I really hate when you type a whole thing out and lose it.
Anyway, I did want to say that I personally don't believe that any of these photos were edited for any other reason than to enhance the contrast,
subject matter, or in some cases to remove imperfections in the photos...such as in the case of "the blue man" image.
In fact I know I've had the blue man at one of my birthday parties in the 70's and during other moments in my life too. I've also had "orbs, will
o' wisps, and spirits" which turned out to be imperfections, dust particles, insects, and all type of other items. If you want to find something
enough though, you will.
That being said, many people here have been claiming that the technology wasn't available to NASA back then and that is completely inaccurate. It
used to be done with airbrushes (hence the term) and even prior to that it was done by retouching with ink, paint, double-exposure, taping or gluing
photos or negatives together, and even scratching the film itself.
There were cases of this in the Civil War and during WWII the Soviets and Nazis did it quite often, actually removing people and items from known
photographs for propaganda purposes.
Could it have been done? Absolutely.
Was it done? Most likely.
Was it done for nefarious reasons? Doubtful.
As I said, most likely to remove imperfections and make the subject matter have more significance.
Just a footnote. Even NASA acknowledges that "image manipulation" is a skill their employees have or need to have.
www.nasa.gov...