I'm Baaaack!

Ok, I just got back from my trip to Las Vegas and LA. The lecture went really well. I'll be getting back to issues on this blog over the next few days.

JimO,

I'm now ready to address any grievances you have against me regarding the issues you keep bringing up. If you could just put them into a concise, bulleted list so I can address them one by one, rather than have to troll through numerous emails and blog posts, I would appreciate it. You can either post it here or send it to my private email. Please express a preference as to whether you'd like a public or private response. I'll have it for you in a few days, after I get caught up on bills and such.

Mike

Press Conference News and Notes

Looks like we made the front page of the Pravda RU web site: http://english.pravda.ru/science/mysteries/31-10-2007/99895-moon-0

More to come as I get it...

Mike

Update: Added some images from Russian television taken at the presser...

Quickie Press Conference Update

I spoke with Richard briefly this evening. He's exhausted, as am I (I'm travelling) and he said that the press conference went really well, with special attention from the Russian News networks. That's about all I know. He promsied to call tomorrow with a blow by blow.

I'll be in Vegas and LA all this week, so updates will be brief and comments may take awhile to moderate. Please be paitient, we'll have more news soon.

Mike


UPDATE: Bill O'Reilly's radio show called today and may have Richard on at 1:07 eastern if we can make the connection.

UPDATE UPDATE: According to Richard, the US press was scarce, as the Washington Post sent a reporter but as yet hasn't written a story. As I mentioned, Bill O'Reilly's office called, but Richard has been unable to establish contact.

The foriegn press was a different story. They showed up in droves, especially the Russians, who sent no less than 4 TV networks to cover the story and interviewed Ken and Richard for hours on end. They seem facinated by the Kennedy-Kruschev aspects of "Dark Mission." We'll have more after I get to LA on Friday.

Mike

The Empire Strikes Back

As we expected, NASA has responded to the success of our book "Dark Mission" by lashing out at us and those close to us. The response came in the form of a direct personal attack by "science reporter" James Oberg of NBC news, who wrote to Kay Ferrari of JPL last week and made a series of spurious accusations against Ken Johnston for his public role in supporting "Dark Mission." Subsequently, Ferrari asked Johnston to resign his position as a JPL "Solar System Ambassador." Johnston refused.


Despite Johnston's adamant refusal to resign, Ferrari subsequently ordered the removal of Ken's profile from the JPL website. Fortunately, we preserved a copy of it here.

Ferrari made it clear that her request was made specifically because Johnston is quoted in "Dark Mission," not because Johnston has different opinions on space issues of the day. In fact, JPL employees are guaranteed a right of free speech in their agreements with the laboratory and members of the SSA program are encouraged to express their own opinions in helping to promote space exploration to the public.


Oberg's involvement is particularly disturbing, since as a "science reporter" covering NASA he is supposed to take an impartial stance regarding any controversial news stories about the agency. Instead, by sending Ferrari the information on Johnston and questioning his credentials (which Oberg, as a former colleague of Johnston's, knew full well were valid), he has taken an advocacy position in favor of the agency.


We certainly hope that NBC News has the journalistic integrity to question why one of their employees is taking a partisan position in a news story he should theoretically be covering. Indeed, NBC should consider recusing Oberg from any involvement in covering our upcoming press briefing in Washington DC.

New Panorama Confirms NASA's Color Problem

We have now found a color panorama (PIA01907) which actually shows the rover color calibration dial and the Martian sky above. Once again, when we correct the color so that the dial appears as it does on Earth in normal light, the sky on Mars goes from the absurd NASA "Technicolor red" to a fairly normal "Arizona Blue."

So again, why does NASA keep modifying the color images taken from the surface to make Mars appear alien and forbidding?

(We will be posting a full size version of this image later on Dark Mission.net)

A Note About Terms of Service For This Blog

Everyone,

This blog is for a serious discussion of the issues raised by our book "Dark Mission." As the moderator, I'm not going to allow endless circular discussions, smart-ass postings with no meaningful contribution to the discussion, or repetition of the same arguments over and over again after a question has been asked and answered. I've been a bit lenient to this point, but if your post does not appear it is because I have it deemed it to fall into one of these categories.

Because our book is off to a good start, I expect the amount of ad hominem attacks and rabble rousing by our critics to increase. I will not allow this blog to degenerate by allowing this sort of behavior.

Criticism of our data and arguments is certainly allowed, as long as it is informed criticism that invites a serious response.

These are the rules. If you don't like it, don't post here.

A Message From the Authors

Several people have emailed us complaining about the lack of books actually appearing in bookstores. Our publisher, Feral House, has printed and delivered books to their distributor's warehouse, and in fact has already ordered a second printing. The books are currently on their way to fill orders from Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble and other outlets. This delivery process takes from a few days to two weeks, depending on the physical proximity to the distributors warehouse and other factors. We expect bookstores and Amazon customers to begin receiving their copies as early as next week. We implore you to be patient and allow time for the distributors to do their jobs. Please do not complain to Feral House, they have already provided the books, which is all they can do at this point. We know that all our readers will be pleased with the final product when it arrives early next week.


-- MB & RCH

Hyperdimensional Sales Numbers

Thought some of you might find this amusing.

Ken Johnston Answers Commentors Questions

For the most part I have been researching material for another book, but I will be more vigilant in checking this Blog and responding.

My apology for not getting back and responding to some of your statements. For the most part, I appreciate your comments and agree that we need more of the “common” folks to tell their stories so that we can piece more of the puzzle together.

Now for “The Wizard of OZ” coming out behind the curtain. I wasn’t aware that the person questioning my "first hand experience" didn’t know how to type“Ken Johnston” into the Internet and find out about my entire history. However for the record; I am now 65years old. I hold a BS in Aerospace Engineering from Oklahoma City University and two advanced degrees from the Reformed Baptist Seminary, one in Theology and the other PhD in Metaphysics.

I worked at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX from 1966 through 1980 for several prime contractors. During the first half of the Apollo program I worked for the Grumman Aerospace Corp. as a Consultant Pilot and Astronaut Liaison officer. I substituted for the Astronauts during over 3,000 hours at the controls of the Lunar Module space craft. There were 5 of us with Grumman that were the test pilots on the LM. One of us had to be in the spacecraft at all times when there was an astronaut present to answer any questions they might have and to help teach them how to fly it. The five of us went through the same training that the Astronauts had including physical fitness, zero-g training, avionics, propulsion, astronautics, etc.

After the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon most of us engineers with Grumman got (RIF) laid off so I moved over to the Lunar Receiving Laboratory where I became the Manager of the Data and Photo Control department which put me in control of all mission photography,which is how I managed to be able to get a set of pictures donated to my Alma mater. Later I worked on the Shuttle Space Suit assembly as an engineer and test subject where I flew hundreds of parabolas in NASA’s KC-135, also known as the “Vomit Comet”. I have done vacuum chamber tests and underwater Zero-G tests. While in the USMC I flew faster than twice the speed of sound in the F-4 Phantom back in 1964. I have flown at over 60,000 feet altitude and know what it is like to be up where the air is really thin. Later I worked for Martin Marietta at Vandenberg AFB during the construction of the Shuttle Launch facility called “Slick 6”. In 1984 I went to work for the Boeing Company where I retired in 1998 as a Boeing 737 Flight Instructor.

So I hope this answers some of the questions regarding my first hand experience. I am new to blogging and as a rule I am not much of a computer expert in getting in and out of the blog’s. I hope you will excuse my faults and I will try to be more responsive in the future. Keep up the good work.

Dark Mission Release Date Set

Feral House will Release "Dark Mission - The Secret History of NASA" By Mike Bara and Richard C. Hoagland to bookstores on October 9th, 2007. Copies of the book should begin to arrive in your local bookstore on or around that date. Previously, Dark Mission has been available only through pre-order at Amazon.com and other major online retailers. Dark Mission currently ranks as the #1 best seller in Amazon's "Astrophysics and Space Science" category.

Ken Johnston Calls Again for NASA Vets to Come Forward

After reading all the postings to this blog for the first time, I was hoping to find that someone besides myself had come forward with more information andevidence. It would be nice to have more FIRST HAND experience and knowledge from others that would provide additional support for the events that I mentioned in my first posting.

Do Masons as a whole have any idea how DEEP their organization goes? NO, only those who have been selected and RAISED to the higher levels have ANY IDEA as to the knowledge and power that perhaps only 1 percent has access to.

It is frustrating to me when someone who wasn’t even born when we went to the Moon tries to claim that we never went there, because it is impossible for an astronaut in a space suit to crawl through the door in the lunar module. I can speak from FIRST HAND EXPERIENCE. I was one of the 5 test pilots for the Grumman Aerospace Corporation that built the Lunar Module where I had the privilege of helping to develop the procedures for ingress and egress of the LM. I wore the complete Apollo space suit assembly and made many trips in and out of the front hatch and have lots of NASA photographs and films of me doing just that.

Where do we go from here? It is just like trying to put together your genealogy. The first thing to do is find everyone you can who was ALIVE BACK THEN and get their statements recorded and notarized. Just like people at Roswell, NM had to do. As with any documentary, there was a lot going on behind the scenes. So many of the true Apollo scientists have started DIEING OFF and we absolutely have to get their memories recorded NOW. So, help us capture the TRUTH behind the truth, I issue the same challenge as before: “Now it is up to those of us who know the truth to stand together and shout it out loud for all to hear.” You can contact me through this blog and I will see that your story is told. We need to get together and start trying to find other people that were involved in the SPACE PROGRAM. People like me who know the truth.

Ken Johnston - Lunar Module Pilot

NASA Continues to Hide The True Colors of Mars

On August 5th, 2004, as the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit was making the slow climb out of Gusev crater on its way toward the so-called “Pot of Gold,” JPL commanded the rover to turn south and take a set of images of a nearby rocky outcrop and the plains (and rim) of Gusev beyond. The outcrop, nicknamed “Longhorn” by the MER-JPL team, contains a number of interesting “rocks” in the near field. Like the later Pot of Gold, the Spirit team has had a great deal of difficulty categorizing some of the objects seen in the images sent back.

However, what continues to intrigue us is not necessarily the inexplicable “geology” of the region, but rather NASA’s persistent commitment to deceive the public about the true nature and colors of Mars. As we have noted before -- and as will be further documented in Dark Mission -- NASA has a long-standing policy of altering surface images of Mars in order to make the sky and landscape appear to be an absurd “Technicolor red.” As we have established in previous articles, the Martian sky is blue, not red, and the red-shifting of the surface images from Viking to Pathfinder to now Spirit and Opportunity has resulted in the general public perceiving Mars as an alien, forbidding world.

In fact, it looks a lot like Arizona.

The latest proof of this came from the aforementioned images from the high rim of Gusev crater, cobbled together by NASA under image release PIA06770. We knew immediately that the red skies and rocks were phony (the caption calls it “approximate true color” – a NASA euphemism for “outright fake”), so it was simply a matter of adjusting the saturation and balance to bring out the real color of the scene. Fortunately, most imaging software contains a tool that makes this exceptionally easy.

By simply applying a color auto-adjust (or auto-equalize) tool, we can correct the deliberate red-shifting of JPL image processing and reveal the true colors of Mars, vs. the “approximate true colors” of NASA. This filter simply applies a flat equalization to the image – meaning that the image goes from over-saturated red to an equal balance in the primary red-green-blue channels – and more closely duplicates what the human eye would see if you were standing next to Spirit as the picture was taken.

Try it yourself. Download the official rover image from the JPL site, then, use the auto color-balance feature in your imaging software. We think you’ll be pleased and impressed by the results ... at least, until you also realize what NASA has been pulling all these years vis-à-vis the “real” colors of Mars ….

NASA apologists like “Dr. Phil” Plait have tried to muddy the waters on this question by claiming that it is really hard for NASA to get the color right, and that the inclusion of an IR band “pushes the images red.” Now try this tool and ask yourself how difficult it is to show the colors of Mars correctly.

As to the reasons why NASA continues to deceive the American public in this way, well, that is all covered in “Dark Mission.” But if you doubt that NASA does this deliberately, we’ll give you a chance to prove your position. Try to find an image – any "real color" image (not one taken through false-color IR filters) – from either of the Mars Exploration Rovers that shows both the color calibration wheel and the Martian sky in the same frame.

Good luck. And, stay tuned.