It could be a hoax. The photo quality isnt good enough to tell for sure.

You're getting confused on shadow direction.

Sunlight is coming from the lower-left of the image, which places in doubt your claim that these "structures" are casting shadows.

[Edited on 7-4-2003 by William]

Originally posted by Tetsuo-51
It could be a hoax. The photo quality isnt good enough to tell for sure.

Well...the thing is...the original image is online coming straight from the surveyor's own website. So if it is faked, it was released by the people that are supposed to make public, all images that are sent back from Mars taken by their own funded spacecraft. The one thing that bothers me is that scan line and what either appears to be a huge shadow below the structures or purposely imposed "smudge" to remove any important detail that was once there. An interesting note: I e-mailed the person in charge for releasing these images and asked them for the original, uncompressed raw image file and he wrote back that my request can not be fulfilled until August of this year. I wrote him back if he knew about that particular image with the strutures and have never heard from him since.

It is one of those images which deserves close scrutiny. It is clear from the original on line photo that there is some manner of structure there be it natural or otherwise. Due to its shape it certainly gives the impression of being *man made*


do you know where on the planet this is?



[Edited on 7-4-2003 by cassini]

Originally posted by NickMars

Ummmm... did you look at the ORIGINAL photo?.

That second link you posted shows more like a mid-to-upper left sun position. But sun definately from the left in your second link.

Cassini... the hard-lines are from sewing multiple camera pans together into one large image. The fact that this "artifact" is on the edge of two pans is also an issue... each pan would have had slightly different distortion and light angle.

I had some resevations about it being *on the line* but if this is a result of camera manipulation/whatever you wanna call it at source why does it occur once only in the pictures. Don`t see this effect anywhere else.

Also there appears to be an anomaly both above and below the line.

Okay, here's what has happened: this person has failed to note that the image stitching is offset not just horizontally, but vertically also. See the triangular shape below the buildings? They are one and the same feature.

a question to those conversant with NASA photograph "stitching" if this *effect* is consistent with techniques used to render the photos, why is this effect lacking from elsewhere in the photo and why does it not appear in other pictures of this type? (or if it does where are the examples)

why is this effect lacking from elsewhere in the photo

It's not, it's very consistent throughout the photo. Follow the line where each strip joins, and you'll see small features duplicated above and below. In fact, I think it may even be deliberate. They seem to have taken great care to line it up horizontally (the 'buildings' are out only by about one pixel) but I think they allowed some overlap space between the strips to avoid losing anything.

Byrd, I cant see the pics. Can you please post a link?

"It's not, it's very consistent throughout the photo. Follow the line where each strip joins, and you'll see small features duplicated above and below. In fact, I think it may even be deliberate. They seem to have taken great care to line it up horizontally (the 'buildings' are out only by about one pixel) but I think they allowed some overlap space between the strips to avoid losing anything."

Cool, got that, I can see FEATURES duplicated above and below. Now if I can see a FEATURE above and below why does this negate its worth. Whatever has happened with lining up/stitching etc I can still see a feature above and below the line.

Are you saying that the features are n`t really features but photographic effects? If so why do they appear as part of the landscape? particulary
that below the line?

Are you saying that the features are n`t really features but photographic effects?

Maybe we're talking about two different things here. I'm saying the feature is there, but because it has been merged with another feature it appears to be something that it's not.

This thing appears to rise up out of the darkness and cast a shadow, when in fact it's just a piece of the original shadow's edge which has been duplicated and moved up a bit. So the shadow which now appears to be in front of the 'skyline' was originally behind it.

Same feature, different context, different effect.