To set things straight about airbrushing

How many of you looked at pictures like these and said Oh my God, NASA is airbrushing pictures to conceal alien bases on the moon (or whatever solar system object you want)??


(these 2 images are from our moon, made by clementine, the first one is centered on -0º28' LAT and -8º12' LONG and the second one on -72 LAT and 136 LONG - to get this last one use 1pixel=1km and 768x768)

Well, don't you think it's a little barbaric for NASA to just airbrush the pictures like that? I mean, take a look at these other pictures:


And I used only MS Paint to produce them. Don't you think that if I was to use Photoshop I would have got better results?
Don't you think that if NASA wanted to hide something in the moon pictures it would use some other methods than these barbaric ones?
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Mod Edit - spelling error in title




[edit on 12-9-2006 by masqua]

You have voted Apass for the Way Above Top Secret award. You have one more vote left for this month.

very good point , and great post .

one thing to add that conspicacists often deliberatly ignore is this :

there are MANYT different sets of photgraphs of all areas of the moon , take at different times and at different resolutions

but almost ALL areas have been photographed multiple times buy various means .

and if you actually look at different sets , that cover the same area - it fast becomes apparent that the alledged airbrushing to " hide evidence " is not consistant -- one one set , one area is obscured -- and on another it is in crystal clarity

and shows NOTHING unusual

typical conspiracist rubbish of selective evidence , or more correctly - the logical fallacy of confirmational bias

anyway , APASS welcome to ATS , and keep up the good work

Originally posted by Apass
How many of you looked at pictures like these and said Oh my God, NASA is airbrushing pictures to conceal alien bases on the moon (or whatever solar system object you want)??

Frequently really and it's kinda obvious considering just how badly it is done sometimes.

Well, don't you think it's a little barbaric for NASA to just airbrush the pictures like that? I mean, take a look at these other pictures:

At the time they made jokes about regular people having personal computers or access to this sort of data.

And I used only MS Paint to produce them. Don't you think that if I was to use Photoshop I would have got better results?

So if a conspiracy is uncovered it means it was not a conspiracy? The truth becoming evident means it was always just misunderstood?

Don't you think that if NASA wanted to hide something in the moon pictures it would use some other methods than these barbaric ones?

Hey i do not know but i try not to indulge in fantastically pointless circular reasoning.
They can't be a cover up because it might eventually be exposed? I think 25 years is plenty good if your aim is only to play for time and retard the inevitable. The fact that you even call yourself a scientist while indulging in this type of reasoning is quite revealing.

Stellar

Originally posted by ignorant_ape
there are MANYT different sets of photgraphs of all areas of the moon , take at different times and at different resolutions

Would love to see repeat images of the same area by different missions with the same or better resolution from the same general height.

but almost ALL areas have been photographed multiple times buy various means . and if you actually look at different sets , that cover the same area - it fast becomes apparent that the alledged airbrushing to " hide evidence " is not consistant -- one one set , one area is obscured -- and on another it is in crystal clarity

Would love to see you actually prove this with visual evidence.

and shows NOTHING unusual

I assume you mean to say usually...

typical conspiracist rubbish of selective evidence , or more correctly - the logical fallacy of confirmational bias

anyway , APASS welcome to ATS , and keep up the good work

When i see these strange 'loss of clarity' situations on the rims of craters with odd regular shapes then i start to wonder what the odds are considering that we have pyramids faces and even cities on Mars. Why bother with illogical well shaped absence of quality when we know they lie about things a hundred times less significance far more crudely.

Stellar

Originally posted by StellarX
So if a conspiracy is uncovered it means it was not a conspiracy? The truth becoming evident means it was always just misunderstood?

But a conspiracy wasn't uncovered.

Someone raised the hypothesis that NASA was covering something up, based upon the apparent alteration of images.

The counter argument was brought up that if it was an attempt to hide something, it was an extremely and unbelievably poor attempt, as commonly available tools could have been used to make the change undetectable.

When i see these strange 'loss of clarity' situations on the rims of craters with odd regular shapes

Is it possible that the stitching software frequently fails on curved shapes? It's a common problem with pathfinding algorthyms.

I don't get these nasa conspiracies. If they had something to hide, why would they even show the photographs in the first place? Why not just say there are no photos? If they have a hidden agenda, why provide clues to this? Why would they try to airbrush these photos when they can just hide or even destroy them?

I don't see the logic in trying to keep something undercover, while allowing clues, such as suspect photos, to be released to the public. If they were suspect and there was a cover-up, do you really think we would be seeing them?

Originally posted by StellarX

Would love to see repeat images of the same area by different missions with the same or better resolution from the same general height.

Well we have , in no particular order :

The lunar orbiters 1 , 2 , 3 & 4

Condensed into the Digital Lunar Orbiter Photographic Atlas of the Moon

The APOLLO manned missions , available @ the Apollo lunar surface journal and other resources

Clementine , data available @ the Clementine lunar map resources .

Also available at Clementine Lunar Image Browser 1.5

SMART-1 , there is still a lot of smart-1 photographs to be released , but a sample [ 250] are available at the sea website SMART-1 photography

Soviet lunar probes [ the LUNA-xx , series] sadly I cannot find a single good photograph directory – but parts of the Luna mission photograph archives are scattered in several places

HAPPY ?

Would love to see you actually prove this with visual evidence.

Far from this being an attempt to “ pass the buck “ , rather than me doing all the hard work of collating multiple images only to have my efforts dismissed by conspiracists who might claim “ oh that’s not an alien base , that’s just a tiling error “

I would propose that a proponent of this “ airbrush conspiracy “ selects an “ alien base “ of their choice and demonstrates that the airbrushing is indeed a conspiracy by showing that the same area is indeed obsfucated in images from different lunar missions

Using the official photographs – from the mission archive websites .

If they can do that , people will take notice

I assume you mean to say usually...

NO I said unusual and bloody well meant unusual

When i see these strange 'loss of clarity' situations on the rims of craters with odd regular shapes then i start to wonder what the odds are considering that we have pyramids faces and even cities on Mars. Why bother with illogical well shaped absence of quality when we know they lie about things a hundred times less significance far more crudely.

Stellar

A relevant point , or it would be if you can explain rationally why the mars photographs are undoctored – thus allowing these alleged “ pyramids “ etc to be seen clearly , whereas it is claimed that the moon photographs are doctored to hide similar evidence .

You cannot have it both ways

EDIT: BBcode , i curse the

[edit on 12-9-2006 by ignorant_ape]

Originally posted by StellarX
At the time they made jokes about regular people having personal computers or access to this sort of data.

Yes, of course, I'm sure..in 1994 when these pictures were taken...

Hey i do not know but i try not to indulge in fantastically pointless circular reasoning.
They can't be a cover up because it might eventually be exposed? I think 25 years is plenty good if your aim is only to play for time and retard the inevitable. The fact that you even call yourself a scientist while indulging in this type of reasoning is quite revealing.

What type of circular reasoning? Did I say "They can't be a cover up because it might eventually be exposed"??? If you looked better at those pictures I posted and what I have said you would have understood what I did!!
The second set of pictures is altered by me in Paint! I just covered the missing/blured areas using Paint!! They are not pictures of the same areas taken with other occasion!!! And Paint comes with my operating system and is available for more than 15 years!!
If NASA is spending alot of money to cover up things...don't you think that they have more complex image processing softwares than Paint???

Originally posted by Apass
If NASA is spending alot of money to cover up things...don't you think that they have more complex image processing softwares than Paint???

Probably, but the thing is with a poor "cover up", they can just say its a transmission error, bad photo, smudge on the lens, whatever. If they had altered it with blatantly obvious purpose (like copying in other craters from the same image, hehe) and someone had found out, there would be a #load more trouble.

It was easy for me to do that, to copy a crater from the same image...but that was done in less than 10 minutes and in Paint! But if I took a crater from the other side of the moon, would you have spoted that? What if I literally painted that, an area nowhere else to be found? Would you have spoted that too?
Oh, as I can see, with this "poor cover up", they do say it is a transmission error, bad photo, smudge on the lenses....but this raises suspicions. Why would they need to raise suspicions about those things (if they really cover up things)? What's the point to spend alot of money for a poor cover up that sheds doubts about NASA not covering up things? What's the point?

Originally posted by merka
Probably, but the thing is with a poor "cover up", they can just say its a transmission error, bad photo, smudge on the lens, whatever.

But with a good cover up, ie someone spending more than just five minutes with a blur tool in Photoshop (or the equivalent at the time of these pictures), there's no need to say anything. What about the rest of the pictures that are out there that have no artifacts? How can you be so sure that they aren't doctored by a much more professional artist?

If they had altered it with blatantly obvious purpose (like copying in other craters from the same image, hehe) and someone had found out, there would be a ****load more trouble.

(emphasis mine)

I think it would be a damned unimaginative person to just copy and paste one crater to another, especially from the same picture. I mean, how hard would it be to even just copy segments from several, similar craters? Its not like anyone outside of NASA would know the lunar topography well enough to say "Hey, that's not what that crater looks like." If there are people who could say that, they obviously aren't being taken too seriously or else they'd be able to knock these pictures out one way or the other.

I still don't understand how it's so hard to believe that there might've been faulty equipment, poor software algorithms, or even just a smudge. So NASA has a budget, big deal. I'd wager Microsoft's is at least similar in magnitude, if not bigger, and look at the crap they put out. Where's the conspiracy call on Windows ME? Even if MS's budget pales in comparison to the almighty US gov't, there's software out there competing with anything Microsoft puts out that can do the same job faster, cheaper, and/or better, made by companies with smaller budgets.

Financial resources means little in regards to quality. An idiot is still an idiot, no matter how much you pay him. Even the best coder can switch a + for a - sometimes and not catch it until years later; even the most observant maintenance person can miss a smudge on a lens.

Does any of this make sense, or is this just the further ramblings of years of indoctrination into sheepdom?

Originally posted by Hobbes
But a conspiracy wasn't uncovered.

In your opinion ....

Someone raised the hypothesis that NASA was covering something up, based upon the apparent alteration of images.

Far more than one and the issue has been raised since 1977. They knowingly deny us true colour images of Mars which they could easily produce if they stop using the L2 filter (infrared) as their 'red' and the L7 filter (near-ultraviolet) as their 'blue'. They have the capacity to give us EXACT true colour but they do not. NASA lies and they have been pretty consistent in denying us what we want since inception.

The counter argument was brought up that if it was an attempt to hide something, it was an extremely and unbelievably poor attempt, as commonly available tools could have been used to make the change undetectable.

So we will just assume that there is no cover up because some people are actually willing to scan the massive volumes of data for bad tampering which they then find? Why assume that everyone who takes part in this specific cover up wants to hide all the information or that there were in fact people involved? Say all this data was put trough software to just obscure anything with regular geometry the current pictures being bad software tampering? I can understand bad data from the satellite obscuring entire strips or whole sections of a 'photo' but this partial 'clumpy' selective loss of clarity is obviously not due to the instruments or data transmission.

Is it possible that the stitching software frequently fails on curved shapes? It's a common problem with pathfinding algorthyms.

What stitching software? There was no 'rendering' of the images to get them to what we are seeing so when exactly did all that data go ? Did it in fact go anywhere? We can see parts and flat surfaces sticking out from behind the probably automated tampering...

Stellar

Originally posted by Toasty
I don't get these nasa conspiracies. If they had something to hide, why would they even show the photographs in the first place?

Because in a ideal world where they were working in a one party dictatorship they could have done that easily. Why always assume that the 'bad guys' do not make mistakes just like the rest of us? Why assume you understand much about their motives to start with? Look at the image and study the instruments that took the 'picture' and you will soon realise that they do not work in away that could produce this loss of clarity while operating in a normal way.

Why not just say there are no photos? If they have a hidden agenda, why provide clues to this? Why would they try to airbrush these photos when they can just hide or even destroy them?

As i said above you assume that these people are all brain washed drones that always do as their told without making mistakes or having their own agenda's. There were on the order of 1.8 million images and it is extremely unlikely that they could have altered them manually.

I don't see the logic in trying to keep something undercover, while allowing clues, such as suspect photos, to be released to the public. If they were suspect and there was a cover-up, do you really think we would be seeing them?

So basically when we see parts of the truth that means there was never a attempt , however badly done, to hide it? The savings and loan scandal was described by the Justice Department as "a thousand conspiracies of fraud, theft, and bribery' but i guess conspiracies can not be uncovered as that would force you to deal with the implication that some very large institutions will rip you off in the short term full well knowing that that even if you discovered their crime you wont be able to do a thing.

This is the basis for all denial of the factual history of governments deliberately lying to us while plotting the theft of our liberty and energy. "National security" is clearly for your own good! The rich and famous never consider their own interest at the expense of others as that is clearly only average people like you and me indulge in.

Stellar

[edit on 12-9-2006 by StellarX]

Originally posted by StellarX
What stitching software? There was no 'rendering' of the images to get them to what we are seeing so when exactly did all that data go ? Did it in fact go anywhere? We can see parts and flat surfaces sticking out from behind the probably automated tampering...

The satellites and probes don't take one monstrously huge resolution photo. They take many many photos, and then use automated stitching software to assemble them into one big image.

Such software is necessary, but notoriously unreliable. Look at Google Earth. There are tons of stitching errors. One such error falls over my local mall... surely, that means they're trying to cover something up!

Originally posted by Hobbes
The satellites and probes don't take one monstrously huge resolution photo. They take many many photos, and then use automated stitching software to assemble them into one big image.

We are looking at one of those images and they only stitch them together for far far larger views.

Such software is necessary, but notoriously unreliable. Look at Google Earth. There are tons of stitching errors. One such error falls over my local mall... surely, that means they're trying to cover something up!

Well actually that means you can walkthere and check if the mall is still there or whether the CIA has converted it into a biological weapons lab...... This is a pretty serious issue as we can well prove that NASA tampers with not only the colour of the Martian sky but also with the images themselves. What do they feel so inclined to hide from us?

Stellar

Originally posted by ignorant_ape
Well we have , in no particular order :
HAPPY ?

Why would i be as you all did was provide me with what i already know. I certainly don't need MORE proof that they are covering this up than i already have and if you have not seen sufficient proof that is YOUR problem.

Far from this being an attempt to “ pass the buck “ , rather than me doing all the hard work of collating multiple images only to have my efforts dismissed by conspiracists who might claim “ oh that’s not an alien base , that’s just a tiling error “

Actually you never do the work so it's funny that you pretend your normally the one that contributes anything worth my time. I am not passing the buck as much as asking that you do find some images on the moon of the same area and see what there is to se; i already have done this on Mars with predictable results.

I would propose that a proponent of this “ airbrush conspiracy “ selects an “ alien base “ of their choice and demonstrates that the airbrushing is indeed a conspiracy by showing that the same area is indeed obsfucated in images from different lunar missions

www.msss.com...

www.msss.com...

Where did the shoreline go? If this does not work for you just ask for the next example.

Using the official photographs – from the mission archive websites .

If they can do that , people will take notice

Large heaps of evidence can be easily discounted had that been your intent so don't not pretend that the volume of evidence has anything to do with the acceptance a theory or observation gains.

A relevant point , or it would be if you can explain rationally why the mars photographs are undoctored – thus allowing these alleged “ pyramids “ etc to be seen clearly , whereas it is claimed that the moon photographs are doctored to hide similar evidence .

You cannot have it both ways

Well there are three theories:

1. NASA&related agencies actually employs human beings that do not like what they are forced to do, to keep their jobs, and they occasionally leave clues so as to help expose the lie.

2. NASA&related agencies has decided that the scam can not go on forever and they are slowly letting certain types of information become available while covering up the fast majority.

3. The tampering tools are all automated and sometimes they just miss something for a variety of reason.

This instance is clearly one of those that exposes their tampering without a good explanation in sight so i would go with number '1' in this instance...

Stellar

Originally posted by Apass
Yes, of course, I'm sure..in 1994 when these pictures were taken...

My mistakes yes; was referring to older data sets and using the wrong mission name entirely....

What type of circular reasoning? Did I say "They can't be a cover up because it might eventually be exposed"??? If you looked better at those pictures I posted and what I have said you would have understood what I did!!

I understood if just well and fine the first time round but your assuming a whole host of things like it's done by hand and that we were not meant to find it and wonder what's going on!

The second set of pictures is altered by me in Paint! I just covered the missing/blured areas using Paint!! They are not pictures of the same areas taken with other occasion!!! And Paint comes with my operating system and is available for more than 15 years!!

Yes and? Can paint automatically process a few hundred thousand images without human intervention or can we assume that the military used something commercial instead of something of the shelf ( and twenty year old) as is their method?

If NASA is spending alot of money to cover up things...don't you think that they have more complex image processing softwares than Paint???

I have NO idea but i for one do not assign these people super human powers where mistakes are never made and perfect conspiracies are constructed and maintained. You make even more assumptions than i do and certainly not with the same substance as base.

It was easy for me to do that, to copy a crater from the same image...but that was done in less than 10 minutes and in Paint! But if I took a crater from the other side of the moon, would you have spoted that?

As Mcory points out that would be rather hard to explain when discovered...

What if I literally painted that, an area nowhere else to be found? Would you have spoted that too?

Probably no one and they could very well be doing exactly that. Only reason i think they will stick close to reality with the tampering ie because many of the features are visible from Earth...

Oh, as I can see, with this "poor cover up", they do say it is a transmission error, bad photo, smudge on the lenses....but this raises suspicions.

Just call anyone who raises questions crazy and deluded and that's the end of it. It's the strategy that you normally have to rely on considering the fact that humans are involved but it works well when the media spreads your message and you do ( in the public schooling system and major media) the conditioning which will disregard these observations when they happen to be made.

Why would they need to raise suspicions about those things (if they really cover up things)? What's the point to spend alot of money for a poor cover up that sheds doubts about NASA not covering up things? What's the point?

Because you can never really fool all the people all the time so you set up the conspiracy so that there is information to be found ( people will fabricate it if they can't find it) and keep them busy but never really enough to endanger your operation from the public at large. Plausible deniability; " if we wanted to hide it we could have so obviously we were not trying."

All i can add to this is that NASA is STILL lying about the fact that a human standing next to one of the rovers would see a rather bluish sky and simply not the red the rovers keep seeing. All they say is that 'their trying' and that it's 'almost right' and they have been getting away with that for decades on end. These people are playing for time and they know that there is always someone else , who came before, who can be blamed, framed for the entire thing. Why assume NASA wants to take part in this at all and are not doing this against their will?

Stellar

[edit on 21-10-2006 by StellarX]

Originally posted by StellarX

What type of circular reasoning? Did I say "They can't be a cover up because it might eventually be exposed"??? If you looked better at those pictures I posted and what I have said you would have understood what I did!!

I understood if just well and fine the first time round but your assuming a whole host of things like it's done by hand and that we were not meant to find it and wonder what's going on!

And what this has got to do with circular reasoning? (about "it's done by hand" see below)

Yes and? Can paint automatically process a few hundred thousand images without human intervention or can we assume that the military used something commercial instead of something of the shelf ( and twenty year old) as is their method?

Well...like I already said...

If NASA is spending alot of money to cover up things...don't you think that they have more complex image processing softwares than Paint???

I have NO idea but i for one do not assign these people super human powers where mistakes are never made and perfect conspiracies are constructed and maintained. You make even more assumptions than i do and certainly not with the same substance as base.

Did I say they are superhumans? And if there is no perfect conspiracy then why the need for one? How would NASA look like when "the conspiracy" is finally revealed (by independent space agencies)? Isn't it plausible that an expensive software used for stiching and "detection of anomalies" would highlight the anomalous areas for further (hand) processing? What if not all the detection are anomalies? Then a human opertor will have to select from the alarms only those that are anomalies...so if you have a human operator... is it hard to go further and assume that the human operator also handles the anomalies?

It was easy for me to do that, to copy a crater from the same image...but that was done in less than 10 minutes and in Paint! But if I took a crater from the other side of the moon, would you have spoted that?

As Mcory points out that would be rather hard to explain when discovered...

Did that happen? I repeat: I used a crater form the same frame because it was easier for me to do that. Had I copied a crater from another frame, merka wouldn't have spoted it! But if NASA is airbrushing the photos, of course they would not do that (and the fact that it was never discovered can support this point (assuming that NASA is airbrushing things))

What if I literally painted that, an area nowhere else to be found? Would you have spoted that too?

Probably no one and they could very well be doing exactly that. Only reason i think they will stick close to reality with the tampering ie because many of the features are visible from Earth...

Then why bother airbrushing them?

Just call anyone who raises questions crazy and deluded and that's the end of it. It's the strategy that you normally have to rely on considering the fact that humans are involved but it works well when the media spreads your message and you do ( in the public schooling system and major media) the conditioning which will disregard these observations when they happen to be made.

Well....I'm not calling the one who raises questions crazy or deluded. I kindly ask him to provide evidence for his claims. If all he can provide are some pictures with communication glitches or some blured (read low res) areas , then sorry, I'm not going to believe him.

Why would they need to raise suspicions about those things (if they really cover up things)? What's the point to spend alot of money for a poor cover up that sheds doubts about NASA not covering up things? What's the point?

Because you can never really fool all the people all the time so you set up the conspiracy so that there is information to be found ( people will fabricate it if they can't find it) and keep them busy but never really enough to endanger your operation from the public at large. Plausible deniability; " if we wanted to hide it we could have so obviously we were not trying."

Yes...but in 50 years (lets hope) when space will be affordable, how would NASA look like? And who will fabricate the information? If there is no hint about conspiracy...why would someone think of that and then "fabricate" evidence for that?

Why assume NASA wants to take part in this at all and are not doing this against their will?

Why assume NASA does this?

The reality is that there is no image you and I are going to see on the internet that is not suspicious of being bogus. We see some image posted by some screen named individual who we do not know, have never met and have no way of confirming the reliability of a stated source.

Even when someone states "oh, they're from NASA." Well NASA didn't post them on their official web site so that means someone else obtained them and posted on a site like ABS.

If anyone knows what chain of evidence is in law enforcement or even archeology you know that all items recovered from a crime scene or dig site are carefully catalogued, kept under lock and key and presented as evidence in court or to substantiate a hypothisis in archeology.

If some guy in a truck pulls up an hands you an item it is not allowed in any legal sense because of chain of evidence- there is no proof of its source, validity or genuine nature.

We ask why the heck nerds make viruses to screw up computers all over the world. We ask why people manufacture bogus images to distribute in a way impossible before the internet. The answer to both is the same- some perverted claim to fame. What were they doing before the internet existed?

If they were doctoring tangible negatives they were caught by Kodak, Polaroid and other laboratories when they foisted them off as "real." No, you look at some 96 DPI pic and see what you are told someone else sees and we get all excited.

Even when someone says, "why these images are from Joe Doaks, respected researcher." Some think that actually means something and others say, "he's been causht totally wrapped up in the manufacture of fake stuff." So who do you believe?

The images on the web are tainted simply by association with so many fakes.

I can prove that the Packard in my avatar is mine. Posting what could be a doctored ownership certificate on the web ain't gonna do it. A picture of me next to the car might convince some, if you knew what I even looked like. The only way to prove it is for you to come by the house and see for yourself. Of course you're not invited.

So using proper logic as to what is possibly real or fake is up to each individual. You know the perameters that are likely to prove or substantiate legitimacy. If you choose to ignore them it's your own fault if you are fooled.

You can be openminded yet reserved with some skepticism. Being skeptical isn't being a debunker, bent on dismissing and disproving everything either.

Nasa DOES airbrush their images. The evidence can be found in the witness testimony of Donna Hare in the Disclosure Project, you can download their 2001 press conference or read their material for further information.

Watch part 3 of the 'UFO - The Greatest Story Ever Denied' documentary here, and you will see some GORGEOUS close-up shots of photographs tampered with by NASA, it's mindblowing. They don't want you to know there is evidence of civilisations on the moon, Mars and other places. It's as simple as that. That's where the reasoning begins and ends. You can download the documentary here - you owe it to yourself to know the truth.