My pareidolia knows no bounds.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Trinket</i>
<br />Yeah we need a better look, the images from the successful craft of the 40 craft sent to Mars over the past forty years somehow forgot to include details ..

Must of been by accident.. Nasa and JPL are just over worked..<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
You don't think there's much chance of us getting better images, do you? If I understand you correctly, I think you're saying if they were going to give us "better" images, they would have done it already.

rd

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">"Regarding the elephants, I know very little. I've seen a diagram on JP Levasseur's site: marsartifacts.tripod.com/ (in the Skullface link), and some mention of how Skully is in the trunk of one of them, and that the whole West Candor Chama has an elephant's trunk, but that's about it. A couple of bits and peices in correspondences. [rd]"

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<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">I don't want to derail you from other pursuits, but would like to see where you and Neil go if you follow the elephant trail when time allows. This trail leads strictly toward an evolving understanding of the kinds and purposes of images we are seeing, rather than toward proof of artificiality. [Tom]<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

I'm assuming Tom was referring to the tube like structures found in several places on the floor of the west Candor Chasma. The "Scullface" mosaic is centered around some of them. They are found right next to the "Clown" mosaic. They are found near the "Bill and Chelsea" mosaic I recently posted, and in other places. As a matter of fact I used them as a guide or signpost for locating possible artifacts in my search. Another interesting thing; they all seem to be located along the 5th parallel south, as is a lot of the other good stuff I've been finding.

However, even though there seem to be inscriptions and / or figures on many of them, they were too small or vague for me to do anything with, and would have required too much of a stretch of my imagination, which was already stretched enough. So I left them alone. Though I agree, this whole area is ripe for future research.

Here's one example, just below M0200343, "Clown."



Neil

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by rderosa</i>
<br />A sub-purpose is to show that pareidolia goes away at some level of detail. As you said, the more pixels, the better.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

I'd like to elaborate on this point, a little, even though it goes against a pet theory of mine that these features may have been rendered to be seen from far away.

Take a look again at the second message in this topic, which shows Skullface and Key from the marsartifacts.com website, and the description of the detail:

"Official, Japanese Lady, medallion, arm of the official wrapping around Skully, official's hand, skully's perfect eyes (with upper lid, pointed oval lid aperture, pupil, iris, tarsal section, bottom lid crease, sclera), nose, and mouth, cheekbone, chin, and neck, Japanese Lady's hand atop Skully's head (as if in a ceremony)."

The original Skullface image strip has a pixel resolution of 4.56m/pixel:

www.msss.com/moc_gallery/ab1_m04/images/AB108403.html

The high resolution image strip has a pixel resolution of 3.08m/pixel, or roughly better by one third.

www.msss.com/moc_gallery/r16_r21/images/R19/R1901775.html

Now, just for the sake of the point I want to make, let's assume that many people actually would have seen the details in the original as depicted, maybe some on their own, maybe some with a little help. Assuming of course, they were open to seeing "faces" on Mars. I realize most people (like my wife) wouldn't entertain the thought for too long, but I'm talking really about someone like myself, who already considered artificiality to be proven by the tests done on the Cydonia Face or Profile Image (or if not totally convinced, at least I'm open to the possibility). So again, for the sake of this argument, take someone like me, as opposed to someone like jrich (no offense, I'm just trying to make a point).

When you consider the fact that a significant amount of the detail "seen" in AB108403, "goes away" in R1901775, we are left with the task of trying to explain that. I understand that with hindsight one can say there wasn't really enough detail in AB108403 in the first place (see "Hindsight bias" Wilkepedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindsight_bias ), but a lot of folks thought so at the time. And the question of whether or not it really was there in the first place goes to the very heart of this topic.

Ok, so here's my question and point. Is it possible that detail disappeared AND that this scene is still what it was described to be at the time?

I'd like to believe it is, but I don't think so (but I would like to hear opinions on this). Here's why I don't think it's possible. I'm going to explore one possible way the art may have been rendered, but I'm sure there are other possibilities, and it seems reasonable that the same rules would apply, regardless of the actual method. But that's just an educated guess on my part.

Suppose for a moment that the original artists rendered this scene exactly as depicted on the marsartifacts.com website, using a laser beam or other device that was something like 5 to 10 meters wide. Why do I pick that number? Because if the "brush strokes" were smaller than 3 meters (the high res pixel width), then it wouldn't be possible for detail to go away when comparing AB108403 to R1901775. Quite the opposite. It would have to get clearer. It's only possible for us to start to see brush strokes instead of more detail, when we view it at a resolution smaller than the artist tool's "point". That would be true no matter what they were using to render the art.

In that case, we might expect to start seeing things that don't help us interpret the artwork, assuming it is one. But what exactly would we see? JP Levasseur commented that, "We have to remember these objects are potentially extremely ancient and eroded in an unfamiliar way, including micro meteoric rain on a planet with no atmosphere. The planet has definitely been seriously beat up. As a result, these large scaled artifacts will only look LESS compelling at higher resolution."

I agree with that possibility, but what types of features would disappear? Remember that the time between the two images is not very great, Jan 1998 to July 2004. A mere 6 1/2 years in cosmic terms isn't even a drop in the bucket. I suppose anything is possible, but if we are to believe these things come from millions of years ago, I find it strains credulity beyond belief that in the last 6 years this kind of damage was done. The only logical conclusion one can come to, in my opinion, is that for all intents and purposes, the Skullface mosaic is the same today as it was in 1998. That seems like a testable hypothesis to me, given all the images available to us.

Ok, so we know we're going to see stuff we don't want to see, but back to my question: what kinds of detail would disappear? Would a hand? A medallion and chain? A mouth? An eye? The hand of the "Official"? The upper lid, pointed oval lid aperture, pupil, iris, tarsal section, bottom lid crease, sclera), nose, and mouth, cheekbone, chin, and neck?

I don't see how they would disappear, if they were there in the first place. They might be a little harder to focus on, but they wouldn't dissappear.


rd

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by rderosa</i>
<br /><blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by neilderosa</i>
<br />Take a stick and etch (scratch out) a stick figure in a sand box or on a beach. Now look at it from above. That is an etching facing skyward.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Ok, I stand corrected on that minor point. So, replace the word "statue" with "etching" in my previous messages. That's the extent of the changes needed.rd<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Neil, in writing my last post, it occurred to me what I was thinking at the time I interpreted "facing toward the sky" as if it meant statue.

All along, I've been approaching this whole subject as if the artworks like the "Profile Image and Family", the "Cydonia Face", "Skullface" and others, were intended to be seen from the sky. Tom gave an example of how some might be oriented to be seen on one side of an orbiting space craft, and some on the others, and that's a reasonable idea.

But, that's not what I was thinking. I've been thinking farther away then that, where the viewer only has one choice, like we do when we look at the moon. Sure, we could stand on our heads, or invert the moon with mirrors and such, but for the most part, we walk outside, and look up.

So, with that premise in mind, any two huge features like the "Clown" mosaic, or the "Lovers" would be expected to be right-side up relative to each other, especially when you consider they're in the same strip.

When you started to debate that, I thought you realized at the time that we were still talking about seeing these things from the sky, so I misinterpreted your description of "Lovers", thinking you meant their heads were facing the sky, rather than as in the Profile Image where it's flat on the ground facing the sky. That's where the confusion came from.

I'm still thinking these artworks, whatever ones exist, may have been intended to be viewed from the sky, far away. In which case, they would likely be all facing the same way.

It's just a guess on my part, but in a way it makes more sense than to think there were artists all over the planet doing artworks facing all directions. Not to say that isn't possible also, it's just not what I was thinking.

This is also why I don't think there are "small" artworks, with small being a relative term.

rd

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by neilderosa</i>
<br />I'm assuming Tom was referring to the tube like structures found in several places on the floor of the west Candor Chasma.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">No, but that's an interesting point in its own right. If the tubes are a transportation system, which was the most probable hypothesis still standing at the completion of my published analysis (MRB 13#3, 2004), and knowing that they connect interesting features on the surface, we can readily visualize that the canyon walls might be loaded with artwork to be viewed by tube travelers. However, most artwork intended to be seen from ground level could not be seen from orbiting spacecraft because it would be vertical. -|Tom|-

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by tvanflandern</i>
<br />However, most artwork intended to be seen from ground level could not be seen from orbiting spacecraft because it would be vertical.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Right.

rd