Mro--First Looks

rd. Got a little spaced out on my P.S. above, at 6 AM. It was directed to Neil.
One day an image looked so real i cut it with a razor blade to make sure. No blood at all. POSITIVE PROOF OF PAREIDOLIA. LOL.
Have fun with the digital Nikon rd.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Thanks for your skepticism.[Fred Ressler]<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

I'm addressing this to Fred, but I hope Tom will pay attention to this one too. The credibility of my theory that there are many artifacts on Mars, (mostly faces, but also some non-face artifacts made by intelligent beings), depends on my prior assumption that elaborate pareidolia must be extremely rare.

By “elaborate pareidolia” I mean specifically that the “pareidolia face” will include detail such as recognizable facial features as; the outline of eyes, irises, lashes, eye whites, noses, with some detail such as nostrils, outline, and correct shading, recognizable profile outline, and other facial features in the proper proportions and orientation. The more of this detail that is included, the less likely the face will be the result of random chance. Bluntly, I say that if we see such detail, the face is most likely real (art), and not pareidolia—wherever we find it.

Long story short, it seems to me that Dr. Ressler could go a long way toward settling this issue for us. I would like him to demonstrate unambiguously that the details I mentioned here and in previous posts (eye details, nose details, and facial shading, etc.), are in the original of the image below. I would like to see source material that we can all trust, as mentioned before.

This is the third time I am making this request. Fred, please take the posted image of yours and make the requested analysis, including images. If you can’t do that, reasonable people will have to conclude that there is no elaborate pareidolia, as described above, or if there is, that it is very rare.



Neil DeRosa

Neil- By source material do you mean the 35mm negative? i don't let my negatives get out of my hands unless i have some real good reason. Even if i did, it would prove nothing. One could manipulate an image and take a photo of it, which i don't do. It's not "trust me," but trust yourself; look at the whole image how there is unity in it. It fits together as a whole. i am not a painter; it would take a master artist, which i am not, to do what you're talking about. Please ask 10 well respected art teachers and ask them what they think.
This posted photo is on a 35mm strip in a series of 5. i shoot anything that looks like a face, as they come and go. Maybe seeing the series would help you. The shading and the symmetry of eyes are "chance" pareidolia. You are the only real skeptic i have run across, out of thousands of people who have seen these images. There was one other, but he also had something to gain by trying to prove other than pareidolia for my images, as he was in a similar field to mine. i see skeptics as being subjective to prove their points. When i first started doing these photos, it struck me that this is what artists are trying to do, but can't. This specific image is far from my most detailed, but it is the most popular because of it's amazing classical art look. It has been published 3 times. (Blur of the Otherworldly- U. of Maryland, placed on cover, Create and be Recognized: Photography on the Edge- and Raw Vision magazine #49. These are eminent art critics (i don't want to drag them into this by name) familiar with the entire field of art, fine and outsider art. They see these photos for what they are instantly. Think of it this way. Why wouldn't i promote this as art. I would have far more to gain as an "artist" than a pareidolia photographer. I don't because the photographs are more beautiful than any copy on canvas would be. This alone should prove my point, although one can never prove anything to a skeptic.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">although one can never prove anything to a skeptic.[Fred]<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

One can start by doing this:

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Fred, In order to advance that the “pareidolia can be elaborate—is frequently elaborate—hypothesis” it would now seem like a good idea to do demonstration here similar to the one JP Levasseur did in his paper in demonstrating the differences between the Profile Image on Mars and known cases of pareidolia (and other psychological illusions) on Earth (MRB Vol.23 No. 4).

For such an exercise one would want to include: context images, target object at different viewing angles, scales, seasons, and lighting; types of photo enhancements used on object, object imaged with different enhancements, or none, and so on. This is what we tried to do (when possible) with Mars pictures, to advance the theory that they were not pareidolia. Also, can you please give us the source (e.g., photo shop, physical source, any independent verification of the image, and acquisition parameters). As you know of course, going by what an image “looks like” is only the first step in the process. One example: I’m pretty sure this is not yours. When showing a picture of a man’s face painted on a cat’s head, we would like some kind of assurance (other than “trust me”) that the face was not painted on by the cat’s owner.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

I don’t know how else to say this but in recent years certain people (who have agendas, or other issues) have made the extraordinary claim that elaborate pareidolia is commonplace, but I have yet to see anyone prove that claim. You have an opportunity to do so. But like you said, it would take more than just showing a negative (which could be altered). You, being a medical scientist, know what is involved in the kind of proof I’m talking about.

To me, pareidolia is 2 smudges and a twig, or a cloud formation, or a mountain-scape, that reminds one, vaguely, of a human face; not the Cydonia face, not most of the stuff I’ve posted, and not, I suspect, your art.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by pareidoliac</i>
<br />One could manipulate an image and take a photo of it, which i don't do. It's not "trust me," but trust yourself; look at the whole image how there is unity in it. It fits together as a whole.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">My inclination is to trust you, in part because I do not doubt that such elaborate pareidolia does exist if one spends enough time searching for it.

But there is a lot at stake here for science in analyzing Mars imagery. Elaborate faces occur far too often on Mars. So we need to know if that can be natural, or if it is part of the artificiality story.

So if I take you literally and "don't trust you, trust myself", I first notice that the image is softly blurred so that we cannot see the "canvas" (i.e., what the bright and dark patches are made from; leaves, perhaps?). It is also unusual that the image is so "contrast-stretched", with a few all-grey objects sprinkled among lots of all-black and all-white shapes, and the only gray "structure" occuring in the face itself. So it is easy for me to see this as a real face embedded in natural foliage, then softly blurred and contrast-stretched to make that less obvious.

This skepticism comes in part because the only previous image I've ever analyzed that had this much contrast-stretch (an alleged photo of a "UFO" near Phobos, featured in UFO Magazine) was a fake, contrast-stretched for exactly the purpose of hiding the real nature of the objects in the image.

Here's how you could help us scientists with our Mars research, if you are inclined to help us at all. Tell us everything you can remember about the "canvas", the nature of the objects in the image. Were the bright patches lit by sunlight or artificial light? Why was the image mildly blurred? Why the contrast stretch? Can you take another photograph today (if one does not already exist) showing the same scene under closely similar lighting conditions, but unblurred and with a full range of natural grayscales in the image? Also, did you come upon this image totally by chance, or was some staging involved? Can you post an image of the negative as is, so we can see that the "positive" print was not subsequently "photoshopped"?

We have no interest whatever in devaluing your work or imagery. Our inquiries are purely for application to the scientific interpretation of Mars images. It would therefore be of considerable value to science if you were willing to reveal a few details of the circumstances surrounding this image that you might not be willing to share with your colleagues or fans.

I understand if you are reluctant to do that. But at the same time, because the degree of staging has become an issue for the science, if you cannot provide such information to give the image a "scientific pedigree" (so to speak), we would likely be forced to exclude it from influencing our discussions. -|Tom|-

<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 />For such an exercise one would want to include: context images, target object at different viewing angles, scales, seasons, and lighting; types of photo enhancements used on object, object imaged with different enhancements, or none, and so on. This is what we tried to do (when possible) with Mars pictures, to advance the theory that they were not pareidolia. Also, can you please give us the source (e.g., photo shop, physical source, any independent verification of the image, and acquisition parameters). As you know of course, going by what an image “looks like” is only the first step in the process. One example: I’m pretty sure this is not yours. When showing a picture of a man’s face painted on a cat’s head, we would like some kind of assurance (other than “trust me”) that the face was not painted on by the cat’s owner.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">First let me start by dispelling the reference to what JP Levasseur did, (once again). That is what is commonly known as the "Red Herring" fallacy (a.k.a., smoke screen, wild goose chase). www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/red-herring.html
JP's work, while compelling, was coming from an altogether different point of view. He was attempting to prove something <b>was not </b> pareidolia, so he built a case for what it would take to prove something is not pareidolia, by invoking all the things mentioned above, like viewing angle, different time of year, scales, season, blahdy blah blah blah.

He was never attempting to prove that something <b>IS</b> pareidolia. So none of this stuff applies to Fred's case. I don't know how many ways a person can say this. It seems so self evident to me. Even you say, in your quote, that you were trying <b>"to advance the theory that they were not pareidolia."</b>
The only issues that logically <b>do </b> apply to Fred's work are the ones Tom is raising in his message.

Namely, did Fred really just capture the image with a flick of the shutter button, or did he "create" the image in photoshop. Period. In other words: Fraud....or No Fraud.

(Added note: Also, we have to consider the possibility that these images were staged in some way. For instance, suppose a helper is standing there pulling down on the branch, bending and twisting, then that would rule out pareidolia, and makes it totally artificial.)

After reading all the comments made by the Art Critics who are on record as taking Fred's images for what they are (it only takes a few minutes of Google searching to do that, plus Fred gave the names of the places where his art is featured), I'm inclined to believe him without further proof. However, if he wanted to he might be able to prove that point without compromising his work.

But I can't stress enough that all the talk about "angles" and "seasons" and stuff of that nature is pure smoke screen, and should rightly be ignored in my opinion.

P.S. If I ever saw someone "sticking paint" in a cat's ear, I'd have him arrested. Although, as a cat lover, I can say that is highly unlikely in the extreme.

rd