Why The Criticism Of John Lear?

Originally posted by SearchEngine
The whole UFO and alien topic is based on "opinion" and "heresay". If there was any "fact" out there we wouldn't need to have these types of discussions.

Fair enough, and tbh, I don't know that he ever stated anything as fact either, but rather was arguing for the side of the skeptic who would find such a claim highly suspect.

Originally posted by thelibra

Originally posted by SearchEngine
Alright, I had to start this thread because of all the skeptics of John Lear.

Okay... let me get this straight.

A man tells you that there are cities on the moon, that there are a fleet of ships orbiting Saturn, and various other claims, as though they were fact, and you wonder why some of us are skeptical?. . .

. . .I absolutely believe that people are right to be skeptical. Being "skeptical" doesn't mean you automatically call him a wack-job, it just means that you demand a little bit more than faith in order to decide if an unconventional claim is supported. I myself am a strong believer in proof rather than allegory. . .

. . .Sooo...

Don't hate on skeptics. Think of us as the filters one needs to pass through before the "real world" is going to give the author any credibility.

Well put. In the end it doesn't matter what John Lear thinks, what I think, what anybody thinks. It's what YOU think that matters.

If he states something that you deem to be outrageous, and he has no concrete evidence to back it up in your opinion, then you can choose not to believe it.

If he states something that you deem way out there, yet he makes some good points but still doesn't quite stir the kool-aid for you, then you can choose to do some more research before making a decision to believe him or not.

If he states something and you blindly believe him with no evidence just because he is John Lear, them shame on you! I don't feel bad for you. You should have been one of the kids that didn't wear a helmet as a kid. . . Although the crab people will probably get you in the end anyway & save the gene pool.

( right thelibra? )

My point is that no matter what John says, he is a viable part of the ATS community because he brings to the table many skill sets & life experiences that most of us don't have. That's what makes this place great is the fact that we have access to many different walks of life, and their views. . . But you ultimately make the decision of what you want to walk away with.

Post away John & thanx! I'm all ears. . .

Originally posted by 2PacSade
Although the crab people will probably get you in the end anyway & save the gene pool.

( right thelibra? )

Damn those crab people, with their wee beady eyes, and that smug look on their face! Oh, yer gonna buy my chicken, OoooOoooo!!!

Originally posted by 2PacSade
My point is that no matter what John says, he is a viable part of the ATS community because he brings to the table many skill sets & life experiences that most of us don't have. That's what makes this place great is the fact that we have access to many different walks of life, and their views. . . But you ultimately make the decision of what you want to walk away with.

Couldna said it better meself there, cap'n. Whether or not I personally choose to believe in, or even read John Lear, I appreciate the fact that people like him are here for those that do believe. And if nothing else, he's quite creative.

Thank you everyone for the posts so far. I'm glad we can have a somewhat level headed
conversation about this. I honestly thought it was going to be a flame war and this thread
would have been locked after one page. I appreciate everyone's thoughts on this.

Originally posted by SearchEngine
Thank you everyone for the posts so far. I'm glad we can have a somewhat level headed
conversation about this. I honestly thought it was going to be a flame war and this thread
would have been locked after one page. I appreciate everyone's thoughts on this.

Oh, give it a while. It'll happen eventually. But yeah, for the most part, the OP largely determines the atmosphere of the thread. Yours was open minded, questioning, and analytical, and so for the most part, were the replies.

Sooooo, good on yer, m8.

The problem is not what John espouses.

It's the fact that no proof is given what-so-ever.

We are only told to buy a book from him ($50.00)....which just 'happens' to be from a friend of his.

I know nothing of this man (woman?), what his 'skills' are or his/her 'talents'.

At least with other 'out-there' thread, those individuals back up their claims with purported 'facts'.

Originally posted by ferretman2
The problem is not what John espouses.

It's the fact that no proof is given what-so-ever.

What, you didn't see the photo of the crater with "lunar city!!!" circled with an arrow pointing at the crater?

Sorry, I couldn't help it. From what I have been told, this is the type of evidence presented. However, I'm also speaking from a somewhat ignorant standpoint as my knowledge of Lear is largely 2nd and 3rd hand. So it's entirely possible that my synopsis of his evidence is not quite fair.

Originally posted by ferretman2

The problem is not what John espouses.
It's the fact that no proof is given what-so-ever.
We are only told to buy a book from him ($50.00)....which just 'happens' to be from a friend of his.
I know nothing of this man (woman?), what his 'skills' are or his/her 'talents'.
At least with other 'out-there' thread, those individuals back up their claims with purported 'facts'.

The book is "Ringmakers of Saturn" by Norman Bergrun. Norm is a good friend and at 85 years old he is just as sharp as ever. I enjoy his company whenever I am in San Francisco.

I have told Norm that although I promised him that I would offer his book for sale that because of heavy and continued criticism that I would no longer offer his books for sale and that those interested could check out his web-site or go to Amazon.com.

The book is no longer offered for sale by me.

In the future, when mentioning that I offered the book for sale, please mention that I no longer offer the book for sale. Thanks.

Originally posted by johnlear
I have told Norm that although I promised him that I would offer his book for sale that because of heavy and continued criticism that I would no longer offer his books for sale and that those interested could check out his web-site or go to Amazon.com.

The book is no longer offered for sale by me.

In the future, when mentioning that I offered the book for sale, please mention that I no longer offer the book for sale. Thanks.

IMO, there's nothing wrong with plugging someone else's book, or your own, for that matter.

I may be a skeptic of your work, John, but I am happy to say you are rather up front and honest, and I don't think you or your friend trying to rip anyone off. I hope you don't take offense to healthy skepticism. And, btw, I might just order the book anyway, as it does sound rather interesting. Please don't feel like you have to break a promise to a friend because of what a few obscure critics are saying in an internet forum.

Promises to friends you care about are much more important than the approval of anonymous people you've never met.

Egad, the problem with popular topics... you leave for a few hours and it looks like you simply ignored people! Anyways...

Originally posted by Misfit

Originally posted by Yarium
Most planets don't have an environment that could possibly support life of any kind.

Um, how do you know that? To know that other planets cannot support life of any kind is to know every kind of life there may be outside Earth.

Human life may not be supported on other planets ........... that's why we are on Earth.

A life form of another planet may visit Earth, step out of his ship, take a deep breath and kill over from ................... oxygen poisoning.

Think outside the box, if concearning possible life on other planets, the equation of oxygen + water = life must be contained to life on Earth.

Misfit

Well, Misfit, I did not mean humans living on other planets (and actually, I didn't know that Mr. Lear has said humans living on all planets - more on that later...), I did in fact mean all life "as we know it".

Now, contrary to popular belief, life likely won't be as wildly different as people seem to believe - at least depending on how you define life. For myself, I'm talking about life that is capable of replication/growth and evolution (so a crystal is NOT life, even though it can grow).

By that definition, you're cutting out all the things that are teetering on the edge of life, but aren't (like crystals), and leaving in all the things that are teetering on the edge of life, but are (like viruses). A Virus is "alive" in this definition because it can make copies of itself, and it can evolve over time (the species, not a single virus). A Crystal can grow, and pieces of it that break off can grow (you could call this replicating), but a crystal does not evolve. You can't start with Mica and end up with Amythest.

We won't run into crystal life forms (the only kind of life I can imagine living on Venus), because crystals won't evolve. If you could create a crystal that could produce enzymes that allow the crystal to accept certain changes to its structure and disallow others, then you could possibly CREATE crystal-life (and this is a LONG stretch of biological physics), but you won't have a naturally occuring crystal-life.

In fact, here's a list of all the planets in our solar system, plus some moons, and what kind of life I can imagine living on them.

MERCURY: None_______The planet is too hot. Any kind of biological process (biological process being a chemical process that leads to self-replication) is impossible except for minerals, because the heat breaks down the chemicals too quickly. The other half of the planet is too cold, and so no chemical processes take place (the chemicals need some form of energy to begin growing in complexity).

VENUS: None_______Once again, too hot. Not the pressure, unlike what someone seemed to think I was talking about. Pressure's fine and dandy, but it's just too hot. And it's hot everywhere. And the corrosive influence would break down any chemical interaction. Perhaps once, long ago, Venus could have supported life, before the atmosphere reached a runaway greenhouse - but NOW it is dead.

EARTH: Yes!_______Us!

MARS: Yes!_______Bacteria could definitely exist in the soil, having arisen and evolved earlier in Mars' history. Overall, however, I believe the only life that could be left would be deep in the soil.

JUPITER: Yes!________Creatures that live in the clouds could, technically, exist. Most likely just bacteria that drift up, replicate, then drift down and get fried, whilst some survive to drift up again. Possible for evolution into more advanced creatures. No possibility for civilization, since no means of making fire or buildings or anything.

JUPITER-MOON-EUROPA: Yes!________Possibly the best candidate for life in our solar system. The exterior is ice, which could work just as well as an ozone-layer. Even big beasts are possible (like fish-type creatures). No civilizations though, since, again, no means of fire or energy production.

JUPITER-MOON-IO: Yes!________High amounts of volcanic activity are great for increasing complexity of biological chemicals! However, the high sulfur content might mean no big beasts, since acid could break down those complex chemicals.

SATURN: Yes!_______See Jupiter.

SATURN-MOON-TITAN: Yes!________Plethora of chemical building-blocks for life. Just needs heat and you could have life there easily. However, it's so far from the sun, the heat would have to be geo-thermal in origin, and so only microbes might exist.

URANUS: Yes!_______See Jupiter (not as likely because of cold, see Mercury for info on that)

NEPTUNE: Yes!_______See Jupiter (not as likely as even Uranus, same reasons)

PLUTO (if you still count it as a planet): No_______Much too cold for any chemical processes that could lead to life.


So, yes, it's possible - but for intelligent beings, only 1 planet in this solar system could evolve them... and that's right here. Perhaps long ago on Mars before its atmosphere lost its thickness and it lost its heat, and perhaps on Venus before the greenhouse ranaway with it... but no longer today.


As for beings living on the INSIDES of planets. Perhaps aliens could colonize them, but what for? A species that could travel around the galaxy could likely pick a much nicer place to set up camp - and certainly wouldn't need the earth. And if they did, why bother trying to decieve us? Why not just come in and wipe the floor with us?

It's much more likely, to me, that aliens truely are extra-terrestial Eco-Tourists. They want to see what we do, not to change us or to exploit us, but because understanding us maybe helps them understand who they are. The search for intelligent life for us is the same thing. When we learn about the cosmos, we are trying to answer the fundamental questions "Who are we?" and "Where are we?" and "Where did we come from?". I can't imagine a civilization reaching the stars that don't have a PASSION for those kinds of questions. And finding other life... it would be so precious... we would study it because, even though we'd be remarkably different, we would still in essence be studying ourselves.

Yarium, I just have to point out that in the past sceince has said that life could not be found in a lot of places here on earth. Than they found extremeophiles. So just keep it in the back of your mind that science is always evolving and that there just might be life where you least expect it.

[edit on 4-10-2006 by ultralo1]

Actually, that's why I said Yes to so many of the planets - those are the Extremophiles. If a planet has even but a few locations on it where life could survive and evolve, I said YES to it.

Originally posted by Darkmind
His claims about life on Mars and Venus are deeply suspect as well. I think I remember him claiming that there is some kind of hologram over Mars, so that it doesn't look like the cold, dead, lump of rock that it is.
why would this hologram have been in place for thousands of years, given that ancient Chinese and Babylonian astrologers saw Mars as being, well, red?

I'm not answering for Lear but you seem to miss a point here totally if I may... what if humans are ants to those that exist superior to us out there in the vastness of space. Like I always say: show a microwave oven and what it can do to a roman and they would have fell to their knees and prayed to you.

That very fact seems lost on too many people that frequent this website even though we supposidly live in an era of 'technology.'

Originally posted by Apass

Originally posted by mythatsabigprobe
Why do we only get 1km per pixel resolution from these 'modern' satellites when 40 year old photographs have a resolution of 1 meter per pixel or better? Seriously, look at the full size gif images that are the topic of the thread and tell me that the navy or esa photo's compare in any way.

Wich gifs? The Copernicus crater gifs? or the lick gifs?
ok....lets see, Copernicus crater has a diameter of 107km...this means that the picutres of the "strip mine" would be more than 107 000 pixels in width.
And the lick photos...with the full moon...3476km...that is 3 476 000 pixels...
So...resolutions down to 1 meter per pixel?

Searchengine and I were talking about the copernicus photo's taken by the lunar orbiter. They are far higher resolution than anything that's been released by clementine or smart-1, and if you're debating that just show me a picture from either source that has higher resolution. Don't bother calculating the pixels on the LOC photo's, you'll only end up with Bob Lazar's scanner settings.

What Propose this topic have for real?! this seems to have the same objective as the old saint inquisition in the middle ages... sooner we will start to see some one acusing Mr. JL of Witchcraft... ... and he will be condemned to roast in the fire!
if we will question is opinions,,,then to be fair start a similar topic for every each one member of ATS also ! JLear, as me, and all the other ones here, is a free man, with the right to have his personal opinions. i don't see a problem with this.

i think it is plain stupid also to continue to ask everywhere for evidences or proofs
when some one just post his OPINION!

ATS is not a kind of Courthouse where every one must proof everithing or be Banned!!, ATS is ALSO a place where all the people can debate ideas and opinions...and ideas or opinions do not need a evidence or proof all the time. for the moust cases, to debate ideas or theorys, just pure logic and dialogue is need it.

Originally posted by Apass

Originally posted by lbennie
instead of 1m/pixel its more like 30m/pixel which isnt that big a deal in the whole scheme of things

30m / pixel is not that special. The SMART-1 probe from ESA returned images with resolutions around 50m /pixel. And at a much beter quality, not only black and white like that of copernicus crater or the lick observatory pictures

The original AMIE concept foresaw a panchromatic, 1024 x 1024 pixel image with a medium field of view of 5.3 degrees by 5.3 degrees. The camera will provide a high spatial resolution, some 50 m/pixel.
ESA SMART-1 probe

Using those pictures to search for anomalies..well...it's just like I said in John Lear's Moon Pictures on ATS thread: Rorschach inkblot test for a bunch of ATSers.
Further more, the lick observatory pictures are full of shadow anomalies...since they are composite pictures
So if you ask me why the criticism of John Lear...well all he does is nothing but fueling some people's need for conspirancies with poor quality pictures and farfetched stories based on them

Here you go laughing boy.

en.wikipedia.org...

The Lunar Orbiter program was a series of five unmanned Lunar orbiter missions launched by the United States in 1966 through 1967 with the purpose of mapping the lunar surface before the Apollo landings. All five missions were successful, and 99 % of the Moon was photographed with a resolution of 60 m or better. The first three missions were dedicated to imaging 20 potential lunar landing sites, selected based on Earth based observations. These were flown at low inclination orbits. The fourth and fifth missions were devoted to broader scientific objectives and were flown in high altitude polar orbits. Lunar Orbiter 4 photographed the entire nearside and 95 % of the farside, and Lunar Orbiter 5 completed the farside coverage and acquired medium (20 m) and high (2 m) resolution images of 36 pre-selected areas.

Two meter resolution from a height of 49 km, forty years ago.

I forget to say also that it looks that this kind of topics about JL are showing up a lot...well, continue with that and sooner many others will start to belive a Cabala against him is going on...what will give even more strengh not to the "Cabalistics", but to JL instead...so please...go on

these posts about JL are such a waste of time
i dont no why there are so many threads about him
if you want to believe him believe him if you dont want to believe him thats fine but please no more JL threads i dont think we are going anywhere with this

Originally posted by Access Denied

Originally posted by mythatsabigprobe
Searchengine and I were talking about the copernicus photo's taken by the lunar orbiter. They are far higher resolution than anything that's been released by clementine or smart-1, and if you're debating that just show me a picture from either source that has higher resolution.

by Access DeniedAlread already did. Sorry bigprobe but LO 2 images have a resolution of 60m - 600m depending on the altitude. LO 3 and L0 5 were the only missions that took high resolution (1 m - 40 m) low altitude photos of a few potential landing spots and that’s it.

What is your source for the above information Access Denied?

My source for 1 meter resolution on Missions I, II and III and 60-150 meters for Missions IV and V is as follows:



From: The Moon As Viewed By Lunar Orbiter by L.J. Kosofsky and Farouk El-Baz Scientific and Technical Information Division Office of Technology Utililization National Aeronautics and Space Adminstration 1970 LOC 75-601482 Chapter 1 Introduction Page 1: Photographs for Apollo (Lunar Orbiter Missions I, II, III). The primary objective of the Lunar Orbiter program was to locate smooth, level areas on the Moon's nearside and to confirm their suitability as manned landing sites for the Apollo Program. To accomplish this, photographic coverage at a ground resolution of 1 meter was required of areas within 5 degrees of the equator between longitudes 45E and 45W-the zone of the primary interest to the Apollo program. Photographs of General Scientific Interest (Missions IV and V) Mission IV- Most of this photography contains detail down to 60 meters ground resolution, and the remainder is no is no coarser than 150 meters. The primary objective of Mission V was to obtain closeup photographs of geologically interesting features in 36 selected areas of the moon nearside. In addition, some photographs were taken to complete the Apollo requirements and to complete the coverage of the lunar farside.

I am a big fan of Mr Lear!

Do I believe what he says? No, not all of it, especially the 7 mile high structures on the dark side of the moon or that Venus is just like the Earth.

But I will say he is in 'the know' and cant get all this info from BS alone!

I hope its true coz it makes things more interesting around here having John around! So thanks for the posts John and keep them coming, but please...please...get me a pic of that 7 mile high building on the moon!

Mcphisto