Challenge Match: Skyfloating vs Sublime620: Debating Martians? , page 1
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Topic started on 28-6-2008 @ 12:02 PM by MemoryShock
The topic for this debate is "There is reason to believe that there is or was intelligent life on Mars"

Skyfloating will be arguing the pro position and will open the debate.
Sublime620 will argue the con position.

Each debater will have one opening statement each. This will be followed by 3 alternating replies each. There will then be one closing statement each and no rebuttal.

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Opening and closing statements must not contain any images, and must have no more than 3 references. Excluding both the opening and closing statements, only two images and no more than 5 references can be included for each post.

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When asked a question, a debater must give a straight forward answer in his next post. Explanations and qualifications to an answer are acceptable, but must be preceded by a direct answer.

Responses should be made within 24 hours. One single 24 hour extension can be used by a member by requesting it in the thread. If 24 hours passes without response, you may proceed with your next post. Members who exceed 24 hours run the risk of losing their post, but may still post up until their opponent has submitted their next response.

This is a challenge match. The winner will receive 2 ranking points, the loser will lose two ranking points.


reply posted on 28-6-2008 @ 12:59 PM by Skyfloating
Dear Humans,

is or was there intelligent life on Mars? Yes there was, our own robots roaming the landscape can be considered "intelligent life"!

Against all odds I choose to argue that yes there is reason to believe so. Why choose a debate side that could easily fail? So that we may learn if there is indeed any indication of IL whatsoever. Some of the only popular non-fiction books on this seem to be Hancocks “The Mars Mystery” and Hoaglands “The Face on Mars”. But instead of relying only on these works I will be heavily referencing the works of our own in-house experts Mikesingh and Internos, who, in my opinion, have offered even more than those two popular books. My strategy is to wade through hundreds and hundreds of ATS-posts in search of the few gems of evidence while discarding everything that would not hold up in a court of law.

My opponent has the easy part. All he has to do is say “There´s no proof” and link to some common wikipedia page. I therefore invite the judges to judge this debate by whether the common consensus of “there is no intelligent life on Mars” was put in doubt in the slightest.

Any evidence available to us would mainly be photographic evidence as published by the NASA. Evidence withheld by the NASA can unfortunately not be included, although there is a good chance of some cover-up happening.

My own journey of interest in intelligent life on Mars started out as intuition. The Oxford English dictionary defines Intuition as “the immediate apprehension of an object by the mind without the intervention of any reasoning process”. Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without inference or reasoning.

Many will say that Intuition is an invalid and non-scientific source of Information. Try telling that to law enforcement officials who often claim to observe suspects and immediately “know” that they posses a weapon or illicit narcotic substances. Try telling that to a football player who “knew” where the ball would go before it was being thrown.

In any case, my intuitive conviction has always been that extraterrestrial life does exist in abundance and has been on earth in the distant past and also on Mars. If we assume that the universe is teeming with life, its not too much of a stretch to also assume they have been lurking around our solar system.

What began as mere Intuition was later converted into knowledge by the collection of hard scientific data that indicated artificial structures on Mars. Artificially built structures do count as proof of intelligent Life on Mars, be it intelligent human or non-human life.

Latest scientific evidence has found that liquid water must have been flowing in Mars distant past and must therefore have been more habitable than it is today. In fact, extraterrestrial life in general has already been established as a fact:

Alien Life Beyond Earth

But life outside of earth and on Mars is not yet evidence of Intelligent Life on Mars, right?

Right. And that´s where we will be exploring photos of artifacts, shapes and forms on Mars under the scrutiny of respected opponent Sublime and expert debate judges.

Stay tuned


reply posted on 29-6-2008 @ 08:19 AM by Skyfloating
The Case of Equally Spaced Objects detected on Mars


I will open the battlefield with references from this thread by ATS-Member Mikesingh:

Signs of Alien Engineering on Mars?

One thing that does not appear in nature are equally spaced objects. These would be a sure sign of some type of artificial construction. Here´s such an image from Mars:




Opportunity Sol 1070
Courtesy: NASA/JPL



Another example:




MOC narrow-angle image M00-01661
Courtesy: Marsunearthed



In the cited thread these objects were determined to each be exactly 800 feet apart (more examples can be found in the thread).

What was odd is that in browsing through the thread for this debate, I couldnt find any proper rebuttal. There you have thousands of expert ATS-members, skeptics and debunkers, and no rebuttal!. This lead me to wonder how many more unsolved mysteries are lying around in the vast archives of ATS.

So what are the probabities of various sites holding equally spaced objects by nature? Id say they are so minute that already early on in this debate we are forced to acknowledge events on Mars we know nothing about.

Whether these events are ancient or present day, human or extraterrestrial I dont know. I look forward to presenting more data but will now give my opponent a take at it.


reply posted on 29-6-2008 @ 12:59 PM by Sublime620
First Rebuttal

Geographical Anomalies

That's what we are discussing here. Here's a few natural ones formed on Earth:

1


Here is a picture of a heart formed on Mars. Either nature does some pretty cool things, or the Martians celebrate Valentine's Day also.

2


Here's a naturally formed face on Earth:

3


While the "exactly 800ft" apart argument my opponent made is pretty fantastic, I've yet to see any scientific analysis to back that up. So far, it looks like a geological anomaly.

I think the heart is cooler.


reply posted on 30-6-2008 @ 04:25 AM by Skyfloating
More artificial structures


My opponents "rebuttal" is easily dismissed.

1. The objects in picture 1 are not equally spaced.

2. Picture 2 and 3 dont have anything to do with the two images of equally spaced objects I showed. They are irrelevant to what was shown. It seems like my opponent had the ready-made "Face on Earth" because he was expecting me to post the usual "Face on Mars".

I have to "disappoint": I will not be using the Face-on-Mars as evidence in this debate because it wouldnt hold up to scientific scrutiny.

Sublime620 writes:



While the "exactly 800ft" apart argument my opponent made is pretty fantastic, I've yet to see any scientific analysis to back that up. So far, it looks like a geological anomaly.


The reader does not need any scientific analysis. He only needs to measure the distance between the objects, simple as that. Equally spaced = Equally spaced, no matter if its 800 ft or 50 ft or 10 000 ft.

No offense to my opponent though. You, dear reader, are witnessing what happens when precise data is presented in contradiction of what we formerly believed to be true. Even the greatest minds cave in and use terms like "geographical anomaly", "coincidence", "natural oddity". What they are actually saying is "Yeah well, thats just an exception. Nevermind that." Expect the same deflection attempts to be used as more "coincidences" accumulate in this debate.

___________________________________________________





This image is taken from this thread, from another one of Mikesinghs excellent reads. There´s a reason Mikesingh is the most plagarized and copied member of this website.

What do you see at first sight, before doubting Thomas kicks in, before "yes, but it just isnt possible" kicks in? Before "reason" plays tricks on you?

Most people who are given this image to look at without knowing its on or from Mars say they see terraces or stairs leading up to a Temple-like structure, albeit one covered in a lot of sand.

Here´s a Pyramid from the Cydonia region which also appears to be covered in sand:





The entire region looks like this:






(please note that I am not using the "Face" as evidence, only showing what look like Pyramid structures).


And since all of this has a bit of an ancient egyptian "feel" to it, this famous ATS Thread might be of interest to some: Egyptian Statue on Mars?

Stay tuned for "Best Evidence", yet to be posted.


reply posted on 30-6-2008 @ 07:56 PM by Sublime620
Second Rebuttal

I apologize if my "rebuttal" did not meet up to my opponents standards. I suppose he feels I need to find natural objects in a row equally spaced. I don't know why, since he has failed to prove they are equally spaced to begin with. My response would be, "Ask John Lear." I'm sure he's found a few on the moon.

All I see is a non-aerial view of some six land masses that seem similar in spacing but not appearance. The shot is quite distant and at an angle. I don't see how anyone could claim to guess the spacing of those objects. Some look to be more elevated than others, misshapen, and not consistent.

Here's a refresher, in case you missed it:



The formations are all different. Also, notice the angle.

1. The objects in picture 1 are not equally spaced.


Just showing anomalies. They appear to be in a fairly straight line and they appeared naturally. I have yet to see any evidence that the objects in your pictures (especially the first) are equally spaced. The first picture my opponent provided is impossible to estimate.

2. Picture 2 and 3 dont have anything to do with the two images of equally spaced objects I showed. They are irrelevant to what was shown. It seems like my opponent had the ready-made "Face on Earth" because he was expecting me to post the usual "Face on Mars".


Yet you provided a "face" - the Egyptian monument - in the very same post. It may not be the face that everyone knows, but it's a face none-the-less. The point of my first post was merely to show that all sorts of crazy things can be found when you are looking for them.

Do clouds really look like hearts, horses, etc? Sure, if that's what you are looking for. My opponent is doing nothing more than a glorified ink blot test.

My opponent, "What do you see here?"

Average Joe, "Nothing"

My opponent, "What about that there... kinda look like a face"

Average Joe, "Hmmm, I guess"

Much like the famous EVP's of your favorite ghost hunting shows, people will see and hear different things unless someone tells them what to see or hear.



This is supposedly a building with steps...

See if you can find the "water tank" without Mikesinghs help. Or how about the "small city"?

Done trying? Maybe you'll see them now:



May I also point out that this photo may even be edited?

Originally posted by timoothy
The question is why is mike posting known doctored images of mars . This is the second in a week --the first being the symbols he pasted in the cydonia region and this the second


Originally posted by ArMaP
This is not a photo, its a computer generated image using the images taken from overhead.


Originally posted by Maverickhunter
I'm not an expert on photography but that's probably what you get for using CGI with the photos so you can accurately tell what the landscape is like. I say that the photos aren't more then a mere odd formation in land.


My opponent then shows a lame attempt at a pyramid. I'd say a failed attempt. In fact, if that's a man made pyramid, I've seen kids in the sand do a better job.

Reports of Pyramids in Tibet Untrue

Reports of Pyramids in Tibet Untrue
A Russian monthly published five articles by Russian scientists claiming to have found more than 100 pyramids in Tibet this May-June. Chinese scientists investigated the evidence provided by the Russian team as well as the five articles and determined that the story of Tibetan pyramids is fabricated.


Zhang Qingsong, a geographer at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and He Xiwu, a researcher at the State Key Laboratory of Resources, who have been to Kangrinboge mountain several times say that they completely disagree with the Russians. They say that the mountains in the area were formed 4,000 years ago from layers upon layers of rough conglomerate and fine sandstone, forming the appearance of a staircase-shaped pyramid.


The "pyramids" appeared to have steps... and guess what? It was determined that they were formed naturally.

I guess that also helps explain my opponents last bit of "evidence". The last picture with a few supposed pyramids and the easily explained face.

I must say, however, I am looking forward to this "best evidence yet". The floor is again yours, Skyfloating.


reply posted on 1-7-2008 @ 05:21 AM by Skyfloating
"Just another coincidence...and another one....and another one"

Side-Note: Thanks for a good challenge in the last post Sublime620

When confronted with hard evidence that contradicts their narrow belief-system mars-life-debunkers will predictably respond in one of the following ways:

1. Its a natural anomaly
2. Its doctored
3. Your perception is distorted.
4. "Its just not so"

Dear Debate Judges, dont let yourself be fooled by the "perceptual distortion" argument. Why? Because it works both ways.

I say to average Joe: "There´s a Terrace there".

He says: "Yeah, I guess so"

Sublime 620 says to average Joe: "There´s nothing there"

He says: "Yeah, I guess so".

Thats why I asked to take your first impression of an image and use your intuition, before me, mikesingh or sublime620 distort your perception with our pre-conceptions and labels.

As for the equally spaced objects my opponent chooses option 4 "Its just not so" - Denial.

If you look at the second image of equally spaced objects, which in the thread are said to be each 800 ft apart, you can see the picture was taken from a fairly leveled birds eye view. Go experiment: Take a ruler and put it on the picture. What do you get? Equally spaced objects. If you use photo-software and zoom in or zoom out on it you still get equally spaced objects.

Notice my opponents strategy: First he tries to convince us of similar natural formations on earth. That failed he denies that they are equally spaced. Since any eye can see that the objects in both pictures are equally spaced its not up to me to prove they are but up to him to disprove they are. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The extraordinary claim in this case being "Those objects are not equally spaced", although its obvious at first sight. If you hadnt known that these images were from Mars, you would have agreed!

Reader, practice keen observation and remain aware of circular reasoning which says: "Since there can be no intelligent life on Mars, these objects cannot be artificial. We have to find another explanation". Circular Argumentation is not logical and closes the mind to the truths that can be found.

______________________________________

For our next "coincidence" take a brief look at this thread page:

Mars Pyramid Elevation

In which we, among other things, find this piece depicting straight and equally spaced steps that we could liken to a staircase:





Sorry mate, but you just dont find straight lines, rectangulars, circles, equally spaced objects in nature. And in the rare cases that you do, you dont find them in the abundance just shown.

Of course I expect my opponent to respond again with "It just aint so". This is easy for him to do because a majority of the worlds population has been led to believe there is no intelligent life on Mars. So if Sublime says "Aint so", the crowds will chime in agreement "Aint so!" and we can dismiss this debate and get on with our lives.

Since the evidence shown is some of the best ATS has to offer my opponent is also saying that this and the work of Conspiracy Masters Mikesingh and Internos and the thousands of responses received to the threads are a massive waste of time and dont mean a thing. I seriously doubt that.

Another Terrace of perfectly straight lines:




...from the thread Alien City on Mars

I could easily go on and on wading through the threads pointing out indications of artificial structures but propose we stick to what has already been offered as sufficient material to prove: We cannot dismiss this, we have to take it seriously...for the sake of knowledge, for the sake of mankind. Brushing it off with "Just aint so" will not do and is a slap in the face of any curious and learning human being.


reply posted on 3-7-2008 @ 07:13 PM by Sublime620
I want to first thank my opponent for his patience. Crazy couple of work days and I apologize for the hold up.

Final Rebuttal

Mars Pyramid Elevation

Here is another view of the image posted:



I have to say, I'm not trying to be difficult, but I see nothing there. Perhaps I'm just looking at it all wrong. It looks like... nothing. I've not contended with anything else that there is something to look at, but I see nothing in this picture.



This is from the same thread that my opponent linked to. Does he also believe that intelligent life does, or did, exist on the moon.

The pictures are both blown up so much, it's impossible to really know what we are looking at. We can't get a good idea of what it is, what size the "object" is, or whether it's just pixelation.



Now this picture is a little more fun to look at. I see something that kind of looks like steps, but that's about it. Again, it's extremely blown up and hard to tell exactly what we are looking at.

Oops, I just caught myself. See I thought it was a "city" because we were looking at steps. That the picture was supposed to be close up. However, after reviewing the thread, what we are looking at is "farmland".

Again, this is just another example of the "ink blot". You will see what you want to see out of these pictures.

This was also posted as a "farmland":


To me, that looks like pixelation. Why can we never see these photos without extreme zoom, blur, and pixels?

Are Mars' cities using the same camera avoidance techniques as big foot and the Lock Ness Monster?

Socratic Question 1: Do you believe the moon has these structures also? The same technique of zooming in and finding things that resemble structures was done by John Lear on the moon. Do you find his work to be as reputable?



And a little follow up about circular reasoning:

I never said that intelligent life didn't or couldn't have existed on Mars. I just have not seen any evidence of such. Bloated and pixelated photographs don't prove ANYTHING.

This is a straw man argument used at it's best my opponent. He is trying to put me off as some skeptic who will ignore any evidence because it "boggles" my mind. This could not be further from the truth, and I urge you not to let him make you feel that way either.

Should you be convinced by a blurry photo? Would you convict off of it? Would you say, "Yes, it must be so".

I hope not. I say sure, let's investigate further. Send a probe over to the "pyramid" area and see what we can find.

The judges must ask themselves this question:

Is there reason to believe or reason to investigate? I say investigate before believing.


reply posted on 5-7-2008 @ 11:45 AM by Skyfloating
Closing Statement

I will start off with replying to my opponents objections and questions.

Originally posted by Sublime620
but I see nothing there. Perhaps I'm just looking at it all wrong. It looks like... nothing


With some people, denial kicks in at the prospects of the unbelievable. The debate judges will notice that its easy to see stairs.



However, after reviewing the thread, what we are looking at is "farmland".



Did I call this farmland? Did I make any such claim? No. I called it what it IS: Straight Lined Terraces.



Socratic Question 1: Do you believe the moon has these structures also? The same technique of zooming in and finding things that resemble structures was done by John Lear on the moon. Do you find his work to be as reputable?


No, I do not believe the moon has these structures also. I cannot make a judgement on Lears work because Im not familiar with it.

But I do notice that you have been trying to divert attention to things I did not claim and things I did not say.


The judges must ask themselves this question:
Is there reason to believe or reason to investigate? I say investigate before believing.


Well, if theres no reason to believe, then there is no reason to investigate.

So with my opponent admitting there are enough reasons to investigate he is also admitting there is reason to believe...and that, ladies and gentlemen, is the debate topic shifted in my favor.

I went into this debate with the concern of not finding a shred of evidence for the idea of intelligent life on Mars. I will be the first to admit when feeling I have not done well in a debate. But in this case I am in fact excited that my opponent couldnt counter with much of anything.

This does not reflect poorly on my opponent but simply shows the strength of the evidence provided.

Contrary to the naysayers who would rather cut NASAs budget I think the prospects even justify the allocation of more funds to Mars Research. But thats a topic for another debate.

Thanks to MemoryShock for hosting this debate.
Thanks to Sublime for participating despite a tight schedule.
Thanks to the FightClubPub for existing.


reply posted on 6-7-2008 @ 05:15 PM by Sublime620
Closing Statements

My opponent has provided no evidence. He has provided blurry pictures and speculation about what could be in them. The pictures are zoomed in so much that it is difficult to discern pixelation from real objects.

Originally posted by Skyfloating
With some people, denial kicks in at the prospects of the unbelievable. The debate judges will notice that its easy to see stairs.


It's not that the idea is unbelievable, I just don't see anything. I can't tell what we are looking at. I have no idea how far away that picture is, what angle we are looking at it from, or anything else.

Those "steps" could be a mile long each for all we know.

Originally posted by Skyfloating
Did I call this farmland? Did I make any such claim? No. I called it what it IS: Straight Lined Terraces.


You may not have, but others in the thread did. See what I mean? It's all about speculation. I thought it was steps, you say terraces, and still others say farmland.

It could just be pixelation. Or it could just be nothing. We can't tell, really.

Originally posted by Skyfloating
No, I do not believe the moon has these structures also. I cannot make a judgement on Lears work because Im not familiar with it.

But I do notice that you have been trying to divert attention to things I did not claim and things I did not say.


No, to the contrary. Lear has the exact same style, however. He zooms in on the moon, looks at anomalies, and compares them (unrealistically I might add) to man made objects on Earth.

Let's review:





These are images of the moon where people see things that aren't there. There is a near 300 page thread about it this very thing:

Moon Anomalies

So if what we are doing on Mars is correct, then the moon ought to work also. And if people can zoom in on Jupiter and find weird lines, then I guess we better just believe that intelligent life lived there also.

I definitely suggest giving a read through to the "John Lear's Moon pictures" thread before judging. John Lear and Zorgon have been doing this exact same analysis for years now.

Originally posted by Skyfloating
Well, if theres no reason to believe, then there is no reason to investigate.

So with my opponent admitting there are enough reasons to investigate he is also admitting there is reason to believe...and that, ladies and gentlemen, is the debate topic shifted in my favor.


So all my opponent had to do was post a few photos with weird lines in them and it's over? He's the winner? I have to disagree.

Look, I'd love for someone to send a Mars rover over and see what they find. I'm sure it wouldn't be anything, but hey... why not? Right?

But that's a far cry from having good reason to believe. I don't think anyone can walk away from this debate and say they'd put money on there being structures designed by intelligent life on the Mars.

That's what having reason to believe is... right? I have reason to believe the Patriots will win the Superbowl, so I'll bet on them. Or I have reason to believe OJ killed Nicole, so we will charge him (not investigate... that's post investigation).

So who's willing to put money on it? That's how you know if you have reason to believe, when you are willing to lay something on the line. That's reason to believe.



Well fought, Skyfloating. I enjoyed it. Sorry for the delay.

Thanks MS for setting this up.

Judges, sorry you had to actually take the time to read my writing. I try to be interesting, but to no avail sometimes.


reply posted on 9-7-2008 @ 12:54 PM by MemoryShock
The winner is Skyfloating. Excellent job on both sides....now, for the judges remarks...



Congratulations on a job well done to both Sublime and Skyfloating! This was a very fun and educational debate to witness.

1). Equally Spaced Objects. Skyfloating presented some rather interesting images in the debate. Although Sublime then presented some images of his own, and as interesting as they were, they really had nothing to do with Skyfloating's presentation and point of equally distanced objects. Skyfloating's point was equidistant objects but Sublime's rebuttals were simply geographic anomalies that did not have much to do with what Skyfloating presented. Even with Sublimes text rebuttal of there being no evidence to show these are equidistant, going with my first visual impression and then using a ruler, it looked like they were equidistant. Although he attempted to dispute the point using various objections (example: 'I see land masses that seem similar in spacing but not appearance' when Skyfloating's focus was the distance of the objects and not on the structures of the objects), they appeared to me to be 'what if' assertions and not much else. Not only that, but my saying such a thing that they seem to be equally spaced, that appeared to me that even he agreed with Skyfloating's point but tried to throw a cog into the works by claiming the objects were not similar structurally- a point Skyfloating never made an issue and could be due to erosion or the fact if the objects were indeed artificial, they were never supposed to be uniform in the first place.

2). More artificial structures. Skyfloating presented some interesting images appearing to be artificial structures on Mars. Although I can understand Sublime's objections, they again seemed to be generic and expected skepticism. Skyfloating made a good point about focusing on our original take on the images before bias crept in. I must say, upon doing so, the images were impressive. Sublime made a good point about such things being similar to ink blot tests but Skyfloating also did a good job by countering the objection by pointing out the uniform geometry of the 'terrace.' A face and a heart would be similar to 'cloud watching' but geometrical structures as is the case with the 'rectangular steps' of the terrace were convincing. However, Sublime countered this with the example of the naturally devolved steps of the 'Chinese pyramids' which was a good point that I never saw Skyfloating address.

3). Skyfloating made a good point about the circular reasoning and original bias of the issue clouding our thought when he said 'since there can be no intelligent life on Mars, these objects cannot be artificial.' In this debate, I tried looking at 'evidence' and 'possibility' opposed to the absolutes of 'proof' and 'fact.' Using this view, Skyfloating certainly appeared to have done a good job of presenting a solid case of that possibility and evidence. I took issues with Skyfloating being accused of providing 'no evidence' in the debate when it is obvious he did provide evidence to support his view. Although it may be perceptual or interpretive evidence, it was still evidence that built an interesting case for his position.

4). Comparing Mars evidence to John Lear's moon evidence. Although I can certainly understand where Sublime was trying to go with this argument by making a comparison between possible artificial Mars structures and moon structures, this appeared to be somewhat of an off topic strawman argument and diversion tactic, especially with the sample selection of very poor moon images which I felt were not anywhere near the level of Mars images presented by Skyfloating.

I have to go with Skyfloating as the winner.



A close debate. I thought there were several avenues on both sides that could have been explored but weren't. The picture of the steps is what did it for me. Sublime could have countered with an image that Mother Earth created but he didn't. I found one on the first page I Googled. The winner is skyfloating.



To start, the argument from either side wasn't very detailed. Skyfloating was put in a hard position but I thought he made a good move by using mike and internos as sources. I expected more though. He didn't really provide a whole lot of his own insight into the evidence. Sublime used what was posted by Skyfloating and his own evidence well enough to refute Sky's claims. I thought the time spent by both arguing about circular logic would have been better spent providing more data to the debate.

My judgment would have to go to Sublime. Both had some points but neither really offered a lot to judge. I'm guessing they both were busy this week. Solid debate but I was expecting a little more.

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