Apollo 12's Covert EVA , Are E.T.'s the reason for the Secrecy ?

Originally posted by ArMaP
why would they blur/defocus the sides of the image and let the centre unblurred/focused? What would they gain with that?

Hi Armap,
NASA's goal was not to "gain" anything by exploiting this obfuscation technique. Quite the opposite. Their goal is to cause the DAC footage to lose resolution and clarity so that it interferes with the viewer's ability to interpret the scene. This particular technique involved the deliberate application of a focus/de-focus gradient mask that divides the visible FOV into three different sections, with the left and right sections carrying different (worse) focus characteristics than the middle section. They do this to help limit and control the quality of the visual data that the public have available to analyze and enhance.

The application of subtle blurring to most of the field-of-view while at the same time leaving a central section in focus is in fact a very effective obfuscative method, particularly when it is applied to motion picture footage that features a lot of movement in the scene. Whether that observed movement in the FOV is due to a shaky camera (handheld footage) or is just from the apparent motion of the lunar surface panning across the FOV when filmed with a hard-mounted camera aimed out the window of the orbiting spacecraft - it is in those types of scenes in particular, scenes where there is plenty of movement in the FOV, that this obfuscation technique is most effective, and is where it proves to do the most damage to the overall footage quality. The shakier the footage or the more movement in the scene, then the more effective this particular obfuscative technique actually becomes.

So firstly and most obviously, by using a blur/defocus gradient on the left and right of the frame in some of their DAC footage, NASA gets to provide the public with scenes that deliberately fail to show uniform focus characteristics across the entire visible FOV. It means that at any given time, less than 1/3rd of the visible FOV is actually in focus - which should be considered ridiculous and unacceptable by any standards. This method of focus/blur masking, particularly when combined with camera shake and FOV shifting, is an effective obfuscator because it forces any relevant objects in frame to continually sweep through and across those blur/focus gradients, and that serves to constantly and rather dramatically alter the focus characteristics of all the objects in frame as they move around, making the scene harder to interpret and more difficult to effectively enhance.

In that latest short video I put up on Youtube, there is one segment I show where, in the enhanced version, this focus/blur gradient obfuscation technique is quite easy to detect and observe in action. Starting at 1:40 of this video - www.youtube.com... - I play a raw DAC clip showing a crater that is quite shaky, very overbright, and has minimal contrast across the visible FOV for your eyes to pick up on. That raw clip is followed immediately by the stabilized and enhanced version of the same scene. As you watch the sequence play out, pay attention to the focus characteristics of the crater as it shakes around in the FOV (or as "the FOV shakes around the crater" in the stabilized example). When the crater is on the right side of the FOV for example, it's focus characteristics are not nearly as tight as they are when the crater briefly moves towards and encroaches into the central section of the FOV that is in focus. This deliberate quality control measure "dumbs down" the overall quality of the scene without being too overt about it (at least in the raw un-enhanced footage it is not too overt). The vertically-running defocus gradients ensure that over 2/3rds of that visible surface scene is obfuscated at any given time.

(Continued in next post below)

(Continued from above post)

Here are a couple framecaps to better help illustrate the location of the vertical-running focus/blur gradient divides. The first pic is just a raw framecap from the scene I referenced above, followed by a labeled and marked version of the same raw framecap where I have highlighted the divides. This helps graphically demonstrate just how little of this scene's FOV is actually "in focus" at any given time. In the raw footage of this scene, the application of these blur gradients is hard to detect due to the overbright condition and lack of available contrast, but they are there.

RAW FRAMECAP


RAW FRAMECAP MARKED TO SHOW GRADIENT DIVIDES


Doing this - ensuring that the scene does not surrender uniform focus characteristics across the full FOV like it is supposed to - this obfuscative measure is not only applied to help suppress the quality of the raw footage, but it is also a VERY important "anti-enhancement" preventative measure that is quite effective at hindering our ability to exploit certain forensic enhancement techniques (primarily "frame-stacking") that otherwise could be applied to the raw or stabilized footage with significant effect.

This blur/focus masking you see here is not something that can be explained away as being an accidental unwanted product of the DAC camera or it's lens system. The cameras and lens systems used during the Apollo program were subjected to rigid and comprehensive pre-flight calibration testing, and there is no way that DAC camera or it's lens could ever have been flawed to that degree where it was "accidentally" producing those kinds of blatant vertical-running blur/defocus gradients in that footage and still be able to pass the pre-flight calibration tests and get on the spacecraft for use during the mission. NOT A CHANCE! There is nothing accidental there - what you are seeing is entirely deliberate. It is an ugly little obfuscative technique purposefully introduced and applied during post-production prior to public archive release of the footage, with the goal of helping to degrade the quality of the overall scene and limit the resolution of the visual data we have to work with. It is merely one part of a sanitizing protocol that was used in conjunction with other obfuscative techniques to ensure that the general public, when we watch and analyze the Apollo 16mm DAC archive footage, don't get to see too much of a good thing, and just as importantly, it serves to ensure that our ability to effectively attack that footage using certain enhancement techniques will be hindered as well.

Cheers gang,
LC

Originally posted by ArMaP

Originally posted by LunaCognita
Here is another still from Clementine, this one a color image that shows a similar scene, this time with the Moon, Sun, stars, and the planet Venus off to the right (look at the size of Venus here!)

I have been thinking about that image, and today I went looking for more information.

It looks like that photo was taken with one of the star-tracking cameras, and if it was then it was originally a 1168 x 1552, greyscale image, not a 2.332 x 1.555 colour image.

Where did you find that image?

Hi again Armap,

That particular image you asked about Armap - that color frame showing the Moon, the Sun and it's solar corona, the planet Venus, and the celestial backdrop - that was taken by the DSPSE Clementine probe back in 1994, and the colorization you see there was courtesy of the DoD/NRL. That is the way that photograph was officially released. I originally grabbed that image probably two years ago, and got it directly from the DoD/NRL CLIB 1.5 browser website. I believe the actual image file was labeled simply as "002" there (that is how my version was labeled, and I don't think I ever changed the filename after downloading it). Unfortunately, as I check now, I see that the CLIB 1.5 browser appears to have gone the way of the Dodo bird and that site is now extinct (when did CLIB 1.5 get yanked??). However, I just did a search now and I found another copy of that same photo for ya - this time on a NASA website rather than DoD/NRL, though they only show it at 900x600 pixels there. Here is the link to a NASA archive version of it.

goes.gsfc.nasa.gov...

There are a few other Startracker frames that captured a similar (though not identical) scene in black&white. NASA have archived some of these Clementine frames - frame# PIA00434 is one example, and I also have a 56-frame consecutive series of b&w still photos showing a similar scene, also taken by one of the "Startracker" cameras on Clementine, that I animated together to create a short video clip. I think I mentioned it here before, as it also shows the Moon transiting the solar disc. You can see that animated 6-second clip in this video here - www.youtube.com... - starting at the 1:02 mark.

These images are, in my opinion at any rate, all VERY interesting!

Cheers gang,
LC

Originally posted by easynow
a camera problem it is not.

Why are you so sure?

the left and right side of the DAC imagery has been blurred to keep the general public from seeing a clear image of the lunar surface.

Most people look only to the centre of the frame, why hide the area that most people ignore and leave the area that most people focus on clear?

That would be a stupid way of hiding the lunar surface, not hiding it.

Edit: I read now LunaCognita's post, so I understand it better, but I still don't think it's an "obfuscation technique" because they could not know what they will be obfuscating.

Unless you mean that this was applied after the video was made, but in that case I don't see why in all clips the centre of the frame did not had anything to hide.

[edit on 7/2/2010 by ArMaP]

reply to post by ArMaP

Why are you so sure?

see LunaCognita's above post

Most people look only to the centre of the frame

why are you so sure about that ? i don't

That would be a stupid way of hiding the lunar surface, not hiding it.

so i guess if there was some obfuscation introduced then you would expect the whole picture would be blurry ? ahhhh no , that ain't gonna work ArMaP, if the cameras were checked out by NASA before the flight and you can't come up with a logical camera malfunction to explain it then occam's razor dictates the video has had obfuscation added to it.

reply to post by ArMaP

Edit: I read now LunaCognita's post, so I understand it better, but I still don't think it's an "obfuscation technique" because they could not know what they will be obfuscating.

what do you mean they could not know ?


so despite LunaCognita expertly explaining it to you and the fact that you can't come up with a logical sounding camera malfunction that's plausable , your going to continue to cling to your skeptical viewpoint ?

you have every right to think what you want but gee whiz ArMaP sometimes a cigar is just that , a cigar

Unless you mean that this was applied after the video was made, but in that case I don't see why in all clips the centre of the frame did not had anything to hide.

yes the blur was applied later. the point is not that there was obfuscation in the center of the FOV but in the sides of the frame. you obviously didn't understand what LunaCognita said in his reply to you about that.

the crater briefly moves towards and encroaches into the central section of the FOV that is in focus. This deliberate quality control measure "dumbs down" the overall quality of the scene without being too overt about it

this is the crater he was describing...

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/15a0c66217bc.png[/atsimg]

www.youtube.com...

Originally posted by easynow

so despite LunaCognita expertly explaining it to you and the fact that you can't come up with a logical sounding camera malfunction that's plausable , your going to continue to cling to your skeptical viewpoint ?

Oh come on Easynow - we're the skeptics here.

Sure we speculate, we pontificate....but we are the most skeptical bunch here. No title, location, institution, provenance or position acts as deterrence to our skeptical re-examinations of those things which raise our suspicion.

Some of the other self-proclaimed skeptics adhere fanatically to orthodoxy, and appear to be engaging in cognitive dissonance, selective skepticism and perpetual denial of evidence. I often wonder if some of them aren't being obtuse on purpose.



*P.S. Easynow, you spelt plausable wrong. You can't even spell a simple word rite....





[edit on 8-2-2010 by Exuberant1]

reply to post by Exuberant1


nicely said Exuberant1





i like this description the best LOL

perpetual denial of evidence

will it ever stop ? too bad we can't tap into that and use it to create a free energy device since it seems to be a never ending phenomena

you spelt plausable wrong

i hate to sound like a skeptic but are you sure about that ?

[edit on 8-2-2010 by easynow]

reply to post by easynow


Oh, you meant that plausable.

reply to post by Exuberant1


only on day's that end in Y

reply to post by easynow


I doubt you are this smart IRL.

Nice video BTW.


*Mate, check out this image - I feel it captures the sentiments and dispositions of the individuals who are responsible for the material which we spend so much time researching. Some people won't get it though:

*I suppose instead of a philosoraptor beneath the text, I could have used a politician's face - but I wanted this to be relevant.





[edit on 8-2-2010 by Exuberant1]

Originally posted by Exuberant1

*Mate, check out this image - I feel it captures the sentiments and dispositions of the individuals who are responsible for the material which we spend so much time researching. Some people won't get it though:

Brilliant!

Sorry if someone has already mentioned this but to me it is obvious why they are intentionally blurring areas of images that are not the main subject or in the center of the image. They don't know themselves what might possibly be in the images so they just have an internal policy of only releasing the absolute minimum of detail. By doing this they keep outsiders from being able to scour through and find things they either might have missed or have not had the resources to look for.

More lying and hiding from us what is ours by NASA

Ooooopps!

[edit on 8-2-2010 by Exuberant1]

Originally posted by expat2368
They don't know themselves what might possibly be in the images so they just have an internal policy of only releasing the absolute minimum of detail.

Yeah, well, if that is true, those guys operating The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera are messing up really bad. The evil NASA bosses must be furious. Just look at what kind of images those LROC boneheads are releasing to the public!

This is part of a very large image of the floor of Tycho crater. Resolution 0.62 m/pixel:

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/da46e0159409.jpg[/atsimg]
Full image here:
wms.lroc.asu.edu...

LROC Browse Gallery

[edit on 8/2/10 by ziggystar60]

Originally posted by ziggystar60

Originally posted by expat2368
They don't know themselves what might possibly be in the images so they just have an internal policy of only releasing the absolute minimum of detail.

Yeah, well, if that is true, they guys operating The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera are messing up really bad. The evil NASA bosses must be furious. Just look at what kind of images those LROC boneheads are releasing to the public!

Good point Ziggy, if they were hiding something before, it doesn't seem to be hidden very well any more between the LRO and Japan's orbiter which also has some incredibly high resolution images.

reply to post by ziggystar60

Just look at what kind of images those LROC boneheads are releasing to the public!

yea just look at what those "boneheads" are releasing to the public !



that is a spacecraft on the Lunar surface that was photographed with the LRO imaging camera. since the picture is so clear and detailed it should be easy to tell exactly what it is , right ?

i can zoom in on that if you need me too





reply to post by Arbitrageur

if they were hiding something before, it doesn't seem to be hidden very well any more between the LRO and Japan's orbiter which also has some incredibly high resolution images

yea i agree especially since it's easy to make out those really fine details of the spacecraft on the Lunar surface and the Jaxa images are just so realistic looking





hoooo boy , exposing NASA's lies sure does piss some people off !

Originally posted by LunaCognita

Originally posted by ArMaP
why would they blur/defocus the sides of the image and let the centre unblurred/focused? What would they gain with that?

Hi Armap,
NASA's goal was not to "gain" anything by exploiting this obfuscation technique. Quite the opposite. Their goal is to cause the DAC footage to lose resolution and clarity so that it interferes with the viewer's ability to interpret the scene. This particular technique involved the deliberate application of a focus/de-focus gradient mask that divides the visible FOV into three different sections, with the left and right sections carrying different (worse) focus characteristics than the middle section.

I said earlier I haven't got any prosaic explanation for the NASA report in the OP and that's why I find the Apollo12 standup EVA theory somewhat credible.

But I do have a prosaic explanation that's a possibility for this film obfuscation theory. I have my own darkroom equipment, enlarger, chemical trays and processing equipment etc. It's quite antiquated compared to modern automated equipment and I only used it for black and white but the reason for mentioning this is I have personal experience trying to get images from negatives onto other media such as enlargements. The film needs to be perfectly flat when you transfer the image, otherwise the effect LunaCognita is pointing out will be the result, focus in one part of the image, but not the entire image. And older film I've noticed has a distinct tendency to curl as it ages.

With still images, there's a simple solution to this film curling problem, just sandwich it between panes of glass, with an anti-newton ring surface on the side touching the emulsion, and that flattens out the curl. However you can't do that with moving film because if you do the film will rub against the pieces of glass and this will damage the emulsion on the film,cause the film to drag so it doesn't project properly (maybe skip some sprocket teeth or not advance at all if it's sandwiched tightly to make it perfectly flat).

So my guess based on my personal experience is, the reason for the defocused areas is a result of curling of the film such as I have seen in old film myself. The only way I would know of to eliminate that defocused effect completely would be to NOT use a projector, but instead sandwich segments of the old film between 2 panes of glass or use a flatbed scanner (See below*). However this transfer method would be outrageously expensive.

So it's possible that what we are seeing may be the result of old film which is not perfectly flat as it goes through the projection equipment, and the defocused areas could be the result of this film curl and not the result of any intentional obfuscation plot. So that's my comment on the technical side.

On the logical side, it seems to me again from my personal experience as a photographer that it's most common to try to get the "subject" or most important part of your photography in the center of the frame. So if someone was trying to obfuscate what was being photographed it would seem more logical to have the edges in focus and the center out of focus, but they have done the exact opposite.

Back to the technical and some outside sources for you to consider: Here is a site for a business that does professional transfers of old film that talks about the warping and curling of old film:

sunrayvideo.com...

We’ve been transferring 8mm, Super8, and 16mm films for our customers for over 12 years now and we’ve been noticing some problems we think you should be aware of. If you have any important home movies that have not been transferred to DVD or video yet, you may want to get them out and check them.

We’ve been noticing a fair number of 16mm reels coming in that have a very strong vinegar-like smell to them. It’s very common for this to happen with 16mm film stored in metal cans. If you happen to notice this smell coming from your films, it’s time to get them transferred to DVD or video right away. In some cases we’ve found that it’s already too late and the film was brittle and had already begun to warp and curl to a point that we couldn’t transfer it.

*Here's another site where a guy is talking about the difficulties of film transfer, he mentions keeping the film flat being an issue and is trying to develop an inexpensive transfer process using flatbed scanners, but he's still working on it. But it might give you some idea of the issues:

www.truetex.com...

This page describes what I call "Flatbed Scanner Digital Telecine" (FSDT), a process I am developing to inexpensively convert movie film to digital movies using ordinary flatbed scanners rather than exotic, expensive telecine converters.

The film industry term "telecine" is commonly used to describe converting movie film to any of various video formats. Commercial telecine is a costly process, involving specialized film scanners and video recorders, typically analog. This is not economical for the 50 feet of film I had to convert, since the minimum charge would be excessive. It is also increasingly out-of-date, as digital imaging on a PC has advanced to the point of being better and cheaper than any analog conversion process.
....
The film is sandwiched between the two panes of glass with the anti-Newton-ring surface touching the film emulsion. The glass helps keep the film flat and eliminates annoying Newton rings.

I'm betting NASA used one of the commercially available transfer techniques and NOT a flatbed scanner for the transfer process.

So the standup EVA still gets high marks for a prosaic explanation being hard to find. But this film obfuscation theory I think has a prosaic explanation, it's probably the same film curl due to the age of the film that the professional film transfer site talks about.

[edit on 8-2-2010 by Arbitrageur]

Originally posted by easynow

Why are you so sure?

see LunaCognita's above post

LunaCognita's explanation is a good one, but it doesn't mean it's the truth. I am never 100% sure of anything, much less when talking about a subject for which I (or any of us) have real knowledge (we didn't made the video).

Most people look only to the centre of the frame

why are you so sure about that ? i don't

Because, unlike the reasons behind the defocussing or blurring of the video, I have seen it myself many times, because people are used to ignore the corners of a video (partly becauseTV channels put their logos on the corners of the screen), because of what I have read about interface design and because of the things my brother has told me (he his a communication designer and is working on new methods to show information to people and how people see and interpret that information).

so i guess if there was some obfuscation introduced then you would expect the whole picture would be blurry ? ahhhh no , that ain't gonna work ArMaP, if the cameras were checked out by NASA before the flight and you can't come up with a logical camera malfunction to explain it then occam's razor dictates the video has had obfuscation added to it.

A camera malfunction is only one possibility, we don't know what processes those copies of the videos were submitted to, it may have been in the original (did anyone saw the original tapes?) or it may be only a problem with this copy.

Originally posted by easynow
what do you mean they could not know ?

I mean that they could not know before making the video what parts would be in the centre of the frame and what parts would be on the blurred areas.

so despite LunaCognita expertly explaining it to you and the fact that you can't come up with a logical sounding camera malfunction that's plausable , your going to continue to cling to your skeptical viewpoint ?

Who said that I wanted to come up with a "logical sounding camera malfunction"? I only said that it could be a camera malfunction because it appears in all clips in those videos.

And yes, I still think that my viewpoint (that this was not a deliberate obfuscation technique and happened because of some other reason) is as valid as thinking that someone at NASA thought that someone in the future could use frame stacking and stabilizing techniques to try to make a better version from a bad copy of the original video, so they would make 66% of the video look bad in case someone could enhance some crater.

you have every right to think what you want but gee whiz ArMaP sometimes a cigar is just that , a cigar

Yes, but I don't smoke.

yes the blur was applied later. the point is not that there was obfuscation in the center of the FOV but in the sides of the frame. you obviously didn't understand what LunaCognita said in his reply to you about that.

I understood what he wrote (as I said in my edit to yesterday's post), what I don't understand is what's the point of blurring only part of the image (does it mean that the interesting parts are always on the sides of the frame?) in all video, even those that just show the astronauts.