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Some very interesting and intriguing images from the Perserverance cameras, analysed by Joe White at Art Alien TV:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENnQQngN99s&t=316s
Certainly up there in the Top 100 I think.
Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com
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I watched part of the video. I can remember reading that the human brain has an evolved ability to recognise familiar patterns in random objects, especially faces. We tend to see faces in clouds, in wallpaper, etc. Over the years, humans have imagined that random star formations draw pictures of bears, of warriors, of beautiful women. Our brains are innately programmed to draw out familiar patterns, even if they are entirely coincidental.
This guy was talking about a rock at the Perseverance landing site that is shaped a bit like a baboon skull. But if we look at the sheer number of rocks strewn across the landing site and consider that most of them aren't really eroded that much compared to similar rocks on Earth, it isn't really a big coincidence that some of them happen to be roughly shaped like objects we are familiar with at certain angles. When you combine that with the tendency of the human brain to fill in gaps in our cognition to produce familiar objects, especially faces, we end up seeing things in these rocks that aren't really there.
Twenty years ago, there was a whole load of quasi-religious conspiracy theories surrounding the Cydonia region on Mars. One of the pictures taken by the Viking orbiter showed a hill which looked a lot like a human face. In later images, the face was gone. In the Viking image, the combination of contours and shadow had produced a pattern that immediately triggered facial recognition in the human brain. I would suggest that the same thing is happening with the baboon skull.
Last edited by Calliban (2021-04-30 02:08:53)
"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."
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I am keeping a totally open mind on the subject.
Whilst it's true that pareidolia means we are very adept at imagining we can see faces in things, equally, it's quite odd I would say to see such a large number of objects with more than just facial indications but also, it appears, what looks like teeth in the right place.
A second point is that claiming it is all about recognising faces is misleading. Take for instance this item:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucy8boYwSeQ&t=318s
A jug on Mars? I'd say there's no ambiguity about the raw image. It looks like a jug with a very regular, bevilled body and a clear handle, well defined by the way the light is falling on it.
I'd say this is one of the best "anomalous" images. To dismiss it out of hand is absurd. I do not rule out the possibility this is some freak of nature but I have never seen such a regular object with what looks like a handle produced naturally on Earth. I think it's for you to explain what natural process could produce a regular object with a handle.
The question I would ask as well is this: "Did no one at NASA notice that image? Did no one say - that's crazy, we need to go take a closer look and get a better picture..." ? That's a puzzle in itself.
I watched part of the video. I can remember reading that the human brain has an evolved ability to recognise familiar patterns in random objects, especially faces. We tend to see faces in clouds, in wallpaper, etc. Over the years, humans have imagined that random star formations draw pictures of bears, of warriors, of beautiful women. Our brains are innately programmed to draw out familiar patterns, even if they are entirely coincidental.
This guy was talking about a rock at the Perseverance landing site that is shaped a bit like a baboon skull. But if we look at the sheer number of rocks strewn across the landing site and consider that most of them aren't really eroded that much compared to similar rocks on Earth, it isn't really a big coincidence that some of them happen to be roughly shaped like objects we are familiar with at certain angles. When you combine that with the tendency of the human brain to fill in gaps in our cognition to produce familiar objects, especially faces, we end up seeing things in these rocks that aren't really there.
Twenty years ago, there was a whole load of quasi-religious conspiracy theories surrounding the Cydonia region on Mars. One of the pictures taken by the Viking orbiter showed a hill which looked a lot like a human face. In later images, the face was gone. In the Viking image, the combination of contours and shadow had produced a pattern that immediately triggered facial recognition in the human brain. I would suggest that the same thing is happening with the baboon skull.
Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com
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The unenhanced image looks to me like a roughly spheroid rock with a discontinuity stuck to the side of it. It could simply be the way that rock happens to have cleaved and the way the light catches it, which makes it appear to be a handle from our point of view. The problem is, we are seeing a single image with limited resolution, from only one angle at one time in the Martian day. It is interesting, but it could easily be the result of a trick of the light. For example different surfaces on the rock having different orientation and reflecting sunlight towards us at different intensity, with the sun low on the horizon, in a way that indicates a shape that isn't really there. Rather like the original Cydonia images. The enhancement is then carried out to emphasise the viewer's own interpretation of what he sees. The same with the gorilla skull. If you take a photograph in a wood, say, a tree stump at the right orientation and with the right frame of light can look like a troll. I have seen odd things like that in photographs and I bet you have too. Most people wouldn't jump to the conclusion that the photograph provided strong evidence of trolls.
Because no one has ever been to Mars and many people are excited by the prospect of alien life, we tend to have an inbuilt confirmation bias when it comes to explaining anomalies on photographs. It is tempting to interpret shapes that we cannot see properly as familiar objects that confirm what we want to see.
Last edited by Calliban (2021-04-30 05:13:56)
"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."
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