Phobos II last image

reply to post by spirit_horse


I saw that documentary as well. I believe it was made for the Sky network, they certainly bought the rights to show it over here in Britain. There was a brief window, after the wall came down, when it seems that. The Russians thought, *freedom*, actually meant the ability to speak about stuff like UFOs without it affecting their reputations or job prospects.

Sadly that didn't last long, however, there are several, pretty high ranking military officers, who have gone on film to talk about the subject, in a way you simply don't see here in Britain or the USA..

Originally posted by Tifozi
reply to post by converge

 

Indeed.

One of the basic notions about illusionism... "while you're watching one hand, you miss what's happening on the other".

The same goes for Area51. I seriously doubt that anything serious still happens in there. The whole world has their eyes on that area. The argument "the best way to hide something is in plain sight" doesn't apply.

I think that while people keep guessing and dreaming about Area51, and S4 and so on, serious things happen in another locations, without anyone noticing it.

[edit on 16/10/09 by Tifozi]

I think the best place for them is either Center australia or a Pacific remote island.

Originally posted by internos
But the point is that it was NOT an actual object.

If we take a look to the full sequence of the images caught by the probe on infrared channel, then we'd realize that there's an issue (it could be bad data transmission, but i don't know the details about the payload):
all in all, the glitch can be spotted on every single image.

Conclusion:
the cigar shaped object allegedly spotted by Phobos II was a DELIBERATE HOAX

Great work Internos! Star and flag.

I agree there's no object, and there's a glitch in every single image.

However I'm not sure why you say it's a deliberate hoax? I see people pointing to glitches thinking it's something but the glitch was really there right? So is it more of a misinterpretation of the glitch than an actual hoax? or am I missing something?

And you make an excellent point about the impossibility of determining the size of an "object" in 3-D space based on a 2D image, that is a common problem not only in this case but in most UFO cases.

reply to post by ArMaP

THE DEVELOPMENT OF UFOLOGY IN RUSSIA
From Aura-Z magazine printed in Russia

UFO AND POLITICS
Several Episodes in the 40-Year History of Soviet UFOlogy

by Lev Chulkov
March 1993

Lev Chulkov was born in Moscow on May 5, 1938. In 1962 he graduated from the Moscow Aviation Institute. Ph.D. Chulkov specializes in Mechanics and applied mathematics. He heads the Department of UFOlogy at the Interbranch Scientific and Technological Centre of Venturing and Nontraditional Technologies "Vent." He has taken an interest in ufology since 1960. His book "The Sons of the Stars" was the first in this country to lay down the Extraterrestrial concept of UFOs.

"We notice a bright object high in the sky. The object is moving from north to south. We fetch three powerful binoculars from our tents. We observe a large spheroidal object glittering in the sun. It is seen clearly against the blue sky. It moves very quickly. Then we notice that the object changes its direction and moves to the Southwest where it disappears beyond the snowy Humboldt Ridge. The whole camp follows this unusual phenomenon...." (N. Roerich, "The Heart of Asia")

One may think that one such sighting is a good enough impetus to start serious investigations into UFOs but academic science in this country would not study these phenomena. The position of military and civilian authorities made this kind of investigation impossible.

Let us follow the course of development of ufology in this country during the last four decades.

As early as the beginning of the 50's J. Stalin ordered S. Korelev to study the phenomenon of UFO but S. Korolev managed to avoid fulfilling this task.

Meanwhile some enthusiastic scholars took an interest in the problem. Among them were: Yu. Fomin, A. Kazantsev, Yu. Roszius, V. Rubtsov, A. Tikhonov, P. Stolyarov, F. Zigel and others. We must make a special mention of the late Felix Zigel who died on November 20, 1988. He was an astronomer who started investigating UFOs as early as 1955 and continued these investigations courageously and productively until his very last days. He had authored over ten large volumes on ufology, none of which came out during his lifetime. He brought together informal groups of investigators, arranged expeditions to UFO landing places when the very subject was unrecognized and banned, organized collection and analysis of primary ufological data conducted a broad exchange of information with foreign scholars and appeared to a lot of different organizations and authorities trying to prove that the problem of UFOs was real and extremely significant. On November 10, 1967, Professor F. Zigel, Air Force General P. Stolyarov and Navigator V. Akkuratov were given a chance to state their case on National Television.

Thousands of people from all over the country responded to that programme. Letters from eyewitnesses, often with drawings and photographs enclosed, poured into the contact address.

The authorities of official bodies chose a different course of action. For instance, reports from civil pilots of UFO sightings were directed to the State Scientific-Research Institute of Civil Aviation. Lots of telegrammes came to the chief Administration of the Hydrometeorological Service. Packages of reports arrived at the Astronomical Council of the USSR Academy of Sciences. But each boss was much too fond of his chair, so all information of this type was safely stored at the bottom of drawers and in king-size vaults.

During those years the Moscow Planetarium took a very negative stand on the problem of UFOs. They had a ready-made printed letter to answer numerous requests. It ran as follows:

Dear Comrade:

The phenomenon you observed must be connected with one of the experiments aimed at measuring the density of atmosphere at high altitudes and with launching a sodium cloud (of the type which was formed during the flights of space rockets).

V. Bronshten
Science Consultant
Moscow Planetarium

On January 8, 1961, the newspaper "Pravda" carried an article entitled "Myths of Flying Saucers" which expressed Academician Artsimovich's opinion of UFOs. The article dealt the problem a crushing blow and gave a start to ridicule and persecution of UFOlogists. The noted investigator Yu. Fomin was one of the victims. He was struck off the Register of the "Znaniye" (Knowledge) Society's official lecturers.

On May 17, 1967, the Initiative Group of UFO investigators (45 persons) had a meeting at the House of Aviation and Cosmonautics in Moscow. They elected Major-General P. Stolyarov their President and F. Zigel - his Deputy. In October 1967 the Manager of the House, Major-General L. Reino assisted in establishing the UFO Department of the All-Union Committee of Cosmonautics. 350 people including representatives of the mass media attended the first session of the Department on October 18, 1967.

However, the Department was disbanded by Army General A. Ghetman's order late in November 1967. The State dealt ufologists a second blow.

The third one came soon after, before the investigators could regain their senses: late in 1967 Academician Artsimovich initiated a resolution passed by the Department of General and Applied Physics which he was heading. The resolution condemned investigation of UFOs in this country. The leading newspaper "Pravda" followed up with the article "Flying Saucers Again?" on February 29, 1968.

On February 5, 1968, the problem of UFOs was discussed at the Journalists Club in Moscow. On February 16, 1968, 13 leading designers and engineers - members of the Initiative Group - addressed a letter to A. Kosygin, Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers. In their letter they reasoned that the problem of UFOs was real and global in its essence and proved its scientific and strategic significance.

Of course the letter never reached the Prime-Minister, like none of thousands of other letters. The answer came on March 11, 1968, from Academician A. Shchukin. Each sentence in his response was a lie, and that is no exaggeration.

Zigel and those who shared his ideas made another attempt to break through the "wall of silence" surrounding the problem of UFOs. They compiled a voluminous book "Inhabited Cosmos" which contained articles by the best Russian and foreign scholars on the problem. The book was being compiled at a printing house when its publication was interrupted. Academician Artsimovich interfered and 32 "seditions" articles on ufology were excluded. The manuscripts were not returned to Zigel in spite of his insistent requests. The castrated "Inhabited Cosmos" came out in 1972.

In December 1976 another ufologist R. Varlamov, an ex-official of the State Committee for Science and Technology, appealed to A. Kosygin once again and suggested that scientific investigation of UFOs be organized in this country. The letter was passed over to the Expert Commission of the Department of General and Applied Physics of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The answer was an excellent example of the Soviet scientific administration's attitude to everything new. It is worth citing verbatim:

"Your materials were transfered to the Department of General Physics and astronomy of the USSR Academy of Sciences. We inform you that as early as 1961 the Department's Bureau stated that:

Lately, Soviet newspapers and magazines have carried reports of so-called "flying saucers," meaning various objects emitting light, which are passed for phenomena unknown to Science or for space vehicles launched from other worlds. These speculations have no scientific basis, and phenomena observed are of a well known nature. The following resolution on this matter:

[edit on 17-10-2009 by spacebot]

1. to entrust the General Council of the All-Union Astronomic and Geodesic Society to intensify explanatory work concerning "flying saucers;"
2. to condemn the unhealthy sensationalism, being fraudulent in its character, as it deceives the population of this country;
3. to request all members of the Department to fight against this unhealthy sensationalism;
4. to publish an Open Letter on behalf of the Department to expose fabrications concerning "flying saucers."

Expert Group
ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
May 10, 1977

In the same year the magazine "Zemlya i Vselennaya" (Earth and the Universe) carried an article by Professor D. Martynov of the Moscow State University called "Flying Saucers - a Test for Intellect" in which he stated "all that was based on profit, circulation, royalties, cheap renown etc." The professor tested his own intellect and failed the "examination."

Meanwhile life went on. At 4 a.m. on September 20, 1977 the most spectacular unidentified object appeared over Petrozavodsk City, Russia. It gave a 12-minute show of surprising transformations. The newspaper "Sotsialisticheskaya Industriya" (Socialist Industry) wrote on September 23, 1977:

"...a huge star shone brightly against black skies sending clusters of rays earthwards. The star was floating slowly towards Petrozavodsk and then spread medusa-wise over the city. It hovered continuing to pour a multitude of the finest rays over the city; it all looked like a very heavy rain. Yu. Gromov, Director of the Petrozavodsk Hydro-Meteorological Observatory told a TASS reporter that the meteorolgical service of Karelia had not observed anything of the kind before... Yu. Gromov went on to emphasize that to his knowledge no technological experiments were being conducted in those parts at the time..."

Reports from people who had sighted unusual phenomena came in large numbers from other parts of the Soviet Union and from foreign countries, as well.

F. Zigel wrote at that time: "On September 20, 1977 strange phenomena in the sky were sighted from Helsinki to Petrozavodsk and from Pskov all the way to Murmansk... from 3 a.m. til dawn." Later he arrived at the conclusion that several dozen objects were sighted that night.

Meanwhile persecution of ufologists did not stop for a day. I recall an incident I witnessed directly. The people's University of Scientific and Technological Knowledge was established in a Moscow club. Its curricula included lectures on problems of UFOs. You know what happened? Soon plain-clothed KGB agents called on the club manager - a woman, and nearly frightened her to death. The doors of the hospitable club closed forever on ufologists soon after.

Eventually state authorities realized that the problem of UFOs could not be dealt with that easily. In 1982 the Commission on Paranormal Phenomena was established. It was headed by the academy Corresponding Member V. Troitsky. Twice Hero of the Soviet Union, Pilot-Cosmonaut, Air Force Major-General P. Popovich, the USSR Academy of Sciences Corresponding Member N. Zheltukhin and Academician G. Pisarenko were appointed his Deputies. Unfortunately the Commission completely failed to carry out its tasks.

Neither did ufologists get the right to officially sponsored research nor did reporters get the right to cover these topics in newspapers. Simultaneously, experts from the USSR Academy of Sciences were authorized to become censors. All manuscripts concerning UFOs were to be submitted to them. No editor-in-chief could publish a ufological article without their clearance. The General Censorship, known both in this country and outside it as Glavlit, observed this order vigilantly.

Yet, there's many a slip, and the censors overlooked a sensational article in the newspaper "Trud" on January 30, 1985 entitled "At 4:10 Sharp". The article reported an episode when a UFO with a lighted outline the size of Pskov Lake followed a TU-134A passenger plane (Flight No 8352) till it landed in Tallinn. The object was clearly seen on the radar screen.

At the same time another TU-134 plane was flying from Leningrad (St. Petersburg) to Tbilisi and the Control Tower informed its crew that there was a strange "tandem" right on their course. When First Pilot V. Gotsiridze, the Commander of the Tbilisi plane, noticed the object he decided to approach it and have a better look at it. That cost him his life.

The Unidentified Object shot a scanning ray which travelled over First Pilot Gotsiridze and partially over Second Pilot Kabachnikov. Several days later Gotsiridze was taken to the hospital where he died of a disease which resembled myeloma. A similar disease made Kabachnikov an invalid for life. (These facts are documented with medical conclusions.)

Soon after the writer of the article V. Vostrukhin and the paper's Science Editor were sacked, and the Editor-in-Chief followed them.

V. Psalomshchikov, Ph.D., Scince Consultant of the Leningrad Commission on Paranormal Phenomena in the Environment commented on the episode: "when the investigation conducted by the Leningrad Commission on PP was drawing to an end the question of publishing its conclusions arose. Correspondents of central newspapers took a vivid interest in them but they all handed the materials back. The rumours of severe punishment which had befallen the newspaper "Trud" were much too fresh in their memories."

What men dared not to do, a woman-journalist Ms. S. Omelchenko did. The impossible thing happened. In a Leningrad hotel she ran into Flight Engineer Murman Gvenetadze - the only member of the crew from Tbilisi who still worked in civil Aviation after the accident with the UFO. Ms. Omelchenko reported that Engineer Gvenetadze reaffirmed all the known details of the accident. A recollection of his own sensations is worth quoting: "What I felt? Nothing except curiosity and admiration of the strange object's performance. It maneuvered easily, changed its course and speed or hovered. We did not think of danger at all. It was just interesting. Now I would be scared after what has happened to my friends. I am eager to know what scientists think about it all." ("Vozdushny Transport" newspaper, February 25, 1989).

Writes V. Psalmoshchikov: "I am not entitled to speak for others, and that is strictly my own opinion, but suppose the reports of both crews and radar readings were trustworthy, taking all the data into consideration. I admit that the object discovered on September 7, 1984 is not a product of terrestrial technologies." ("Trud" of July 22, 1990, the article "At 4.10 Sharp and Five and a Half Years Later")

Early in 1989 the Committee on Problems of Energy-and-Information Exchange in Nature headed by Academician V. Kaznacheyev was established with the Union of Scientific and Engineering Societies. It was another attempt to coordinate the activities of different researchers. Time will show what will come out of it.

Names, locations, dates and events for a decent Google research.

The winter season is approaching.
Sighting reports will once again be on the rise with the cusp being from late November peaking in December, continuing to at least February and March.
Keeping an eye for possible interesting news or reports that will appear and disappear in a blink of an eye, or get pushed down the Internet search lists due to the similarity of the search key word material that clutter search engines as usual since ufology is an interesting subject.

On another note, their whole approach at scientific innovation, etc at many instances especially at the days of the USSR/early decades of the 20th century looked like alien by itself. If anyone to have an open mind about these things and pursue research, it would have been those people.

Gorbachev and Yeltsin the two less trusted politicians in that country as rumored tried to approach this knowledge, obviously the military, but came out with no results. Maybe an unusual high level of compartmentalization and secrecy at work?

Originally posted by Arbitrageur


However I'm not sure why you say it's a deliberate hoax? I see people pointing to glitches thinking it's something but the glitch was really there right? So is it more of a misinterpretation of the glitch than an actual hoax? or am I missing something?

Thank you for your post, also thanks for your legitimate question, which will allow me to clarify some points: i will try to explain why i have no doubts that at the very least Dr. Marina Popovich lied, Sitchin based his claims on "some rumor going around" (which is not exactly the best source on which to base some serious statements) while Don Eckert has been the only one of the three who kept somehow a relatively prudent approach.
First, the claims: according to Popovich, the "incident was discussed by Gorbashev and Bush in Malta", but the statement in such a contest was implying that they discussed about the alleged alien spacecraft (otherwise, it wouldn't have been relevant to the topic and she had no reasons to even mention it). Basically, if we want to believe to her, then we shall assume that the President of USSR was provided with some crappy cropped picture instead of the full dataset, which is self explanatory even to the untrained eye, not to mention to the scientists' ones. She probably overlooked the chances that some day the full dataset would have been made public. But this is just a small detail: there are her claims, she didn't even refer to any doubt about the origin of the object: remember, in case of presence of something anomalous, the first thing to rule out are glitches cased by loss of data, bad transmission etc. This can be believed: after looking at the infrared dataset (which full series is characterized by the same glitch on the same EXACT "X" coordinates, and just variating in lenght and in position on the "Y" ones: long story short it's an obvious glitch).

But let's talk about the evidence which by itself is the proof that at the origin of the story there is a deliberate hoax, i'll explain now the why:

Comparison between the photo released by Popovich and image # 2550033 Target: PHOBOS taken on 25 Mar 1989 09:22:36
Range 268 km
Channel 3 (infrared)
8 ms exposure

We can notice that the image is the same, the one released by Popovich looks just a little stretched horizontally, but not only: it has been cropped;
and what has been cut out from the image? Simple, the part that would have revealed that it was a glitch: basically, this is the part that has been removed:

a very strange and very convenient coincidence.
If she would have shared the unretouched version of the photo, then the story of the gigantic spacecraft in proximity of Phobos II would have never existed because the first observer would have pointed immediately out that it was an obvious glitch in the infrared channel.
Now, there are chances that she has been fooled by the guy who gave the photo to her, in this case the hoaxer would be Leonov but all in all it would be a deliberat6e hoax anyway, since no one of them ever came clean in order to clarify it: on the contrary, Dr. Popovich kept endorsing the story, giving public lecrtures, writing books, etcetera. Shall we assume that she is still unaware of the existence of the full Phobos dataset? Or that she still believes it's an alien spacecraft following Phobos II in the same exact position, no matter if the target was Phobos (the moonlet) or Jupiter?
Let's don't forget that to the data had access an international team, including the USSR, Bulgaria, Germany, Finland, Great Britain and USA scientists, so the idea of some international cover up made to hide a glitch is extremely far-fetched (if not ridiculous).

Now, regarding Sitchin claims about the allged "strangeness" of phobos' shadow, the exmplanation is juist one: he has never seen more photos of Phobo's shadow, otherwise he would have realized that it's not unusual at all: actually that's its normal appearence, unde some circumstances:
here are some examples of Phobos's shadow caught on camera by Mars orbiter and Mars express:
www.msss.com...
and

and

and

and


www.dlr.de...
Image caption (to be read carefully):

On November 10, 2005, Mars Express spotted the shadow of Phobos crossing the surface of Mars. The shadow is smeared because both Phobos and Mars Express were moving as the image was taken over the course of several seconds. Mars Express' High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) is a "pushbroom" style imager, which captures long image strips along Mars' surface one line at a time as the orbiter moves from south to north at 12,600 kilometers per hour (7,800 miles per hour). With each line advanced by HRSC from bottom to top, Phobos' shadow had shifted slightly from west to east at 7,200 kilometers per hour (4,500 miles per hour). The shadow is also darker at the center than the middle because, as seen from the surface of Mars, Phobos' diameter is much smaller than the disk of the Sun. Source Credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin (G. Neukum)

www.esa.int...
www.planetary.org...

So the claim that the image of the shadow was "inexplicable"
was arbitrary and uncorroborated by nothing but some personal beliefs: one of the two: he'd better to go back to talk about sumerians (in which subject matter i believe him to be a REAL expert, as said also before) or, alternatively, if he wants to be taken seriously he should to research better his stuff, especially before writing a book, since BS can't be deleted once the books have been sold.
I hope this clarifies something


[edit on 17/10/2009 by internos]

Heh, very interesting, thanks for that, though I am a little dissapointed, hmm, the question of Phobos is still an intriguing one
Check out this thread I just made about a possible crashed object on phobos!!



[edit on 17-10-2009 by Outlawstar]

I didn't know anyone even put much credability into the Phobos 11 pictures anymore? I remember 10 or so years ago it was considered a "dead end" in the UFO field.. Although for the new ones who have recently got into the UFO field this may pull back the blinders a bit. I tell anyone here that the best book you can buy right now is Richard Dolan's 'UFO's and The National Security State'. Excellent book.. Each event has it's own chapters.

remark removed by Pjotr because I read some post that answered my question

[edit on 17-10-2009 by Pjotr]

reply to post by internos


Excellent explanation and clarification on why it's a hoax Internos!

You really answered my question, and then some! Than you very much! Another star for that! Great work!

reply to post by internos

Thank you for an excellent report, Internos.

As discouraging as it can sometimes be to see an "old favourite bite the dust", it's the only way try to move forward with this perplexing area of study & discussion.

Originally posted by Tifozi
reply to post by converge

 

Indeed.

One of the basic notions about illusionism... "while you're watching one hand, you miss what's happening on the other".

The same goes for Area51. I seriously doubt that anything serious still happens in there. The whole world has their eyes on that area. The argument "the best way to hide something is in plain sight" doesn't apply.

I think that while people keep guessing and dreaming about Area51, and S4 and so on, serious things happen in another locations, without anyone noticing it.

[edit on 16/10/09 by Tifozi]

There are bases in Alaska out in the wilderness.
Likely there is SOMETHING under water.
I assume that Area 51 and S4 do have black projects being run since nobody can see inside of it.

Great investigative research internos
Keep up the great work.

Wow, another hoax? I have to know, is any of this stuff proven to be real or it can't be disproved? Most of it seems to be BS to me.

Bumping this thread as it is obvious many still need to read it and COMPREHEND the unfortunate results of actual research in ufology, which is a lot of times hoaxes or mundane explanations. If we can't get passed thinking everything is a Grey mothership conspiracy we are doomed.

BTW, S/F for your thread (as always my friend)...:


In addition to this thread I also want to link these other excellent ones by internos:

CGI: discussion with Philipe Kling David

CGI UFOs | Some of the best ones

The state-of-art in UFO disclosure worldwide


I linked all these from the same member (internos) in his own thread because this particular member has made STRIDES at trying to make ufology legit by separating the crap from real. So maybe by this bump others will see these other threads too.

:cool





[edit on 11/8/2009 by jkrog08]

reply to post by president


No one knows president.

Thought you'd waited long enough for an answer.

Wasn't NASA supposed to publish new images from Phobos a month ago and postponed it to March 15th? I still haven't seen anything. At least that's what Hoagland said, so I'm just wondering...

reply to post by Cybernet

Thanks for reminding me of something, but if it's the same thing you are talking about it wasn't NASA, it was ESA, and here is the result of the close fly-by.

reply to post by ArMaP


You're welcome. It might be it, i'm not sure, i was listening to Hoagland half-asleep...just remembering the date. It could be it...

reply to post by internos


Good debunk, only a few mistakes I will point out.

The white line that is claimed to be a UFO only appears in the infrared pictures, not in any of the blue or clear high-res photos, when the op claimed they were in all the photos. I imagine it was a typo.

The line appears consistently in the same X coordinate position in all of the infrared pictures, but the Y does drift somewhat, along with the length changing numerous times, once going all the way across from bottom to top.

Additional observations I thought should be mentioned.

Three of the photos have lines going across from left to right in the infrared series, two of them have multiple lines. This is consistent with a camera distortion problem, most likely due to the transmission, but if there were problems with the transmission, then why does it only show up in the infrared.

In two series, the infrared photos are missing. I wonder why, is there any explanation?

When you look at the series, or at least this series of pictures, it seem pretty obvious that you are probably looking at a problem with the camera, although the little thick line isn't something that tends to be typical of camera distortion problems. I don't have much experience with camera distortion problems like this, but it seems unusual.

Does anyone have any examples that show similar types of photo anomalies?

The thing that strikes me about this series of pictures, is that when you look at the series, it seems clear that most likely what we are seeing that was claimed to be a UFO is a problem with the camera or the transmission. If it was a transmission problem, then we should see it, or similar distortions/anomalies in the blue and high-res photos, so it must have been a problem with the infrared circuits.

Here is the problem with these pictures.

Why would someone pass a photo to Marina Popovich, and tell her it is proof of ET presence in space, if it is so obvious of a hoax? The original picture was supposedly sneaked out, and not intentionally released. It looks like someone played a hoax on her, why?

Marina Popovich is an aviation legend, up there with Amelia Earhart and Chuck Yeager. What would be the motivation? I don't see a lot of money coming to the people who created this hoax.

The next question then becomes, how do we know these photos are authentic, and have not been tampered with?

Which is the real hoax, the original photo, or this set released later?

Where is the proof to back these photos up?