Hoagland's Android Head on Moon

You know back in the "old days" before PhotoShop and the web I believe that we actually had a better chain of evidence for extrodinary images and stories than we do now with superior technology.

Today any yahoo can register a domain name and put up anything they want true, false or in between. We go to a site, even ATS, and see sensational pictures that alledge to be something associated with the poster's description.

There is usually no known origin for the image or story that can be verified in any reasonable way. So ultimately you're taking a guy with a screen name like Cruizer as an unimpeachable source.

Back when a newspaper published a story, even on the back page, there existed someone to contact for sources- the writer- and a tangible photograph. It was usually quite straightforward for experts to analyse a negative and tell if it was genuine. When multiple independent image analysts came to a similar conclusion it was some evidence, at least.

There still exist images and negatives re-examined with the latest technology that have withstood the test of "unknown" at least without being determined as fakes.

There is a thread going on ATS talking about Billy Meier being caught producting fake images. It automatically brings into question ALL of his images. This is the way most folks view any and all of any incrcedible images of any type. Many have been proved fake therefore all must be. The jump to this conclusion is illogical at best. Also is the leap to convince yourself ALL are genuine.

When entities such as Polaroid or Kodak put examples through a thorough battery of analytical work, or someone such as Dr. Bruce Maccabee, optical physicist employed by the U.S. Navy, deems an image has not been altered, then it is simply a matter of interpretation. You say tomaato and I say tomahto is where it leaves us all. If an picyure is, at least, free of fakery then it is up to the human eye and mind to conclude, correctly or incorrectly what an image actually shows.

I say these words not to cast aspersions on anyone previous well-deduced comments but to urge thorough logic when examining any extraordinary object or event. Over my life I've been dismayed to observe too many people jump on or off of band wagons due to popularist beliefs or influence by a deep-seated will to believe something even when locic and facts dictate otherwise.

He has a very interesting claim, and the majority of the pics are still being held pending a possible "exclusive" being offered on the story, but it is intrigueing anyway...

There is one pic posted of the moons atmosphere, but for the life of me, i cant quite figure out what i am looking at...

can anyone make heads or tails here.
Picture proving Moon has atmosphere...



[edit on 18-10-2006 by LazarusTheLong]

Originally posted by LazarusTheLong

He has a very interesting claim, and the majority of the pics are still being held pending a possible "exclusive" being offered on the story, but it is intrigueing anyway...

There is one pic posted of the moons atmosphere, but for the life of me, i cant quite figure out what i am looking at...

can anyone make heads or tails here.
Picture proving Moon has atmosphere...

Looks like a picture of the setting sun with a missile contrail to the left. There is a orb or something faint at the far end of the contrail. If the bright light is the sun then the orb can't be the moon.

I would say that we need a lot more information here.

After carefully reading the article, i noticed a few things...

First off, the majority of these pics have still not been released, and for some reason, he has had them for 2 years, and has just now decided they show the moons atmosphere...

these were also taken during a lunar eclipse...
so wouldn't that mean, that the moon would be dark, and that we could see any atmosperic layer easier?

also, the picture appears to be an actual contrail...
but considering the amount of zoom he was using, I would think his claim is that this contrail is within the moons atmosphere (not the earths), and therefore proves that it has an atmosphere...

damn small pics, with no captions...

I am going to try to find more on this guy...

Originally posted by Apass
Cool analysis Shadowflux!

It's intresting to see what one can claim based on chromatic aberrations and some image processing(read altering) - I guess he did it just to get a better match with C3-PO's head.

All i saw was someone who disagreed with Richards work and then how you proceeded to call him a hoaxer. You can call him ignorant, stupid or worse but feel free to try prove that he is actually involved in fabricating data or information that does not exist. It's as if regular scientist never makes mistakes based on their own bias! Your just a old fashioned hypocrite that loves attacking the person instead of the data when it goes against your current convictions.

Stellar

Originally posted by johnlear
Originally posted by infinite8

I would be interested to hear what John Lear thinks about this mission and what it found.

To see what they were really after go to keithlaney.net and scroll down to "A Hidden Mission for Apollo 17?" Its a long read, take your time.

John - I've only scratched the surface of the keithlaney.net article but I have to say it's facinating. I've been following the Coppernicus pictures thread and have to say I've been a bit skeptical, however what I've read so far about Nansen has me seriously re-evaulating my position.

Thanks for the link.

If you ask me, it could simply be some equipment that the astronauts brought with them when they went to the moon. Like a sensor or something.

Didn't the astronauts bring moon moonquake sensors with them when they went to the moon?

[edit on 10/18/2006 by Kacen]

(Is it just me or do I tend to kill threads?)

[edit on 10/18/2006 by Kacen]

Originally posted by T0by
Thanks for explaning that. : )
Although it still doesn't seem 100% right to me that they're just totally blank it's a good enough explanation and i'll stop thinking about it I guess ; )

This may help. Due to the lack of an atmosphere the moons surface receives the full lighting of the sun (or not much atmosphere, I don't want John mad at me ). The surface is very bright because it is reflecting this light. You will notice the Astronauts had to have a special visor or they would have been blinded had they looked towards the sun. Cameras can not deal with a dynamic range that high. When the camera is adjusted to allow you to see the surface features the stars are not bright enough to show up in the image. If the camera were adjusted to take a photo of the stars the surface would be so bright it would be pure white with no detail. The camera's dynamic range is limited to what the emulsion on the film can handle. On Earth photographers overcome this by shooting one image set for the ground and one set for the sky and then they are composited. On Earth it is for the opposite reason though as the stars are brighter than the ground and the sun is not an issue when it is dark enough for the stars to be out.

Now I've probably thoroughly confused everyone.

Originally posted by Cruizer
You know back in the "old days" before PhotoShop and the web I believe that we actually had a better chain of evidence for extrodinary images and stories than we do now with superior technology.

I could not agree more. I'm not here searching for fake evidence. I'm here looking for proof. This flood of phony evidence is indeed making the task next to impossible. I've spent entire days viewing and downloading photo's to no avail. Some may be real evidence but these low resolution scans and noisy .jpg's are not of any help. What we need are 4,000+ dpi scans of the original negatives in a format with no compression. It will be a few more years before consumer level digital cameras have the resolution and dynamic range. Right now to even get close to photo quality requires a camera body that costs from $5,000 to $35,000. High Dynamic Range Monitors are on the horizon and the latest version of Photoshop now processes HDR images so the technology is there. As I understand it we need to have a dynamic range of 38,000:1 or better to match film and that's not even close to the range of the human eye.

Originally posted by Kacen

If you ask me, it could simply be some equipment that the astronauts brought with them when they went to the moon. Like a sensor or something.

Thanks for your input Kacen, however, I would respectfully suggest that to read up on Apollo 17, where they went and what they did before you make a comment like, "it could simply be some equipment that the astronauts brought with them when they went to the moon. Like a sensor or something." I would also suggest you look at a map and locate Shorty to see if you still think it likely that they placed a 'moonquake sensor' there. You might also want to google 'moonquake sensor' and see if it resembles a skull. A lot of information can be found at keithlaney.net. Scroll down to: "A Hidden Mission For Apollo 17." Then come on back and put in your 2 cents worth. I'd be interested to hear your informed opinion. Thanks.

Originally posted by StellarX

Originally posted by Apass
Cool analysis Shadowflux!

It's intresting to see what one can claim based on chromatic aberrations and some image processing(read altering) - I guess he did it just to get a better match with C3-PO's head.

All i saw was someone who disagreed with Richards work and then how you proceeded to call him a hoaxer.

Oh well... it wasn't me who said he is a hoaxer. You requested in another thread some proof that he is one and I linked you to this one.

You can call him ignorant, stupid or worse but feel free to try prove that he is actually involved in fabricating data or information that does not exist.

Lets see....

Color enhanced version of “Data’s head” in Shorty crater.
Red stripe is not an artifact of image processing
Color enhancements showed that the “head” had a distinctive red stripe around the area where the upper lip should be, a feature that clearly appeared to be painted or anodized on the object
Hoagland's site

(bold mine)
Yes...this red stripe is not fabricated. It is in the initial image and color enhancement made it easier to spot. The simple explanaition for that red stripe is the chormatic aberration of the lens from the camera the astronauts used. You can clearly see that there isn't only a red stripe but also a blue one, below the dark patch. And that's consistent with chromatic aberration. In fact, every dark patch in the area has a distinctive red stripe above it and a blue stripe below it. Are all these red / blue stripes painted or anodized on the objects? Using the KISS concept...no...they are all the result of chromatic aberration.

So..this was eveidence #1.
Now, lets go to evidence #2:

As Shadowflux showed, the simple enlargement of the "head" didn't match the enlargement Hoagland (or who is working for him) did.
This means that he altered the picture so as to suit his purpose. He further made a comparison with C3-PO's head.

Still, it was an astonishing photographic find. And the resemblance to another, even more familiar figure did not escape the authors…[...] What was most striking about the C3-PO comparison...
again from Hoagland's site

The similarities between his image and C3-PO tell that maybe he wanted that. The real image though it's not that similar with the android's head. So again...he palyed with the evidence.

It's as if regular scientist never makes mistakes based on their own bias!

But regular scientists that make mistakes and claim they're right don't resist that long.

Your just a old fashioned hypocrite that loves attacking the person instead of the data when it goes against your current convictions.

Stellar, it's not the first time your attacking me. Every time you did that I simply ignored it or continued with the argument. And every time I presented (scientific) evidence that contradicted your sources, you said that I was attacking the authors. No. I'm not attacking them. I simply show they are wrong!

Originally posted by johnlear
. . .A lot of information can be found at keithlaney.net. Scroll down to: "A Hidden Mission For Apollo 17." Then come on back and put in your 2 cents worth. I'd be interested to hear your informed opinion. Thanks.

Thanx for this link John. I spent a good amount of time looking at the Apollo 17 stuff. Quite interesting to say the least. I agree that the "released" photos do not even come close to anything spectacular to match up with what Cernan & Schmitt were describing. Even invoking the "Falcon Code" to explain what they were seeing.

The pictures made the Nansen look like a bunker on 18 at Pebble Beach! No way!

Thanx again. 2PacSade-

puncuation

[edit on 19-10-2006 by 2PacSade]

Blaine- you are correct in that taking photos in high contrast is challenging. If you've ever been in the desert or at Bonneville Salt Flats you know how much reflected and refracted light can play hell with exposures. Moon pix in general are probably the best images possible for the circumstances.

Yes now it's not one convincing photo taken by Joe Doaks in 1952 printed in the Tuscaloosa Tribune it's every fruitcake and bored high school twerp with PhotoShop Essentials in a huge circle jerk with tens of thousands of other schmoos vying to put their images of dubious quality and without pedigree on a place like the My Space or whatever. It's like floating in a sea of crap and picking up one toidy to declare "this is the real one!" Any legitimate corroborations or images are lost in the turdstorm.

It's as if the internet is the ultimate tool of the misinformation crowd. They gotta be SO happy.

when I look at this robot head it kind of looks out of place like it was just dropped there. It seems to me that it should be buried a bit into the dirt but it is sitting up on top with the jaw overhanging and casting a shadow. Does anyone else see this or have I just been looking at a monitor too long?

I am not aware of how fast dust piles up in Shorty Crater of periods of time. It is possible that this has been there for a very long time prior to discovery. Whether its metal, rock, or machinery it is interesting. Add this to the already suspicious Apollo 17 sites (like Nansen) and astronaut commentary, and you have a start to something much bigger.

Originally posted by Kacen


(Is it just me or do I tend to kill threads?)

Aha ha ha ha haha......I thought that was my job here, not anyone elses.


Speaking of the head on Mars, or is it the moon....Richard explained that it was at the bottom of a canyon and the picture was taken quite by accident.
I dont know what to believe- If it is there, its probably from our ancient civilizations....not aliens. What a wondrous world this is. Its all done over and over and over again. Could this be hell?

Originally posted by Apass
Oh well... it wasn't me who said he is a hoaxer. You requested in another thread some proof that he is one and I linked you to this one.

I remember exactly what you said so why pretend otherwise?

Yes...this red stripe is not fabricated. It is in the initial image and color enhancement made it easier to spot. The simple explanaition for that red stripe is the chormatic aberration of the lens from the camera the astronauts used. You can clearly see that there isn't only a red stripe but also a blue one, below the dark patch.

Actually it is a product of sharpening and heightening contrast and expected around edges which i guess the 'mouth' qualifies as creating.

And that's consistent with chromatic aberration. In fact, every dark patch in the area has a distinctive red stripe above it and a blue stripe below it. Are all these red / blue stripes painted or anodized on the objects? Using the KISS concept...no...they are all the result of chromatic aberration.

Quite right and if there is anything painted onto that thing it was clearly not very bright to start with.

So..this was eveidence #1.

Which suggest that the evidence of the face being 'coloured in' is probably inaccurate if hard to establish for sure; no evidence that it was deliberately created with evidence trail disappearing to cover up the image enhancement.

Now, lets go to evidence #2:

Only two?

As Shadowflux showed, the simple enlargement of the "head" didn't match the enlargement Hoagland (or who is working for him) did.
This means that he altered the picture so as to suit his purpose. He further made a comparison with C3-PO's head.

So basically your asking me not to trust someone who is subject to intense media scrutiny, a media that lives and breathes to try expose people like him, but asking me trust some guy on the Internet who has no record beside some posts on ATS who has not spoken before the UN or before members of the US congress? Well you can choose to believe what you want as long as you do not pretend that it's based on overwhelming , or really any, evidence.

The similarities between his image and C3-PO tell that maybe he wanted that. The real image though it's not that similar with the android's head. So again...he palyed with the evidence.

Well someone here did , play with the evidence that is, but all we know for sure is that you trust 'some guys' composite or enlargements over Richards and that's about it. If you want to call him a hoaxer you are really going to have do better than rely on data that suits you to attack data that does not.

But regular scientists that make mistakes and claim they're right don't resist that long.

Where do you even come up with this? As long as you say what most other scientist say , no matter how wrong you all turn out to be, you will have a great career! It's surprising that you either know this little or think that we are so ignorant as to believe this. The whole idea that scientist who are consistently wrong ( Geologist for most of this century for instance) are somehow marginalised by the rest is simply ludicrous as it's the MAJORITY that is so consistently wrong.

Stellar, it's not the first time your attacking me.

Wont be the last time i correct you if you persist in attacking data based on things that you know do not disprove or seriously contest the claims made.

Every time you did that I simply ignored it or continued with the argument.

You sure did go on and on but mostly on tangents that can not and will not affect observed reality. Being able to present evidence to support your own beliefs is great but that does not make them accurate ; and yes, that goes for me too so that's why i stick to what is observed and not what others agree on.

And every time I presented (scientific) evidence that contradicted your sources, you said that I was attacking the authors.

Well you frequently did as if a person's degrees suddenly stops mattering when they go against the accepted norms of the time. Why is it that a scientist must agree with the consensus to be considered a leader in his field? What does consensus or agreement with others have to do with the observation of reality? Does history not teach us that one man can be correct while everyone else is demonstrably wrong?

No. I'm not attacking them. I simply show they are wrong!

Well if one wants to demonstrate that someone is wrong you should not involve the fact that their ideas or science is somehow not accepted by the community; it really does not matter at all. If a experienced scientist like Ron Levin is willing to stake his career on such a specific claim ( and he has been waiting for more evidence and thinking about this for 30 years now) with so much evidence supporting it while the opposition can only contest it by introducing unknowns, that can not actually be established by observation or experiment, does it not become obvious that they are resisting simply from consensus and not from observation?

I have showed you the pictures of liquid water and what looks exactly like trees and yet you are still hard at work trying to discover alternatives? Why are so many of your ilk driven to consider things that you did not before simply to disprove what observation shows? Why have you and so many other intelligent people declared war on observed reality in defense of notions that were never supposed to be set in stone? Are we not supposed to adapt theory to fit observation instead of observation to fit theory? Why this attempt to turn the world on it's head and why are you taking part?

NASA can not even give us a accurate representation of the colour of the Martian atmosphere from human perspective or tell us about the standing water,

www.msss.com...

www.msss.com...

www.msss.com...

www.msss.com...

www.msss.com... ***

www.msss.com...

so why do we trust them when they reach conclusions? Compared to the strait criminality of NASA Richard will have to do worse than come to some bad conclusions while he is at least opening people's minds to alternative interpretations instead of deliberately obscuring much of the data that contests accepted norms.

Stellar

Thanks for the photos StellarX, many of those are quite fascinating. Remarkable in fact. Hoagland was on Coast to Coast again recently to announce that he will be releasing some additional photos that will add to the current conspiracy. Apparently there are greater detailed photos and the eyes are easier to see. He says they look like "camera lenses" He talked of otherr structures and other artifacts.

From the Coast to Coast AM website, here is the quote:

"Data's Head Update
Appearing during the second half of the third hour, Richard C. Hoagland shared an update on the Moon artifact he calls Data's Head. Details of the head, which he said resembles the robot C3-PO, were derived by superimposing Hasselblad photos taken during the Apollo 17 mission. He finds the "camera lens" eyes of the artifact to be particularly compelling. Additionally, he reported there is more evidence of ruins by the Apollo 17 landing site. "

I'm not sure if he is referring to the same structures John Lear spoke of earlier in this thread, but I'm looking forward to seeing them.

In addition, tonight on Coast to Coast AM, Sir Charles Shultz has released some 3D images from the Mars surface. One showing a broken sea shell and the other of a recent mud flow. Here is a link to the photos. Mars Photos

Here are a few other interesting photos to go along with it.
Sea Shells 1
Sea Shells 2
Sea Shells 3
Sea Shells 4

[edit on 11/6/2006 by infinite8]

Originally posted by Shadowflux
Yeah, he's deffinitly reading too much into it. The problem with "color enhancements" and stuff is that many of these guys will be looking for somthing they're already sure is there.

Thanks for sharing your opinion!

In other words, they're not being impartial enough. The most convincing image of the "head" is on Hoaglund's website and it turns out to be a "4 frame composite", meaning he pasted 4 different pictures together in a way he thought would make it look more like a head.

Is that really what he did? Would it not be better for him to simply forget to mention that whole composite thing if he was going to engage in cheating us? Why give away his cheating by so plainly stating that it's not a single frame?

Give me enough pictures of the moon and I can make you the Mona Lisa in photoshop. A lot of people don't know enough about film to really analyze it anyway.

I am sure you are a real artist, yes. Do you think those people include the one's doing the imaging for Hoagland?

If there is a black area, like the "eye sockets" there is no information there, it's just black. There's no magic computer programs you can use that would extract information from film where there is none. What you see is what you get.

Did you get the impression from Hoaglands pages that he did not know this?

Even when photo retouchers fix certain problems like "red eye" or sun glare it's an artistic interpretation. Generally they try to be as acurate as possible but they are still just making it up. Take it from one who knows lol.

Pretty obvious yes and i know very little about photography...

Also, we have no reference for scale, we have no idea how big this "head" could be. Hell, it could be 5 feet long and wheigh 800 pounds for all we know.

Data could be very big, so what?

We just have a picture of a rock, in a field of sand, surrounded by other rocks. What we would need is an astronaut, a rover, or even just someone's boot print in the shot to give us an idea of how big it is.

As if the scale of the thing has bearing on it's artificiality!

Stellar

Originally posted by Shadowflux
Lazarus,

You're right, I didn't rule out the fact that could be a head of a humanoid type robot that doesn't really resemble humans. Although given the proportions on the head it would be rather funny looking. My anaysis was meant to show that Hoagland's evidence is neither scientific nor is it unbiased.

Which is a common claim when one aims to discredit something before it's been evaluated on merit alone... When two leading scientist discover anomalous heat generation in their LERN experiments they were called names that would make some blush and they lost their credibility ( in the public arena ) long before there findings could be evaluated fairly.

In my professional opinion his most "convincing evidence" has been so heavily doctored as to be utterly useless. That isn't to say that Hoagland did it maliciously to perpetrate a hoax, I think he's just over zealous and can't approach this evidence in an impartial manner.

It's sometimes hard to be impartial about a new piece of evidence when you are met with open ridicule no matter what you say or how scientific your previous findings were... Making mistakes due to bias happens to everyone but why is it that main stream scientist ( those who are on retainers with large media groups and go with the 'consensus' ) seems to be able to be so persistently wrong without suffering any credibility problems while those who against the media norms need say no more than one outlandish counter consensus thing to suffer the destruction of whatever standing the previously had?

I love how there're so many websites with photos of Lunar and Martian abnormalities then proceed to change the colors, blow out the light and dark levels, spin it around, zoom in on it, change the colors again, make it a negative and then expect us to see somthing we didn't see before.

Maybe you should stop trying to find the weirdest one's you can and just stick to those who provide access to original source material for your inspection? Why pretend that you have to rely on the words of people you do not know when there are so many sites that strictly rely on well sourced pictures?

Photoshop is a powerful tool but it still runs on mathematical algorithms, everything you do, like adjusting the levels or color saturation, has to be delicate or the algorithms will take it all too far.

I think even lay people understand this much?

To properly analyze a photograph you have to have a fundemental understanding of what you're looking at, in this case it's skulls and rocks.

So when did we reach the level of fundamental understanding of rocks and skulls that enables us to evaluate what we see fairly? Who decides that since what year have geologist been well informed enough to recognize the composition of rocks on other planets based on their understanding of ours?

To make an unbiased analysis

That's impossible to start with and it's just a question of how much of it you can keep out of your conclusions and general work.

you should do very little "enhancing" to the picture. Maybe correct the light balance, maybe enlarge it, but that's it. You want to look at the way the light plays on the object, the shadows it casts, the brightest highlites and the darkest shadows, etc. You want to try and figure out what is a shadowed side of a round object and what is a shadow cast on the ground beneath the object.

Then you should tell me what you think of the www.marsanomalyresearch.com... site which tends to rely on mainly those methods to point out things that do not belong on Mars....

The colors Hoagland mentioned, like the red "lips" are a result of pushing the color "enhancement" too far. You can use an adjustment in photoshop called "Hue/Saturation". Try it on any picture you want, if you push the saturation or the Hue bar too far the colors will become blown out. In fact, if you push it far enough you reach a range of colors known as "Illegal Colors". Illegal Colors are those that will not print, they exist only because the monitor is essentially making them brighter than would be posisble in reality. A lot of web graphics and video games animations use illegal colors becasue they don't need to worry about printing. You can check if your colors are legal by typing Crtl+Y in Photoshop and you will see the difference.

And personally i think that the picture is still extremely interesting without the colouration that seems to be the result of processing..

Printers print with CMYK, that is to say the printers use four colors to create all the colors in the picture. Monitors use RGB, or just three colros to create all the colors you see. If you were to work only in legal colors the image on your screen may seem a bit dull but when it prints out it looks exactly the way you'd want it. Trust me, it can be a very frusterating problem.

Not, presumably, if your after accurate portrayals?

When you take into account the play of light and shadow I would have to rule that this is not a head at all but a rock, that due to the position of the light source, the angle of the shot and the quality of the film looks a lot like a head.

Well i appreciate any and all opinions when there is some formal education behind them however much i disagree with the conclusions. I do find it interesting that when some observation fits well with a current accepted norms little effort is invested in trying to discover how good or bad the 'light source' ( investigators bias and so forth) was.. It's just interesting what kind of 'science' you can get away with when defending established 'norms' and how little play great observations based on sound methodology will achieve for you when it's those norms your questioning....

Stellar