What did NASA hide on Mount Hadley, July 1971?

Whilst following the links given on another ATS posting today "The strange story of JAL 1628", I came across a fascinating page on intercepted astronaut conversations during various Apollo missions in the 70's, from which I quote:

The following Apollo Astronaut conversations were mostly taken from the out-of-print book "Our Mysterious Spaceship Moon" by Don Wilson (Dell, 1975):

Apollo 15: David Scott, Alfred Worden, James Irwin; went to the Appenine Mountains of the Moon, July 26 - Aug. 7, 1971. Conversation about discovering strange "tracks":

Scott: Arrowhead really runs east to west.

Mission Control: Roger, we copy.

Irwin: Tracks here as we go down slope.

MC: Just follow the tracks, huh?

Irwin: Right we're (garble). We know that's a fairly good run. We're bearing 320, hitting range for 413 ... I can't get over those lineations, that layering on Mt. Hadley.

Scott: I can't either. That's really spectacular.

Irwin: They sure look beautiful.

Scott: Talk about organization!

Irwin: That's the most *organized structure I've ever seen*!

Scott: It's (garble) so uniform in width.

Irwin: Nothing we've seen before this has shown such uniform thickness from the top of the tracks to the bottom.

Wilson writes: (p. 145): "What are these tracks? Who made them? Where did they come from? Does NASA have an answer for the people?"

So... I thought I'd go and find a picture of Mount Hadley, and found a large, high quality photo here. A very reduced version is shown below. I suggest you download the original file yourselves to see what I saw.



Zooming in I was suddenly struck by something odd, and which appears nowhere else on this NASA image:



Here's a close-up detail of the outlined area of interest. Anyone who's acquainted with 'Clone Brush' functions in good quality graphics packages like Photoshop or Paintshop Pro will understand what I mean. This artificial repetition sticks out like a sore thumb. It's not a misaligned join between two panels of the overall collage - If it were it would all fall in a straight line.



So... bearing in mind the quotes above from Scott, Irwin and Mission Control 37 years ago, does anyone share my hunch that something's been quite clumsily (but deliberately) airbrushed out in this section?

When I looked at your original image I thought it had been re-touched as some of mt Hadley seems conveninetly clear...I don't know what I see in your cropped section, but it is stange looking nonetheless for a hill side, imo, as the gradient line areas appear too regularly (?)

ColoradoJens

Originally posted by ColoradoJens
When I looked at your original image I thought it had been re-touched as some of mt Hadley seems conveninetly clear...I don't know what I see in your cropped section, but it is stange looking nonetheless for a hill side, imo, as the gradient line areas appear too regularly (?)

ColoradoJens

The 'Master' shot is a composite put together by a NASA bod called David Harland. That's why there's a mixture of blurry and sharp areas, because of the original source images. Here's the info from the NASA index:

144:50:48 High Resolution Mt. Hadley Composite ( 6.2 Mb ) David Harland has superimposed high-resolution version of AS15-84-11292 to 11330 onto AS15-90-11488, which is a frame from Jim's first STation 6 pan.

The striations are interesting enough - they look almost sedimentary at first sight, and looking at the composite as a whole it's obvious that the uniform thick dust coating which covers the whole Moon (and the top of Mount Hadley) has been scoured away by something on this inside face of the 'mountain'. Bearing in mind the Moon is not volcanic or tectonic, I wonder what made these diagonal striations, and what uncovered them?

Getting back to the detail I posted, can you see the repetitions going on in this section? They stick out against the truly random, chaotic nature of the rest of the image.

Human brains are expert at picking out patterns, and we've become very good at spotting evidence of photo-manipulation over the last few years. This part of the image has been doctored specifically, I reckon.

[edit on 5/9/2008 by jupiter1uk]

[edit on 5/9/2008 by jupiter1uk]

I am looking at this close up image, but I dont really see any repetitious pattern occurring. The parallel lines look a little weird, but I can't see any evidence of a cloned pattern. There are some strange streaks to the left of the area you outlined, but perhaps these are pixelization artifacts... can't really make head or tales of it. Do you have a theory here concerning the conversation of the astronaut and the side of Mt Hadley other than a geographic anomaly?

When Irwin says "That's the most *organized structure I've ever seen*... That is a pretty reactive statement, but I wonder what he was lookin at????

Originally posted by jupiter1uk
The striations are interesting enough - they look almost sedimentary at first sight, and looking at the composite as a whole it's obvious that the uniform thick dust coating which covers the whole Moon (and the top of Mount Hadley) has been scoured away by something on this inside face of the 'mountain'. Bearing in mind the Moon is not volcanic or tectonic, I wonder what made these diagonal striations, and what uncovered them?

There is evidence of past volcanism on the moon and the layering on Mt. Hadley may be accounted for by it. There is a quite detailed geologic analysis of the Apollo 15 landing site here.

Well-developed and largely unexpected systems of lineaments suggestive of fracture and compositional layers or both were observed and photographed by the crew on both Mt. Hadley and Hadley Delta. Surface photographs taken with the 60- and 500-mm Hasselblad cameras (figs. 5-15, 5-16, 5-17, 5-18, 5-19, 5-20, and 5-21 ) show the lineaments clearly. Orbital photographs taken with the high-resolution panoramic camera generally show the same lineament sets that the crew documented from the surface.

The layers are of great geologic interest and the report contains a lot of information about them, both on Mt. Hadley and in the surrounding terrain. It's possible the "tracks" could be these layers.

Final note: The term "structure" is very commonly used in geology and has nothing to do with artificial constructions. Before their trips to the moon, the astronauts were briefed and trained in geology and its terminology.

[edit on 5-9-2008 by Phage]

Originally posted by mapsurfer_
I am looking at this close up image, but I dont really see any repetitious pattern occurring. The parallel lines look a little weird, but I can't see any evidence of a cloned pattern. There are some strange streaks to the left of the area you outlined, but perhaps these are pixelization artifacts... can't really make head or tales of it. Do you have a theory here concerning the conversation of the astronaut and the side of Mt Hadley other than a geographic anomaly?

When Irwin says "That's the most *organized structure I've ever seen*... That is a pretty reactive statement, but I wonder what he was lookin at????

Maybe this will help you see better what I'm getting at:



Download it and maybe zoom in a little and I think you'll see the cloning.

I found the geology very interesting in itself, and when I went in for a closer look that's when I saw this cloning, hence my post. The quotes from Scott and Irwin can be taken either way depending on your personal viewpoint. I take it to infer that they were looking at something out of the ordinary and plausibly artificial. Were they just looking at some very cool geology, I believe they would have spoken about it more scientifically. As it is, they seem to have added some extra-curricular comment at the time.

The devil is in the details, as they say!

Originally posted by Phage

Originally posted by jupiter1uk
The striations are interesting enough - they look almost sedimentary at first sight, and looking at the composite as a whole it's obvious that the uniform thick dust coating which covers the whole Moon (and the top of Mount Hadley) has been scoured away by something on this inside face of the 'mountain'. Bearing in mind the Moon is not volcanic or tectonic, I wonder what made these diagonal striations, and what uncovered them?

There is evidence of past volcanism on the moon and the layering on Mt. Hadley may be accounted for by it. There is a quite detailed geologic analysis of the Apollo 15 landing site here.

Well-developed and largely unexpected systems of lineaments suggestive of fracture and compositional layers or both were observed and photographed by the crew on both Mt. Hadley and Hadley Delta. Surface photographs taken with the 60- and 500-mm Hasselblad cameras (figs. 5-15, 5-16, 5-17, 5-18, 5-19, 5-20, and 5-21 ) show the lineaments clearly. Orbital photographs taken with the high-resolution panoramic camera generally show the same lineament sets that the crew documented from the surface.

The layers are of great geologic interest and the report contains a lot of information about them, both on Mt. Hadley and in the surrounding terrain. It's possible the "tracks" could be these layers.

Final note: The term "structure" is very commonly used in geology and has nothing to do with artificial constructions. Before their trips to the moon, the astronauts were briefed and trained in geology and its terminology.

[edit on 5-9-2008 by Phage]

I generally agree with you, Phage, except... if they were remarking on the lineaments, they would have referred to them as lineaments, striations or layers, surely. Since they were, as you say, trained in geology and its terminology, I don't think 'tracks' is an accepted geological description. It's more a word you'd use describing archaeology. I personally don't feel that if they were staring at a huge striated mountain they would describe the lineaments as tracks. It struck me as odd language.

[edit on 5/9/2008 by jupiter1uk]

I can definitely pick out the pattern on the original image. I would say cloning for sure. However, why that may be, I am not sure. In the original picture is also a blurred rectangle for no apparent reason. Weird.

Originally posted by Lebowski achiever
I can definitely pick out the pattern on the original image. I would say cloning for sure. However, why that may be, I am not sure. In the original picture is also a blurred rectangle for no apparent reason. Weird.

Thank goodness someone sees the same think I did! At last!

Why it's been done just in that area is a real head-scratcher. If the cloning was done many years ago, the crudity of it would probably have escaped notice, but we're more sophisticated now. I wonder what the cloning covered over?

The bigger blurry areas are bacause the entire 'master' image is a composite of several smaller images, some in poor quality lo-res, others in hi-res.

Originally posted by jupiter1uk


I generally agree with you, Phage, except... if they were remarking on the lineaments, they would have referred to them as lineaments, striations or layers, surely. Since they were, as you say, trained in geology and its terminology, I don't think 'tracks' is an accepted geological description. It's more a word you'd use describing archaeology. I personally don't feel that if they were staring at a huge striated mountain they would describe the lineaments as tracks. It struck me as odd language.

[edit on 5/9/2008 by jupiter1uk]

How about this?

Irwin: Nothing we've seen before this has shown such uniform thickness from the top of the tracks to the bottom.

If you were following tracks on the ground would you describe them as being of uniform thickness, top to bottom? It seems to be a more likely description of vertical layering. But, as you said earlier it's subject to interpretation depending on your individual viewpoint.

For the record, the cloning is quite evident once you point it out. You have a remarkable eye. Have a look at this. It's the original of the area in question. It doesn't appear anything has been hidden by the cloning. Likely is was for aesthetic purposes. Notice the stars were edited out.....hmmmmm

[edit on 5-9-2008 by Phage]

[edit on 5-9-2008 by Phage]

great find! i always thought there was something on that moon of ours. im with the idea that armstrong saw a row of ships lined up behind a mountain in the sea of tranquility.
but yes as a photoshop user, i can definitely see the clone stamp tool here. really poor effort from nasa ay.