People Seeing Life on Mars

Ward C. Diehl writes "Tech Central Station has an article detailing the latest round of Martian visions, over 100 years after Percival Lowell's canal 'sightings'. The article interviews astrobiologists, including Nobel laureate Richard Roberts, and one astronomer from the fringe. The latest photos from Mars Express, Opportunity, and Spirit are interpreted as sea shells, pyramids, Nasca-like lines, etc. and one truly freak-deaky crab claw. There's a great link list at the end of the article so we have a gallery these photos. Prepare to blow your Friday afternoon productivity!"

Life on Mars seeing people

[Anonymous Coward]

"Look Gloria, I'm telling you... this ship came crashing down, and started taking pictures... and then it drove off. It was a UFO from Earth! I swear!"

Re:Life on Mars seeing people

[Alsee]

C'ole: I see Earth people.
M'alcolm: In your dreams? [C'ole shakes his head no] While you're awake? [C'ole nods]
C'ole: Walking around like regular people. They don't see each other. They only see what they want to see. They don't know they're Earth people.
Malcolm: How often do you see them?
Cole: All the time.

...

Eventually we (and M'alcom) come to the shocking realization that M'alcom himself is an Earth person.

-

Freaky deaky?

[nocomment]

I don't think I'd call "material from the airbag" (what nasa thinks that image is of) "freaky deaky".

"Blow Friday afternoon productivity?"

[fygment]

It's Friday and you're on /. Fair bet the Friday productivity can't be blown much more.

Enterprise Mission

[JabberWokky]

The guy from the Enterprise Mission is a regular on Coast to Coast AM (aka 'Art Bell's show'). He's great fun to listen to... a real, genuine kook. He's been raising money to go to Washington to show pictures to congresscritters and convince them that there's life on Mars and there's a government conspiracy against it. He thinks that the Spirit and Opportunity were reprogrammed by MiBs right as they landed - that's why they had to reupload... to insert filtering software to hide the artifacts the probe accidently landed in the middle of.

I'm not a big fan of George Noory, but Art's been hosting on weekends again. Yay.

--
Evan

-1, Offtopic..

[jasno]

I love that show. Where else can you hear people who simultaneously believe in angels, aliens, christianity, ghosts, exorcism, satan, cow mutilation, bigfoot, mind control, underpants gnomes, psychic powers, the afterlife, etc..

At least if you're going to believe in a fantasy, pick one that's internally consistent.

Re:Enterprise Mission

[DynaSoar]

JabberWokky (19442) sez: "The guy from the Enterprise Mission is a regular..."

Regular is not the word I'd use. Apparently he went on Art Bell claiming that pretty much all the visible rocks around Spirit were machine parts. Bell went along with it at first, but by the second day backed off and said "Actually, they all just look like rocks!"

It's so sad when close kooks* fall out.

[* Not in any way flamage. I participate with these guys in their usenet groups regularly. I use the term fondly.]

Snow day ;-)

[Fubar420]

Well, seeing as the entire town is iced over, I think my friday afternoon productivity will come back when the sun does

Pyramids look cool

[RobertB-DC]

Of all the images linked, I think the "Pyramid and underground entrance (at the apex of the pic [esa.int])" is the most interesting. Sure, there are plenty of non-ET explanations, especially since the view looks pretty skewed. But if there were to be one visible artifact of some long-dead civilization, it would probably be some mostly flat structure on the top of a mound. Anything in a valley would probably have gotten covered up by the dust.

But let's get one thing straight. Even if it does turn out that these shapes were created by intelligent hands, it does NOT mean that ancient Martians built the Egyptian or Mayan pyramids. A cone is simply a stable structure. Saying that Earthly pyramids must have been built by Martians is like saying that the doodlebug holes [antlionpit.com] and ant mounds [tamu.edu] in the back yard were built by the ancient Egyptians.

Re:Pyramids look cool

[bill_mcgonigle]

Mate, that's not an ant hill, that's [adventure-...tralia.com] an ant hill.

Re:Pyramids look cool

[eglamkowski]

Pyramid? Why on earth (heh - pun intended :-) would anybody make that assumption when right here on earth we see pieces of particularly erosion resistant rock that stick up in a way that, if covered with dust and viewed from a satellite could very well look similar to this picture.

First thing that came to my mind: Devil's Tower. [google.com]

Re:Yet another kook

[M1FCJ]

I just had a look at this page, this guy's a nutter. He's a perfect case. I just can't believe it. Arrrrgh! I'm ashamed of being a human if this guy is also called a human! (No problem, he calls himself some sort of god apparently).

Surface object lander debris

[tjmcgee]

I find the lack of interest that NASA has shown for the "claw" as the article puts it, to be very interesting. I'm relatively convinced that it must be a piece of the airbag or possibly debris that was ejected when the pyros were fired to release the rover.

What I don't understand is why NASA hasn't released another image from a different angle. Aren't they at all interested in what part of the lander/rover it is? If they intend to use the airbag method for landing probes on Mars in the future why don't th

Re:Surface object lander debris

[hurtstotouchfire]

I know. It's really tempting to think conspiracy. I definitly agree that NASA doesn't need to use gossip magazine rumors to attract attention. And I'd definitly like to think that if there was a chance they'd found something, NASA would be excited, and would really look into it. If not what are we doing up there? I'd definitly like to believe that.

David Grinspoon: "We like it when people get excited about Mars exploration. Why would we ever hide the most exciting thing we could find?"

There is of c

Ignoring Surface object lander debris

[explorecraft]

It appears to be one of those organizational senility things, just another indication that despite Challenger+Columbia, the personality of the organization re-asserts itself on its suicidal path of oblivious disregard for tell-tale signs of impending disaster. The 'crab-claw' was probably a piece of airbag that is now imbedded in the undercarriage, awaiting a crucial moment to bring the rover to a halt. Notice the latest disregard for the slippage while going up slopes? The official proclamation is that all

Outer Limits

[ghost.]

The latest photos from Mars Express, Opportunity, and Spirit are interpreted as sea shells, pyramids, Nasca-like lines, etc. and one truly freak-deaky crab claw.

Anyone who's seen the Outer Limits episode "Invisible Enemy" (starring Adam West, circa 1960-something) already knows that Mars is inhabited by large, blood-thirsty creatures with crab-like claws. Awful, awful episode.

doubtful

[uslinux.net]

order can be occasionally found in chaos. but it's still chaos. let the scientists do their thing, and I'm *sure* they will let you know when they're definitely found something.

Re:Here's one that's just strange..

[CptNerd]

You post about some dome-looking thing, and completely ignore all the sandworms [usgs.gov] in the context pictures?

What, are you working for the Fremen?

Nasa finds a crab claw...

[weeboo0104]

Dr. Zoidberg I presume?

I found what I was looking for...

[Klatoo55]

We all have a tendency to perceive what we expect to be there. It only takes one certifiable nut to post something up, and the pictures are swarmed with people blindly confirming the initial opinion. I refer to the now-famous martian "face". Sure, it looks like a face. I know of several Earth-based sites which have topographical similarities to a face. Seeing as we are biologically equipped to recognize patterns, it should come as no surprise that we see something other than what really caused the rese

Face on Mars; Lowell Canals

[Latent Heat]

What I find interesting about the Face on Mars is that it sure freakin' looks like a face at low res, but at high res it breaks up into mountains and ridges and the face disappears. Come to think of it, I see the Man in the Moon everytime the full Moon is visible, but in a detail lunar map of the Near Side, I no longer see the Man in the Moon.

Sky and Telescope just did a thing about Lowell's Canals. Traditionally, planet photos are just a blur while skilled observers claim to see all kinds of stuff by waiting for glimpes of "good seeing." Look at any traditional astronomy textbook and you see these awful photos of Mars and Jupiter and Saturn. It turns out that some amateurs with CCD or WebCams can sift through tons of blury images to find the few good ones and and then use image software to stack to good images to build up contrast. Using such advanced imaging techniques, they showed some images where if you use your imagination somewhat, you can see Lowell canals.

What I want to know if there is much of any correspondence between spacecraft images of Mars and what is scene from Earth-based telescopes. The Man in the Moon is mainly three of the larger maria forming two eye sockets and a kind of Mr. Bill oooooo mouth. Stuff like Syrtis Major and the light and dark markings -- are those just wind-blown albedo features or do they correspond to some kind of continental-scale topography? How big are the Lowell Canals compared to Vallis Marinaris (I imagine Vallis Marinaris while honkin big is below what can be seen from Earth, maybe like trying to see the Grand Canyon from the Moon, but how far off is it?).

Truer words have never been typed.

[wafwot]

To quote Boston, "Everything looks unusual when there aren't enough pixels." How true. How very true. I used the same resolution and found a crab on a picture of one of my favore porn stars. Creepy. If I could somehow gain control of a Mars satellite, I'm sure I could snap some pictures over the variety of deserts it has that people could say, "Hey! Look at that two pixel mass! It must be a Mars elephant!!" Regardless of where we're photographing, I think it's very important to remember that in cases lik

Re:Truer words have never been typed.

[fredrik70]

um , mars got an atmosphere. It might be a bit thin, but it's there

I don't believe there's life on Mars now...

[Mistshadow2k4]

...but a few million years ago? Yeah, very possible. The only problem is that photos of the surface aren't going to turn up much. We need to dig on the surface, and dig deep. But even if we don't find the remains of life, who knows what else we might find? Perhaps we shouldn't be so focused on finding life and be looking to see what we can find.