109 lines
3.5 KiB
Plaintext
109 lines
3.5 KiB
Plaintext
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Date: 08-20-88 09:19
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From: Jerry Lewis
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To: All
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Subj: Mars, again
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EID:b4f4 11144a6b
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(Sorry to all sick of the Mars face. I'm sick of the B-2 discussion.)
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.
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Now that I've had a chance to take a close look at Mark Carlotto's article
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("Digital Imagery Analysis of Unusual Martian Surface Features," Applied
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Optics, Vol. 27, No. 10, 15 May 1988, pp. 1926-1933), I'd like to comment on
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it.
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.
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In spite of his title, Carlotto makes the elementary mistake of assuming
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what he is supposed to prove. Instead of discussing the "object, the
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"anomaly," or whatever, he begins by talking about "the face." Later, he
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identifies "teeth" in the "face."
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.
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There are not enough data for a conclusion as sweeping as the author makes
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in this paper. It's a case of making meaning out of background noise. As
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Martin Gardner notes, "If you search any kind of chaotic data, it is easy to
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find combinations that seem remarkable."
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.
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There are only 4 images of the object from the Viking photos, and 2 of
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those do not have sufficient resolution to be useful. Of the 2
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high-resolution pictures, 35A72 and 70A13 are both in afternoon light with a
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sun zenith angle difference of only 17 degrees. It's unfortunate that we
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don't have hi-res photos of the area taken at other times of day. They would
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undoubtedly settle this once and for all.
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.
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Figure 3 on p. 1928, a local contrast enhancement of the object by Carlotto
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(from 70A13) is an interesting picture. Turn it upside down so that your mind
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doesn't see a "face" so easily. Now you can see that the object looks more
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like an unusual - but probably natural - geological formation. The tendency
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for humans (even humans with Ph.D.'s) to find patterns where there are no
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patterns is certainly powerful, particularly where faces are concerned.
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Date: 08-20-88 09:20
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From: Jerry Lewis
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To: All
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Subj: Part 2
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EID:b4f4 11144a97
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The author concludes that "the close proximity of unusual objects...to the
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face increases the likelihood that this collection of objects is not
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natural." I don't see anything terribly unusual in anything southwest of the
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object at all. All I see are natural wind-sculpted formations. Typical
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Martian terrain.
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.
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Even if one of the objects does turn out to be a pyramid, it proves
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nothing. It looks much cruder than the many pyramids found in natural rock
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formations in Arizona.
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.
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Finally, I was extremely surprised that Carlotto cites "The Face on Mars"
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(Pozos) and "The Monuments of Mars" (Hoagland). Scientific papers don't
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normally cite flim-flam. It's like finding a reference to a Shirley MacLaine
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book in a scholarly paper on geology.
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.
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I find it significant that Carlotto cites none of the experts who actually
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work with the Viking photos. Pietro and Molenaar, who Carlotto does cite,
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have no expertise in Martian geology or in photo-interpretatio (according to
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Conway Snyder who was a key figure in the Viking project at JPL).
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I'd like to see the referees' report on this paper. Perhaps they were so
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facinated by the computer enhancement techniques (which are state of the art)
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that they ignored the ridiculousness of what was being enhanced. So far, in
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the latest issues of Applied Optics I could find, there have been no
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rebuttals.
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.
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I wish Dr. Carlotto would now use his image enhancement techniques on my
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two other favorite Martian formations: the 5-mile wide Happy Face and the
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Kermit the Frog formation.
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---
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* Origin: Verbose Ink * WOC'n with Words * Big D * (Opus 1:124/125)
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