"Best Red Planet Diorama ever!" Topic

Images supposedly coming back from NASA's rover CURIOSITY bafflingly baffle nobody in the world. Not even other "space scientists" in Europe, Russia, China, India, elsewhere.

I find that rather amazing, considering what they depict.
As a wargamer I openly declare my envy over that diorama. I can almost see my marines take position in it.

An odd metal "thingy" went through the news, but most websites cropped the image to no longer contain what I think was the tell-tale part.
(Well, the metal thingy is the tell-tale part, of course, as it is there to be able to lift the diorama(module).

But on the uncropped image you find a broken statue's head, clearly depicting a human head, tilted sideways at the bottom left of the original image.
link
(click there to enlarge)

if one was to pan further up, (the metal thingy bottom center now), one gets this image:
link
I love me the sand worm at the top, LOL!

But lets continue panning leftward from the statue's head (and note the etched markings in the rock to its right, where a stick man seemingly points accusingly up left. Maybe we can find what it points at…

First, you get this, (broken head at the top right hand corner now):
link

Zooming further out, and panning to the top, one gets a better view at the whole ravine/canyon area.
Note on the following image, how a devil-like grinning figure's head with pointy ears/horns thrones over it, seemingly having toppled the stone head down from there.
Note also, how at the other side of the boulder, opposite left to the broken head, you have engravings of supposed martians, depicting a face with a stairway next to it, some skull with a tail of flame, and at the bottom in the back corner a regular geometric pattern one might interpret as family tree, or calendar, or anything else of a logical nature.
Please, make sure you don't miss the depiction of "Jeeeeeeeezus the Lord" that the desperate martians carved into the very top, diagonally pointing into the sky, so that we earthlings might see it, and come to their rescue.
(This should ring a bell with the medieval players here, methinks …)
link

Panning to the top left, and zooming out, one gets an overview of the leftern end of the ravine. Please note, the Elric-like Martian who went to fetch water for his desperate little community of god-fearing martians threatend by evil forces and monsters. (Martian is vertically central, towards the left, where lies a large boulder – follow that boulder straight to the right and you should spot him:
link

There were tons of other really over the top pictures on their site until recently, depicting human soldiers fighting humongous monsters, and all petrified (fossilized) in the moment, as if an unknown power (wrath of "god"?) turned them all to stone.

Many of the images were also toned down over the last few days. The one with the jesus on the roof had the engravings in the rock at the bottom much more colorful, making them looked painted on top of engraved, but

I cringe over the idea that NASA feels compelled to have such clearly fake images on their website. Even now, that many really insane ones were taken down again, you still can see (if you are in the know about terrain building) where they did a sloppy job.

All these images were supposedly sent on SOL 173 (meaning the 173rd martian day of the mission).
At their website they have the images sorted in gallery pages by mission day, or "SOL".

Here is a link to SOL 173 (all images linked above are from that day):
link

You can get to other SOLs, by just changing the number in the URL.
This was the last mission day of this insanity. The following days seem to bring vintage photographs again.

The fake ones have slowly started creeping in for several weeks. Very banal at first, "just rock", to make the beholder gullible.

The content of the linked pictures is so over the top, that I find it hard to imagine whoever orchestrated this really expected anyone to believe it.

I like to think of this as merely a test to see if anyone actually notes this, so that one day they can give us whatever other bull, and it'd seem authentic to us.

Now, I'm not American, and yet I still fume over this on grounds of undermining science with religion.
If I were American, I guess I'd also ask myself if this is how I want NASA to spend my tax-payer's dollar.

I don't see your sculpted head

Well, I was going to say I saw a ducky and a horsie, but I changed my mind. link

I don't get it.

Also, this isn't the right board for political commentary.

I see a troll, just begging for attention.

What a load of nonsense

It pertains to a diorama. The most magnificent I've ever seen. Must be as large as a small hangar, or at least modular.
Photography gives them away, though, for all the brilliance, also the atmosphere on Mars shatters light differently, you couldn't see into the large crack at the bottom of the ravine in the "Living Martian pic" like that, as that side clearly lies in the shadow.
Add to that that the rover Curiosity has a max speed of 15 yards (!) an hour, and that is already "Pedal to the metal" over even, obstacle-free terrain. Some of the timestamps of the pictures at their individual SOL-missionday-galleries are loughably impossible, as the poor thing could not cover that much ground in so short a time.
Additionally, as the "experts" at NASA, etc. can obviously not be consulted, I thought I consult the experts at the Diorama-end. Where else to take this?

Beneath, TMP does not display these images at full size (at least not in my browser), so maybe open them in a new window.

Nope. Don't see any of it. I must be lacking imagination.

I found the ducky too.

Hey, there's Waldo!

Where is Waldo?

Oh he is saying it's a conspiracy. I see things in the ceiling tiles when I stare at them a long time too.

I think he thinks "Capricorn One" is a documentary: link

Black helicopters – check

Fake moon landing "proof" – check

9/11 evil government/CIA/corporate plot – check

Tin foil hat – double check

I know a couple of JPL guys. This is an engineering triumph of the first order.

I'm all for an ancient alien Martian civilization, but I think there is a little bit of a stretch here. If they were really hiding it, why in the world would they release the pictures?

Who's your dealer? I need to buy some of whatever it is you're smoking.

Hoser

I was sure it was a Tellermine. Or a Bouncing Bemmy.

NASA cameras can't pick up tripwires?

I dont see it….? what am I supposed to be seeing?

Somebody has been listening to Richard C. Hoagland a wee too much. Is there a way to pan around to the laser battery that shot down the Ruskie sattelite back in the late 90's? 19.5 and all that.

MrHarold, I'm not at all saying they are hiding anything.
They have rover Curiosity up there, sending us wonderful (authentic) images. Nothing in those makes me believe that there is anything up there they could or would need to hide in the first place.
But very early on (probably from as early as SOL 120 onwards) they more and more added these fake photographs to the real ones.

I don't know why they do this. Nor do I claim to know. Nor do I really care.
At first I thought it was a desperate attempt to get awareness/coverage/funding.
But for that "alone", some architectonical ruins in the diorama would have done.

Yet they had to bring a religious element into this, that's what drove me up the fence.

Generally, while there are other "space agencies" in the world, NASA is doing more than all the others combined. And it is very painful for me to see, how they currently abolish themselves as a scientific institution.

Someone needs to take his meds.

I don't see anything that looks artificial to me

Goober is right.

Nothing to 'SLISH' here….move along, move along…..(Hey Bob, didn't I tell you to clean up after your picnic???)

Sgt DWW-btod

There's a term for this: apophenia with pareidolia being the specific version at play above.

All I see is a planet that we should be mining.

Wot?

John T

This totally fits with how the Freemasons staged Hurricane Katrina. Totally.

I only wished that the Freemasons could find less sloppy workers:

(and the workers better have an explanation, how a camera mounted at over 6ft. high, while rotatable and tiltable, can not be lowered in its height, can take such photos …

To illustrate the last sentence above, here is a NASA-picture showing a scientist next to Curiosity.
I often have the feeling people think of it as a way smaller rover.
That clunky white box atop the mast nearest to the scientist is where the so called "mast cameras" are, that supposedly took these photographs.

I think I can see my house in those photos.

Yeah, whatever. Maybe I was seeing things. I guess the black corners at some photos must have thrown me …

Ummmm… I thought this was a joke.

I chuckled.

He's not being serious, right?

Time to check his meds, Doc.

I think I can see what the problem is here: that photograph of the scientist standing next to the rover.

It's obvious: it's him wot done it…

But seriously… this is a wind up, right?

John T

Sure, they are winding you up alright.

I will consider it being a weekend, and maybe even at NASA there not being the usual number of staff present.
I would expect them to have pulled all wrong photographs from their website, and announce a press conference, followed by a massive resignation sweep, and an official investigation by no later than Monday, 23:59 CET.

I'll leave this here with one final thing.

I would like to point out that anyone interested in this should download the NASA-website-images I link to here, as they may very well not be there tomorrow, or get replaced with "innocent" ones.

Beneath you have three images.

The first two are directly from the NASA-website. The first was (supposedly) taken on SOL 106, the second on SOL 137.

I personally take the first to be a real photo, but I must admit that I'm nearing the point of doubting anything they feed the public, from SOL 1.

Anyway, note in pic 1 the piece of equipment from where lead off the orange cables. I'm not quite sure what this is, but it is on the left front of the rover, opposite the mastcam so to speak. You actually can see it in the photo of Curiosity I posted above. Note also the tool-ends of the tool-arm to its right.

Now note how in pic 2 the same arrangement can be found, just way further down in the photo.

That is physically impossible, due to the engineering of the mastcam, and its degree of movability. It is especially impossible, as that equipment is depicted from _precisely_ the same point/angle of view.

How is this possible then?

Easy, they cut out the stuff from SOL106, and put it in front of a fake background.

And, ooh, they thought they were very clever, because they actually considered the different angle of light on these two background pictures.
They meticulously messed with the shadows on the copied equipment, especially observable on the "handlebar" at the top of the cable-holding-thing. But also at the piece of chassis in the back, at the metallic piece at the top of the brush tool head, etc.

However, they made two mistakes.
"Wonderful" ones, even, as neither of them can be explained away.

First, note how the "screwholes" in the handle are differently shaped.
I think the feller photoshopping this got carried away with how to do the shadow in the screwholes, so he augmented to the right, putting a little extra ridge there, which obviously isn't there in the SOL 106 picture.
(Of course, I could be totally wrong, and these are simply two different rovers -- err, no wait, that doesn't make nonsense …)

Second, they botched the photoshopping, because they forgot the little space between the brush head tools, through which in the original photo you could naturally see the background, whereas in the fake SOL-137 photo, there is perfect white.

Note that there is no white part there on the rover, nor is there a metallic part that could reflect that intensely. Nor are these dead pixels.
It simply is them doing a sloppy job.

Interestingly, even the SOL106 photo has black corners. Maybe they also marked true photos that served as copying original, who knows.
As I said before, at this point I doubt every single picture they ever sent.

Have a nice sunday.

And, ooh, they thought they were very clever

Well, SOMEONE thinks he's being very clever.

You don't get it, do you?

I'm not enjoying this.
At all.

I want everyone to understand what planning went into their ploy, what organizational overhead, to not let any of them get away, making use of excuses such as "just a lapse".

I give NASA time to sort that crap out themselves, publicly, yes, yet in their fashion.

Science is the sole defender of an implicitly singular truth.
I don't want to live in a world, where it's merely "truths", plural. "Now in 57 different flavors".

Today, science is besieged from all sides by religions, pseudo-sciences, superstitions, mumbo-jumbo, and an onslaught of blissfull ignorance.

This is a war, and too many scientists don't quite seem to understand that.

I'd burn at the stake smilingly, before bowing to people orchestrating such a disgraceful stunt, such an attempt at science.

I don't want to bring NASA down (they are doing this all by themselves right now), I want to salvage them, jpattern2.

I do this, because none of the scientists at the other organizations seemingly dare do this. Because why risk their safe jobs. These scientists are useless, one can't win that war with such.

Besides, I'm one single nerd. They are NASA. What does that tell you?

Besides, I'm one single nerd. They are NASA. What does that tell you?

Dunno, maybe you are right maybe you are totally hatstand, but at least they don't post things that are not gaming related on a gaming related forum, so top marks for them on that one eh…

I can see some great shots of the martian surface. I can clearly see some form of differential weathering at work.. I assume the martian equiv of frost heaving / freeze thaw mechanism? I can see something that the old geology professor would describe as clay minerals, and I can see no evidence that these images contain anything out of the ordinary… other than continuing to amaze me that martian / permafrost ? may still have usable/extractable water at or near (relative) surface.

Your attention please…the aerial spraying of Prozac will commence shortly. Please be sure to breathe deeply to obtain the maximum benefit of the vapors. This has been a public mental health service announcement from the Ministry of Truth.

The question is Why?

Why fake photos that show nothing? Why go to the trouble to fake something that a large percentage of the population doesn't even care about? They can barely identify their own country on a map.

DM

This may be relevant:

Or we can just skip straight to the heart of the matter:

First, these photos do show something. I remind you of the Crusade-like nature of the "image" drawn here from Mars. And there were crazier images even.
There must be a "target group" for that.

They learned that nobody else in the science world screamed Bullsh1t.
That they all chose to remain silent.

I think they nigh on got desperate that no one said anything. Pointing people's nose at the thing provocatively, by giving the metal thingy picture to the media. And by cobbling together an explanatory PDF which is so obviously unscientifically fake, that they really tried to holler them down with it:
PDF link
(In itself a crime, and a very explicit "bulletin" from the aforementioned Ministry of Truth.)

Not that the foreign scientists didn't figure. But they chose not to bring it up. Most of them have joint ventures with NASA, and NASA is always the larger partner. You don't bite that hand.

And therein lies one of the reasons this makes me so angry.

This mission has shown, that no matter what absolutely made-up over the top thing they would produce next, nobody in the world would challenge them over it.

I don't claim to be overly smart, yet this thing came apart, after a few minutes of looking into it. Anybody could have done it. Let alone a trained scientist of the same field.

None the less, this is possibly forgery, and as they are all paid by the tax payer, this is (in non-legalese) possibly willful abuse of public funds.
There must be laws against that.

This is no mere hoax, NASA is playing here. They are possibly breaking laws.
People must possibly go to prison.

People must possibly go to prison.

They should not pass Go, they should not collect $200. USD

Have you ever looked at a rock on earth ? Have you ever seen the bizarre patterns that appear when they are weathered or split ? Do you think these have all been faked to convince you there is an atmosphere on this planet ? Think carefully about that one.

I really pity all the moon landing deniers and the "space program is faked" believers. This is humanity's finest moment, and all they want to do is stick their heads in the sane and deny it's happening.

Where's Carl Sagan when you need him ? :-(

Sagan, hell, where's Freud?

I don't claim to be overly smart

At last! An assertion that is supported by the evidence at hand! Well done, sir!