Boomer on the Ground:

Fifth in a Series of Dispatches from the Colonies:  Is NASA Trying to Get the Heck Out of Dodge?

by

Thomas B. Wallace, Editor/Publisher

   NASA is now allowing that there once was water "... standing in pools at least several inches deep..." in the vacinity of Meridiani Vallis, the rough vacinity the Opportunity rover is exploring. Never mind that the European orbiter has already reported that spectroscopic analysis reveals there is "...water ice..." at the south pole, which is by the way the smaller of the icey poles and it is summer time there now. So, that understatement dealt with, it appears now that NASA is moving the rovers, on both sides, in directions away from the more interesting structural elements they have already photographed and into areas where there is much less challenge to their scientific program. In other words it looks a lot like they have been told to get out of dodge and position their rovers in places where it is far less likely interested lay persons, such as myself, will see "anomolous" shapes in the landscape.

   Well, as it applies to Opportunity it seems they may have succeeded as it appears that Opportunity is now in an area of unrelenting fine grained sand that has no visible breaks in its featureless expanse. We can only hope this will not continue, but even should it, there is still plenty that Opportunity has sent us that begs explanation from NASA and for which they continue to play See No Evil, Hear No Evil, most assuredly, Speak No Evil.

Unfortunately for NASA Spirit has not been so cooperative. First because the debris field that Spirit landed in is so much larger than Opportunity's and secondly because it appears no matter how far afield they send Spirit in the direction away from the faces and carvings of the first panorama, it continues to find numerous and even more interesting indications that intelligent civilization may have been extant in the area it is exploring.

Now, I have received some criticisms from a reader who has taken issue with my methodology in that I have been publishing photo enlargements that come from fixed perspectives, are "highly pixilated" and appear to be largely monochromatic. Well, this article is going to explore some of the previously provided photos that have had additional perspectives taken and see if those perspectives substantially change what is perceived in the photos. In short I am going to see if we don't have some additional perspectives on some of these photos to see if what we saw at first is either different or gone. I can do this because I have exhaustively downloaded all the images that NASA has posted to the JPL site and have rigorously documented those from which I have drawn published pictures and analysis.

Let's begin with one where the closer and differing perspectives actually did change what appeared to be in this place from a more distant perspective. As the reader who has followed this series will recall the following photo was published in the third dispatch and referred to what appeared to be a head shaped oval stone that appeared to have been carved. This was taken from the initial panorama of the "rock outcropping" provided by Opportunity in PIA05160 and PIA5163:

Now, one thing the viewer should note is that these are already two different perspectives of the same area, but only slightly different. Now we will examing a much closer and sharper view from PIA05457:

Now, this much closer perspective, directly on reveals that the essential shapes that gave the impression of a head with a crest is here, but the absolute stoney nature of the object is clearly revealed in this closeup of the object. Clearly, the more distant perspective did indeed provide an optical illusion of sorts. But, we also clearly established our own doubts about that earlier photo simply because of its lack of clarity. Here a good, high resolution closeup resolved the issue easily. Too bad Nasa doesn't think it important to provide the same kind of closeup resolution to many other interesting objects in its pictures. Perhaps that is because the closeups it has taken of other objects don't so dramatically contradict the speculations?

Here is the original perspective on a carving on one of the stones in this same rock outcropping from PIA05163:

Now this was originally taken from what appears to be a perspective straight on from the rover. Now, what follows is a perspective on the same shape taken from what appears to be about 45 degrees to the left of the original shape, or to the right of the rover's original position.

Now, this perspective shows the carving to be very slightly shortened on the back or left side, which can be expected given the perspective from the right, but otherwise the carving appears pretty much as it does in the original. Now perhaps, as one of my other readers has suggested, what makes me so certain that this is a carving and not just a random shape carved in the stone by wind and erosion. Well, there is no absolute certainty in any photo analysis, but there are generally accepted principals that will tell one what is and what is not an artificial construct.

So, for that reason I have established three principles that each analytic reproduction I have included in these articles must meet before I include them.

1. The shape or stone must be unusual within its context. The reader must bear in mind that all of these photos are being extracted from much larger, fields of view that include many thousands of what are clearly rocks and stones. No image is extracted from them if it does not first attract my attention by its unusual shape in the overall context of the debris field in which it is found. In order to do that I must enlarge and then examine each photo in a cross grid, making note of unusual shapes and patterns as I go, to come back to later. This is why it is also important to note the specific NASA image from which the closeups are drawn. That way the reader, if he or she is so inclined can go there and duplicate my own research. If they can find what I have found then this research stands as falsifiable.

2. The shape, object, or stone must appear to be artifactual. Artifacts, just like stones, rocks, crystals, etc., have characteristics and these characteristics rarely occur in nature, unless they occur in familiar biological materials. Among these are: 1) bilateralism, mirror imaging from one side of an object to its other, such as one sees in faces, engines, or a host of other artificial objects. 2) Regularized geometries of unusual symmetry. For instance, crystals will show a regular symmetry of shape but it will be unimorphic, one shape. However, if there are regularized geometries with polymorphic, several shapes, within a single structure, that is characteristic of artifacts. Ovals, squares and triangles all within the same structure for example. 3) Regular geometries, regularly spaced in an otherwise incongruous surface. For instance a flat rock with a curved top that appears to be fluted at regular intervals is unlikely to have acquired that shape naturally.

3. The object should exhibit some of the clear characteristics of "working". By working I mean such things as: 1) perfect geometries, which, with the exceptions of crystaline structures, occur only rarely in nature. Perfect squares, straight lines, arcs, circles, etc., are extremely rare in nature, expecially among stones. 2) Very smooth surfaces and subtly defined curves. Again, in stones, with the exceptions of gem, there is rarely a smooth, ceramic like surface or smooth and highly regular curves. 3) Polymorphic combinations. A rock may have faults and cracks and all of them may be of different shapes and depths, but combinations of curves, lines, circles, cylinders, deltas, serpentine paths, etc. in close proximity to one another on an otherwise flat stone is almost certainly artificial in origin.

With these principles in mind my next article will examine some of the many unusual symbols that appear on many of the stones in the Martian landscape around both Opportunity and Spirit. I have found many, many of these, so please, keep watching as we reveal the depth of the civilization that appears to have once inhabited this unfortunate world. Our own familiarity with many of these shapes and symbols may either be a function of what Carl Jung would have called the collective unconsciuos within which universal symbols reside, or perhaps a great many of our own symbols derived from a special memory that extends farther into space and time than even our best evolutionary theorists can have imagined...

Now I think there may be a reasonable expectation that the criticisms of these articles that readers have will be based not on speculations about clouds and optical illusions but on whether or not the photos I examine meet the criteria that I have established above. When they do meet that criteria, then the questions and criticisms should not be directed at me, but at NASA as to why they do not address these extraordinary findings...

The Ghosts of Mars