Is the true Mars being revealed?

First off i want to say hi and that this is my first post. It seem to me that when we were first looking at Mars it was "dead." But now over the years we are seeing more and more. First we found out there was icecaps on the poles of Mars, then we found out that there was liqurid water (of some form) on Mars. We know that Mars has alot of methane in its atmosphere, but methane decayes and needs to be replinished, either by volcanons, in which we havent seen any active ones on Mars, or by life. Does the goverment secretly know the true of Mars, and is slowly easing the public into it? Thats the main reaspon for this post, because it seems to me that as time goes by the more Mars looks like being able to support life.

I don't know, has the population become so fragile like toddlers that even this needs us being eased into?

If the possibilty of life on mars is so dramatic, so incomprehensible large that we nee easing into it. then why did they report their more recent findings of what could be life or at the least biologic molecules in the clouds of Venus.

tbh I don't think there's anything to reveal. we know pretty much what nasa knows as to the composition and hints of life or lack thereof on mars.

With all the sci fi and crap if an alien civilization announces itself today I'll sleep just as soundly tonight as yesterday. unless they start a fight in which case it's duck and hide or whatever is appropriate.
We ain't kids, they know this. If they keep secrets from us, it's either for profitability or power.. I dont see how mars fits unless you go over the top and claim a civilization lives there, massive technological ruins or something like that.

Mars might be able to support some life (we find life in boiling water here go figure) but it's not able to support human life according to the data available.
It might be terraformable especially as it's warming up. But all this is old news. so what's the easing in for?

I can tell you exactly the reaction of the average dutch person and neighbours if they find life the size of rats today on mars and announce it.. people will say wow and then go back to work, plan for the weekend, thinking what to make for dinner tonight, deciding where to go on holiday with the vacation cheques coming around this period. so whats the hubbub and why the easing in?

[edit on 3/6/2007 by David2012]

Originally posted by boyester
Does the goverment secretly know the true of Mars, and is slowly easing the public into it?

I don't think so. I think these discoveries are new and they are announcing them as they come, after all Mars is being EXPLORED.

[edit on 3-6-2007 by DarkSide]

The only reason that I could see for the government, or some portion of it, keeping secrets about such exploration would be for a national benefit. This would be like early explorers of the Americas not telling about the finding of gold in America until new expeditions could be outfitted. While the secret wouldn't stay one for long, a reasonable head start would be worthwhile, and sought by those in on the discovery.

If NASA found something that might produce a valuable resource advantage, either natural or technological, it might be withheld from the masses while a program was geared up to put a manned presence in the area to claim it. This would naturally be a sort of colonialism, but consistent with human nature.

There is no way of knowing what would trigger such a reaction, exactly, but overall, only a vast resource of something scarce here on earth would qualify. This would include any signs of an ET civilization, active or extinct.

If, all at once, the US decided to accelerate a program to put a presence on Mars in a big way, then I for one would think that something had happened to spark some real interest.

And speed would be essential. A large secret like this would be next to impossible to keep for long. If the US went into a 'mad dash' for Mars, and then China or the ESA did the same, it would be an indicator, IMO, of a "find". The reason I say this is that we live in a world of spies, on all levels. Whatever one nation learns, others soon find out. This was true of the atomic bomb, and almost everything else.

The nation that found a 'secret' worth trying to exploit would only have a short lead time on the others. If there was a chance for a gain in money or power to be had, space would become the new frontier that we have all hoped it would. Pure science always seems to run in second place to power and profit.

I personally hope that something of great value IS found somewhere out there to get humans galvanized into an outward bound civilization.

I totally agree with David2012
I couldn't have said that better.

I feel there is nothing much to hide. The data coming in is so boring for an average person that nasa and/or newspapers/magazines need to sensationalize it first before feeding it to the masses. Sometimes they need to report something which is not there just to keep funds coming in, because if every time they report of just nothing on mars, the funding would end very fast !

The only thing govt is going to hide is the presence of rare substances or abundance of elements that can be used as a nuclear fuel or can disrupt economy if found in large quantities (e.g. gold). when you see an expedition to something bizzare like a comet or an asteroid, you know they are looking for 'something' there, which is not related to life or usual stuff.

But for mars, most of the things are transparent so far.

First of all, the icecaps were discovered about 450 years ago -- long before scientists thought that Mars was "dead". The icecaps are not a recent revelation. In fact it was "in vogue" back in the late 1800's to think that Mars was crawling with life. Many common people thought Mars and Venus had life (and this did not cause any worldwide panic).

In my opinion many, if not most, people already think that there may be other life out there in the universe somewhere, and they are OK with that idea. I don't see any reason for the government to hide any positive proff of ET life. I also think that many people think already think that Mars could possibly contain some sort of life -- and again, people are OK with that idea. In fact, back in the 1990's scientist came out and said that they have proof of Martian life (in the famous Mar Meteorite), although that proof was later found to be inconclusive. But the point is the world did not fall apart on the news of possible life on Mars.

When the day comes that life on Mars or elsewhere in our solar system (Europa?, clouds of Venus?) is confirmed would indeed be a great day in human history, but I think people will take the news very calmly -- there is no need to "acclimate the public" to this announcement.

Or maybe it is as simple as the fact that if they were to tell the truth they would also have to come clean on Disclosure.
Obviously this is just my personal opinion.
I 'want' to think that there is more to it. And that mars is teaming with life and our secret space programs.

Yes antar, but your post doesn't answer the question: WHY would the government not "come clean" and tell us about a secret space program, or that Mars is teeming with life -- if those things are indeed true? What purpose would the government have in not disclosing these things to the general public? If it even exists, why is the alledged "secret space program" a secret, unless it has some Earth-only military and national defense purposes. If it is just a space program without any national defense purposes, then I see no reason why they wouldn't just tell us about it.

[edit on 3-6-2007 by Soylent Green Is People]

I think the real Mars is being revealed for the first time. However I feel this is because we are finally getting a really good look at it with our latest probes; not because there was ever a conspiracy to hide it. We thought Mars was a cold, dead place. Now we are seeing that it is much wetter than we thought and maybe even alive. The last few years have been quite interesting.

I've never bought into the whole alien-cover-up conspiracy because polls have long shown that a significant portion of people (at least in the U.S.) believe in extra-terrestrials anyway. In fact I recall that the Catholic church has even made statements regarding life in space as being possible. It might surprise people to learn that scientists, philosophers, and religious thinkers have pondered life on other planets for centuries. I think the public and world religions could handle finding life on another planet just fine. If anything doing so would generate more public interest in space exploration and thus allow for the world's space agencies to get larger budgets.

Well I don't know,I saw here before on ATS the first pictures from the very first robot probe that landed there.The Sky was just as blue as on Earth and they did not release the pictures until they colored the pictures with red filters and now they always give filtered red pictures or black and white but the true color of the sky is like here on Earth --except when they have a sand storm that adds a reddish color .Not sure if this was true but the photos really do look filtered.

O contre... I think impact on religions, politics and over all on social behavior - if life confirmed on Mars would be huge. Shrinking “god“ and various “saviours“ versus universe steaming with life.

Originally posted by blue bird
O contre... I think impact on religions, politics and over all on social behavior - if life confirmed on Mars would be huge. Shrinking “god“ and various “saviours“ versus universe steaming with life.

Why wouldn't religious groups simply just say that God created life all over the universe? The Bible may say that God created life on Earth specifically, but it doesn't say God didn't create life on Mars or on Alpha Centauri or what ever either.

Life on another planet would be big news, but I don't think it would shatter any religious groups, nor affect us politically or socially. Like Soylent Green said, it was a common belief that Mars had life and people didn't freak out about it at all.

Originally posted by blue bird
Shrinking “god“ and various “saviours“ versus universe steaming with life.

Yeah thats one of the theory of a reason. Then theres the fact that theres alot of people clueless about any science and cant seem to think things logically with an open mind who would just snap cause their perfect religions would start to change and crumble.

I mean its pretty obvious most of the picture have been run through a severe imaging filter which is most obvious on some of the clear color pictures that we have recieved from the rovers. Theres also pretty clear proof atleast in my eyes of image manipulation that you can see in stuff like transparent (badly made) "dunes".

Ofcourse one can always deny that anything mentioned above might happen and have happened and just say its light, shadows and dunes and that people wouldnt react at all to "the truth". Afterall one thing people seem to share globally is the denial and ridicule for anything "out of the box".

Originally posted by mistr_b2
Well I don't know,I saw here before on ATS the first pictures from the very first robot probe that landed there.The Sky was just as blue as on Earth and they did not release the pictures until they colored the pictures with red filters and now they always give filtered red pictures or black and white but the true color of the sky is like here on Earth --except when they have a sand storm that adds a reddish color .Not sure if this was true but the photos really do look filtered.

The Mars photo of a blue sky was taken through a filter also. In fact ALL photos from the Mars Rovers are taken through different color filters because the part of the camera that collects the image (the photoreceptor) is color blind. That's the way the camera works. The camera looks at a scene through various filters, and then the camera's computer measures the intensity of the incoming light on various pixels and "takes a very educted guess" as to the actual color, based on the light's intensity through the various filters. So sometimes we see "approximate true color" pictures, and sometime we see "false color pictures" (in which the colors are enhanced to bring out more detail). Technically all of the photos from Mars are "false color" -- it's just that some are closer to reality than others.

BTW, your home digital camera's light gathering device is also color blind. In most home digital cameras the image goes through a beam splitter, then through three color filters simutaneously. The photoreceptors then receive that light, and again a computer chip measures the intensities and "guesses" what the color should be. So even your consumer digital camera is only "approximate true color", just like the Mars cameras.

EDIT: To clarify -- I'm not saying the sky was blue because the color was only approximate, I'm saying the Martian sky was blue because it was a deliberately "false color" photo with which NASA was trying to bring out other details more clearly. NASA does this all the time.

The cameras on the Mars rovers and your home digital camera may be very different, but they all use the same concept to approximate true color. Thus the picture of the Mars blue sky was taken through a colored filter, as were the photos showing the reddish-gray and gray sky.

Here's a link to see how ALL digital cameras work (including NASA's)

www.howstuffworks.com...

[edit on 4-6-2007 by Soylent Green Is People]

[edit on 4-6-2007 by Soylent Green Is People]

Originally posted by Soylent Green Is People
BTW, your home digital camera's light gathering device is also color blind. In most home digital cameras the image goes through a beam splitter, then through three color filters simutaneously. The photoreceptors then receive that light, and again a computer chip measures the intensities and "guesses" what the color should be.

That's wrong. No home cameras use a beam splitter and 3 seperate sensors. Only very high-end cameras use such a setup. Most home cameras (and SLRs, and even medium-format digital cameras) use a single sensor and a Bayer filter, which is a mosaic filter.

[edit on 4-6-2007 by nataylor]

This reminds me of an outer limits episode in which 3 astronauts visit a moon or planet and bring back some sort of shape shifting alien. They were exploring to find something worthwhile to bring back home and they got that

www.marsanomalyresearch.com...

Originally posted by nataylor

Originally posted by Soylent Green Is People
BTW, your home digital camera's light gathering device is also color blind. In most home digital cameras the image goes through a beam splitter, then through three color filters simutaneously. The photoreceptors then receive that light, and again a computer chip measures the intensities and "guesses" what the color should be.

That's wrong. No home cameras use a beam splitter and 3 seperate sensors. Only very high-end cameras use such a setup. Most home cameras (and SLRs, and even medium-format digital cameras) use a single sensor and a Bayer filter, which is a mosaic filter.

[edit on 4-6-2007 by nataylor]

Thanks for the info. I stand corrected on the filtering method and type of color filter used.

But the original point is still correct -- that the light from the image is always filtered by all digital cameras, including the ones on Mars. There is nothing sinister about using a filter...In fact it's the method used by the camera to "sense" any color at all.

[edit on 4-6-2007 by Soylent Green Is People]

Originally posted by David2012
I don't know, has the population become so fragile like toddlers that even this needs us being eased into?

Yes. The big religions of the world were founded on the idea that this is the only place in the universe where there is life. Until they can manage to shift this thought into something more accepting of the possibility of life on other planets, the powers-that-be (government, religious, corporate) will continue to downplay it.

Imagine if a UFO came down and made contact. Billions of faithfuls around the world would begin to question their faith, not knowing where to turn to for guidance. When THESE people lose their faith, i imagine you'll see some of those unshakable morals and ethics begin to slide.

The downplay of extraterrestrial life, no matter how limited it may be, is in effect in order to preserve religion as one of the three major influences over human civilization.

I really don't think this would be a serious problem at all. Not for most people.

Catholic Church on ET's

Wiki Article, Extra-terrestrial Life

Within Islam, the statement of the Qur'an "All praise belongs to God, Lord of all the worlds" indicates multiple universal bodies and maybe even multiple universes that may indicate extraterrestrial and even extradimensional life.

42:30 "And among His Signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth, and of whatever living creatures (da'bbah) He has spread forth in both..."; according to this verse there is a possibility of life in heavens. According to the same verse "And He has the power to gather them together (jam-'i-him) when He will so please"; there is a chance of close encounter in the future.

A Catholic/Hebrew Scholars Debate on the subject

60% of Americans believe Alien life exists

So I really don't see what the fuss is about. When it comes to finding microbes on Mars or evidence of life on extra-solar planets there is no reason to cover it up.