a look at it. A very close look. There are
a lot of what appear to be data artifacts (little dots) scattered around
the image, one of which just happened to fall in the place where one
might suspect a nostril to be on the so-called "face". The artifacts are
easily identified at the pixel level because their shading pattern is
fairly regular, whereas the "real" portions of the image exhibit a more
random distribution of shade levels, just as one would expect. Also, I
just roughed in the outline where the left eyesocket would seem to go for
a symetrical "face", and it didn't fit. Not even with view angle compen-
sation could I make it look right. Conclusion: the "face" is an unusual
pile of rocks that make interesting shadows at the right sun angle. As
for the "pyramids", well, I couldn't get anything more interesting than
a misshapen cone out the largest, and the smaller ones don't even look
close to being pyramids of any kind. Granted, what I have to work with
is a scan from a book, not real data, but it's a fairly good scan from
a book which is supposed to make a case for the "face", so I would
suspect that the image was contrast enhanced in some way to support
the author's bias. Besides, it only seemed fitting to use an image from
a "pro-face" work to do my own evaluation. ;-)
There are those who will always refuse to confront facts in favor of
the more colorful pseudo-reality of the imagination. Finding meaning
in coincidences in one way to do this. Facts are dull and mundane, and
may even require that one know some dull and mundane technical stuff
to understand them. When taking a flight of fancy all rules are subject
to change at whim, with no nitty-gritty technical stuff required or
necessary. Wishful thinking is one of the by-products we seem to have
gotten along with our ability to imagine alternatives.
This is all, of course, just my own humble opinion, with no ill-will
for anyone intended. I wish there were some Martians, but I can't let
myself succumb to a wish when there are so many facts to outweigh it.
If MO is dead, then it died on account of one of the things which so
often plague complicated hardware. I hope it isn't, and I _will_ hold
on to that wish until I know otherwise.
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|John M. Hughes [email protected] jmh%[email protected]|
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Article: 71149
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: Pete Banholzer <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Lunar 'anomaly'
Sender: [email protected] (Operator)
Organization: Computer Science, Indiana University
Date: Sun, 29 Aug 93 15:51:13 EDT
In article <[email protected]> Bruce d. Scott,
[email protected] writes:
>When a new grad student at Goddard Space Flight Center in 1980, I was
>amazed to find a book called "Someone Else is on the Moon". The thesis
>was that the "space boys" found alien bases there and came back "like a
>dog with its tail between its legs". (No joke, that's as near to a quote
>as 13-yr memory serves.) I'm sure you can find that book if you search
>enough libraries.
>
>There was another gem there, about a new calendar. The author would assert
>things like a 354-day year and then say "this is fact and not theory".
>He was a druidic of some sort and railed against the Catholic conspiracy
>to force an inaccurate calendar down all our throats.
The book indeed is Someone Else is on the Moon by George H. Leonard,
published by David KcKay Company. Inc. in 1976 , ISBN 0-679-50606-3.
The idea is that there was a grand conspiracy by NASA to conceal
evidence of extensive "engi- neering on a massive scale, dwarfing
anything you've seen on Earth." There are numerous drawings of
gigantic mining and excavating equipment (x-drones, control wheels,
sprayers, etc.) and patterns of excavations ("stiches", letters, and
so on). A number of Ranger, Surveyor, and Apollo phtographs are
included, all with mystifying cations - "Manufactured objects and
vehicle are visible in Mare Tranquillitatis" I certainly can't see
anything in that photo that corresponds to the caption. This book
reminds me of a Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston in
the late 1970s (?). Some guy had gotten permission to set up a book
display in the lobby of the main auditorium. His book was on "new"
explanations for a variety of geological phenomena. One of the photos
purported to show a lunar rock (Surveyor 7 ?) that really was the
dessicated head of a dinosaur! Yea, if you squinted, you could
imagine a crude similarity - it was elongated (the snout), there
appeared to be a fracture running parallel to the length of the
"snout" (the mouth), there was a more bulbous end (the head), with a
small depression for the eye socket. I never found out how the
NASA/Johnson folks let him on base.
I haven't seen the calendar book but I'll look for it. We have a few
quirky items in the collection, including the Atlas of Middle Earth!.
These were all added before my time.
Pete Banholzer
Goddard Library
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