MARS OBFUSCATION PERSPECTIVES

Report #166

August 4, 2009

 

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/press/opportunity/20080102a.html

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/press/opportunity/20090109a.html

This report will not be about new Mars evidence exactly but about placing some of the obfuscation of that evidence into a little better perspective, at least at basic levels. We'll start off with color issues, then move on to black and white versus color issues, and finally wind up with a demonstrated example of how relatively easy it is to obfuscate digital imaging.

The above first and second images are just two basic samples of what is officially presented to us as Mars images approximating true color. Both are sections from Opportunity rover Panorama big mosaic press release images produced a year apart. Note that the first one has an strong orange tint to it as best represented by the background sky color and the second obviously has a strong bluish tint to it as best represented by both the sky and landscape background. Note that I have not done work of any kind in these images and these image sections are just as they are officially presented.

The above links under each image will take you to the official images and a fair amount of narrative that goes along with each. This official text includes the statement that each represents the Mars approximate true color. You should wonder how this can be true considering the very obvious but quite different strong obvious tints permeating and differentiating these two images. Obviously the term "true color" must have a very loose definition at official level.

This is of course about Spirit and Opportunity rover imaging. For any who have followed this work or researched on your own, you will know that what is presented for public consumption and labeled as "raw" rover data is all in black and white and never in color. For the most part, only when these smaller "raw" images are joined together forming larger mosaic images is color applied but not always even then. This is typical of the official press release images such as the two samples you see above.

So there may be a tendency for some to assume that true color raw images aren't possible except as these false color applications. If so, what some of you might not be aware of is that there are one left and one right panorama cameras and both are fully color capable. In fact, each has a total of 8 useful color filters with 6 being more in the visible spectrum but only 3 red, green and blue filters are absolutely required for the basic colors that our human eyes are the most familiar with perceiving.

Now the human eye/brain both records and processes color images almost instantly. As you might suspect, this is not the way it works in the rover science imaging. For example, to get a basic color view that we might be most familiar with, the rover PanCam must at least take separate red, green and blue filter images and these would later theoretically be combined and processed by special computer software to achieve color results. In theory, the more the filters in the visible light spectrum are combined beyond the basic three, the more subtle, refined and realistic the color view should be.

Now not all human eyes see the same color the same nor do computers or monitors, so any science results are cautiously labeled as "approximating' true color and as that in turn compares to false applied color. Note the links below for official information on the rover PanCam cameras revealing much of this.

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/spacecraft_instru_pancam.html
http://pancam.astro.cornell.edu/pancam_instrument/doc/tb_pancam.pdf
http://pancam.astro.cornell.edu/pancam_instrument/projects_1.html
http://pancam.astro.cornell.edu/pancam_instrument/about.html

The desire science goal is that the use of different filters both alone and in conjunction with each other in various combinations will reveal more than for example just the use of red, green and blue filters combined and alone. So the theory is that the raw black and white data will not require all this time, trouble and expense of processing. That means that the "raw" data that is publicly released to you and I and the world is only in black and white and that should be good enough for us.

The question becomes, is this what all that tax money funding results in? Where are at least the basic red, green and blue filter color images that we should expect to see approximating human sight? Shouldn't these be the official raw images and classed as such? After all, that data as a color resource is potentially there and available. The last time I looked, most of us see the world in color, not black and white. I don't know about you but I have no interest in my tax dollars going exclusively just to some scientist who wants to see rocks in just the blue or infrared spectrum to analyze mineral content.

In my opinion, first comes basic color as primary on the publicly released raw data and then other specialized views follow in priority. Remember, the scientists and academics did not pay for these missions nor is the data their property. In fact, NASA, JPL, the scientists, and the academics are directly and/or indirectly employed by the public's tax dollars and it is what the public as the true owners of the data want that should count here.

This is the basic issue. The public pays the exploration bill and has the right to expect that at least basic color images will be what constitutes the so called basic "raw" data. If a thousand people in the public were lined up and asked this question of which they would expect to see if they had a choice, we all know what the great bulk of the answers would be. So why are we in the public getting black and white imaging? I suspect you know the answer to that too, that is if you will admit it to yourself.

The above third and fourth images are of Earth scenes. In the third image of a portion of the Earth's Sahara Desert note that the foreground color is a strong orange but the background color is more of a tan and the far background sky is blue, all in the same scene and image. This strongly suggests that the color variety in this scene is true with no overall dominating false tinting and, since it is of course from Earth, there is little reason to question the colors for ulterior motives.

On the other hand, compare it to the very first image in this report of a Mars landscape that is suppose to be true color. In that image the overall orange tint is strong in the terrain but so it is in the sky as well. Do you believe that the strong orange tint is really so strong and universal in both Mars land and sky? I don't and don't think you do either, that is if you think about it. Yet the 1st image here is suppose to be a Mars "approximate" true color image. The choice is between your own common sense and the "trust us" because we're the experts psychology.

As you can see, the above next fourth image is very much like a typical Mars rover scene but it is of an Earth Egyptian quarry and there is even someone in the far distance in the upper right of the image. Except for that person standing out there in the distance, this scene looks so much like a typical Mars rover scene. In fact, it is so much so that I suspect it would have fooled most "experts" if the human figure was removed and the image was passed off as a Mars image. The only difference that really makes this image more identifiable as an Earth image is that everything here is in reasonably sharp detail even out in the far background as compared to the very messy and resolution compromised Mars rover imaging and even though this Earth image is in the .jpeg format and considerably compressed here.

However, there is another telling point to be made here with this fourth Mars look alike image. That point is that despite the look of lonely arid barren wastes in this image so much like Mars, this is an image on Earth. Remember now, this is crowded Earth where there are over 6.7 billion too often wall-to-wall people living on this world that is also covered by 70% water and complete with great massive civilization centers. Also, there are aircraft filling the Earth skies, satellites in plenty orbiting in space around the planet, and along with countless examples of land based biological life too often stressed to the breaking point for living room space in competition with humans. You certainly wouldn't know it by looking at this image.

So don't let yourself get drawn in with the psychological tactic of appearing to drop rovers down in Mars arid barren wastes and showing that type of landscape in promoting the concept that an entire world is like this. The bottom line is that this fourth image isn't remotely representative of Earth and it would likewise be a serious error in judgment to assume the rover images of equally limited defined areas are representative of Mars. The risk is that we are seeing only what others want us to see and exposed to manipulative tactic rather than visual truth. Here are some examples of this below.

The above fifth and sixth images are of the exact same Earth scene in the Simpson Desert. The difference is that the 5th image is in original color and the sixth image of the same scene has been desaturated by me of color into black and white and that is the only change made.

You will note that there is nothing really pronounced in this scene that is suggestive of bio-life (example: tall trees, large bushes, etc.) and in this way it is much like so many of the barren Mars rover images presented to us. However, under these more marginal conditions for bio-life here in this place on Earth, note how the color image is very suggestive of biological life all over it due to the color feedback while this information is almost completely gone and not present in the otherwise identical but desaturated black and white image. Had I also compromised the black and white image resolution (I did not) and passed some blur and/or smudge over a few low bushes that still does have a bit of bio-life suggestiveness to it, the effect would be even more barren looking.

The point I'm making here is that just taking the color out an image reduces the visible information in it often very dramatically. Desaturating an image of color is just a matter of quick click and its over and done. In other words, it is incredibly easy and quick with almost no effort. It should follow that you can perhaps appreciate more why only black and white images are publicly released. In other words, it is easy for a cautious person to become suspicious that the trouble and money saved on color processing isn't the only reason for limiting public release images to black and white or even any reason at all.

Now we come to the seventh and eighth final images. In the 7th image you see a full scene from Earth in color without any alterations in it by me. In the next 8th image below it you see the same scene still in color but slightly reduced in height and now altered by me. Note that I'm not trying to get a Mars look going here or attempt anything highly detailed or extensive. I'm only demonstrating a few samples of how relatively simple it is to change and/or eliminate visual information in even a nice big detailed color image and without going to any other efforts of compromising it with reduced size, desaturation to black and white, resolution degradation, blur, smudge or other general and common image tampering techniques that could have been used.

The first thing you see very quickly is that I have eliminated the background mountain detail completely and substituted false sky and clouds in its place. If you are counting, that one single elimination type manipulation right away did away with about 65%–70% of the legitimate information in the original image substituting 65%–70% of it with fake and false sky information. Think about it. What if this had been Mars and those had been huge high rise buildings in that background a rover was looking at instead of high rugged mountains? It gives the concept of horizon lines a new meaning doesn't it.

Yes that's the most obvious but now on a more subtle level, note that a number of pieces of original evidence are simply gone in the mid and left foreground at the bottom area of the 8th image. Look back and forth between the 7th and 8th images and you'll see it. I did this rough and crude and yet note how real it looks under the kind of brief examination researchers would be giving this. Remember now that they do not have the before and after comparison ability we do here so there would be no real reason for them to question what they're looking at.

You can also see that I have changed several clumps of vegetation into admittedly funky looking rock evidence just as samples. About the best you can say of the rock looking evidence is that at least these changed objects don't look like vegetation any more. However, remember that peculiar or strange looking as a tampering result is perfectly acceptable if the elimination of bio-life perception is the primary goal of the manipulation. It generates only misdirection psychologies and questions like what kind of "rocks" are those rather than what kind of "bushes" are they?

With some more effort, even as a rank amateur at this, I could have changed every vegetation clump out there into rocks and rocky looking terrain that looked very real. Again this was very crudely done by a single individual paying no attention to the finer points of image tampering and yet it still comes off fairly well.

Now I may have developed some graphics skills at analyzing satellite images and clarifying them to bring out details from the mess they are usually in but I have no graphics skills at all in this kind of outright image manipulation. That means I am a rank amateur at it. If I can do this on that basis, what do think skilled learning AI super computers can do at great speed with the right graphics tools and programming?

What one must get in the head is that no one person or many people can do the bulk of this image manipulation. There are just too many images and within the images just too many objects requiring attention. Dealing with such numbers flowing in and getting a sanitized product out on a timely basis as required would take far too many people and too long. Likewise there is no way that such numbers of people could be trusted to keep their mouth shut over time no matter intimidation or loyalty factors.

No, think super computers with immense computational speed being commanded by onboard artificial intelligence (AI) that accepts programming and learns as it goes becoming more and more efficient in the process, assuming of course ongoing programming upgrading and patching by a few support human personnel. First, the scene and everything in it is mapped by graphics software. This may sound very high tech but it is very similar to a copy machine just scanning a document recording every detail in it. Then the AI makes decisions on that map as to what goes and what stays and what gets covered or altered and what doesn't according to its programming parameters and then the applications are graphically applied and the final "processed" (sanitized) product heads into otherwise legitimate science and academic communities and eventually for public consumption.

Did you catch that point about AI, updates, and learning? Historically the obfuscation and visual conditioning functions have been about altering real scenes. However, what must be remembered is that ongoing patching and high speed learning are also going on here within this secrecy agenda that translates to the AI. That establishes an ever advancing body of knowledge and skill both human and AI based on continued and evolving training, programming, and experience. Logically that growing capability and capacity is not going to be ignored or wasted by those who advocate and advance secrecy agendas and manipulation.

What I'm leading up to is that very soon now we can expect completely fabricated and entirely false scenes to be substituted. Now these scenes will appear very sharp in comparison to the messy obfuscated but otherwise real scenes we've historically been getting because they will be graphically created. So they will be touted as great break through's in visual technology to explain their sharp quality away as compared to the previous messy material. The delay in processing will also be dramatically shortened because that "processing" will no longer exist because it will be a creation process that happens before the mission even left Earth for its target.

We can also expect some titillating suggestive anomalies to be thrown in to give the "new" evidence a better perception of validity. Why that looks like a wheeled track down there and that straight line looks like a partially buried road or wall! Could it be? Now we can see "everything" and in so much better wonderful detail and quickly too. If no one is seriously questioning this or is the wiser at the time this begins, who is to question since the culprits also likely possess the proof to the contrary? To point, any skills that someone like me may possess in discovering and revealing image manipulation and a little truth in past material will be negated and essentially useless.

As I write this, I suspect that just such entirely false digital graphics work is underway, if not already finished, for future missions not yet actually embarked on. It may even begin with the current mission to the Moon but that timing depends on how good it is in the opinion of those who review such material. It is a logical progression of developing technology and easily predictable if one faces the truth objectively. So, if this promotion of fantasy and its attendant chains of ignorance is ever to be challenged and truth to have a chance rise out of the shadowed depths and into public awareness, it must be done now dealing with older more obfuscation mistake prone satellite, lander, and rover science data.

If completely false space exploration visual information is successfully fostered on the public and our more legitimate science and academic communities, we are in deep deep fundamental trouble as to ever trying to turn this around and climb out of this clueless ignorance hole on our own without intervention by others. If we behave in this manner and our current living generations allow this to happen, where is there any redeeming quality in us (as we demonstrate being so susceptible to manipulation) that would motivate anyone to intervene on our behalf? So my advise is don't put any hope in that.

If this permanent type of ignorance prevails, our future generations, our children and our children's children on down the line, are really in for it trying to live and survive in a clueless ignorant state so far removed from reality. Remember also another danger. Reality inevitably and always prevails in the end. So when a person, a community, a nation, or a world moves too far away from reality, bad things result as the corrupted human psychological center cannot and will not hold when it must eventually confront the reality.

It is true of us and it is true of the secrecy agenda as well. When the population that the secrecy agenda parasites off of crumbles inward upon itself as it looses its ability to independently strive forward, the parasites go down with it. Remember Rome and all the other great powers that have risen and fallen all down through history without exception. Is this our behavioral human legacy doomed to repeat itself endlessly in different forms until we are no more? Or, can we learn and grow finally breaking this cycle as a people and race? As I have said before, if we do not seize the moment, then the moment will seize us.

Those of you out there within the secrecy agenda, think about it. The parasitic path that you are on will consume itself. Most of you have families with the hope of future generations that you care for. The answer lies in a healthy population not sick with ignorance and going ever more clueless and ill. Break the cycle and come forward out of darkness. Join us.

, Investigator