Video Blog for December 21st 2012 - The End Cycle of the Mayan Calendar

Mike Bara Appearing on Coast to Coast AM Friday, December 21st, 2012

 

I will be appearing on Coast to Coast AM with George Noory on Friday, December 21st, 2012 to discuss the end of the Mayan Long Count Calendar cycle and book on the subject, "The Choice." Coast to Coast AM is the most popular overnight radio program dealing with the paranormal, with 1-4 million listeners each night.

Details to follow in the next few days.

http://www.coasttocoastam.com/

Connecticut School Shootings Generate More Proof of "The Force"

Yesterday on Facebook I posted a graph from the Princeton GCP concerning the school shootings in Connecticut. Some people didn’t quite grasp the significance of it, so I decided to create a quick blog post explaining it.

In my 2nd book “The Choice” I wrote about the work of Dr. Roger Nelson and the Princeton Global Consciousness Project, or GCP. The GCP has a network of 56 random number generators (“Eggs”) located around the world. The generators are run constantly, creating a vast database of readings that should, over time, produce a “null” result, i.e. a flat curve of randomly generated numbers. In the graph below, this is represented by the black dashed line.

Instead, we see that in over 350 test cases (the red dots), tied to worldwide global events such as the opening ceremonies of the Olympic games or 9/11, the results are way beyond the expectation and conclusively non-random. The 9/11 results were the most dramatic, showing that the eggs began to generate non-random number deviations hours before the attacks (a “tremor in The Force”) and resonated for days afterwards.

Black line is expected mean, blue curve is random variance prediction, red line is actual result.

Yesterday’s tragic school shootings in Connecticut also generated a similar, though slightly more subtle result. As the world learned of the events taking place at the school, the generators begin to ping non-randomly and well beyond the curve of probability. In other words, some unseen and undetectable force of human consciousness affected the generators as they resonated with the worldwide, emotional reaction to the news.

As I stated in The Choice, such a result is considered impossible by modern quantum physicists and rejected outright by the spiritually bereft scientific materialists who dominate our media. But yet, the results remain, and the odds against chance for this particular event are in the thousands to one. The overall odds against chance for all of the measured global events over the years are in the millions to one. Quantum physics can’t explain this. Only Hyperdimensional physics, as outlined in The Choice with its all-connecting Maxwellian aether, can.

So out of tragedy we have at least one more proof that we are all connected, that there is a Force of love out there that binds us all together. Such proof can at least give us hope and comfort knowing that there is something beyond this crude, material existence we all inhabit.

Appearing on Coast to Coast AM Tonight

I will be on Coast to Coast AM with George Noory tonight in the 1st (10PM) hour.

http://www.coasttocoastam.com/

Special Black Friday Pricing on Ancient Aliens on the Moon!

 

You can pick up my new book "Ancient Aliens on the Moon" over at Amazon on sale for only $13.57 right now! (Kindle edition is only $11.37). It's a great deal for that Ancient Aliens fan on your Christmas list!

 

As always, you can get a personalized, auotgraphed copy of AAOTM by sending $25.00 to my Paypal account at mike.bara.mgmt@gmail.com, and a portion of the proceeds goes to Feral Paws Kitten Rescue! 

On Strange Universe Radio with Sean David Morton 11-8-2012

I'll be on on Strange Universe Radio with Sean David Morton Thursday, 11-8-2012 from 9:30 PM - 11:00 PM discussing my new book Ancient Aliens on the Moon and the election results. You can listen in on http://www.freedomslips.com/

MB

Hmm....

From The Drudge Report: http://www.drudgereport.com/flash1.htm

FOREIGN COMPANY BUYS U.S. ELECTION RESULTS REPORTING FIRM
By Bev Harris
http://www.blackboxvoting.org

In a major step towards global centralization of election processes, the world's dominant Internet voting company has purchased the USA's dominant election results reporting company.

When you view your local or state election results on the Internet, on portals which often appear to be owned by the county elections division, in over 525 US jurisdictions you are actually redirected to a private corporate site controlled by SOE software, which operates under the name ClarityElections.com.

The good news is that this firm promptly reports precinct-level detail in downloadable spreadsheet format. As reported by BlackBoxVoting.org in 2008, the bad news is that this centralizes one middleman access point for over 525 jurisdictions in AL, AZ, CA, CO, DC, FL, KY, MI, KS, IL, IN, NC, NM, MN, NY, SC, TX, UT, WA. And growing.

As local election results funnel through SOE's servers (typically before they reach the public elsewhere), those who run the computer servers for SOE essentially get "first look" at results and the ability to immediately and privately examine vote details throughout the USA.

In 2004, many Americans were justifiably concerned when, days before the presidential election, Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell redirected Ohio election night results through the Tennessee-based server for several national Republican Party operations.

This is worse: This redirects results reporting to a centralized privately held server which is not just for Ohio, but national; not just USA-based, but global.

A mitigation against fraud by SOE insiders has been the separation of voting machine systems from the SOE results reports. Because most US jurisdictions require posting evidence of results from each voting machine at the precinct, public citizens can organize to examine these results to compare with SOE results. Black Box Voting spearheaded a national citizen action to videotape / photograph these poll tapes in 2008.

With the merger of SOE and SCYTL, that won't work (if SCYTL's voting system is used). When there are two truly independent sources of information, the public can perform its own "audit" by matching one number against the other.

These two independent sources, however, will now be merged into one single source: an Internet voting system controlled by SCYTL, with a results reporting system also controlled by SCYTL.

With SCYTL internet voting, there will be no ballots. No physical evidence. No chain of custody. No way for the public to authenticate who actually cast the votes, chain of custody, or the count.

SCYTL is moving into or already running elections in: the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Norway, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, South Africa, India and Australia.

SCYTL is based in Barcelona; its funding comes from international venture capital funds including Nauta Capital, Balderton Capital and Spinnaker.

Here is the link to the press release regarding SYCTL's acquisition of SOE:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/scytl-acquires-soe-software-becoming-the-leadin g-election-software-provider-2012-01-11

Snopes, owned by George Soros, denies Soros' involvement with SCYTL: http://www.snopes.com/politics/ballot/scytl.asp

On Darkness Radio Tonight in the Twin Cities



I will be appearing tonight on the Darkness Radio program on AM 1130 in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis/St. Paul at 9PM Pacific. Sorry for the late notice but this was a last minute booking. You can listen to the show on either the AM 1130 web site or on the Darkness Radio web site.

--MB

Signed Copies of AAOTM Now Available!

 

If you would like a signed/personalized copy of my new book "Ancient Aliens on the Moon," you can send $25.00 USD to my Paypal account at mike.bara.mgmt@gmail.com. I will get it in the mail to you within a few days!

On X-Squared Radio Tonight 10-14-2012

I'll be on the X-Squared Radio program tonight with Dr. Brooks Agnew from 6PM to 7:30 PM Pacific.

Be sure to tune in!

X-Squared Radio

Paranormal Review Radio Tonight



I will be appearing on Paranormal Review Radio tonight to talk about my new book "Ancient Aliens on the Moon" at 7PM Pacific. Here's a link to the show broadcast: Paranormal Review Radio

2012 Conscious Life Expo Saturday Night Banquet

All Photos From Ancient Aliens on the Moon Now Available Online

 



All of the images presented in my new book Ancient Aliens on the Moon are now available for viewing at my Picasa gallery at: https://picasaweb.google.com/108348453161239832103. Check it out!

Ancient Aliens on the Moon Now Available on Kindle!



My new book, Ancient Aliens on the Moon, is now available for download on Amazon Kindle. The hard copies should be shipping by next week!

-- MB

THE DAEDALUS ZIGGURAT – RUBUTTING DR. STUART ROBBINS’ SPECIOUS SCIENCE (PART 1 OF 5)

Part #1 - Introduction

OK, so as I expected, within hours of posting my response to Stuart Robbins’ claims that the Daedalus Ziggurat image was fabricated by either me or Richard C. Hoagland, Robbins responded.  As usual, he made a lot of assertions, many of which are false, most of which are misleading, and some of which are just plain deceptive. As I skimmed his detailed collection of claims and statements, some of them backed by actual math, I debated not responding at all. But then I noticed at the bottom, where he made it a special point of emphasis to say that he was “Dr. Robbins” not “Mr. Robbins,” and I got curious as to who he really was. See, because of his association with an obsessive nutcase who has stalked me and Richard for 4 years and calls himself expat, I assumed that, like expat, he was just another member of the church of people that are frightened by the truth. But then I got curious as to what his doctorate might be in (I was thinking maybe forestry) so I started to look at his personal information. I was not surprised to find that he had no pictures of himself posted anywhere on his personal sites, but then by chance I found one elsewhere on the web:



That was a relief. At least now I knew now who I was grappling with. Then I began to look at his resume’ and all of the proud accomplishments he listed (besides winning the 2007 Boulder Comicon costume contest for dressing as Princess Leia in her Jabba the Hut slave girl outfit). And then I noticed something; -- his education was funded by NASA. According to his own website, he got a grant from NASA for his post-doctoral work. He also continues to get funding from NASA for his other research projects, most of which include studying craters. After I posted on Twitter about it;



Stuart responded on his blog on August 8th, 2012, admitting that this is accurate, but downplaying it of course.

“I make a meager living like most scientists and, like most astronomers, a fair amount of my salary does come from NASA-awarded grants, but I literally have less connection with NASA than a custodian who sweeps the floors of JPL.”

Yeah no connection at all, except for the part where they pay you… You can no more be a “little bit” on the take from NASA than you can be the proverbial “a little bit pregnant,” Stuart.

Now to be clear, I’m not implying that he is taking money directly from NASA (“hush money,” he called it) to post attacks against Richard and I on his blog. Although, to use his phrase, “I wouldn’t put it past him.” But being financially dependent on the very institution that Mr. Hoagland and I have challenged and exposed on a regular basis for more than a decade and a half for his rent, food and car payments by definition creates a pernicious bias that cannot be overcome. It is an inherent conflict of interest, and it permeates everything he does and writes about us. How can it not?

This changed everything for me. He wasn’t attacking me and accusing Hoagland and I of fraud because he was just a psycho, like expat, he was doing it because he was a paid shill for NASA. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if he was able to respond so quickly and extensively to my posts because he was writing on his personal blog using taxpayer or university funded equipment and internet access while he was supposed to be working!

(Note: 8/16/2012; this suspicion was confirmed when Dr. Robbins posted his latest update today at 3:45PM, the middle of the work day. It obviously must have taken him at least a couple of hours to write this up. I’m wondering which government funded project you charged these hours of work on your personal blog to, Stuart)?

As my dad used to say, “It’s good work if you can get it” Sheldo… er Stuart…

At any rate, now that I knew he was being paid by NASA to attack me and Mr. Hoagland, I calmed down a bit. After all, like James Oberg and “Dr. Phil” Plait before him, NASA has constantly trotted out one paid shill after another to distort our claims, spread disinformation about us and generally charge us with one nefarious deed or another. It’s old hat, and the fact that they are on the NASA payroll completely discredits the shop-worn “I’m just an independent skeptic defending the people against pseudoscience” line.

That of course doesn’t stop Sheldon from using it.

Dr. Stuart Robbins – Paid Shill for NASA



Sorry, I mean Stuart.

The fact is, no one who is taking money from NASA, and therefore financially dependent on NASA, has any kind of credibility as a “skeptic.”  A true skeptic is someone who reserves judgment and questions established orthodoxies, paradigms and dogmas. I for instance, was initially skeptical of the Daedalus Ziggurat image, but inclined to lean toward its authenticity because of a variety of reasons I’ve already stated and will cover in this new post. I am also skeptical of NASA’s honesty and the integrity of the data they present, due to years of catching them fabricating data and painting over things they don’t want the public to see on images from all over the solar system.  I also am fully convinced that the official NASA version of Apollo photo AS11-38-5564 has been deliberately altered by NASA to obscure not only the Ziggurat, but a s***- load of other artifacts all over that image. I will provide further proof of that later in this posting. But Stuart, like Oberg, Plait, Sagan and a whole gaggle of others before him, is not a “skeptic.” He is a professional, paid debunker.  He is not interested in the truth, and he will never admit to anything that would cast NASA in a bad light. If he did, it would be career suicide.

So let’s keep the issue of his credibility as an independent voice out of this. He’s on the take, plain and simple. He can no more do a fair and independent analysis of this or any other claim made by me or Mr. Hoagland than Sheldon can sit on a different spot on the couch other than “his” spot. It’s just not in his DNA.

Separated at birth?



Or his wallet.

So now the point was, why respond at all? I was leaning against doing so, and several close friends (including Richard Hoagland) urged me to put my energies elsewhere. Plus, I have a book to finish off for David Hatcher Childress, a promotional tour to organize, and a Hollywood producer wants me to convert a screenplay I wrote into a graphic novel. All cool projects that interest me. Plus, I promised in my last post that I would pillory Stuart (paid shill for NASA) no further, and I hate going back on my promise.

But then, a bunch of weirdo’s and Cylon-like followers of Stuart’s (paid shill for NASA) started coming on to my Facebook page and attacking me in the most personal and vicious manner. Many of them were fake Facebook profiles, created just so they could come in and post nasty stuff about me.  They also personally attacked my brother and sent harassing messages about me to several of my more comely female Facebook friends. So I got pissed off.

Now, I know this is what “they” want. The Oberg’s and Stuart’s (paid shill for NASA) of the world want me to waste my time defending against their constant attacks, and no matter how I respond or how many times I prove their claims false, tomorrow there will just be 10 more charges/accusations/distortions they will challenge me to defend.  So it’s a never ending cycle of “are you still beating your wife?” type questions. Accordingly, this really will be the last time I respond to Mr. Robbins (paid shill for NASA) on this set of issues. I have better things to do.

So let’s do this…

(Quick note: to save time on the rest of this document, “Stuart (paid shill for NASA)” will now be abbreviated to “Stuart (PS4NASA).”

In his introduction, Stuart (PS4NASA) starts by saying that despite all our differences, he’s not a Hater (which is more than I can say for the creeps who follow his blog)…

“I also want to, very briefly, up-front address Mike’s claim (again) that I “hate” him with the evidence being my analysis of these claims. I addressed this idea at length before, and I recommend you read this blog post on it. That said, Mike, I do not hate you.”

Well, that’s nice to know, Stuart (PS4NASA), because based on this statement …

“So again, I am not saying that it was Richard nor Bara who “enhanced” the image originally, but I would not put it past either of them.”

… And this declaration…

“Hoagland is either a liar (he did not spend days analyzing this, he just went with it), or he is completely incompetent (that he spent days analyzing this and thinks it’s real).”

… And calling me “Hoagland’s little buddy…” and implying I’m “paranoid” and calling me several other unflattering names…

-- I wasn’t really feeling the love. In fact, I was kind of thinking you really didn’t like me or the people I work with. And then the fact you had expat, a psychopathic cyber-stalker, on your podcast to go after me kinda reinforced that impression.

Glad to know that was all a misunderstanding, and you never meant to imply that Hoagland or I might have fabricated the original Ziggurat image.

Of course, if you really felt that way you never would have put it in print in the first place, would you?

Stuart (PS4NASA) then goes on to express his deep concern for my emotional well-being:

“When you say that I attack you (which I don’t – I address your claims), it (a) makes you sound like you have a persecution complex, (b) makes you sound a tad paranoid and are in a black and white “us versus them” world, and (c) makes it easier for you to attack me rather than to address my analysis of your claims.”

I didn’t realize that you also had a doctorate in psychology Stuart (PS4NASA), but thanks for the concern. I can also honestly say at this point I don’t hate you either. But the people you surround yourself with are a bunch of vicious, nasty, psychopathic creeps with serious anger management issues.

As for Oberg… well I’m sorry to say I can’t be as generous. I hate his guts.



Oh yeah, and “Dr. Phil” too…

Now, let’s address Stuart’s (PS4NASA) main points.

From Stuart’s (PS4NASA) blog post:

“As promised, Mike Bara has posted a rebuttal to my analysis of the lunar ziggurat. To recap from earlier, I noted these three points of what Mike must explain before I would revise my conclusion:”

Well OK first off, I couldn’t care less about what you (PS4NASA) want me to “explain” before you revise your conclusion. I already know what your conclusion is going to be, regardless of anything I might or might not explain to you. You are a professional debunker, plain and simple. You are only pretending to be open to “revising” your conclusion. Plus, I have no intention of addressing everything you posted, because you post so much it would take me weeks, and as I said I have better things to do, so we’ll just hit the highlights. That said, Stuart (PS4NASA) then starts his rebuttal with his 3 questions. These 3 questions are the main pillars of his conclusion that the Ziggurat is a fraud. As I will show, all three of them are based on bad data, false claims and incorrect reasoning.

We will go over them one-by-one in the next 3 posts. For dramatic purposes, challenges #1 and #3 will be addressed first, and challenge #2 will be address in the final, epic post. So Alice… to the Moon!

Click here for Part II

 

THE DAEDALUS ZIGGURAT – RUBUTTING DR. STUART ROBBINS’ SPECIOUS SCIENCE (PART 2 OF 5)

Part #2 – Noise and Image Enhancement

as1120pyramid20smallue2.jpg

The first of Stuart’s (PS4NASA) 3 pillars of support for his claim that the Daedalus Ziggurat is a hoax is the presence of what he claims is "noise" in the original image, as1120pyramid20smallue2.jpg. Or, as Stuart (PS4NASA) puts it:

“1. Why there is less noise in the NASA original but more noise in Mike’s, and why is there more contrast (more pure black and more saturated highlights) in Mike’s? Both of these pretty much always indicate that the one with more noise and more contrast is a later generation … you can’t just Photoshop in more detail like that.”

Response: To start with, I have no idea why there differences in the original, which I have repeatedly pointed out is not “mine,” although I have several thoughts on it which I will cover in these posts.  I assume that as1120pyramid20smallue2.jpg is different from the NASA image because somebody scanned it, enhanced it, and then reduced it for uploading to the web, but I really don’t know. Further, I do not agree that there are “more pure black and more saturated highlights” in as1120pyramid20smallue2.jpg. Quite obviously, there is far more pure black in the NASA version because of all the paint brushing they did. Contrast in the NASA image”5564.jpg” will be addressed in the final posting. As to the 2nd part about your claims being an indication that as1120pyramid20smallue2.jpg is a “later generation,” than “5564.jpg,” you have no proof of that. It’s just your opinion. And we both know what opinions are like, don’t we Stuart (PS4NASA)?

As for the statement “…you can’t just Photoshop in more detail like that.” I’m not really positive, but I think he’s saying that because the NASA fake image has “more detail” in it, that means it must be older or “better” than the Ziggurat image because you can’t use Photoshop to add in detail. Therefore by his (incorrect) deduction, the Ziggurat image must have been made from the NASA image “5564.jpg.” Once again, this is simply his opinion, and I don’t share it. However, NASA has tons of specialized software and high end computing resources that could easily do many of the things he claims Photoshop can’t do. He even admits to using many of these tools on his blog.

I guess he thinks this is important to his argument because he’s trying to prove that the Ziggurat image was somehow conjured up from the image currently on the NASA website. And of course he previously implied that either Hoagy or I had done this. But his argument really proves no such thing, even if he was right. All it proves is that one image has more “noise” in it, which by itself is proof of nothing.

Which brings us to “noise,” and image enlargement and reduction. 

In his post, Stuart (PS4NASA) claims, as others also have, that reducing an image as Stuart (PS4NASA) did when he shrank the Ziggurat image by 15% “reduces noise” and thereby makes the image somehow “better.” After all, if it doesn’t make the image “better,” why would you do it?

But once again this is simply wrong. Reducing an image doesn’t make it better in any way, shape or form. All it does is reduce the amount of information in that digital image.

Here’s the full size image of the Ziggurat that I sent to Richard. As you can see, the pixel dimensions are 2.53 megabytes, and the size of the uncompressed Tiff file on my hard drive is exactly the same. The Jpeg version is about 200K.

Now let’s take this image of the Ziggurat and reduce it as Stuart (PS4NASA) did.



I took the same image and reduced it to 10% to make a point, then zoomed up on it for this image. I’m sure any “normal” person (Stuart’s [PS4NASA] word he used when talking about me) would agree that it’s worse, not better, than the original. This is because reducing a digital image doesn’t just reduce noise, it reduces all information across the board in an image, noise included, and makes it more pixelated and less accurate. In short, it reduces the signal AND the noise.

Which is of course, is why he did it in the first place.

In addition, there is also a nifty tool in Photoshop called “Reduce Noise” that does a perfectly excellent job of reducing noise in an image. Here’s a version of the Ziggurat that I used the filter on. It’s a bit blurry, but you can still see all the major features and it’s not reduced to the size of a postage stamp in the process:

Obviously, this version is much better than the Stuart (PS4NASA )reduced version. So why any “normal” person would reduce an image to make it “better” is beyond me. It can only make it worse, and make fine detail harder to see. Maybe Stuart (PS4NASA) just hasn’t noticed that tool in Photoshop in his 20-plus years of experience working with the program.

Yeah, that’s probably it.

Then, Stuart (PS4NASA) tries to justify his actions in his latest blog post, and along the way admits that what I just demonstrated is true:

“Yes, it will reduce some detail. That is true.”

Thanks Stuart (PS4NASA), I knew that already. He then of course goes on to argue that it doesn’t really count:

“But at 85.28%, it will not change the detail enough to say “oh look, there’s a pyramid there” versus “what happened to the pyramid?!” and it WILL REDUCE the noise by roughly 8ish%.”

Ok Stuart (PS4NASA), if that’s true, then why do it AT ALL? As I just showed you, you can get much better noise reduction with far more precise control by using the “Reduce Noise…” filter in Photoshop. Again, the only reason a “normal” person would reduce an image is to reduce the amount of detailed information in the image. Further, his claim that such an action would not reduce the detail enough to make a difference... I guess we just disagree on that. I’m looking at very fine details in the Ziggurat image and I don’t want to destroy any of them by reducing it.

Stuart (PS4NASA) then goes on to claim that that my statement that interpolating an image will improve it is “factually and demonstrably false.”

“But I’m sorry, Mike, your statement that upsampling (interpolating) makes an image better is factually and demonstrably false. You cannot get more information than was there originally.”

This is  standard shtik from the "debunkers 101" debating manual. I never said that interpolating a digital image can “get more information than was there originally.” What I said was; “This upsampling process would have the effect of actually making the NASA image better, rather than making the original enhancement worse.”

Again, this is a standard professional debunkers technique of making me defend/rebut statements I never made. But nonetheless, let’s examine it more closely using a classic example; our old friend, the Face on Mars.



Here is the original image of the Face on Mars from NASA frame 35A72 that caused so much excitement back in 1976. As you can see, it is full of genuine “salt and pepper” noise and is very contrasty. A few years later a number of imaging specialists, including Dr. Mark Carlotto, took a shot at enhancing that image and several others. The results were rather striking.

“Raw” 35A72 data enhanced by Dr. Mark Carlotto

As you can see, Dr. Carlotto (who got his Ph.D. while your mom was still wiping your nose for you, Stuart [PS4NASA]) was able to do a lot with primitive computers using his own enhancement algorithms long before anyone had ever heard of anything called “Photoshop.” The really interesting thing though is that he got most all of the noise out without reducing the image by even one pixel. But let’s test Stuart’s (PS4NASA) argument on this data anyway.

Actual size

Taking the Face itself and clipping it out of the above data (and rotating it) we can see that it looks much better than the raw, unprocessed version released by NASA in 1976. But if we zoom up on it at the native resolution, we see that it is choppy, pixelated and very course, and lacking in fine detail. This is called “pixel replication,” and is an entirely different process than interpolation.

Better than the original at least

Now let’s follow Stuart (PS4NASA)’s method of “enhancing” a digital image and reduce it to make it look “better.”

Reduced

Oops. Well that didn’t work so well for us did it Stuart (PS4NASA)? I think most “normal” people would agree that using your method of “enhancement” made the image worse. A lot worse.

So let’s do something different. Let’s use the method that I recommended and that Dr. Carlotto was one of the true innovators of; let’s enlarge it through interpolation.

Interpolated version of 35A72 by Dr. Mark Carlotto

Well gee, look at that. Again, any “normal” person can tell that this is much better than the reduced version. More fine detail, less noise, better overall image. That’s what interpolation does.

Side-by-Side

In fact, a few years later, Dr. Carlotto was able to improve on the interpolation process and produced even better results showing more fine detail including the “teeth” in the mouth, nostrils in the nose, striping on the headdress, an eyeball in the west eye socket and the so-called “teardrop” just below it. All of these features were later verified by higher resolution images of the Face.

Interpolated images of the Face on Mars by Dr. Mark Carlotto from NASA frames 35A72 (L) and 70A13 (R)

So, does any “normal” person out there really think that you can get this kind of detail from reducing the image, rather than interpolating it? I hope not. Interpolation has been a standard technique for enhancing digital images of this type for decades.

And they are still using it today. Here’s an image taken from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HiRise camera of the Curiosity rover descending over the Martian sands on its way to a landing in Gale crater. As most “normal” people can see, it is small and rather contrasty, much like the original image of the Face on Mars.

Full size image (NASA)

But a few days later, NASA released this new close-up full size image of the rover and its parachute. Only this one was upsampled (interpolated), contrast enhanced and worked over with specialized filters to remove the noise and sharpen the image.

Full size image (NASA)

And a few days later, private enthusiasts did an even better job by interpolating it even more.  At this point, I’ll leave it to the “normal” people reading this to deduce which image is better, the upsampled/interpolated image or the orginal postage-stamp version.



So the bottom line is this: Stuart (PS4NASA) didn’t reduce the image of the Ziggurat to improve it, he reduced it to make it worse, because that’s what data reduction does. Still, Stuart (PS4NASA) is correct that interpolation doesn’t “add” information to an image. But I never said it did. What interpolation does is enhance the information that is already there, to make an image better.

That’s why they call it “image enhancement,” Stuart (PS4NASA), and not “image degradation,” which is what your technique did.

Before I move on, I want to say one more very important thing about the “noise” that Stuart (PS4NASA) is so obsessed about. He seems to have seized on this as some sort of proof that the original Ziggurat image has been tampered with. Not only do I dispute this line of reasoning in its entirety -- as I have made clear in my previous posts -- there is another reason the so-called “noise” doesn’t bother me.

 I don’t think it’s noise.

At least, I’m not convinced it’s not some sort of semi-transparent, intervening medium between the camera and the Ziggurat far below. As you know, Hoagland’s theory for more than 15 years has been that the Moon is covered in miles-high glass structures acting as a meteor shield over formerly inhabited areas. The evidence for this is compelling, and is covered not only in Dark Mission but will be revisited in Ancient Aliens on the Moon. The point is, I think there’s just as good a chance that what Stuart (PS4NASA) think is “noise” is actually a reflection off of real glass structures on the Moon somewhere in the area of the crater Daedalus R. This would also neatly explain why Stuart (PS4NASA) can’t seem to get his head around the lighting geometry in the original Ziggurat photo, although I think it’s obvious and doesn’t need the exotic glass structures argument to support it. But that is Part III.



AS11-44-6609

Besides the two explanations I listed previously to explain the so-called “noise,” there is a 3rd possibility, which is why the “noise” on “as1120pyramid20smallue2.jpg” never bothered me. In looking at scans of actual first-generation Apollo photographs, as I've done over the years, you can see plenty of dust and dirt accumulation on the print, which is especially visible in the dark areas. Now, this may look like noise to a scanner and to Photoshop (as well as paid NASA shills), but it is really just a normal build-up of residue on the print from 40 years of sitting in a photo album under a plastic sheet.

Photo albums from the 1960’s and 1970’s had pages with a sticky adhesive on them which were in a very even, spotted pattern on the matte. A thin plastic sheet on the front protected the prints. But, if a photo were placed under one of these sheets and the opposite page didn’t have a photo on it, then the pattern of sticky spots on the opposite page would eventually leave an imprint the photo. This is especially true if the albums were stacked one on top of the other for oh, say, 40 years.



Pull any old family photo from a photo album stored this way and you will see this pattern, regardless of how well you’ve taken care of them. The plastic sheets themselves, pressed tightly against the prints for decades by the weight of the rest of the album, will adhere to the print in some places and leave marks on the photo print in pattern of regular, little raised sticky spots. If you were to pull this print from the album 30 or 40 years later, scan it at high resolution and increase the gamma, it would show this pattern of marks all over the scan, which would have to be removed with a noise reduction filter (Note to Stuart [PS4NASA]: NOT by reducing the image).

The only way you can minimize this is by storing the photos using expensive horzontal photo albums purchased from photography stores. This is exactly how Ken Johnston has stored his prints for decades.

So what I have always suspected is that the so-called “noise” in “as1120pyramid20smallue2.jpg” isn’t noise at all. What probably happened is that some other NASA veteran had an original or near-first generation print of AS11-38-5564 in his collection, stored in a photo album, and his curious son or nephew came along one day, went through his old photo albums and saw the Ziggurat and said “Holy S***!” This person then scanned and processed the image as best he could and posted it on the web, where it has been making the rounds for a while until I spotted it and gave it to Richard.

Look again at this contrast enhanced version of as1120pyramid20smallue2.jpg and note the sticky spot pattern all across the image. It is aligned with the actual vertical/horizontal of a print of AS11-48-5564, rather than the rotated close-up. Now go pull an old, pressed down image from a photo album. They’ll look exactly the same.

When you rotate the image to match the orientation of the official NASA version, it becomes even more obvious that most of the “noise” Stuart (PS4NASA) claims is on the image is actually photo-album residue. Again, pull some old photos from your family’s photo albums and make a comparison. Depending on how long they’ve been in there, you’ll find that they are most likely a perfect match for the residue pattern seen on as1120pyramid20smallue2.jpg.



And again, when you show as1120pyramid20smallue2.jpg and the photo album glue page aligned as they truly would be if the Ziggurat image came from photographic original stored for several decades as I’ve described, they match perfectly.

I would place the likelihood of this scenario at about 95%, and this discussion is part of the “due diligence” that Richard mentioned on Coast to Coast AM the night he revealed the image to the world. What this means is that Stuart’s (PS4NASA) belief that the presence of this “noise” somehow proves that “as1120pyramid20smallue2.jpg” is a later generation image than NASA’s “5564.jpg” is false, or at least dubious in the extreme.  What then follows is that his further conclusion/declaration that the Ziggurat on “as1120pyramid20smallue2.jpg” must have been “drawn-in” on top of “5564.jpg” is also most likely an incorrect conclusion based on faulty reasoning.

In fact, it is the other way around. The scan of “as1120pyramid20smallue2.jpg” was almost certainly made from an earlier generation NASA print, and “5564.jpg” was made much later – decades later in fact – and the offending Ziggurat was digitally removed since “as1120pyramid20smallue2.jpg” had already been making the rounds of the web.

So, just to quickly recap:

1. There is not less noise in the NASA image “5564.jpg” than in the Ziggurat image “as1120pyramid20smallue2.jpg.” What Stuart (PS4NASA) thinks is "noise" is actually photo-album residue marks on the early generation photographic print that "as1120pyramid20smallue2.jpg" was culled from.

2. Stuart's (PS4NASA) assumption that "as1120pyramid20smallue2.jpg" was therefore made after NASA's “5564.jpg,” and by his faulty reasoning manufactured from it in Photoshop is therefore falsified.

3. "as1120pyramid20smallue2.jpg" shows every indication of being scanned from an early generation photographic print, and therefore has an earlier derivation than "5564.jpg."

4. Stuart’s (PS4NASA) claims that reducing an image will reduce noise is only partially correct. It will in fact reduce both the data quality and the noise. Stuart (PS4NASA) admits this on his own blog.

5. Stuart’s (PS4NASA) claims that "upsampling (interpolating) makes an image better is factually and demonstrably false" is shown to be factually and demonstrably false. Interpolation improves the quality and of an image, as proven by the NASA images shown.

And all this pretty much blows point #1 out of the water.

Click Here for Part III