A vertebral-body similarity on Mars, a Doctor comments

Awhile back I found two interesting rock shapes on a Mars gigapan, quite close to each other. After posting it on the anomalies thread I wrote to member drphilex about the object, asking if he'd comment. This is a u2u exchange between myself and drphilex. Take note that both the thread and the response say "similarities" or "resemblance", and do not claim that these actually are biological-fossils. Bold added:

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We are finding some very good items on the anomalies thread, mostly sea shell like things imbedded in rocks. But here is an odd one, and I wish there were more than just one. Does this have any vertebrae like similarities at all, or is it just an interesting shape (I mean the one on the left which I've rotated in another pic underneath. Don't even look at the smaller rock on the far-right.)

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Thanks again!



please feel free to post any of my replies and thankyou for asking.

the 2 rocks bear striking resemblances to vertebral bodies (for the left) and even the lamina (dorsal elements) on the right of a vertebrate spine. i do this all day and night, and these are STRIKING. they look like fossilized bones, 'petrified' if you will. i cant imagine a natural rock formation mimicking vertebral body complex 3d anatomy, it has bilateral symmetry as well....

dr phil


Thank you. I may make a separate thread on this object, to get more opinions. Appreciated. I'll post your response on the anomalies thread, please let me know if I should redact your name.

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EDIT: I've redacted member drphilex's real name and where he works, although he may want to add them back. drphilex has over 16 years of experience in his field, is a published physician, and works at an accredited and respected medical facility.

Here's jeep3r's upload of the objects (I don't know how to crop pics from gigapans):

Source (GigaPan)

Any additional comments and analysis appreciated.

You people have a really good imagination



I hope I had it too, but i just see an asymmetric pointy rock
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Oh and should it not have more porosity to be what is claimed?

S&F as always don't hate me for not having imagination

a reply to: Indigent

Thanks. There is no claim, we both are saying similarities. And I've looked at diagrams as well, and wanted to post actual pictures of the features, but could only find illustrated examples.

a reply to: Indigent

As for being porous, here's a slightly larger blow-up, which shows some porosity:



original picture rotated for another perspective. I was using this for my avatar recently, for about a week:

a reply to: Aleister

Did you see this from the same GigaPan picture??? It looks like near perfect triangle tracks something like cobblestones laid out. It can be found in the upper left of the picture.

a reply to: Staroth

Damn that is weird-I thought they looked like the rovers tracks,but they just start and stop in the middle of nowhere...
What the heck is that?

originally posted by: Staroth
a reply to: Aleister

Did you see this from the same GigaPan picture??? It looks like near perfect triangle tracks something like cobblestones laid out. It can be found in the upper left of the picture.

Good find Staroth. If those aren't Rover tracks (and I have no idea where it was roaming to and fro in the gigapan) then they are strange and beautiful at the same time. If they are rover tracks, then they are strange and beautiful because...they are being photographed in broad daylight on Mars!!! (I have to keep reminding myself every once in awhile how wonderful these Mars missions are). Maybe ArMap or someone can explain those.

originally posted by: Aleister

 

the 2 rocks bear striking resemblances to vertebral bodies (for the left) and even the lamina (dorsal elements) on the right of a vertebrate spine. i do this all day and night, and these are STRIKING. they look like fossilized bones, 'petrified' if you will. i cant imagine a natural rock formation mimicking vertebral body complex 3d anatomy, it has bilateral symmetry as well....dr phil

These images are certainly worthy of an own thread. Thanks for sharing the result of this joint effort, Aleister! I did a gif in order to see if we're all talking about the same symmetrical properties (taking into account the perspective):


I've been looking at a variety of vertebrae elements (eg. those of whales) whereas I couldn't find the exact same alignment of features like those visible in the above image. Some transverse processes or parts of the lamina, however, come pretty close. It would be quite a coincidence if such shapes were exclusively the result of erosion, although it's not entirely impossible, I guess. I'm really looking forward to what others might contribute to this subject ...

P.S.: S&F!

a reply to: Aleister

Glad to hear this comment and this confirmation from a doctor, Aleister. Finally your (our) attempts have a confirm from a skilled person. This could mean maybe there is something there... and some of us are on the right way...
S&f.

originally posted by: Aleister
a reply to: Indigent

I was using this for my avatar recently, for about a week:

Most Mars "anomalies" look anything but anomalous, but this one is intriguing. In this view it kind of reminds me of an ivory chess piece (a knight)

Putting my skeptic hat on, I'm thinking some kind of eroded volcanic/igneous rock nodule or something. But it does look rather fossilly!

a reply to: jeep3r

I've been looking at a variety of vertebrae elements (eg. those of whales) whereas I couldn't find the exact same alignment of features like those visible in the above image. Some transverse processes or parts of the lamina, however, come pretty close.

In a previous Curiosity image, I found a couple of what reminded me of marine animal skulls, at least fossilised ones anyway.

Searched through Google images to find a match, and although like your search, it wasn't exact, i came across the closest match to a species of whale too.

Think i posted the images of what i'd found on Mars and what i guesstimated to be the Earth analogue to the anomalies thread a month or two ago. I'll check.

Very interesting indeed! They do seem to resemble the structure of bones.

I may get flamed for this but I'll throw it out there anyway...I've always wondered if Noah's Arc was the move from Mars to Earth. It's strictly speculation on my part but a theory nonetheless.

a reply to: Aleister

when considering-

The gravity of the planet Mars is 62% lower than that of the planet Earth; thus if an object weighs 100kgs on Earth, it would weigh 38kgs on Mars. Mars is a smaller planet when it is compared to earth, and size is a major determinant of gravity.

1 finds it hard to believe the internal body structure/skele-exo skele would match EA*RTH designs. Unless MARS had a similar level of gravity at some time in its past. If not 1 subjectively feels the body internal structure of any above ground inhabitant would be less dense when compared to EA*RTH skeletons... A cave that sits level to land but goes many meters down into an open cavernous region however may provide more gravity like attributes that may affect any inhabitants there, again all subjective to 1. These are some interesting pics though OP and 1 is not denying what you feel they might be, just hypothesizing on the gravity and its effect on inhabitants in contact with it...

NAMASTE*******

originally posted by: Aleister
a reply to: Indigent

As for being porous, here's a slightly larger blow-up, which shows some porosity:

original picture rotated for another perspective. I was using this for my avatar recently, for about a week:

Dem bones dem bones dem mars bones, i will match your vertebrae and raise you a tibula and fibula

a reply to: Staroth

Those are tracks from the rover.

originally posted by: Silcone Synapse
a reply to: Staroth

Damn that is weird-I thought they looked like the rovers tracks,but they just start and stop in the middle of nowhere...
What the heck is that?

They are tracks. The reason they appear to stop in the middle of nowhere is that (a) the Gigapan image is stitched together from lots of individual images, and (b) there is a sandy patch that shows up tracks amid rocky areas that don't.

Here is the original mastcam image: mars.jpl.nasa.gov...

Here's a little comparison of the track pattern to a photograph of the rover wheel.

a reply to: ArMaP

Thanks.

originally posted by: Staroth
a reply to: Aleister

Did you see this from the same GigaPan picture??? It looks like near perfect triangle tracks something like cobblestones laid out. It can be found in the upper left of the picture.

That's looks like snake tracks:

www.sciencephoto.com...

Maybe it's under the rock that looks a bit like a face on the right.

originally posted by: jeep3r

originally posted by: Aleister

 

the 2 rocks bear striking resemblances to vertebral bodies (for the left) and even the lamina (dorsal elements) on the right of a vertebrate spine. i do this all day and night, and these are STRIKING. they look like fossilized bones, 'petrified' if you will. i cant imagine a natural rock formation mimicking vertebral body complex 3d anatomy, it has bilateral symmetry as well....dr phil

These images are certainly worthy of an own thread. Thanks for sharing the result of this joint effort, Aleister! I did a gif in order to see if we're all talking about the same symmetrical properties (taking into account the perspective):

I've been looking at a variety of vertebrae elements (eg. those of whales) whereas I couldn't find the exact same alignment of features like those visible in the above image. Some transverse processes or parts of the lamina, however, come pretty close. It would be quite a coincidence if such shapes were exclusively the result of erosion, although it's not entirely impossible, I guess. I'm really looking forward to what others might contribute to this subject ...

P.S.: S&F!

Thanks Jeep, and it was truly a joint effort - good work. Your gif is interesting, I hadn't looked at that section of it very closely, I was mainly interested in the flatness of the two "bottoms" (there seem to be two separate areas of very similar structure, with slight indentions running along the edge).

I look forward to drphilxr commenting on your gif and more about his exact observations of the two objects. I've alerted him about this thread (and asked if he wanted his real name and affiliation on the thread, he included them in the u2u to me in which he said I could post his comments, so at the time he may have wanted his name there, but I thought about it and removed it just in case I'm mistaken. Inning, good (says Lefty Grove), outing, bad.

originally posted by: Arken
a reply to: Aleister

Glad to hear this comment and this confirmation from a doctor, Aleister. Finally your (our) attempts have a confirm from a skilled person. This could mean maybe there is something there... and some of us are on the right way...
S&f.

I, and probably yourself, am still surprised that the best of the Mars finds have not been looked at by professionals and commented on within the various threads by people who have worked in the appropriate fields. In this case, medical and biological fields. In the case of some of the sea life similarities, by marine-biologists and other sea-life experts. And in the case of many of the anomalies, professional geologists.

Let's make more of a concerted effort to elicit such commentary. We have to, of course, stipulate that this is all being done by the eye alone, and only from one or more very limited angles. So we can never know for sure if the best finds have any validity. I see what we are doing as collecting possible fossils - those which have at least a 1 percent chance of being indicative of past life forms. If something, when analyzed up, down, and sideways by ATS members, still has a 1% chance of being a fossil, then by all means, those very few objects should be presented to the relevant professionals to at least give a description of what they are seeing.

We all collect these things, imnho, so when the Rover enters the sedimentary foothills of Mount Sharpe, we will at least have a backlog collection of the "possibles" if, by chance, some of these shapes and objects become more numerous and/or obvious within those ancient sediments.