NASA Employed Photo Artists to Airbrush Lunar Anomolies

Originally posted by JimOberg
You mean, like UFO buffs who claim opponents are paid disinformational professionals -- anybody doing that around here lately, bro?

Haven't seen it pop up in this thread actually. Ironic that the skeptic would be the one to raise that point. My only comment that comes even close is a reference to your professional relationship with NASA, period. I'm not accusing anyone of being a member of some uber secret, Masonic cabal. It's not even on my radar.

Isn't it kinda 'unbalanced' to accuse others falsely of accusing people of being 'unbalanced'?

Considering the harsh indictments you've made about various people in this very thread I'd call it polite comparatively. Your basic position is that all of these people who have made statements about this have various credibility issues and moral / character shortcomings which means they're lying. Again, so far the only person engaging in that level of aggression in the discussion would be you. Unlike some of the other pro UFO folks you managed to piss off I haven't called you a single name or attacked you, something you've done to me via insinuation and now via direct statement - apparently because I don't share your opinion on certain things.

Typical. Run away from results of one investigation and throw out other names that weren't part of the original discussion. Re Cooper: Do you know how many millions of dollars people lost investing in cockamamie aerospace investment schemes Cooper promoted after being booted out of the astronaut program? I guess you'd be surprirsed -- but you're probably more comfortable making sure you DON'T know that kind of thing. I guess you fell for that NASA propaganda about astronauts being superhuman paragons of virtue -- that delusion cost a lot of people a lot of money.

It's not that I don't want to know, I don't care because it has nothing to do with the subject at hand. You're setting an impossible standard, one in which any witness must be a perfect human being, never having lied or been subject to any allegation of anything even if it doesn't relate to the subject. It's a good thing our criminal justice system doesn't set witness standards that high or we'd never convict anyone. Just like any other question of honesty it comes down to overall credibility and motive. Nobodies perfect but leaving the NASA official line on this subject sure seems to make people a lot less perfect. People who go public about UFO experiences end up paying a hell of lot more of a price for it than any gain I can see.

But they haven't, you're living in a dream world of other people's delusions and confabulations. The guy you say (on his say-so alone) was "hired to run the entire Lunar mission photo archive", wasn't. He made that part up. You fell for it. Lift yourself up, dust yourself off, and edge closer to verifiable reality -- your speculations will gain credibility, not lose it, as you realize you were suckered by some bogus stories.

I haven't' been able to find any proof that he lied but it's clear you exaggerated your representation of his employment. Shipping clerk?

You obviously have no idea about what my position on this mystery is, so you are making it up out of your own imagination. I am entirely willing to acknowledge the possibility of truly anomalous stimuli lurking out there in the 'UFO testimony', but camouflaged and masked by a torrent of noise and garble that most UFO buffs have proven themselves unable to work through. I have written and explained this numerous times -- but you choose to ignore my views and fantasize fake ones.

Everything I've read about and by you led me to the opinion your a dedicated debunker. You're as fanatical as some of the UFO believers you laugh at. I've ignored you and would have kept doing so but you posted a direct question at me. It's my opinion that anyone who still takes the "maybe UFOs are possible" line either hasn't studied enough or isn't interested in the truth. There's just too much evidence, they're real. Whose driving them and where they come from are the only questions left, again in my opinion.

"Tear down" is a semantically loaded term. How about, "understand the basis of testimony"? How about, "investigate reports for context and corroboration"? How about, "Don't start out believing everything you hear -- verify, verify, verify"?

Character assassination meets the definition of "tear down". After wasting an hour googling your previous writings the pattern emerges. You don't ever seem to discuss the issue, evidence, questions - it's always "so and so did this and is a bad person". I'm sure I'm all alone in coming to that conclusion though . . .

This is a "false dilemma", a top characteristic of sloppy thinkers (and of deliberate deceivers). When you use such argumentative tricks, mature and experienced people recognize that your thinking isn't yet disciplined enough to have any value in a serious discussion.

So again, any witness must be perfect to be credible. I'm not engaging in debate tactics to convince people who are incapable of analytic thinking. If I'm so sloppy and immature then why are you bothering? I'm sure all of ATS sees things your way so why worry?

How long? Tomorrow? Next year? UFO enthusiasts have been saying that disclosure is just around the corner for decades, with the same fervent faith. Sort of religious, doesn't it seem?

The progress of disclosure continues moving forward, especially with the release of national records which is still underway. I wouldn't call it moving backwards.

Hope isn't fact, although you clearly have confused the two. And your vile insinuation that I'm expressing views on the orders of (and in the pay of) some secret cabal would be insulting if I thought you really understood the loathsome historical significance of the phrase "just following orders"...

Obviously I'm fully aware of the historical significance. Unless NASA is a secret cabal I haven't made any such claim. You're a pro skeptic and debunker who gets paid to represent that position. The test of character I referred to is not limited to a single point in history, it's one for all time so long as men are given defined positions to take by their leaders / employers, etc. I can see why you might be sensitive to the Nazi thing though and that wasn't my intention.

reply to post by JimOberg


Dear Congressman and Senator,
It's been brought to my attention by Jim Oberg that NASA engages in very poor hiring practices, especially of it's contractors and has hired people who present false PHDs, engineering degrees and so on. It's even clear that a great many of our astronauts and vital mission control personnel engage in activities which would attract the label of "con man" and investment scheme operator among other things.

As someone who has worked for a number of US and foreign government projects including DOD and DOE classified programs as a contractor I was put through FBI background checks and periodic renewals which included interviews with my family, neighbors, current and ex coworkers, teachers and so on, full financial disclosure and audits, fingerprint cards and in one case DNA I can't even begin to express how shocked I am that people with no / false degrees and un-indicted criminals could just walk in to NASA and work on public as well as DOD programs.

I formally request that NASA no longer be allowed to fly so much as a paper airplane over my property based on Mr Oberg's disclosure. While I respect and admire the fine work of the majority of NASA's personnel it only takes a few bad apples to spoil the bunch and well, I won't be able to sleep at night knowing a bad de-orbit and vaporization of my home and children is at the mercy of whoever managed to sneak in the door of mission control that day. Please re-route all satellites, rockets and space stations away from the vertical space corridor over the enclosed GPS coordinates ASAP.

I'll await your replies from a bed and breakfast in Alaska.
Thanks,
eco

[edit on 17-9-2009 by ecoparity]

Originally posted by ecoparity
Adding to the testimony we have the NASA claim that stars don't show up in the moon photos, a weird thing about stars not being visible in a vacuum and then descriptions of how brilliant and numerous the stars were in the writings of astronauts who also made these counter statements about them not being visible.

It just seems like a colossal waste of time to argue with certain skeptics, IMO. ...

Are you really baffled by the absence of stars in the Apollo lunar surface handheld imagery, but their visibility to the naked eye while orbiting over the dark side? Or would it be a colossal waste of time to call you out on this skepticism?

Originally posted by ravenflt

Originally posted by Chovy
I was going to post a related YouTube video but alas, it was banned. Atleast you can see the editing in the pictures.

If you recall what the British hacker who hacked NASA said, he said they do employ airbrushers and other artists and have tons of doctored photos in the archieves which he found (he also said NASA knows that aliens/UFOs exist).

I don't recall that. The version I'm familiar with has him seeing a picture of a spherical space vehicle that he thought looked alien. One image. Please let me know where the links are to his more extensive claims, especially regarding employment of airbrushers.

Originally posted by JimOberg

Originally posted by ravenflt

Originally posted by Chovy
I was going to post a related YouTube video but alas, it was banned. Atleast you can see the editing in the pictures.

If you recall what the British hacker who hacked NASA said, he said they do employ airbrushers and other artists and have tons of doctored photos in the archieves which he found (he also said NASA knows that aliens/UFOs exist).

I don't recall that. The version I'm familiar with has him seeing a picture of a spherical space vehicle that he thought looked alien. One image. Please let me know where the links are to his more extensive claims, especially regarding employment of airbrushers.

en.wikipedia.org...

In his interview with the BBC he also claimed that "The Disclosure Project" says there is "extraterrestrial in origin and [they've] captured spacecraft and reverse engineered it." He said he investigated a NASA photographic expert's claim that at the Johnson Space Center's Building 8 images were regularly cleaned of evidence of UFO craft, and confirmed this comparing the raw originals with the "processed" images. He claimed to have viewed a detailed image of "something not man-made" and "cigar shaped" floating above the northern hemisphere, and assuming his viewing would be undisrupted owing to the hour, he did not think of capturing the image because he was "bedazzled", and therefore did not think of securing it with the screen capture function in the software at the point when his connection was interrupted.[38] McKinnon stated the image was approximately 256 megabytes in size, yet that the craft's details were still distinct in the greatly inferior 4-bit color and low resolution he had to reduce the viewing image to appear across his mere 56k modem connection (approximate transfer rate 28kbps).

Originally posted by ecoparity
Your basic position is that all of these people who have made statements about this have various credibility issues and moral / character shortcomings which means they're lying.

The people you have chosen to blindly trust have made many claims, some of which can be shown to be at variance with all other witnesses and records. What's wrong with finding that out? I'm not offering any omniscient explanation for this, but am suggesting that this should be a factor in assigning a credibility level to other related claims.

I haven't' been able to find any proof that he [Johnston] lied but it's clear you exaggerated your representation of his employment. Shipping clerk?

This is called an 'argument from personal incompetence'. Since you can't do it, you assume it can't be done. Maybe you should instead assess your own abilities to locate (and evaluate) evidence of this sort.

Are you still clinging to the story he was in charge of the Apollo image archives and under orders had to delete certain images from those master archives?

That job, at the age of 25, with no college degree? That WOULD be something to complain to NASA about.

I've seen no evidence -- not made any claims -- that Johnston or Cooper or other folks discussed here got their jobs in the space program under false pretenses, or performed their professional duties with anything less than dedication, integrity and competence.

Your snarky 'complaint letter' to NASA, however, makes the accusation that I have done so. Please read more carefully. No, I don't think you are lying -- but you sure demonstrate a high level of confusion, and some difficulty in reading with comprehension.

Back to the central issue -- which of these stories about photo forgeries and coverups do you consider worthy of belief, and based on what investigation of the context and background of the claims? You aren't automatically assuming that all the stories are fully accurate, without checking, are you?

reply to post by fleabit


Your logic is impeccable.

Except that it wasn't NASA who airbrushed the image shown my the OP, it was the US NAVY, as the mission was Clementine, a DOD mission.

The fact is, the mission took approx 1.5 million images of the moon, only about 200,000 have been ever been released.

Why would they airbrush and then release the images?
Well, they HAD to show us at least some of the images didn't they!

They have already held 1.3 million images back from the public, and so the obvious conclusion about airbrushing and releasing is that there are SO MANY artifacts and artificial structures and evidence, that the one's the have condescended to release were probably some of the least 'contraversial' among the total amount.

The airbrushing is real...these images are downloadable directly from the official websites. At least the used to be, whether or not they are still available, i don't know.

How can you say you don't buy the airbrushing when there is obvious evidence of it on the official images?

I don't buy that you don't buy it.

Originally posted by JimOberg

Originally posted by ecoparity
Adding to the testimony we have the NASA claim that stars don't show up in the moon photos, a weird thing about stars not being visible in a vacuum and then descriptions of how brilliant and numerous the stars were in the writings of astronauts who also made these counter statements about them not being visible.

It just seems like a colossal waste of time to argue with certain skeptics, IMO. ...

Are you really baffled by the absence of stars in the Apollo lunar surface handheld imagery, but their visibility to the naked eye while orbiting over the dark side? Or would it be a colossal waste of time to call you out on this skepticism?

Even with the Earth in full view the stars were visible if the astronauts simply turned their backs to the Earth. If you can see it then it will show up in photographs. What I found strange was an explanation which blamed "the vacuum" and press conference quotes where astronauts claimed they could not see stars from the lunar surface. I'm sure you're aware of the specific press questions and answers, this isn't your first rodeo by a long shot.

The quotes about how brilliant the stars were were from a description of a moon walk, not a dark-side orbit. You have the same astronaut telling the press he couldn't see the stars on the surface and then writing a description about how vivid they were from the lunar surface in a book. I'm sure you'll point out how he caused a baby food factory to fail and wipe out the local investment club or something and is not to be believed.

Nasa has never altered photos and no discoveries were made in space which were kept from the public, anyone who says otherwise is a bad person who lies, cheats and or steals (while high). Got it.

[edit on 17-9-2009 by ecoparity]

Originally posted by ecoparity
en.wikipedia.org...

Thanks, I hadn't seen it -- was the original BBC show linked?

So McK claimed he was able to compare original and altered photographs. How many do you suppose he had to search in that data base? Ten thousand? A hundred thousand? And all of this over a dial-up modem?

My original objection to the veracity of Hare's claim still stands -- she described the image as of Earth's surface, where trees and their shadows could be made out. Nobody has ever, ever been able to produce a single photograph of that type, released by NASA in that time period, and at the security level commensurate with Hare's access to the area, where any trees or shadows could be discerned. The resolution of the earth surface pix that NASA dealt with in that era was a hundred meters or so -- too low to resolve things as small as trees.

A single counter-example would demolish my argument. In the eight years since I've been making the challenge, many have blustered and evaded, but nobody has succeeded.

[edit on 17-9-2009 by JimOberg]

Originally posted by ecoparity
Even with the Earth in full view the stars were visible if the astronauts simply turned their backs to the Earth. If you can see it then it will show up in photographs. What I found strange was an explanation which blamed "the vacuum" and press conference quotes where astronauts claimed they could not see stars from the lunar surface. I'm sure you're aware of the specific press questions and answers, this isn't your first rodeo by a long shot.

Sorry to disappoint, but I'm clueless about any astronauts using this explanation. Are those questions and answers on line somewhere?

I recall astronauts saying that if they got in the shadow of the LM and looked up, and waited for their eyes to dark-adapt, they could see stars (and on Apollo-16, that's where they actually deployed a telescope). Inside the LM, they used a star tracker (sextant) with sunlight-blocking baffles to see navigation stars.

And I recall speculation that the pure point-source nature of light from a star, in a vacuum, would make them too narrow in angular size to register on either eyeballs or photographic media, without deliberate 'de-focussing' lenses. But then it turned out, that point-source argument was quickly abandoned in the light of actual observations.

But astronauts using that argument? Gosh, I'm really at a loss to recall that. Please help me.

Originally posted by ecoparity
The quotes about how brilliant the stars were were from a description of a moon walk, not a dark-side orbit. You have the same astronaut telling the press he couldn't see the stars on the surface and then writing a description about how vivid they were from the lunar surface in a book. I'm sure you'll point out how he caused a baby food factory to fail and wipe out the local investment club or something and is not to be believed.

That's the way you remember it, no doubt. It really would surprise me, but I'm open minded about my own imperfect memory, so I'd appreciate a link to this astronaut's stories.

You were right about McKinnon, and I'm better informed for asking, so i'm seeking a two-fer.

Originally posted by JimOberg
I've seen no evidence -- not made any claims -- that Johnston or Cooper or other folks discussed here got their jobs in the space program under false pretenses, or performed their professional duties with anything less than dedication, integrity and competence.

Finally something we agree on. This is why I choose to give these people the benefit of the doubt regardless of any mistakes they might have made in life, related to their job at NASA or not.

All the other evidence about the existence of UFOs lends the supporting credibility to the claims. Taken together I find it to be not just beyond reasonable doubt but overwhelming.

I consider myself to be a healthy skeptic, one who is willing to examine evidence and reach a conclusion based on it. It's my opinion that you engage in pseudo-skepticism and represent a predefined position regardless of evidence. You get paid to represent the position of "skeptic" which I've found usually translates to something other than what should be the definition of the term. If getting paid to represent a pro UFO or anti-NASA position is cause to question credibility then the opposite most certainly applies.

There should be no need to exaggerate a description of Ken Johnston's career at NASA to support your position. I don't claim to blindly believe him or anyone else for that matter but I'm really not interested in what his exact qualifications or positions were because it doesn't matter. You asked for even one other person other than Donna and I've given you three. Your reaction is to assassinate the character of all of them and I guess claim they don't count.

Believe me, if your challenge had been to "provide even one other witness I, Jim Oberg will find credible" I wouldn't have bothered as it would be a complete waste of time. AFAIK there are no witnesses you find credible when it comes to the entire subject. Skepticism is not defined as "being a brick wall".

Originally posted by ravenflt
If you recall what the British hacker who hacked NASA said, he said they do employ airbrushers and other artists and have tons of doctored photos in the archieves which he found (he also said NASA knows that aliens/UFOs exist).

Turns out, he told BBC that somebody told HIM that NASA employs airbrushers, and that he found folders marked 'raw' and 'processed' which he assumed were before/after retouched views, but he didn't really ever see a single such pair.

Here's the original interview, not the way it seems to have been garbled in the retelling:

Hacker fears 'UFO cover-up'

Friday, 5 May 2006, 16:40 GMT 17:40 UK

news.bbc.co.uk...

GM: One of these people was a Nasa photographic expert, and she said that in building eight of Johnson Space Centre they regularly airbrushed out images of UFOs from the high-resolution satellite imaging. What she said was there was there: there were folders called "filtered" and "unfiltered", "processed" and "raw", something like that.
I got one picture out of the folder, and bearing in mind this is a 56k dial-up, so a very slow internet connection, in dial-up days, using the remote control programme I turned the colour down to 4bit colour and the screen resolution really, really low, and even then the picture was still juddering as it came onto the screen.
But what came on to the screen was amazing. It was a culmination of all my efforts. It was a picture of something that definitely wasn't man-made.
It was above the Earth's hemisphere. It kind of looked like a satellite. It was cigar-shaped and had geodesic domes above, below, to the left, the right and both ends of it, and although it was a low-resolution picture it was very close up.
This thing was hanging in space, the earth's hemisphere visible below it, and no rivets, no seams, none of the stuff associated with normal man-made manufacturing.
SK: Is it possible this is an artist's impression?
GM: I don't know... For me, it was more than a coincidence. This woman has said: "This is what happens, in this building, in this space centre". I went into that building, that space centre, and saw exactly that.

Originally posted by ecoparity
It's my opinion that you engage in pseudo-skepticism and represent a predefined position regardless of evidence. You get paid to represent the position of "skeptic" which I've found usually translates to something other than what should be the definition of the term. If getting paid to represent a pro UFO or anti-NASA position is cause to question credibility then the opposite most certainly applies.

OMIGOD, I've been forgetting to file my invoices!!!

Tell me the address and charge number, and I'll give you a 10% finder's fee. Quick! I can use the money.

Last resort of a losing arguer -- accuse his opponent of lying for money. Jeeez.

Originally posted by JimOberg

Originally posted by ecoparity
en.wikipedia.org...

Thanks, I hadn't seen it -- was the original BBC show linked?

So McK claimed he was able to compare original and altered photographs. How many do you suppose he had to search in that data base? Ten thousand? A hundred thousand? And all of this over a dial-up modem?

My original objection to the veracity of Hare's claim still stands -- she described the image as of Earth's surface, where trees and their shadows could be made out. Nobody has ever, ever been able to produce a single photograph of that type, released by NASA in that time period, and at the security level commensurate with Hare's access to the area, where any trees or shadows could be discerned. The resolution of the earth surface pix that NASA dealt with in that era was a hundred meters or so -- too low to resolve things as small as trees.

A single counter-example would demolish my argument. In the eight years since I've been making the challenge, many have blustered and evaded, but nobody has succeeded.

[edit on 17-9-2009 by JimOberg]

BBC interview: bbcworld.com...

As for the photo question just one original with something strange in it and the post edit version without would be enough. From his description I get the impression he didn't have all that long to go through them but was able to find pre and post edit folder structures with quite a few photos inside.

As for the trees comment, she could be talking about an entire forest for all we know. I'm having trouble even finding the exact year this event is claimed to have happened but I can't draw the conclusion she's talking about a single tree from the statement. Are there other quotes which clearly define if she's talking about a single tree or a group of them?

Originally posted by JimOberg

Originally posted by ecoparity
It's my opinion that you engage in pseudo-skepticism and represent a predefined position regardless of evidence. You get paid to represent the position of "skeptic" which I've found usually translates to something other than what should be the definition of the term. If getting paid to represent a pro UFO or anti-NASA position is cause to question credibility then the opposite most certainly applies.

OMIGOD, I've been forgetting to file my invoices!!!

Tell me the address and charge number, and I'll give you a 10% finder's fee. Quick! I can use the money.

Last resort of a losing arguer -- accuse his opponent of lying for money. Jeeez.

If you haven't been paid to represent psicop or the anti conspiracy skeptic position on TV and radio interviews or the articles you're written then I'll withdraw the comment. I'm not claiming NASA and the Masonic Nazis are paying you to hang out on ATS and get frustrated by people like me, two completely different things there.

Originally posted by ecoparity
There should be no need to exaggerate a description of Ken Johnston's career at NASA to support your position. I don't claim to blindly believe him or anyone else for that matter but I'm really not interested in what his exact qualifications or positions were because it doesn't matter. You asked for even one other person other than Donna and I've given you three. Your reaction is to assassinate the character of all of them and I guess claim they don't count.

Let's see, it goes like this:

Assess how worthy a person's statements are of belief
=
Assassinate their character

Interesting resort to inflammatory misrepresentation....

If a person tells you to believe fact X, and says he knows because he learned it while performing duty Y, and you find out that his second statement is untrue -- how does that affect your attitude to his first statement?

That's not a demand for perfection -- it's a requirement for simple consistency.

Are you going to try to find any NASA photos showing trees and their shadows? Hare said they exist and were routinely released. Why hasn't anyone, for years, been able to find a single example? What do you deduce from this?

That's not a demand for perfection, it's an indirect evaluation of one claim based on its verifiable implications... and the absence of those.

Originally posted by ecoparity
If you haven't been paid to represent psicop or the anti conspiracy skeptic position on TV and radio interviews or the articles you're written then I'll withdraw the comment. I'm not claiming NASA and the Masonic Nazis are paying you to hang out on ATS and get frustrated by people like me, two completely different things there.

I don't really care. Actually, making the comment told us all a lot more about you than it did about me.

Originally posted by JimOberg

Originally posted by ravenflt
If you recall what the British hacker who hacked NASA said, he said they do employ airbrushers and other artists and have tons of doctored photos in the archieves which he found (he also said NASA knows that aliens/UFOs exist).

Turns out, he told BBC that somebody told HIM that NASA employs airbrushers, and that he found folders marked 'raw' and 'processed' which he assumed were before/after retouched views, but he didn't really ever see a single such pair.

Here's the original interview, not the way it seems to have been garbled in the retelling:

Hacker fears 'UFO cover-up'

Friday, 5 May 2006, 16:40 GMT 17:40 UK

news.bbc.co.uk...

GM: One of these people was a Nasa photographic expert, and she said that in building eight of Johnson Space Centre they regularly airbrushed out images of UFOs from the high-resolution satellite imaging. What she said was there was there: there were folders called "filtered" and "unfiltered", "processed" and "raw", something like that.
I got one picture out of the folder, and bearing in mind this is a 56k dial-up, so a very slow internet connection, in dial-up days, using the remote control programme I turned the colour down to 4bit colour and the screen resolution really, really low, and even then the picture was still juddering as it came onto the screen.
But what came on to the screen was amazing. It was a culmination of all my efforts. It was a picture of something that definitely wasn't man-made.
It was above the Earth's hemisphere. It kind of looked like a satellite. It was cigar-shaped and had geodesic domes above, below, to the left, the right and both ends of it, and although it was a low-resolution picture it was very close up.
This thing was hanging in space, the earth's hemisphere visible below it, and no rivets, no seams, none of the stuff associated with normal man-made manufacturing.
SK: Is it possible this is an artist's impression?
GM: I don't know... For me, it was more than a coincidence. This woman has said: "This is what happens, in this building, in this space centre". I went into that building, that space centre, and saw exactly that.

Weird how your description of the interview can change the context. He said he went looking for the photos and storage structure Donna described and though he could have been clearer he ends the interview by stating he found exactly what she described. If you check all the various interviews he does a much better job of clarifying that statement than is contained there but his last statement you quoted serves the purpose just fine AFAIC. You want to argue semantics and pick at the exact wording of the interview, that's fine but the overall context is there. His statements can be argued both ways if we limit the field to this interview alone, it comes down to interpretation if we leave out all the other interviews.



[edit on 17-9-2009 by ecoparity]

reply to post by JimOberg


Sat photo of Soviet airfield from the 1960's:





The forested areas are visible and this isn't even a quality example. It's extremely low resolution, compressed and scaled to death. I can still make out the trees and some shadows though.

I still have to ask though - did she make a clear statement that indicates a single tree or not and based on this photo do you think you would be able to see a lone tree? (All the quotes I've found are plural, "trees") but your counter is that a single tree is not visible in the sat photos of that time. I dunno, Jim - even based on this poor example I'd have to say even a single tree would be visible and a large saucer shaped object would be even more so.