The Mystery of the lost Phobos Satellite

The second Phobos mission was launched on July 12 1988. The mission objective was to explore the larger of Mars two moons, Phobos. The Phobos spacecraft arrived at Mars on January 30 1989, but was lost while maneuvering Martian orbit to encounter Phobos on March 27 1989...

According to nasa The loss was due to either a failure of the on-board computer or of the radio transmitter which was already operating on the backup power system... personally, I think its a big load of crap and they are trying to hide something.

The last transmission from Phobos was a photograph of a huge cigar shaped spaceship taken on March 25 1989 while it was beside the moon.

Last photo taken by phobos


What really happened to phobos?

source

[edit on 26-11-2008 by SuperSlovak]

The Martians did not want us to see their artificial moon up close. The "cigar" was a huge stick that reached out and swatted the Phobos probe like an irritating fly.



Cheers!!!!




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[edit on 26/11/08 by JAK]

reply to post by SuperSlovak


That is an intriguing story. There seems to be a lot of mystery around Mars missions, a lot of "lost" probes. This should be an interesting thread, thanks.

Very interesting indeed.

I'd start with a search of these boards I know theres a few threads on it.

Edit:
I was going to add a few links but theres so many.


Actually heres a link to Mike Singh's thread on it.
Linky

[edit on 26-11-2008 by ATruGod]

[edit on 26-11-2008 by ATruGod]

Truth is we will never know unless we build our own spaceship and go out there to find out what is really going on. I have been reading threads on ATS for a long time now. Many questions and mysteries but no answers. We can only speculate what might have happened.

reply to post by SuperSlovak

Thanks for sharing, SuperSlovak:

Launch:
Name: Phobos 2 Orbiter/Lander
Name: Phobos 1 Orbiter

Country: USSR
Result: Failure
Reason: Lost near Phobos
Shortly before the final phase of the mission, during which the spacecraft was to approach within 50 m of Phobos' surface and release two landers, one a mobile "hopper", the other a stationary platform, contact with Phobos 2 was lost. The mission ended when the spacecraft signal failed to be successfully reacquired on March 27, 1989. The cause of the failure was determined to be a malfunction of the on-board computer.
nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov...



I've always considered this one of the most interesting images ever returned to Earth by some probe: it's also one of the most popular images from Phobos 2:

The Phobos Mystery Object (PMO) as it was referred to was soon believed to be a UFO by some. It was also speculated that the Russian mission had been deliberately terminated by aliens unwilling to let Phobos 2 approach the moon, supposed to be an artificial avant-poste of alien visitors on their way to earth. This scenario fit with the other mysteries: the supposed
hollow nature of the moon suggested by its strange gravitational behaviour, its strange closeness to the Martian surface, its visionary discovery by Jonathan Swift, the failure of Hershell and others to discover it and the sudden discovery by Hall that suggested it was not there before, the failure of Phobos 1, and all the other more famous Martian mysteries.
The Jan/Feb 1993 issue of the Planetary Society's "The Planetary Report" contains a brief note written by A.S. Selivanov and U.M. Gektin of the Institute of Space Device Engineering, Moscow, on the mysterious end of Phobos 2.
Read this paper about the consequences of the russian Phobos probes failures from 'The Sun', Flagstaff, Arizona, Sunday,

April 16, 1989: CONSEQUENCES OF PHOBOS FAILURES: .
The final infrared picture photo of Phobos occurred just three days before the communication failure, it reveals the outlines of both Phobos and the PMO. All surface detail is washed out on both objects which is very common in infrared pictures.

See also:
Soviet probe meets ufo on Phobos mission
MALFUNCTION OR EARLY STAR WARS INCIDENT?
THE FAILURE OF PHOBOS 1 AND 2

Looking at the Phobos 2 archive, i've noticed that there's a very similar feature, an image artifact, in many images:
for example in frame 2550033

www.planetary.org...
25 Mar 1989 09:22:36
Range 268 km
Channel 3 (infrared)
8 ms exposure

"Stretching" the image, (resize 130% in widht) i got this result

it's not a perfect match, but the fact that a similar glitch is visible in many other images, at approx. the same position even in images taken far away from there:








seems to be more than a clue: not to mention the shape of the artifact, that in some shots looks suspiciously similar (in some frames almost identical) to the object in question. And of course i wasn't happy at all when i've found it out this. Anyway, the end of Phobos 2 hasn't been conclusively clarified, as far as i know.
Edit to add: link to The Complete Phobos 2 VSK Image Data Set
www.planetary.org...


[edit on 26/11/2008 by internos]

thanks internos i had no idea there was a slideshow

its funny how nasa never said a thing about the huge object at the bottom of the screen

theyd probably call it space junk

The anomaly is so obvious, I would have assumed it was just an error in the image.

Were the Russians unluckier, less cautious, or more transparent (in mission data) than the Americans in the early space race years? They had a lot of failure during the Venera missions to Venus.

[edit on 26-11-2008 by Nox Vulpes]

Originally posted by SuperSlovak
its funny how nasa never said a thing about the huge object at the bottom of the screen

Why should they say something about it, it was not a NASA mission.

WOWOW!

When you see as many times as I have, people looking at pictures of blatent rocks on the martian surface and claiming, OMG ITS A HOUSE WITH A POOL AND A MAID, AND LOOK A STATUE OF BUSH ON THE FRONT LAWN! I begin to wonder if there really are any anomalies, or am witnessing a lot of active imaginations.


But then I see this thread, and thanks to whoever posted that 'slide show' cause that is amazing.

The fact that this so called anomaly shows up in many different frames, in several different sizes gives credence to the fact that it is not a camera problem.

The questions I have though, are as follows:

- Why does the object appear to be alone in the sky in early photos, then as it progresses, both mars and phobos, are brought into view and at a relatively close distance to the object?

- Exactly how big is phobos in relation to Mars?

- If this really is something artifical and its been seen in many different photos in almost the exact same position in relation to phobos, could this be some sort of towing vehicle? (For those who perscribe to the hollow moon theories)

I think it's amazing that such a blatant object could be dismissed as anything but a UFO. So why isn't and why hasn't this been huge news forever now? These pictures are so old! What does NASA say about this information?

Also on a site someone above suggested which led me to ufologie.net...

They show 'chains of craters' heres a pic


Wow so many phobos mysteries.

Wow, look at what else phobos found on its mission!

ufo-media.com...

Watch the video! It shows so much.

Ok, maybe I'm out in left field, but what I believe Internos is trying to tell us is that since the 'artifact' (not a physical artifact but an image artifact) is in the same position in each of the frames he posted, this is most like an internal problem with the camera, or a software glitch in either the transmission or reception of the images.

If it were really an external object, you would expect to see it appear in different orientations, or different locations in the frame.

Again, if I have misinterpreted this I apologize. But i'm pretty sure this is what he was trying to tell us.

Montana

Originally posted by Montana
Ok, maybe I'm out in left field, but what I believe Internos is trying to tell us is that since the 'artifact' (not a physical artifact but an image artifact) is in the same position in each of the frames he posted, this is most like an internal problem with the camera, or a software glitch in either the transmission or reception of the images.

If it were really an external object, you would expect to see it appear in different orientations, or different locations in the frame.

Again, if I have misinterpreted this I apologize. But i'm pretty sure this is what he was trying to tell us.

Montana

Ok, you must visit the link in my last post ufo-media.com... or there, watch the video its 7 minutes. But it explains this whole thing, and its amazing that this hasn't been covered before.


The video shows the whole chain of events, and before phobos 2 sent that image, it took many pictures of mars including one that appeared to show a dark cigar shape on the surface of the moon, but since they could see through it they figured it was rather a shadow. Some theorized that it could be a rocket of some sort, but the scientists disagreed and went for the rational explanation of it being a shadow.

Then suddenly phobos is lost. And the russians don't reveal anything except for the fact that the last imagie included something that "should not have been there". But the Russians never release the photo. But then a Russian retired air force colonel holds a surprise press conference at the russian consulate in san Francisco and releases the famous photo in this thread.

That whole series of events suggests that this is not some technical failure that is producing the anomaly, rather the shadow is of a craft that actually is orbiting mars as well. This is the craft that appears in phobos last image.

[edit on 26-11-2008 by king9072]

I see what you are trying to say, but I just don't think I get the same thing from the video as you do. I don't see anything that ties the two anomalies together other than wishes and hopes.

A shadow from something in orbit? The resolution of the image they are discussing was given as 2km per pixel. To cast a shadow of that size from orbit an object would have to be how large? 100's of km long?

I did pick up a good quote from the video, though.

Interviewer: What is the shape there?

Bystander: I think it is a rocket taking off, and that is it's exhaust!

Scientist: Well, if you want to fantasize....

I just can't get on the bandwagon with this one.

Originally posted by Montana
I see what you are trying to say, but I just don't think I get the same thing from the video as you do. I don't see anything that ties the two anomalies together other than wishes and hopes.

A shadow from something in orbit? The resolution of the image they are discussing was given as 2km per pixel. To cast a shadow of that size from orbit an object would have to be how large? 100's of km long?

I did pick up a good quote from the video, though.

Interviewer: What is the shape there?

Bystander: I think it is a rocket taking off, and that is it's exhaust!

Scientist: Well, if you want to fantasize....

I just can't get on the bandwagon with this one.

Mmm, ok, ill go over it slowly. That conversation shows the attitude of the Russian Scientists, they thought that was ludicrous, they themselves called it a shadow.

So, then some time later the orbiter goes missing and that is the last image it sends back. On one of the sites they estimate the size of the object in the sky at being in Kilometers! Its almost the diameter of the entire 'moonlet' phobos.

So, then it seems that the large shadow on the surface is infact being created by whatever that object is near the moon.

Additionally they never speculate on the size of the shadow itself.

its a shadow allright
the shadow of 25km long spacecraft

If I didn't believe it the first time you said it, I'm not going to believe it now just because you keep saying it.

I understand what you are trying to say, I simply think it has nothing to do with reality. But who knows, I can be as wrong as anybody else! Enjoy your conversation.

Montana

I need to read more carefully. You are right, Internos seems to have explained this.

reply to post by Nox Vulpes


The phobos probe also caught 'Thing' casting this shadow on the surface of mars....

Originally posted by Montana
Ok, maybe I'm out in left field, but what I believe Internos is trying to tell us is that since the 'artifact' (not a physical artifact but an image artifact) is in the same position in each of the frames he posted, this is most like an internal problem with the camera, or a software glitch in either the transmission or reception of the images.
Montana

You are right, that's what i'm trying to say.


The features of the occurrence make me think that it was a transmission failure, and what we see is consequence of missing data: if we'd know how exactly the image transmission hardware/software had been working, then we could be even more specific about it: now, i've made an animation, with the raw images: in order to get what i'm saying, one should focus on the white object: at a certain point, you will see that it becomes a straight line, which crosses the whole frame, this one


look at the sequence, and you will notice that in spite of every change of the environments, the object sticks in the same exact vertical line, creating an apparent vertical "movement" effect:


in the following animation, i've superimposed the frame in question with the one showing the straight line:

put the mouse pointer on the line, and you will notice that there's a PERFECT allignement:
now, back to the photo in question:

you can see the "waving" effect, which indicates that of course is NOT a raw image, but likely a scan, maybe a scan of a film, maybe a photo of a photo, maybe a scan of a photo, maybe a photo of a scan etc.., basically it has to be a third, a fourth, a fifth (maybe more) generation image: and THIS is the point: they presented THAT frame in THAT conditions in order to deceive the people looking at it: if they woud have presented the RAW image, everyone would have noticed the perfectly straight line. The white straight areas, are missing data, no matter how it has happened, they do are: see this example from another frame

a semplified, rough scheme of this image would be the following, where (1) stands for "data OK" and (0) stands for "data missing":

11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111111111111111110000000000000000
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
11111000000000000000000000000000000000000000
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
11100000000000000000000000000000000000000000
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
11100000000000000000000000000000000000000000
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111100111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111100111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111100111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111100111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111


...while a rough scheme of this frame

would be:

11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111110111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111110111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111100111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111100111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111100111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111100111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111100111111111111111111111111111
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
11111111111111100111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111100111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111100111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111100111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111111001111111111111111111111111
11111111111111100111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111100111111111111111111111111111

I hope it's clear what i mean
I would like to point out that all this is just limited to that specific image, it doesn't affect the rest of the mysteries of Phobos/Phobos 2 mission, which are still worthy to be both investigated and discussed IMHO.



[edit on 27/11/2008 by internos]