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New Mars Face Image Analysis and Comment
By Mike Bara
Part II
Malin plays in the Catbox
or
If there is no Face on Mars, where the Hell did
it go?
The original "Catbox" image
As I demonstrated in Part I, the timing and location of this new image was no accident or stroke of luck. In spite of the poor viewing angle and lighting conditions, the new image provides startling confirmation of many of the characteristics that were originally suggestive of artificial ancestry. But the first released version of that image, the one intended for public consumption, was a mess. Even if you possessed the skill and background to be able to manipulate the image to some degree of recognition, you would be hard pressed to evaluate the resulting data as anything but a random muddle of sand. The image was in fact compared to the remnants of a used catbox, and will now probably be forever known as the "Catbox" version.
This is as it should be. The image was so compressed, so badly contrasted, so noisy and devoid of analytical value, that the closest catbox would be a good place for it. (See Hoagland's analysis).
This was not what the researchers or the public had expected to see. But it was clearly what JPL and MSSS wanted the media to show them. Within a few hours of the release of an image that they surely knew was preliminary and virtually unenhanced, JPL spinmeisters had spread out to the various news media pronouncing the Face to be natural. They did this with all the authority and clout of JPL and NASA behind them, but none of the responsibility. By pronouncing that neither JPL or NASA would take a position on the image, both entities draped themselves in a fallacious robe of objectivity.
At the same time, the spinmeisters - employees of JPL mostly - insisted that even though they were NASA scientists (and by implication smarter than most of us) they were not speaking for NASA or JPL but only for themselves. This is a continuation of the "plausible deniability" in place at NASA since the early '90's. James Oberg is the de-facto point man for this operation, but he was curiously absent from the major news stories I saw. This probably is related to the fact that he has been caught in quite a number of false statements and intellectually dishonest representations over the last few years (see STS-48 analysis).
The end result of this is to insulate NASA and JPL from direct criticism on this matter. Any of their employees subsequently found to have made false statements or unscientific arguments over this issue can be dismissed as "loose cannon's" who acted outside the purview of their responsibilities at the agency. This means that there can never be a second "McDaniel Report", proving NASA's complicity in a campaign of misinformation and ridicule of a scientifically testable hypothesis. At the same time NASA can claim that it acted openly and honestly by releasing data quickly and allowing it's scientists to comment on the matter. In fact I heard the term "honest" drip from the lips of NASA spin doctors so many times on Monday I wanted to vomit.
In spite of a spin program worthy of the best minds in the Clinton White House, this would have all gone for naught if just one thing had happened differently.
If the better version of the image had been released in time for the evening news.
Contrast enhanced Face image (JPL version)
This second, vastly superior version of the "Raw" data appeared - again without comment - on the various NASA, MSSS and JPL web and mirror sites. It has far more visible detail and confirms many Face like features, but it came too late. Only after the major news organizations had broadcast their reports and made their pronouncements did this considerably improved, much more obviously Face like image miraculously come to light. The MGS sites later released a step by step run down of just what had been done to enhance the image.
Now the non-conspiratorial minded among us might conclude that this was just an unhappy coincidence. It takes time after all to work on and enhance data to produce excellent images. Maybe nobody at JPL was able to get their work done in time for the evening news.
Setting aside the issue of whether this new second image can even be culled from the released "Raw" image (see the Enterprise Mission web site), I have retraced the steps outlined by the posting on the MGS site.
They take about 15 minutes.
The ugly truth is that JPL and NASA sat on a much better version of the Face image for many hours while the winds of public opinion swirled around them. Perhaps it could be argued that it was the responsibility of the advocates of the various artificiality hypothesis to get their versions of the image "out there" in time for the evening news. But in reality Richard Hoagland and others were inundated by the media for statements and had little chance to do any real work on the image until much later.
By having to counter the many unscientific and erroneous opinions being bandied about by the JPL SpinTroopers, Hoagland, Carlotto, and the other researchers were effectively pinned down by the fire from JPL and rendered ineffective in the war for the evening news.
Now that the pressure has died down, where are we? Those that did not give credence to the Artificiality Hypotheses still don't. Those that did were probably shaken by the initial appearance of the Face in the Catbox version. But what have the last few days actually told us about the Face and Cydonia? What has been the outcome of the first new test of Hoagland's relationship model and VanFlandern's Exploded Planet Hypothesis model? What does the Face actually show us that we did not know before and what is left to test?