Administrator
Jose Escamilla has been suspended for inappropriate (adult) language and attacking other members. So don't expect responses for several days.
I'll leave this thread open for the moment, so people may directly address Jose's points from his post. However, if the thread goes off track, or it just becomes a bunch of people piling on, it will be closed until he returns.
Order of Kilopi
Well, if it flew away (= fled), I'd put that in the category of "physically removed," although JE may imply a difference between it being physically removed by something else (direct object) or it physically removing itself by flying away.Originally Posted by Space Chimp
Same difference. It's gone. Physically. If it was ever there. Which I doubt. Very strongly.
Established Member
So the claim is there used to be a huge city sized object on the moon with a gigantic humanoid figure next to it, but not one single person saw them in a telescope. And they're gone now, leaving no trace. And NASA is hiding it in the clumsiest fashion imaginable.
Shall I repeat that?
And the debate is now up to 11 pages.
Established Member
Yes, I was intentionally being a little silly, but, there was an honest attempt to demonstrate what artifacts might be induced by extreme amounts of USM. My apologies if this some how rubbed you the wrong way. Your comments haven't exactly been entirely pleasant as well.
I don't understand how someone could feel ripped off after having payed a professional to tell you that you're wrong.
I think a lot of people get led astray by their preconceived notions and intuitions. It's never a bad thing to have someone with higher education, professional training and experience set you straight.
Lesson learned; knowledge acquired.
Order of Kilopi
Jay Utah will win the day because he has the facts.
I wouldn't care to tangle with him.Best compliment I can pay.
Don't let your reality checks bounce. ~MeI'll tell you in the next life, when we are both cats.
Order of Kilopi
I have outlined in dark red the questions I will press you to answer.
I never claimed that. I never claimed that it was physically removed. I stated it is there in some photos - Then it is not there in others.
You claim one photo with the smudge depicts some sort of object on the lunar surface that is hidden. You point out that the object is not visible in any photo sometime later. Please tell me how something can exist to be "smudged over" in one photo and then not there in subsequent clear photos, without its having been removed.
Your arguments are starting to become contradictory.
Another thing Jay, you claimed an object this large could have been seen with earth bound telescopes. It is NOT there anymore.
But it was there in 1994 and we had telescopes in 1994 that could see objects that large on the lunar surface.
If Clementine's cameras saw an object on the Moon in 1994 that was several times the size of Los Angeles, and we know objects that large on the lunar surface can be seen directly with telescopes, then why did no one with a telescope report that same object in 1994?
I never alluded to this object being a permanent fixture on the surface of the moon - you made that assertion.
No, I didn't. You said there was a structure on the Moon in 1994 that was photographed by Clementine, and then the photograph deliberately "smudged over" when it was presented. You acknowledge that it does not appear in any other observation of the lunar surface.
What we're trying to get you to consider is that all the evidence seems to point to there being something wrong with that one photo, not with anything the photo may allegedly depict. You don't seem to grasp the notion that if the "smudge" exists only as a property of the image, then all the evidence suddenly becomes a great deal more coherent and requires far less speculation and tap-dancing to explain.
This is the principle of parsimony. Your theory leaves far too many loose ends that are either untestable or are testable and for which you provide only speculation.
You have not disproved it NOT being there.
That is not my burden of proof, nor can the absence of a thing be proven at all. You are the one claiming something is there. You have the burden to prove that. We're simply pointing out how your attempts at proving that fall comically flat.
You keep claiming data errors, transmission problems, which is **.
Explain why it's **.
I spent a large portion of the day yesterday going through descriptions of the MrSID algorithms and data structures to understand the nature of potential data-loss and data-corruption issues. So did Hoerricks before he wrote his report to you. What specifically have you done to study, investigate, and if possible eliminate those and similar kinds of occurrences?
Perhaps the person commissioned to smudge the object decided to do some 'whistle blowing' being tired of knowingly lying to the public. I DON'T know!
Yes, that's the problem: you don't know. You don't have any answers for any of the gaping holes in your theory. Nor do you even seem to recognize that they are holes. Hoerricks is right; you seem fixated on the notion that there is something hidden behind that "smudge" and you seem incapable of considering that this may not be so.
It's anyone's guess why this was done so poorly.
No, it's not anyone's guess why it "was done so poorly;" it's convincing evidence that it was not done intentionally and was instead some incidental artifact of the image process in that case.
The fact remains, it was deliberately smudged...
No. It's not a fact that the "smudge" was a deliberate action. You have presented zero evidence of that deliberation. You have failed to account for all refutations of that claim. And you have simply dismissed with two letters ("**") all competing claims.
What is bothersome of the lot of you here...
Yes, when the facts contradict your claims it can be bothersome. And knowledgeable peer review is bothersome when one wants to get fame and fortune by making controversial claims.
Real scientists go to great lengths to obtain the kind of validation tests and critiques that you are receiving here (clowning aside). Pseudoscientists generally abhor it and thus run from it. Which are you?
...you dispute the smudge
No, we dispute that the "smudge" means what you say it means. You have a theory, and we have examined that theory and found it to be implausible and full of holes that you decline to plug. We dispute your explanation for the "smudge," not the "smudge" itself. The problem seems to be your incapacity to distinguish observation from interpretation.
...and the object that is there to see in plain sight.
No it isn't; it's smudged.
If it were in "plain sight" there would be no need for you to fiddle with the USM tool in Photoshop and no need to hire Hoerricks to analyze the image.
Anyone with common sense can easily "see" there is something going on there...
Begging the question. You said only a percentage of people agreed that something could be seen.
It's as if you see a something that looks like dressing screen in a bedroom and automatically assume there's a naked woman behind it.
By the Way Jay - It is not upside down. It is in the right perspective according to the location of the crater - quit lying
It is not in the right perspective according to the way the image of the crater was taken.
I laughed at this boy's work along with the others that piped in. MAN, this is childish.
Sorry, but you're far beyond the point at which you can claim to be a "Photoshop expert" and thus bluster your way past criticism. Even if you did know something about image manipulation, you're not the only one with that expertise. That may fool your gullible audiences, but it simply will not wash here.
Chrlz, I, and others have given you clear descriptions of what you're doing wrong in Photoshop, and in image processing in general. You don't get to sidestep the consequences of your obvious inexpertise by name-calling.
chrizs is trying to make it seem like he's doing the exact same thing I did. chrizs you're full of it pal. THAT's not the way I did it. You're not being truthful.
Then please explain in unambiguous detail exactly how you manipulated the image.
You presented those steps knowing full well many of us would try to duplicate it. You even explained it tutorial fashion. Now it seems you're angry that someone actually tried it.
Hoerricks used specialized tools to record in unambiguous detail all the processing steps he took to prepare the image for inspection. I can duplicate his results precisely. You simply gave a vague description of fiddling with the sliders until you liked what you saw.
By chrizs using a perfectly clean and 'in focus photo' proves that not only is he pulling the wool over everyone's eyes here, but he is being dishonest in trying to prove me wrong.
On the contrary, he performed the necessary step that you did not: he took reasonable steps to validate your method. He showed that if you applied the USM algorithm in your fashion to an image that did not contain "hidden" objects, artifacts appeared that could be identifed wrongly as objects. That creates a burden for you to prove that your "man" and "spacecraft" (or "engine") are actual objects and not just artifacts bubbling up out of the depths of your misused filter.
Your failure to perform that necessary validation step and your failure to understand why it's necessary are why you will likely never be taken seriously by qualified researchers and why your claims fail in this case.
To make light of my work on this photo, and to try and debunk it by doing these completely idiotic things they've posted.
You fail to notice that when the discussion became inappropriately frivolous, the moderator reprimanded those who had done it (who are regulars here, and your critics) and closed the thread to prevent any further such activity. You're trying to say that you're not getting a fair shake here, when in fact the moderation has proven to be even-handed.
As for whether your claims are debunked, they conclusively are. You have no answers for the loose ends in your theory, and your method has been invalidated because it manufactures artifacts that could be mistaken for actual image data.
What you people don't want to admit here, is that I did an honest approach in trying to find out what was there.
No you didn't. You saw a "smudge" and you assumed without cause that it existed to hide an object on the lunar surface. You applied an invalid image processing technique and interpreted its results subjectively as the object you were seeking. You made an unsupported assumption and bolstered it with a scientifically invalid investigation.
An honest researcher would have subjected his analysis to review, precisely to detect those errors. Honesty means abandoning a flawed approach.
The initial problem between you and I - Jim is Jay Utah and yourself had a field day and said lies about me in the Dropa thread.
No. That people have a "field day" with your claims derives from your frankly inexpert and illogical methods. And apparently you're very used to this response from scientists and skeptics, so that you'll just have to get used to. As to the "lies" in the other thread, which statements specifically are lies?
I approached you [Hoerricks] in good faith and you screwed me.
No, you approached him not having a single clue in your head what you wanted from him or what he did for a living. It seems to me that you expected some sort of magical CSI-like process that would validate your unfounded assumption that behind the "smudge" lay something NASA desperately wanted to hide.
I want you to do a real analysis on this image...
Define in very precise, unamibiguous terms what you believe a "real analysis" consists of.
We'll never know because you will never tell the truth about this photo.
Begging the question. You haven't given any testable description of what you expected Hoerricks to have done or to do. You haven't given any evidence that Hoerricks' findings result from anything other than a proper scientific inquiry.
You said you did work for my 'limited budget' because ordinarily it would cost me more - then this means you left things out because I didn't have the money?
Read his statement. He said he performed services for you gratis that he ordinarily would have charged for, in deference to your limited funds. In other words, he did more than you paid him to do.
Show me what you need to Jim. I am not answering any more of the moronic observations made by these clowns who have turned this thread into a circus.
As you are aware, you are required to answer questions here as a condition of continued participation.
The whole basis of this thread is YOU and Jay claiming I am mis-representing this image in my film.
No. The claim was that you misrepresented Hoerricks' findings in your film; you materially omitted that he -- someone you painted as an image analysis expert -- repudiated your claims regarding the image. I contacted Hoerricks to see what he had really said to you, and reported it here. Later Hoerricks came voluntarily to endorse my summary.
As for the image, you have simply made statements in your film regarding what you believe the image to depict. We have examined your logic and methods and find them to be questionable. That isn't misrepresentation, simply bad science.
Plain and simple. I will be the FIRST one to admit I made a mistake and I was wrong.
Clearly you are not willing to do this.
As far as everyone else here posting these ridiculous images and ridicule, I'm done with the clowning around.
You came here voluntarily to defend your findings against criticism. It's not our fault that you are unable to do so. Amidst the clowning around was a perfectly valid investigation of the applicability and validity of your method. Your method failed a simple test of validity, hence its results are unreliable.
JayUtah - you're so high on the rung of the ladder with NASA, (I read your credentials)...
Which specific credential convinces you that I have any pull with NASA?
Prove me wrong. Bring us this image untampered.
Prove I'm able to do so.
Established Member
Excuse me? Validating whether your photoshopping 'enhancement' actually works is a childish suggestion? That's a pretty sad thing to say.
As I've said several times, if you want to prove that the 'enhancing' actually reveals what's under the smudge, you'll need to show that it works. The best way of doing that is taking a similar picture, smudging it in the same way as your picture, then processing that and see the results. It's a pretty basic (and possibly even simple) case-control study.
I objected to Bobbar's picture because it was a grey block and not a smudge. Dude, I was actually helping you out here by pointing out that the suggested control case didn't meet the requirements.
Order of Kilopi
You see a smudged photograph and jump to the conclusion it is an immense UFO. Please explain why you do not simply try to find out what has been smudged, instead of trying to prove it is an alien spaceship. Please explain why you are not biased in trying to prove it is hiding an alien spaceship.
How can you prove that there was an object under the smudge? Nobody has to prove it not being there. You are making the extraordinary claim, the burden of proof lies with you to make a case for an object having been blurred out.
The object is not there in plain sight. This is an assertion that you are making. All that anyone "with common sense" can see is a smudge, nothing more nothing less. You are jumping to a conclusion, instead of proceeding with an open mind. You want to believe it is an object, else why would you constantly insist it is an object? An alien object?
Established Member
And I was admittedly being a langauge with the 'grey block' picture. I fully understood what BertL was getting at, but I also wanted to demonstrate how easy it would be to hide something, sans being a whistle blower. I followed up with the blurred box and a randomly 'smudged' box; however the thread was closed before I could post my results with USM usage similar to what JE had described.
It is also never specified how the image was 'colorized'.
Order of Kilopi
And I was admittedly being a language with the 'grey block' picture. I fully understood what BertL was getting at, but I also wanted to demonstrate how easy it would be to hide something, sans being a whistle blower.
Exactly, and in that respect you weren't being sarcastic. Escamilla's claims inescapably on the premises that (1) the blurry area arose from someone intentionally removing what was originally high-frequency data, and (2) enough information remains in the low-frequency data to recover the original detail. The second premise is meaningful only if the first premise holds.
But that whole system of premises suffers from subversion of support when one realizes -- as you've demonstrated -- that all the image data can be removed, so as to preclude a toe-hold for some independent investigator to discover the deception. You provided that it's just as easy (easier, in fact) to do the job right than to bungle it in a way that lets Escamilla make his claims.
And so far Escamilla can only handwave and speculate. He has no real answer for why the deception wasn't as complete as it easily could have been. Hence we have no reason to accept his claim that the photo was compromised by an intentional act.
Established Member
Jose has made a lot of claims in this thread, and has promised on numerous occasions to supply evidence to support not only his claims against Jim Hoerricks but also his assertions that there is a conspiracy by NASA to hide aliens from the general public.
Except for a brief excerpt from the report from Mr. Hoerricks, and not the complete report as he promised, I haven't seen any evidence from Jose. Just bluster, insults, and lame attempts to shift the burden of proof.
Direct Question:
Jose, where is all this 'proof' that you claim that you have and when can we expect to see it?
I realize that it will be at least three days, due to your suspension. Hopefully, it won't be much longer than that. After all, you've been promising this evidence for over a week now.
problems worthy of attack prove their worth by hitting back (Piet Hein)I cook with wine, and sometime I even add it to the food. (W.C. Fields)
I don't ask stupid questions. I just make stupid statements!!!
Experience is a wonderful thing. It enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.
All truths are simple to understand, once they are found. The challenge is finding them. (attrib. to Galileo)
Order of Kilopi
But if they release an image that shows nothing, surely you will just claim they have done a better job of hiding it.
Agreed. Escamilla seems to be under the delusion that I have the ability to compel the release of "the undoctored image," should such a thing even prove to exist. He is completely convinced that a photo exists secretly at NASA showing something the public is meant not to see.
With that degree of speculation firmly entrenched as "fact," there appears to be no possibility for exculpatory evidence. That another image has surfaced of the same ordinary crater taken by the same spacecraft (or perhaps even the same image re-rendered through the MrSID decoder) doesn't even affect his belief. One someone simply speculates around all the evidence that's presented, he loses the privilege of asking for more.
Admittedly Jay Utah has a point when he says we can't know how the original smudge was created and so this wouldn't necessarily be realistic.
But we can indeed determine the propensity of the method to create a false positive. And boy-howdy, does it ever! That alone is sufficient to reject Escamilla's conclusion unless he can provide further proof.
As Hoerricks pointed out further, any method that relies upon manipulating the method parameters until some desired result is obtained suffers from the confirmation bias; one does not know whether the parameters settled on are reasonable and valid aside from their ability to produce a subjective appearance. More on this later. In short, choosing filters at random and wiggling the sliders until you like what you see is not a reliable means of analyzing or interpreting a digital image.
We have image-processing methods that can work well based on a knowledge of how the data got into that state. For example, if we have a portion of a photograph that's out of focus, and we can obtain or estimate the numerical and geometrical properties of the optical array, we can parameterize various statistical methods of deconvolution in order to "undo" that process. It's not a universally successful method, of course. But its value is enhanced by its algorithmic and mathematical fidelity to the process that was known in this case to have produced the blurry image.
That method wouldn't work in this case because we don't know what caused the glitch in this image. So we don't know that this method would apply. If the image was smudged with the Photoshop Smudge tool, then USM is known not to correct for that. If the photo contained no high-frequency data originally at that point (unlikely, but abstractly possible) then blurring it will not necessarily obscure detail that a subsequent USM would be unable to recover. If the glitch is an area of interpolation performed by the MrSID decoder, then USM is guaranteed to produce false edges and contours.
The field of potential degrading effects is simply too large to say qualitatively that USM is inappropriate to all of them. However, we can say quantitatively that the parameters applied in this case to USM are universally inappropriate. A 500-percent amplitude and multiple-pixel filter support are excessive.
Order of Kilopi
Okay, I'm taking a break from work, so I'll take time to make a comment. As always, not trying to be insulting or snide. My way of thinking lends itself to the abstract, and my sense of humor lends itself to observation by exaggeration. Caricature thinking, if you will.
That said, lets look at why we are questioning Jose's method of analysis. The application of filters, transformation, and techniques doesn't mean anything without being able to first explain why said manipulations were applied. And I don't mean "To enhance the image and reveal what's hidden." I mean, specifically, what did you do and why was it applicable in this situation.
Fingerprints are an acceptable form of evidence in the court of law. Generally, I hesitate to bring court proof into a discussion of scientific proof. Don't get me wrong, they are two very separate things with two very separate sets of requirements. But in this argument, the similarities should be enough to suit my purpose.
I won't go into the history of how fingerprints came to be shown as unique. What I want to look at is the technique for collecting fingerprints. It's not enough to say "If you throw some dust on this surface, blow lightly, and then use tape to remove what's left, here's evidence!" You have to explain that oils from skin can be transfered to surfaces through contact. Given a fine enough substance, it will stick to the oils, where areas not containing oil will not hold the powder if a gentle force (wind, usually) is applied. That done, a surface with higher retention properties can left what remains, giving an accurate depiction of whatever deposited the oil (a fingerprint, by Jove!)
Obviously, we don't expect this explanation every time a finger print is brought to court. It's been established through repeated practice, and is now accepted. Were I to challenge this method, one could touch a surface, follow the steps, and repeat the result as many times as one pleases. Verification.
Another important aspect is that in identifying our method, we've identified our methods weaknesses. What if gloves were worn? What if there were other substances on the surface sufficient for the dusting substance to stick to? What if the surface is curved or otherwise shaped in a way that would distort a print? What if the surface won't hold oils? What if the surface is textured? Etc.
So far, you have failed to show us why you "threw down the dust". Recovering data from a manipulated photograph is, in principle, the same as recovering evidence from a crime scene. Why did you apply a filter, and in what way does that work to recover the image information? Can you take another photograph that's been manipulated in the same way and use the same technique to find the obscured data? Can you account for deviations or scenarios that may cause error with this technique?
Image data recovery is not unlike fingerprint lifting in that it has been studied and there's very good procedures put in place. You have failed to tell us why your method is better than the established methods for such analysis, and why the established method of analysis arrives at results that do not agree with your own.
I can come into court and say that I used a red-light to shine on a table top, then used a sharpie to trace the print as I could see it under the restricted light spectrum, and my findings show that the print does not match the prints of suspect B, who was seen by the witness fleeing the scene. But if I can't show why a red light reveals more detail, why tracing a print by hand with a sharpie is more accurate than lifting it, and why lifting the print in the traditional way came up with wrong results . . . well, then I don't have very compelling proof. In fact, I have no proof of anything.
Bad Post-Doc
Assuming you have any kind of influence at NASA beyond "if you want to talk about hoax belief, go bother Jay," why on Earth does Escamilla assume you have enough to release a photo he posits is being hidden from the world? How much authority would that require?
_____________________________________________
Gillian
"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"
"You can't erase icing."
"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"
Administrator
I've decided to close this thread.
I think Jose Escamilla has plenty of questions to answer upon his return, and I don't want this thread to get too much longer before he returns.
If anyone has a reason to open it before then, please Report this post and give your reason (we've done this once before).
Jose Escamilla - Upon your return, if you are ready to start answering the questions that have been put to you, please also Report this post (click onin the upper right corner of this post).
Administrator
I've reopened the thread for the moment, by request. We'll leave it that way for a while and see how it goes.
Established Member
Thank you.
Jose has alluded to the images I've provided, presumably in the case of Zeeman crater, our main "smudge" candidate, and the best, most recent post about that is at http://www.bautforum.com/1675512-post199.html
Of greatest importance from that post would have to be:
The crater as imaged by Clementine with the smudge, but without the mercator projection distortion:
&
The Clementine image of this crater without the smudge present:
See, this is the crater in question, minus that Mercator Projection distortion. Jose only used that distorted version for his film. Moreover, he illustrated an alleged humanoid figure in that distorted image that appeared undistorted, as seen here: http://tblnfilms.com/BADAST/Image2.html
The source of my clear, larger version of Zeeman crater is this image:
http://www.cmf.nrl.navy.mil/clementi.../southpole.JPG in which Zeeman is visible in the lower left, between 120 degrees W and 150 degrees W. I have asked Jose to answer for this image, as it is presumably the very same Clementine imagery, minus the blurring effect seen elsewhere. And I just want this data to be clearly understood for what it is. I think it effectively ends all controversy regarding this crater. Jose said he'd like Jay to get NASA to release the image without the blurring. Well, here it is already. No strings need to be pulled.
**I also wanted to note that in this case, no telescope could hope to have verified whether an object had been at this crater, because it is on the far side of the moon, though near the south pole. Aristarchus was mentioned in this thread before, however, and that is certainly visible from Earth.
Order of Kilopi
I clearly don't know enough about confirmation bias. Is the issue that he had already decided that something was there?
That's part of it. The other part is in how he used Photoshop to prepare his image. I'll explain that more in detail below.
To me it sounds like he was asking someone to check his work.
I don't get that impression. My understanding of Escamilla's claim is that he was so impressed by what he was able to "see" by means of his cursory image manipulation that he assumed a professional such as Jim Hoerricks would be able to "see" so much more using presumably better image-processing methods. Escamilla seems taken aback by Hoerricks' different approach. This is understandable when you observe that Escamilla doesn't apparently recognize the notion of validating one's methods.
The confirmation bias is simply the validation of one's methods based on how well they produce some desired result, rather than whether they are inherently valid or treat the data in a defensible way. That can manifest itself in a number of ways.
If one believes that a blurry portion of a photograph hides an alien spaceship, one will then try method after method of manipulating that portion until one sees a "spaceship," because one is apt to believe that some method or another fails because it is being implied improperly, not because there really isn't a spaceship. As soon as something resembling a spaceship emerges, the investigation is declared to be complete and successful because it produced the expected result. That is, the identification of the spaceship is taken to be the validation of the method, not an examination of the properties of the method itself.
Consider my Luminol example above in the context of method-validation. (Luminol is the substance used in forensic examination of crime scenes to determine the presence of body fluids; it luminesces in contact with those fluids, and fluoresces under ultraviolet under the same conditions.)
If a naive investigator is irrationally convinced that a murder has been committed in a location, but the standard concentration of Luminol fails to reveal blood residue, he might increase the concentration or add other procedures and substances that he believes might "confirm" the presence of the blood he's "convinced" ought to be there. When that unvalidated method produces a "positive" result (e.g., from, say, organic material in the floorboards and not blood), he might believe that his ingenuity and persistence has paid off. That is, he "knows" the blood ought to be there, and it was just a matter of finding the "right" method for revealing it.
Another form of confirmation bias occurs when one is fiddling with sliders while one watches the image change. Photoshop allows you to preview pending changes as you manipulate the parameters of its various tools. One is inclined to stop fiddling with the tools when one likes the picture, not because the positions of the sliders relates to any scientifically or mathematically defensible setting.
This is what Jim Hoerricks refers to by working in "frequency space instead of image space." That is, Jim's adjustment of the pixel intensity values is based on the luminosity histogram, not the appearance of the crater.
The histogram displays the frequency of occurrence of each pixel value. That is, the x-axis is the scale of brightness, from full black (left) to full white (right). All the gray values are represented horizontally along the scale. The y-axis gives the number of pixels in the image that have that brightness. The histogram of a dark image will show a peak in the left side of the histogram. A high-contrast image will show a peak on the left (representing all the very dark pixels) and a peak on the right (representing all the very bright pixels) and a trough in the middle (representing the relative lack of medium-gray pixels).
The Curves adjustment in Photoshop allows you to map input luminosity to output luminosity according to a weighted response curve. One can use such a response curve to amplify the variance between subtle differences in shade, so that the variance uses the entire output gamut of black-to-white. One can do that independently for each of the three sampled wavelengths in the typical color photograph (red, green, and blue). Apparently that was done in this case. One can use different algebraic orders to the weighting -- linear, high-order, or even arbitrarily parametric. For this application, linear weighting is appropriate and was apparently done.
Now it's true that anyone who owns a copy of Photoshop can apply this adjustment. What Escamilla fails to recognize is that it takes a professional to know that this is the appropriate adjustment to make, and that it is essentially the only acceptable adjustment for detail extraction in this circumstance. Other methods run the risk of introducing artifacts (false positives).
This method appropriately avoids the confirmation bias because the judgment of how to apply the weighting is made solely on the basis of examining the histogram, not the image. One notes the luminosity distribution in the histogram and arranges for it to be weighted in a more normalized fashion. Then and only then can you examine the image to see whether the expansion has revealed more visual information
If you performed such a weighting or other adjustment while looking at the image, stopping only when the image manifested something you were interested in, you might go back to that histogram and discover that your weighting eliminates the luminosity information for half the pixels in the image. That is, the "spaceship" emerges hypothetically only when you throw out half the data. That amounts to cherry-picking the data, even if you haven't intended to do it. If all the available data fail to support your "spaceship" then it doesn't matter how strongly you believe the spaceship has been "revealed."
When these anomaly-hunters and UFO-hunters fiddle with the knobs while watching the image for aliens to emerge, they're using their powerful visual perception systems (with the attendant imagination and pareidolic tendencies) to judge the rightness and completeness of the method. In fact the rightness of the method depends on how it relates to the data (e.g., that the weighting function hasn't clamped important data), not to what you see in the abstract images. Working in frequency space (i.e., using only the histogram) assures the investigator that he is not allowing subjective pareidolia to influence his methods and "confirm" an indefensible setting.
Now I should point out that Jim and I have used "frequency" in different ways here, both correctly. Jim's description of working in "frequency space" refers to the histogram that gives the statistical frequency of occurrence of each pixel intensity value.
I speak also of "high-frequency" data, and I'm speaking from a signal-processing standpoint. If you think of pixel intensity as a function of some line cut through the image (such as a horizontal or vertical stripe) then "high-frequency" refers to sudden changes over spatial distance along that line. It's basically a fancy way of talking about photographic detail. If you take a picture of a white wall, you have essentially low-frequency data, varying generally only by the broad illumination characteristics. If you draw a line across that image and plot the intensity values versus position, it will be a smoothly varying, essentially flat curve.
Now take a picture of a zebra. For most lines you cut across that picture, the intensity values will change abruptly from black to white as they cut across the zebra. Further, if you take a picture of sand, the pixel values plotted across some line will change rapidly with many small jagged peaks. These resemble signals (i.e., sound waves or radio waves) plotted over time, where "high-frequency sound" looks like many small peaks.
We use the signal-processing vocabulary in some instances while talking about images because we use those techniques for processing images. "Blurs" can be thought of simply as low-pass filters.
Order of Kilopi
I'm very late to this thread and will admit freely to only having read the first and last pages as well as Mr. Hoerricks' report.
Am I right in assuming that the images looked at by Mr. Escamilla was produced by the Clementine Lunar Image Browser rather than being the original digital image of the area?
So they've already at least undergone unknown but likely automated contrast adjustment, scaling and rotation transforms as well as mosaic patching before being shown?
Now for speculation:
So it's entirely possible that the "smudged" rectangular area was caused by a transmission glitch for the original image what meant only the low frequency data was available for a couple of blocks of image data and the MrSid decoder filled in the area using those data? But without other images from the same region and without the original image it's impossible to tell?
And seeing that the 1.5 browser only used about 10% of the Clementine images, that this smudged area isn't there in the 2.0 browser could well be because that area was covered by multiple images and they're using a different one with the full information in this version?
For non-speculation, would there be any way to obtain the original non-transformed Clementine images covering the areas in question? More specifically a way that doesn't involve buying a copy the dataset which I expect would always be a possibility though well beyond the means of us.
I'm aware that this may not be sufficient to answer Mr. Escamilla's objections, but it would be interesting to see if the smudge artifact is from only one image and not present in others, if it's pixel aligned in that image and if so if it's due to a fallout of high frequency information or also present in the low frequency part of the image file (provided the image is available in a format that makes that separation readily available).
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Reductionist and proud of it.
Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn. Benjamin Franklin
Chase after the truth like all hell and you'll free yourself, even though you never touch its coat tails. Clarence Darrow
A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read. Mark Twain
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Where did you get the 'smudged' non-mercator projection image?Jose has alluded to the images I've provided, presumably in the case of Zeeman crater, our main "smudge" candidate, and the best, most recent post about that is at http://www.bautforum.com/1675512-post199.html
Of greatest importance from that post would have to be:
Established Member
Here you go:
http://www.cmf.nrl.navy.mil/clementi.../southside.JPG
Order of Kilopi
So, there is a radial pattern visible in this. I'm guessing that might be where the images from multiple passes are stitched together?
Interestingly, the infamous smudge appears to be radially aligned as well (its hard to be absolutely sure at this resolution). This strengthens the argument that it is an artefact of data loss and/or image compression. It seems unlikely that an "object" would be aligned with the data in this way.
Established Member
Good point. Another point is that the given smudge effect is not the only of its kind in that particular image:
There's a much larger one just up and left from the one we've been discussing here. Naturally, this larger area is also clearly visible in the other polar image:
http://www.cmf.nrl.navy.mil/clementi.../southpole.JPG
Established Member
If I may make an observation, I've been keeping up with this thread, and it is inescapable to me that Mr. Escamilla has (if I may mix my metaphors) built a house of cards on a foundation of sand. And it has been washed away by the waves and currents of critical inquiry.
Order of Kilopi
The image posted by Weltraum in post #321 is a scan of a print. The edges of the print can clearly be seen at the top and bottom. Parts of a (logrithmic?) color control wedge are still visible.
This makes the image, which in itself is a composite, a multiple generation rendition. That, the low resolution, and jpg fragmenting totally kill any possibility of tracing anything meaningful.
Just from a purely visual check, the whole image is full of hairs, scratches, and irregularities, most of the latter following the radial composite lines, as mentioned above by Henna Oji-san.
Our famous smudge is on one of the radial lines and, strictly from an optical point of view, seems to be a coincidental overlapping of similar gray tones which have been produced by the resolution reduction and jpg compression.
There are other such smudges in the image, especially in the lower right part. Those are more linear. "Our" smudge is like the others, but seems to have blended with other gray values around it, resulting is something the human brain accepts as "anormal." A close up view shows that in this resolution there is a pixel pattern within the smudge that is consistent with the surroundings. Considering the image generation and resolution, that is of course meaningless.
Here's a version in which I highlighted a few hairs and other smudges with red circles.
http://img63.imageshack.us/img63/1921/thesmudge.jpg
One double smudge just northeast of the "polar circle" along the radial composite lines is interesting because two (almost) parallel lines appear to be present that look like football goal posts. I wonder what van Däniken would have made of them?
Established Member
That's a good eye you've got there, Kleindoofy. I hadn't paid attention to the edges, so I hadn't noticed that it's a scan. My first impulse is to say that the original mosaic represented here was made from the same faulty image data that was used in the v. 1.5 Clementine browser, since we have that smudge effect on the same spot on Zeeman crater. It stands to reason, then, that it's the same artefact and not a different one introduced by the scanning process, right? I know you never suggested that, but you claimed that this origin would "kill any possibility of tracing anything meaningful." I beg to differ, based on what I've just stated. Naturally, it'd be best to have a more "original" version of this smudged-looking image available online, but so far I haven't found one.
Established Member
One other source (not exactly a primary source, but something) of the smudged imagery I've just found is this:
http://ufocasebook.conforums.com/ind...num=1115439796
At that address, this image is posted:
http://img282.echo.cx/img282/9800/anomalies6cm.jpg
**It looks like the images used here are also from the bad, scanned images, originally. The mystery remains for me of how the Clementine browser got smudgy looking data before, then got clearer images to use afterwards. I can only assume the artefacts came from post-processing, unless the Clementine probe took additional images of the south polar region, and those other images were then used to create the better mosaics, as well as the 2.0 browser online. I just don't know.
Last edited by Weltraum; 2010-Feb-11 at 01:30 AM. Reason: **-edit
Order of Kilopi
The comments about the 1.5 browser says it used about 170,000 images, Clementine took some 1.8 million images, so it's likely they've switched to using different images without the artifacts.
__________________________________________________
Reductionist and proud of it.
Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn. Benjamin Franklin
Chase after the truth like all hell and you'll free yourself, even though you never touch its coat tails. Clarence Darrow
A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read. Mark Twain
Order of Kilopi
The radial lines and patches correspond to the swaths photographed by Clementine's polar orbital path. The stitching is consistent with the state of the art in about 1994. But here we have clear examples of data drop-out that correspond to sections along the orbital path. That's consistent with the original problems with Clementine's storage and telemetry system.
The best-supported hypothesis at this point is that Escamilla's suspicious photo is one of several that are affected by data drop-out, probably due to the loss of the low-order bit planes in the MrSID data stream. In the incarnation used by Escamilla, the atlas projection has somewhat distorted the drop-out in the vertical direction.
Established Member
I love a good photoshop challenge.
After all I am a self proclaimed Photoshop expert.
Please note that I am not trying to ridicule anyone here. Im just repeating the steps taken by JE and displaying the results in a control group test. As was explained by BertL earlier. This is to show that False positives can be inserted into an image by sliding Photoshop sliders around. I know this is possible I can prove its possible. And it is no way "childish" to try and replicate the results step by step with a control picture.
Using the image Provided by Bobbar (the smudge tool one) that was provided back on page 9.
I first started by adjusting the "Unsharp Mask" tool to settings of Amount to 500. By adding edge contrast to the original it gave me a look at what might possibly be underneath the smudge.
The next steps were done in this order.
1) I then made a few extra enhancements on the Original Unsharp Masked image.
2). I colorized the image. (Jose does not describe how or why this is done. So I assume he uses the same techniques described in the moon rising film. Which are taking an ariel shot of an earth field and using these colors to colorize the black and whites in Photoshop. Since I didnt know what field he used I simply made a new layer and set that layer to be a colorize layer. Which means only the colors of the image in this layer will show up on the layers below and nothing else. I then took JE's final image and put it in this layer and made sure it matched up as close to possible) This technique is essentialy stealing only the colors from JE's picture and applying it to this one. Which is essentialy a short cut to get the exact same results as JE for this step.
3). I brought the contrast up and did a "Levels" adjustment and this is the end result. Jose also does not describe this step in detail but I have worked with photoshop for a long time and was able to come pretty close to the results he did. Slightly changing them would not make a significant difference at this point.
4) my last step was to colorize the object in question. This time I colorized whatever colors I thought would show up best to distinguish the different objects I have uncovered. Which seems to be exactly How Jose did it, so this will work just fine in my case.
Here is the final result
The suprising thing is I didnt get a City/Space craft/peice of equiptment with a large humanoid.
Im pretty sure I have a large humanoid slaying a giant dragon.
If I were to take this seriously I would then have to imply that there are not giant cities on the moon but rather the moon has giant Draganoid and humanoid creatures fighting each other on the moon.
I hope that everyone can see the correlation between this test and the original image in question.
If I have goofed on my testing please point out were and why I am wrong. I am able to try again.
Again I am not trying to criticise by pointing out the fact that I see a fictional dragon. I am trying to show that false positives can be made by using photoshop sliders and colorizing images to outline the objects in question.
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