THE DAEDALUS ZIGGURAT – RUBUTTING DR. STUART ROBBINS’ SPECIOUS SCIENCE (PART 5 OF 5)

Part V – Confirming Images

AS11-44-6614 – A picture of a Ziggurat is worth 15,000 words...

From the beginning of his “analysis” Stuart (PS4NASA) questioned why, as part of our “due diligence,” Richard Hoagland and I didn’t scan the web for digital images from other missions. In his second post on the matter, he asserted his claim that;

“...other images of the same place taken by several different craft (including non-NASA ones), including images at almost 100x the original resolution of the Apollo photo, don’t show the feature”

Of course, we dispensed with the false “images at almost 100x the original resolution of the Apollo photo” claim in the previous post. But beyond that, there are several very good reasons why I never bothered to check for images of the Ziggurat area from other, more modern missions (including “non-NASA ones”).

 A) As I stated in Part IV, I don’t trust them (and with very good reason), and B) I didn’t have to. I already had two more photos taken by the Apollo 11 astronauts with a different camera and a different film. And they show, unequivocally, that it’s a Ziggurat.

But before we get to those photos, let’s go over a few other important points first.

The main reason I thought the Ziggurat photo was important enough to include in Ancient Aliens on the Moon was that it simply looked like a Ziggurat. I immediately recognized it’s similarity to the Ziggurat at Ur, in modern day Iraq, and those similarities persuaded me it clearly was artificial. The much debated “left” wall was only one aspect of making that case. There are just as many other features on the image that convinced me that it was likely real as the left wall did.

Artist’s rendition of how the Ziggurat at Ur once appeared

The Ziggurat at Ur has a more complex design, but in most aspects the Ziggurat at Ur and the Ziggurat at Daedalus are eerily reminiscent of each other.

What’s common to them both are angled exterior walls, angled front ramps and a square central “temple” with a single access ramp leading to it. There is an oval dome atop one of the entrance arches on the Ziggurat at Ur, and likewise there is a similar oval dome atop the central temple structure of the Daedalus Ziggurat.

One difference is that the area between the front ramps of the Daedalus Ziggurat is solid, forming what looks like a reinforcing buttress, whereas on the Ziggurat at Ur they are open. However, it could be that the space between them  was once open but has been filled in over the eons by dust and debris. If that was the case, they would be even more visually similar.

The Daedalus Ziggurat with key features identified

So then the question becomes” does the Daedalus Ziggurat really have these features or are we just seeing things,” as the critics always argue? As we’ve seen, on the official NASA version “5564.jpg,” it generally does not show these features. On “as1120pyramid20smallue2.jpg” it does. But as we have also established beyond any reasonable doubt, the left wall of the Ziggurat seen on as1120pyramid20smallue2.jpg has been obliterated with a paintbrush tool on “5564.jpg,” as has the left wall of the Temple structure. We will see further evidence to support this conclusion in a bit. But, we can still look at the other features; the ramp, the temple, and the dome on top to make a conclusion.

The Daedalus Ziggurat from “5564.jpg” (L) and “as1120pyramid20smallue2.jpg” (R)

There really is no disputing the wedge-shaped angled ramps at the front of the structure. They are visible in all versions of the images of the area, and if you trust the LROC or Kaguya/Selene data (which I do not for obvious reasons), they also have a significantly higher albedo (brightness) than the surrounding territory.

The Temple enlarged and enhanced

But where the real differences lay is in the Temple area. It is a square structure that appears to be at the exact lateral center of the overall Ziggurat. The central “entrance ramp” to the Temple comes across from the center of the northern wall, and there are four bright areas similar to windows on the shadowed left side. The corners of the Temple structure appear beveled, and there is a bright, horizontal stripe that seems to go all the way around the top level of the structure. The roof of the temple is much darker than the striping, and this darker area appears to be square. In the center of this darkened roof is a much brighter oval dome that is identical to the type of dome that is depicted in the artists’ reconstruction of the Ur Ziggurat.

Enhancement of as1120pyramid20smallue2.jpg with dome and entrance ramp emphasized

So, besides the left wall, any judgment I would make about any new images of the Daedalus Ziggurat would include an evaluation of these features. That includes “5564.jpg.”

Now clearly, Stuart (PS4NASA) is including “5564.jpg” when he makes his claim about “other images” not showing the feature. For the record, as far as Richard C. Hoagland is concerned, he agreed with Stuart’s (PS4NASA) assessment. I never did.

When I first looked at “5564.jpg,” I obviously noticed that the left wall had disappeared in a hail of black spray paint and so had the details on the shadowed side of the Temple. It also appeared, as I up-sampled and zoomed in, that the visual depth and the square shape of the Temple had also disappeared, along with the dark square roof and the dome. But then after saving a close-up of the Ziggurat to my hard drive, I noticed something exceptional; it had reappeared.

In looking at the thumbnail image generated from “5564.jpg,” I could suddenly see the top of the Temple again. As I pointed out in my first post -- and as Stuart (PS4NASA) generally ignored in his posts—this was because the full size image of “5564.jpg” lacked contrast in the Ziggurat area, and this denied viewers the key visual cues they need to deduce shape from shading. I got the same effect if I put the 5564.jpg image on my screen and then stepped back from it.

This is because in Windows, thumbnail images are simply smaller versions of the larger images they represent. By definition, as we’ve discussed, when an image is reduced it will get more pixelated and also more contrasty because of the reduction process.

That’s why when you look at the side-by-side comparison that Stuart (PS4NASA) created, they look very different. But are they really?

Better, but you can’t polish a turd, Beavis...

In the raw, everything but the angled front ramps all but disappear. Only if you step back can you see any hint of the darker, square rooftop or the brighter dome. But they are there. If you increase the contrast, you begin to see that the dome and the darker roof are still there, along with the entrance ramp. But again, because of the overall lack of contrast and because you can only do so much with enhancement, the 3D depth of the square temple structure mostly blends into the background.

What NASA did besides reduce the contrast was to paint in a couple of fake shadows. These fake shadows break up the visual cues that tell your brain that the Temple is there, that it is square, and that it is rising up above the Ziggurat’s outside walls. This is very effective at deceiving the mind into thinking there’s “nothing to see here, move along...” The fake shadow on the left side of the Temple also destroys the visual cues that the Temple has 3D depth, making it appear there is no left wall and also creating the illusion that entrance ramp is on the left side of the Temple area, rather than at the exact lateral center as it is in as1120pyramid20smallue2.jpg.

Just to demonstrate my point, I very crudely messed with the contrast (but nothing else) on “5564.jpg” to bring out the details which were now missing. The front ramps, the temple entrance ramp, the dome on top and Temple building itself can be greatly enhanced (or nearly erased) simply by isolating them and altering the contrast. Throw in a few painted in shadows and fake craters, and you could make Lincoln disappear from Mount Rushmore. And if you have access to the kind of high-end hardware and software NASA uses, it becomes even easier to cover your tracks.

So, a more proper comparison would be between the enhanced version of “5564.jpg” and “as1120pyramid20smallue2.jpg.” I think most normal people would concede it’s a much closer match than the raw unenhanced version of “5564.jpg.” But it’s not like I expected a fair comparison from someone like Stuart (PS4NASA) who’s proven to be deceptive and is a self-described “idiot.”

Now, I predict that Stuart (PS4NASA) will respond to this by claiming that I am experiencing something debunkers call “Pareidolia.” This is a supposed human tendency to “see patterns” in random noise where there really is no pattern. It is often used to dismiss the Face on Mars, but I will wait for Ancient Aliens on Mars to deal with that assertion. The actual truth is that there is no such thing as “Pareidolia.”  It's just a phony academic sounding word the debunkers made up to fool people into thinking there is scholarly weight behind the concept. It's actually a complete sham.

The word was actually first coined by a douchebag debunker (is that my first “douchebag” in this piece?! I must be getting soft) named Steven Goldstein in a 1994 issue of Skeptical Inquirer. Since then, every major debunker from Oberg to “Dr. Phil” has fallen back on it, but it is still a load of B.S. There is no such thing.

And, if Stuart (PS4NASA) accuses me of having a case of “Pareidolia,” consider this; if I am just “seeing things,” if nobody else is seeing the details I’m seeing, then why did he post so quickly attacking as1120pyramid20smallue2.jpg as a “fraud” in the first place? Remember, in that first post he never said we were just “seeing things,” he said it was a hoax and implied we were the perpetrators. So he certainly saw the not just the wall, but the Temple, the ramps, the dome, etc.

So over the course of these postings, we have now established several things regarding Stuart’s (PS4NASA) 2nd challenge to me. First, his claim that other images from other missions “don’t show the feature” simply isn’t true. The only reason he thinks that is because he’s been looking in the wrong place at images that don’t show the Ziggurat area in the first place, or is deliberately misleading his followers about the true location. Second, the images that have been found are either too low resolution for a real comparison, or they show signs of image tampering, as with the Kaguya/Selene data. Or, in the case of “5564.jpg,” they still show some of the features of the Ziggurat in spite of having deliberately altered to conceal it.

So having given up on finding any decent digital data from more recent missions, I began to look up the possibility that there were more confirming (or disconfirming) photos of the Ziggurat from the Apollo era. This search led me to look into the entire “5500” series taken around Daedalus the same day as the Ziggurat photo would have been taken.

First however, we need to understand just how to read the photo numbers themselves. In the case of AS11-38-5564, the “AS11” means the mission was Apollo 11. The “38” means photographic magazine 38, which has a secondary letter designation of magazine “O.” The “5564” is the specific photographic frame number.

The “38” magazine (magazine “O”) was loaded with the best film they carried, Panatomic-X 70-mmblack and white film, along with the best lens they had, the 250-mm lens. This meant that the “5500” series would be the best possible orbital reconnaissance photos the astronauts could take. The only variables were sun angle and that “haze” problem NASA seemed to be worried about.

So obviously it made sense to look at other online versions of the photos in this magazine.

In looking at the NASAphotographic map for Apollo 11 magazine “O,” (the blue outlines on the map above) there were a couple of possibilities for photos that overlapped the Ziggurat area. Frames AS11-38-5565, 5566, and 5568 were might have caught it. Of those, I found only one that showed the area clearly and in full; AS11-38-5568.

Watch the Ziggy disappear... AS11-38-5568 (“5568.jpg”)

To my disappointment (but not my surprise) I found that the Ziggurat had once again completely disappeared, leaving only a hint of the front ramps/buttresses that had been visible in all other images of the area. The temple had all but disappeared even under enhancement. This time, there wasn’t even a turd to polish...

But the weird thing was, it showed even less detail than “5564.jpg,” which at least could be enhanced to bring out some of the details seen in as1120pyramid20smallue2.jpg. The fact that AS11-38-5568 had been taken when the spacecraft was further away than “5564.jpg” could not account for the discrepancy. Again, in order to eradicate that level of detail, there has to be a conscious intervention driven by a specific agenda to achieve this level of alteration. “5564.jpg” and “5568.jpg” not only don’t match, they don’t even come close.

So I gave up on magazine “O” and the “5500” series

But, as you can see from the map below, I was in luck, because one of the other astronauts was also shooting photos at the same time. This series of photos is shown in red on the map and is from the “6100” series, or photographic magazine “P.”

So maybe I was in luck after all. From looking at the map, it appeared that frames AS11-41-6155, 6156, and 6157 were good candidates for coverage of the Ziggurat region. It was almost as if they were looking for something...

One of the good things about the magazine “P” 6100 series is that it used the same Panatomic –X black and whitereconnaissance film and 250-mm lens that was used on AS11-38-5564. This meant that even though the spacecraft might have been a bit further away (it was on a return trajectory to Earth at thousands of miles per hour) the quality of the photos should be comparable.

It was. But once again, the results weren’t.

6155.jpg (enhanced)

6156.jpg (enhanced)

6457.jpg (enhanced)

These four “6100” series photo scans showed pretty much the same thing as “5568.jpg.” Although you could see Stuart’s (PS4NASA) misidentified “X” very clearly, there didn’t seem to be much in the way of a Ziggurat, even under enhancement. The Temple, the dome and the other features were simply gone.

I found this very troublesome, because you could certainly see a lot more of the Ziggurat features in “5564.jpg.” But on these, those features were simply gone, as if they had been erased...

But I also knew that was a weak argument to stand on. After all, even though we have caught NASA at lying and manipulating images and data at least a dozen times over the years, there was still an audience new to these controversies that believed everything NASA said as if it was a pontification from the Pope of scientific materialism.

Fortunately however, as I pointed out at the top of this post, I do have confirming images which do show the Ziggurat, albeit at lower resolution than an unaltered scan of AS11-38-5564 would have shown it. But they are still at much higher resolution than anything that has been presented by Stuart (PS4NASA) to this point. And they are far less questionable than the usual NASA sources.

See, at the same time that two of the astronauts were photographing “targets of opportunity in the Ziggurat region, the 3rd astronaut (we might never know which one) was also taking photographs with yet another camera. This one was loaded with the SO-368 Ektachrome MS ASA64 color film the astronauts carried and most likely used the 80-mm lens. These photos come from Magazine “V,” or the “6600” series. This series includes the photo AS11-44-6609 that Ken had loaned me earlier and that I discussed in Part III.

It also includes two more photos, NASA frames AS11-44-6613 and AS11-44-6614, both of which specifically target the Ziggurat region. I found them on the Apollo 11 Flight Journal website. And as I examined them, I knew I could trust them, because unlike “5564.jpg,” and the others they hadn’t been messed with. And they both showed the Ziggurat, plain as day.

Both photos were obviously taken within seconds of the original Ziggurat image, but because they used different film and probably the 80-mm lens instead of the 250-mm lens as I mentioned, they aren’t quite as good. Still, they are more than good enough to confirm the presence of the Ziggurat.

And it’s a Ziggurat…

Of the two “6600” series images, 6614 is clearly a bit better because if you look at the map, the spacecraft was slightly closer to the Ziggurat’s location when it was taken.

In looking at the 3 images, my best guess is that AS11-38-5564 and AS11-44-6614 were probably taken at virtually the same time. This is because in both of those frames, the Ziggurat appears at the far right of the frame. But it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that unlike all of the other images (with the exception of “5564.jpg” if you work with it a bit), they show the front ramps, the square temple, the entrance ramp, the dark roof area, and the dome. And they have the shading and 3D relief that is consistent with the original Ziggurat image, as1120pyramid20smallue2.jpg.

Good...

Better...

Best...

When you look at 6614.jpg and compare it to the original Ziggurat image, I think it’s safe to say that most normal people would conclude they are comparable if not nearly identical. It’s simply that one was taken with slightly better camera equipment than the other.

That they are virtually identical and verify the same features becomes even more obvious when you simply overlay the two images on top of one another. I didn’t have time to do a proper bang-up job of this, but perhaps I will in the near future. But the point is made nonetheless...

as1120pyramid20smallue2.jpg overlaid on to “6614.jpg” at 50% transparency. Features align nearly perfectly with almost no adjustment.

So now I will wait with baited breath to see how Stuart (PS4NASA) explains this one. How exactly is that all of the NASA images identified from the map that AS11-38-5564 is on magically show nothing where the Ziggurat should be, but these two show pretty much what as1120pyramid20smallue2.jpg showed all along?

I’ll save you some time and tell you how. Obviously, the Ziggurat had been making the rounds of the internet for some time. Given the number of photographs of the thing, it’s actually possible that NASA was well aware of its existence even before Apollo went to the Moon. In any event, when it came time to post a scan of AS11-38-5564 to the web, the offending item was digitally removed. Then they went back to the maps and found the rest of “5500” and “6100” series, and they did the same to them. But they F****d up. They didn’t think to check the other maps and see if there were any other photos taken of the same region. So AS11-44-6613 and AS11-44-6614 slipped through the cracks.

And I found them.

I’m sure Stuart (PS4NASA) will never buy into this scenario. He’ll probably be reduced (pun intended) to a variation of NASA’s arguments against the Face on Mars, which are now amount to “It’s not a Face.” But what we now know beyond any reasonable doubt is that we have major discrepancies between the datasets. We have also established beyond any doubt that at least a significant portion of the NASA dataset has been compromised.

And THAT pretty much does it for Pillar #2:

“...why other images of the same place taken by several different craft (including non-NASA ones), including images at almost 100x the original resolution of the Apollo photo, don’t show the feature.”

But wait! There’s more...!

On the new images, the first thing I checked of course was the shadows. If Stuart (PS4NASA) is right about them, then the shadows on 6613 and 6614 should match the shadows on the official NASA version of AS11-38-5564. They should be absolute, pitch-black. But of course, they aren’t.

After converting to grayscale so I can do an apples-to-apples comparison, I checked the histograms, just as I did in my previous post. Not only are the shadows in dispute not all one color (pitch black), they are well away from black, in the lower mid-shading band between shades 69-85. In other words, they are nowhere near the absolute black that they are in the official NASA version of AS11-38-5564. This implies two things.

First, that there is actual light scattering going on around the Ziggurat. Sadly, because these images are lower resolution (but still well above the limits) we can’t get much data by enhancing these shadows. They are just too far away and the camera/film combination is not as good. But we can see that they are far from absolute black.

Now Stuart (PS4NASA) will probably argue that this is just “noise.” What he won’t mention is that it is “noise” in the mid-gray tonal range, not absolute black. If he was right, and there was nothing at all wrong with the official NASA version of AS11-38-5564, then the shadows would match, or at least be very close. They aren’t.

And that means (point #2) that these two scans, AS11-44-6613 and 6614, probably haven’t been tampered with. But quite obviously, the official NASA version of AS11-38-5564 has been.

Another cool thing we got from these two images that also indicts the authenticity of the official NASA version of AS11-38-5564 is what happens when we look at the sky. Under enhancement, (“Lighten Shadows...”) we can see that, like so many other images from Sinus Medii and Oceanus Procellarum and so many other regions of the Moon, that there are glass structures over the horizon scattering light everywhere.

AS11-44-6613

AS11-44-6614

Note that this soft, billowy “air glow” layer is completely consistent with other images we’ve studied over the years of these glass structures. They also, as they so often do, follow the local horizon. And, just as you’d expect from “real” glass structures, the geometry of the scatter is consistent with the lighting conditions. It is thickest/brightest directly across from the camera, and then fades at the edges.

I’m sure Stuart (PS4NASA) will try to explain this away as some kind of camera anomaly or lens flare, but tell me Stuart (PS4NASA), how does a lens flare KNOW the geometry of backscattered light? And also, we know what lens flares from Hasselblad cameras look like; they are hexagonal. These are not.

This also explains why NASA felt the need to take their paintbrush tool and black out the sky in the official version of AS11-38-5564. They didn’t want us to see the glass structures beyond the horizon.

 

Conclusions

So, to recap here, Stuart (PS4NASA) has issued 3 main challenges to me arguing that the Ziggurat is a hoax. These 3 pillars of his argument are that 1) Noise in the Ziggurat image suggests it’s a fake (proven false), 2) shadows on the Moon should be absolute black (proven false and even acknowledged by him in the comments section of his own YouTube video) and 3) that other images of the same area show no sign of the Ziggurat (proven false and proven that you weren’t even looking in the right place).

As we all know, a tripod is an inherently unstable structure, and all you have to do break one of the legs to bring it crashing down. In this case, I have shattered all 3 legs and in the process exposed Stuart’s (PS4NASA) inability to execute something as basic as finding a 2 mile square target on the lunar surface.

But honestly, I don’t think Stuart (PS4NASA) is stupid. Incompetent in certain areas for sure, but not necessarily stupid. Perhaps he just thought that all of his education and the degrees he earned made him smart enough that no one could touch him. Perhaps it is time for him to learn an axiom I learned in my 30 years working in aerospace engineering: Education and intelligence are two completely different things.

To Stuart’s (PS4NASA) fans who have put so much faith in him, perhaps it’s time for you to consider finding your own answers with an open mind, rather than digging your heels in and placing all your faith in someone just because he follows and defends the established orthodoxy. Time after time, I have dealt with NASA types and NASA sycophants, and each and every time when push came to shove they turned out to have clay feet. Stuart (PS4NASA) is in good company, at least.

I understand that the information people like Richard and I present makes you uncomfortable. I understand you want to turn away from it and pretend it’s not there. But as I pointed out in my last book The Choice, we aren’t going to have that option much longer. A lot of things that will make you a lot more uncomfortable than this are going to be coming out in the next few months and years. It will be easier if you just accept that, rather than put so much energy into fighting it.

Way back in this process, Stuart challenged me thusly: “I’d like to see what Mike will say to expose me as an idiot and show the NASA original is the one that’s been faked.”

Challenge accepted, and challenge met. Maybe it’s time for you to look in the mirror and reassess if maybe it’s you who’s doing the bad science. Everybody else already has all the evidence they need...



Dr. Stuart Robbins

 

Astrophysicist; heal thyself...

Important Links for Tonight

Important links for tonights show. Please go and download and store in a safe place: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/apollo/images/print/AS11/44/6613.jpg    http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/apollo/images/print/AS11/44/6614.jpg

Non-NASA Images, Where Are They? (Sucker Post for NASA's Dr. Stuart Robbins)

(Note to readers: This post was created as a "sucker post" to extract certain information from NASA's Dr. Stuart Robbins. For the full context in which it was created, please read "THE DAEDALUS ZIGGURAT – RUBUTTING DR. STUART ROBBINS’ SPECIOUS SCIENCE [PARTS 1 THROUGH 5"]) -- MB

 



As I expected, after my post the other night, Stuart Robbins responded on his blog with the usual twaddle about how dumb I am and how I get everything wrong. In it, he repeats his claim about images "100x" better than the Apollo photo AS11-38-5564 that "prove" there is no Ziggurat on the Moon. Not only that, but he claims that there are "non-nasa" images at the same "100x" better resolution that prove the Ziggurat doesn't exist. Here's the exact quote:

“Why other images of the same place taken by several different craft (including non-NASA ones), including images at almost 100x the original resolution of the Apollo photo, don’t show the feature.”

Now clearly here, he’s implying that there are images from “non-NASA” missions which don’t showthe Ziggurat on them, and further, that he has seen them. How else could he claim they “don’t show the feature” if he hasn't seen them? If true and these images exist, then he should produce them. The burden of proof is not on me to produce them, it’s on him. He’s the one claiming they exist, not me.
Of course, so far, all he has produced are NASA images of the area, which, given that they've already painted over parts of the Ziggurat, I don't exactly trust.

If there are such "non-NASA" images, then produce them, otherwise shut-up about them and admit you BS'd your readers into thinnking they ever existed in the first place.

Really? (Sucker Post for NASA's Dr. Stuart Robbins)

(Note to readers: This post was created as a "sucker post" to extract certain information from NASA's Dr. Stuart Robbins. For the full context in which it was created, please read "THE DAEDALUS ZIGGURAT – RUBUTTING DR. STUART ROBBINS’ SPECIOUS SCIENCE [PARTS 1 THROUGH 5"]) -- MB


So after a pleasant weekend of watching football and blocking the fake Facebook profiles of douche bags that don't even have the balls to use their real names, I came back to work today only to find I'm still very popular with the psychopathic cyberstalking hater crowd. My manager Adrienne Loska pointed me to a so-called rebuttal of my last post by "Dr." Stuart Robbins on his hate-blog.



I skimmed it, but most of it was so silly and just plain wrong that I felt my time would be better spent cleaning the cat box or working on the promotional tour for my new book, Ancient Aliens on the Moon. By the way, AAOTM is already up in the top 30,000 range out of 4 million books on Amazon.com. That's pretty good for a book that hasn't even been released yet, so thanks for all the pre-orders folks!

Anyway, in the course of skimming this latest attack ad from Stuart "I don't hate you, Mike" Robbins, I came across something so bizarre I just had to mention it. In the post, Robbins sets out 3 points that I have to "explain" to his satisfaction to get him to change his opinion that either Richard Hoagland or me "faked" the Ziggurat photo. Or at least that somebody did.

Now setting aside for a moment the issue of whether I give a shit what his opinion is, one of the points he wants me to explain was just too weird to pass up:

"Why other images of the same place taken by several different craft (including non-NASA ones), including images at almost 100x the original resolution of the Apollo photo, don’t show the feature."

That of course is not so weird, but then he fails to show any of these mythical images he claims exist save one. This one:



M118715682M

Yes, I'm serious. This is an image he's claiming has "100x" the resolution of the Zigguart photo. Based on this, he's claiming that the Ziggurat is just "a crater."



Really?

UPDATE: I see that Stuart Robbins has updated his blog yet again in response to this post. He now claims that, golly-gee, he never said that M118715682M was THE image that had "100x" the resolution of the Apollo image, it was actually the narrow angle camera image he was talking about. I'd like to believe him (OK not really...), but it's pretty hard when the only image he posted on the page that made the boast about "100x" resolution was the wide angle camera image. Plus, even if I wanted to look at the wide angle camera image and test his theory that it is close to the resolution of AS11-38-5564, I can't, because both the zoomable preview JPEG and the (supposedly) full resolution TIFF look like this:

Really...?

Hmm. I guess maybe the guys at NASA don't want anybody sniffing around this area, do they? This is just more proof that you can't trust digital images NASA produces. They must have posted this temporarily while they're busy painting over the Ziggurat.

So the truth is, neither of the images he's posted show anything like what he's claiming, and they sure as hell don't show the Ziggurat area in sufficient resolution to make a judgement about it.

Demotivational Poster - Image Enhancement - You're Doing it Wrong



The Wonders of AS11-38-5564



AS11-38-5564 – Why the Daedalus Ziggurat is Not a Fake -- And NASA's image Is...

“as1120pyramid20smallue2.jpg”The original Daedalus Ziggurat image as I found it on the web

Last week after Richard C. Hoagland posted the image of Daedalus Ziggurat that I had forwarded to him to the Coast to Coast AM website, a mini-controversy exploded on the web over it, with the usual suspects claiming that Hoagland had “hoaxed” the image or that it was a “fraud,” and if it wasn’t a fraud, then his inability to see it as a fraud was proof he was either a “liar” or “incompetent.” The chief purveyor of this nonsense was somebody named Stuart Robbins on his blog.



Of course, before Richard presented the image to the Coast to Coast AM listeners, Richard and I had done our due diligence on the it. Having found the image a few days before, I had already decided to make it a centerpiece of my new book “Ancient Aliens on the Moon.” I did not make this decision lightly, nor did it worry me that the image currently posted by NASA on the Lunar and Planetary Institute website had obviously been altered to reduce the chances of anybody spotting the artifact if they downloaded the source image, AS11-38-5564 (see my previous post, The Daedalus Ziggurat - The Real Story).

My original pyramid image “as1120pyramid20smallue2.jpg” came from the “Call of Duty Zombies forum. The original page where I found it seems to have disappeared, but there is another page in the forum with a colorized version of the image: http://callofdutyzombies.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=18032. However, the Google cache page still shows that the original un-colorized image was posted there recently, but has since been removed or the link is broken.

I also found a smaller version of it on this blog: http://themurkynews.blogspot.com/2008/08/introduction-connecting-current-events.html

The current NASA scan available online comes from: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/apollo/frame/?AS11-38-5564 and is the full 3 MB “Print Resolution” version.

Now in terms of Mr. Robbins “analysis” of the images, I will simply say that it leaves a lot to be desired. Let me also state that I am no Photoshop expert, like he claims to be, and lack the artistic talent to create anything like Daedalus Ziggurat. I found the image, posted by someone else, period. I enhanced it as best I could and passed it on to Richard for his opinion.

I do however know enough about image enhancement to know a few things that are relevant. First, because both “as1120pyramid20smallue2.jpg” and the currently posted NASA image are jpegs, they have quality issues and are not acceptable as research quality documents. In order to do a proper analysis, anyone accusing Mr. Hoagland or myself of fraud would have to obtain a research quality original of AS11-38-5564 and do a high-resolution scan of it under controlled conditions. Neither Mr. Robbins nor the other self-appointed defenders of science have done so. In fact, all they are doing is comparing one lossy jpeg document of dubious origin to another. Then, based only on their irrational bias toward NASA and against myself and Mr. Hoagland, they are jumping to the conclusion(s) that we are “frauds” or "incompetents." As I will soon demonstrate, we are neither.

One of the arguments that Mr. Robbins makes on his blog that he cites as evidence that we have “drawn in” the Ziggurat is that the image presented by Hoagland has a lot of “noise” in it. Since he was working with Hoagland’s enhancement of my enhancement, I guess we can cut him some slack on that. Or not.

The reason there is more noise in the original Ziggurat image “as1120pyramid20smallue2.jpg” is that it was probably scanned from an original and then cropped, enlarged, processed, and then prepared for publishing on the web. This is easy to see by the 72 DPI resolution, which is standard for images on the internet. This process will invariably make an image a bit noisier, but also easier to upload and download from. There is nothing nefarious or questionable about this. In fact, the “Save for Web” tool in Photoshop automatically changes the document resolution from say, 300 Dots Per Inch (the resolution of AS11-38-5564 on the LPI website image) to 72 DPI. This alone will induce noise at deep levels in the image, and contrary to Mr. Robbins assertion, is indicative of nothing except his desire to deceive his readers into thinking there’s something unusual about it. Jpeg’s are always noisy. It’s as simple as that.

Of course, if your intent is to deceive your readers into buying into your own petty biases and jealousies against people that are more important than you are, you go the extra mile, don’t you? What Mr. Robbins didn’t tell you is that a large chunk of the “noise” that appears in the image he “processed” was deliberately induced – by him.

On his blog post, as he’s describing his method of analyzing the image I gave to Hoagland, he lists this little gem:

“For the record, I took the original LPI image and rotated it clockwise 90°. I knew this was the starting point because of the shadows of craters in the image Hoagland presented. After finding the location, I rotated Hoagland’s image by 10.96°, and then I scaled Hoagland’s by 85.28%.”

Now, there is no question that the LPI image contains more information than “as1120pyramid20smallue2.jpg,” which was the source of the enhancement that I sent to Richard. This does not necessarily make it "better," as you will see. But given that, why would anyone of fair mind, especially a self-appointed expert in Photoshop who claims that “my work over the past twenty years doing image processing and analysis” qualifies him to pass judgment on myself and Mr. Hoagland as “frauds,” reduce our image to “85.28%?” That folks is exactly what he means by "scaled." In fact, anyone who knows anything about image enhancement knows that scaling/reducing an image induces more noise and reduces detail by design. Any competent image enhancement specialist would have enlarged the NASA image instead to bring it in line with the size of the original Ziggurat image. This upsampling process would have the effect of actually making the NASA image better, rather than making the original enhancement worse.

Original Ziggurat image (above) and reduced version (below) readers may judge for themselves which one is "better," but obviously the scaled down image is much worse and contains less information than the original.



Given that he claims that Hoagland and/or me “deliberately added noise and reduced the quality” elsewhere in his blog, this would seem to be kind of a big mistake, wouldn’t it Mr. Robbins? Unless of course, it wasn’t a mistake. Unless it was a deliberate act of deception designed to fool his less technical minded readers.

And of course, as usual, the gang that can’t shoot straight has made another huge error, one that proves that it is the official NASA image, and not ours, that has been manipulated. An error that anyone who claims to know anything about image enhancement would never make.

You see, Photoshop has a tool called a histogram. What a histogram does is analyze the dynamic range of a given image (or highlighted section of an image). This can act like a digital fingerprint to help us determine if an image or a part of an image has been manipulated or enhanced. In a grayscale image such as “as1120pyramid20smallue2.jpg,” or the official AS11-38-5564 image from the NASA/LPI website, the image has a possible range of up to 256 shades of gray. In reading the histogram, absolute black has a value of zero (0), and occupies the spot on the graph at the very far left. Pure, bright white would have a value of 256 and occupy the spot on the far right of the histogram graph. When we apply the histogram to the original image, “as1120pyramid20smallue2.jpg,” we can see that it has a fairly wide dynamic range, from color/shade 24 on the left of the graph (meaning something less than black) to color 184 on the right, which is something less than pure white. What this means is that the image has a dynamic range of 160 colors, or shades of gray, and the colors at the extreme dark and light ranges of the spectrum have been lost somewhere along the way. This is not ideal, but it does mean only that my original image has probably lost some shading information at some point.

The official NASA image however, is a different story. It contains the full range of 256 shades of gray, which would seem to mean it is a “better” image and more likely to be the authentic article. But the histogram graph for it also contains something curious.

There, at the far left of the graph, is shade zero, or absolute black. What is curious is that by far the most pixels in the NASA image are absolute black. In fact, color zero and the next few colors over (near absolute black) make up more than 33% of the entire image. What that means is that somebody put a lot of black and near black into the NASA image. Because in real life, almost nothing in any image is ever absolute black or white. So to find that (by far) the biggest number of pixels is absolute, perfect black is more than a little suspicious. On a properly processed image, the histogram should be pretty much a bell curve, bulging in the middle and then dropping off at both ends. The NASA image doesn’t do this. It spikes dramatically on shade zero; absolute black.

So what’s the most likely reason for this? I can think of only one. Somebody got this "official" NASA scan, took a paintbrush tool, set it to color zero, or absolute black, and went to town on it.

And I can prove it.

As you look at the Ziggurat image, obviously some of the most tell-tale signs of artificiality are in the shadowed areas, particularly the shadow cast by the west wall. In my enhanced version of the original, you can plainly see the wall and how it casts a dark – but not completely black -- shadow into the depression below.

The "Bara" Enhancement

But on the NASA version, this shadow is so dark that there is virtually no detail there at all. No wall, no shades of gray in the depression, just pitch-black darkness. Everything you need to see to confirm the wall and the artificiality of the Ziggurat is simply not there. It’s gone.

Adobe, the makers of Photoshop, are crystal clear on the meaning of this:

“If many pixels are bunched up at either the shadow or highlight ends of the chart, it may indicate that image detail in the shadows or highlights may be clipped—blocked up as pure black or pure white. There is little you can do to recover this type of image.”

The unenhanced NASA "official" version

In other words, it’s a deliberate manipulation of the image in question.

What the histograms show us is that while the image produced by NASA has a wide dynamic range, the areas of shadow, where the details that make the Ziggurat stand out as artificial might be found, have virtually no dynamic range. They’re absolute black. And that can only mean one thing; they were painted over by someone at NASA with a black paintbrush tool.

To test this, all we have to do is select one of the areas in question, and examine their histograms. The results are conclusive.

In the shadowed area where we can see the wall in the original version, virtually all of the pixels are absolute, indisputably black. The same applies to the dark area just behind the temple section of the Ziggurat. These specific areas of the image – the ones that would provide the smoking gun for the Ziggurat’s artificiality – have been “blocked up as pure black” by NASA.

Case closed.

Oh, I’m aware that the deceptive Mr. Robbins has tried to cover his ass by claiming that because of the lighting conditions on the Moon some areas are absolute black. But the fact is that, contrary to his fallacious claims that there are “no crater wall nor mountain to scatter light onto it,” there is a very bright, sunlit area just to left of the selection marquee that should be scattering plenty of light into the shadowed area, but isn’t.

Because NASA blacked it out.

Still don’t believe me? OK, here’s one more test. I’ll show you exactly where the brush strokes are...

You see, in Photoshop, there is another enhancement tool that’s commonly used in cases like this. It’s one that somebody with “20 years” of experience doing Photoshop should know about, but Mr. Robbins appearantly doesn’t. It’s called the “Adjust Lighting... Shadows/Highlights” tool. It contains a nifty little slider named “Lighten Shadows:” that allows you to, well, lighten shadows. Let’s see what it does to the shadows on NASA’s image.

Well golly, look at that. It allows us to see exactly where the goons at NASA applied the pure black paintbrush to the shadows around the Ziggurat. I’m shocked! Shocked I tell you!

OK not really. But one final point, if you look at the shadow where the western wall of the Ziggurat has been blocked out by the NASA paintbrush artist, you can see that he made a mistake and only covered the offending parts and not the complete shadow. Some of the area appears gray, and if we zoom up and scan it we can see that it contains a moderate range of gray shades. What this means is that Robbins assertion about there being “no light scattering” in the area is also proven wrong. Absolutely, completely wrong. It’s patently obvious to any competent Photoshop user that the original lighting in this area was almost certainly very close to the lighting seen in “as1120pyramid20smallue2.jpg.”

Which makes Mr. Robbins and his petty, venal lap dog "expat" flat, dead wrong. On all counts.

But I won't hold my breath waiting for an apology from the Confederacy of Dunces that are the "pseudoscience" attack crowd.

So as it stands, while we may not know the exact origins of the original Daedalus Ziggurat image, we know with absolute certainty that the NASA version of AS-11-38-5564 has been deliberately faked to hide something from us. My bet is it’s a really big Ziggurat on the Moon. They first tried to hide the Ziggurat by reducing the contrast to delete key visual clues (see my previous post, The Daedalus Ziggurat - The Real Story) and when that didn't do the trick, they took out the airbrush tool, set it to absolute black, and started spraying away.

As you examine your own copies of this image, you'll find many more obvious and artifcial structures on it. You'll also see that the sky above has been backed out, obviously to hide evidence of the glass ruins that Hoagland has theorized for more than a decade and a half. This is all par for the course with NASA, who has steadfastly lied for decades about what's really on the Moon, among other places. They have been aided in this over the years by a collection of what Lenin once called "useful idiots," like Bill Nye the Science Guy, Dr. Phil Plait, and others. Robbins and expat are wannabes, but they are no better at playing this game than big boys.

What I have proven here is that the chief critics of the Daedalus Ziggurat are not only wrong, they are foolishly and sloppily wrong. Either they didn’t want to study the images in the depth that I did before releasing it to Mr. Hoagland, or they simply lacked the intellectual capacity to do so. I lean towards the latter, but let’s face it, buffoons like Mr. Robbins and his expat are just haters who attack everything we do, no matter how many times we embarrass them. I doubt this will be the last time I choose to respond to these louts, but I certainly hope it’s now obvious they don’t know what they’re talking about.

I would say they were liars and/or idiots, but that’s their territory. The difference is I can actually prove what I say.

I shall pillory them no further...

The Daedalus Ziggurat - The Real Story

OK, Since Richard Hoagland decided to post the image of the Ziggurat near Daedalus that I sent him a week or so ago, a bunch of ... what's the right word, Haters? Morons? Have been attacking him over it and accusing him of fabricating it. I didn't really want to take any time from proofing my new book over this, but lies are lies and sometimes you can't let them stand. So here is my explanation and response, as posted to Facebook.

First of all, it is not Hoagland's Ziggurat, it's my Ziggurat. I'm the one who found it, I'm the one who named it, I'm the one who researched it, I'm the one who sent it to him, and it's going to be in my new book, Ancient Aliens on the Moon: http://astore.amazon.com/darkmissinet-20/detail/193548785X. so if you are going to accuse someone of fraud, it should be me not him. All Hoagy has done is improve on the image I sent him. Second, I do not know the source of the original enhancement, but it is said to be John Lear. Third, any competent photoshop user can easliy see that all of the features are there on the image from the LPI, but they have been contrast reduced to erase the visual cues that would make it stand out the way it does in the original. How NASA usually does this is to take an image, print it out, scan it again and then mess with the contast and then print it out (reduced) and scan it again. They probably reposted AS11-38-5564 after people started looking at it. Unfortunately, ever since we caught NASA red-handed in a bald faced lie with the internet archive in 2002, they pretty much don't let their pages be archived. That's what liars do. Liars also assume that others who disagree with them are liars, too, right Expat?

Next, if you enhance the Ziggurat area enough, you can bring out most of the features, including the ramps, the walls and the dome atop the temple. All you have to do is put the original side-by-side with an enhancement of the current 5564 and then stand back a few feet. If you have the ability to see 3D in your head it will jump right out at you, even though the "official" version has obviously been altered. But the best part is this isn't even the most interesting thing on the image. Can you find the tank? Can you find the gun emplacement? Can you find the flying saucer in a hanger recessed inside a mountain? Can you find the miles long retaining wall that terminates in some massive machine latched to a mountainside? They are all there, and more.

In closing, we may be able to find the original, unaltered version of 5564 in our analog archives, but even if we don't, I can promise you this; there is a lie here, and as usual, it's NASA's image, not our research.

PS - John Lear, or at least John Lear's Facebook page, has now declared he's not the source of the original Ziggurat image. The mystery deepens.

-- MB 7/25/2012

Ancient Aliens on The Moon is Complete!

I just completed the draft of Ancient Aliens on the Moon today! I'm very excited! It came out at 52,329 words, which will probably shrink a bit in the editing process. Now I have to proof it and get it to the publisher by the end of the week. Woo-hoo!

What is "ObamaCare" Exactly? - a Definition

ObamaCare, aka “The Affordable Health Care Tax” is a private product offered by a few companies which we will be forced to purchase or face a “penalty” which the Supreme Court has ruled is actually a tax. The amount of this tax has yet to be fully defined, but those imposing it have promised it won’t be very much. ObamaCare purports to cover 10 million more people (it does not purport to cover 10 million “Americans” or “American citizens” but only people living in the United States, i.e. illegal aliens). It purports to cover these additional 10 million people but has no provision for adding even 1 doctor. It does however provide for 16,000 new IRS agents to collect the “penalty” which the Obama administration  insists is not a tax, even though we all know that the IRS is only empowered under the law to collect “legal and lawfully due taxes” and as previously mentioned the Supreme Court has ruled that ObamaCare IS, in fact, a tax.

ObamaCare was passed by both houses of a democratically controlled congress in spite of the fact that the chairman of the committee who wrote it stated he didn’t understand it, the then speaker of the House (Nancy Pelosi) stated that she hadn’t read it, and it was passed by a vote along party lines by a democratically controlled Congress who exempted themselves from it. It was signed by a president who smokes and wholeheartedly endorsed by a Surgeon General who is obese.

The “penalties/taxes” collected will be administered by a Secretary of the Treasury that cheated on his taxes, and we will be taxed for 4 years before anyone -- American or not – receives a single penny of benefits. The bureaucracy will be run by the same people who have bankrupted Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security and financed by a government that has gone from $10 trillion dollars in debt to $15 trillion dollars in debt in just 3 ½ years. Oh, and the estimated  $2,085 per family “penalty” will fall mostly on families with a combined income of $120,000 or less.

That about sums it up.