Have You Ever Wondered Where The Stars Went? Proof that NASA has altered their images

Originally posted by DrBunsen
Thanks Arbitrageur, that's much appreciated.
Didn't know it had happened before but it does not surprise me.
It was a real shock to look at my original post linking to the NASA gallery and to then see the image had been replaced and so quickly.

Were they embarrassed by the poor quality of it or did something enter that particular frame that they didn't want us to see? I dismiss the latter myself.

However, Google 's69_40308.jpg' as I did to find the original 'manipulated' image and a whole bunch of conspiracies pop up about there being a Coke bottle on that particular frame

Thanks DrBunsen for the good find! Like ArMaP, I also saved the image.

And I figured out the NASA conspiracy, it wasn't a coke bottle they were hiding, it was rocks! Well that's the way it looks to me, but I honestly have no idea why the image was altered. Here's where they hid the rocks:

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/b3beebee6255.png[/atsimg]

The other big difference I see is the original image had a greenish color to it, and the one they replaced it with has less color and looks gray.

reply to post by Phage

Not very likely, I don't think anyone passes his/her days looking at web server logs growing, just having to produce the statistics is boring enough, even for a small sized server.

Originally posted by Arbitrageur
This isn't the first time pictures disappeared from the NASA site when ATS posted about them, Zorgon mentioned it happened to him before too though that was before I joined ATS.

I witnessed one of those cases and the other one in which a colour photo with the Earth and the Moon with the Moon reduced to greyscale was replaced with the original version after being noticed on ATS.

reply to post by ArMaP

Well NASA has to spend all that money they get on something.


Or they automatically flag all hits routed through ATS. Yeah, that's it!

Originally posted by Arbitrageur

Were they embarrassed by the poor quality of it or did something enter that particular frame that they didn't want us to see? I dismiss the latter myself.

Well, if you were a true conspiracy theorist, you could claim that they altered the image to hide something that showed traces of the masonic ritual Buzz Aldrin performed on the Moon.

He did actually perform such a ritual, you know:

The Story of Tranquility Lodge No. 2000

On July 20, 1969, two American Astronauts landed on the moon of the planet Earth, in an area known as Mare Tranquilitatis , or "Sea of Tranquility". One of those brave men was Brother Edwin Eugene (Buzz) Aldrin, Jr., a member of Clear Lake Lodge No. 1417, AF&AM, Seabrook, Texas. Brother Aldrin carried with him SPECIAL DEPUTATION of then Grand Master J. Guy Smith, constituting and appointing Brother Aldrin as Special Deputy of the Grand Master, granting unto him full power in the premises to represent the Grand Master as such and authorize him to claim Masonic Territorial Jurisdiction for The Most Worshipful Grand Lodge of Texas, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, on The Moon, and directed that he make due return of his acts. Brother Aldrin certified that the SPECIAL DEPUTATION was carried by him to the Moon on July 20, 1969.

tl2k.org...

reply to post by weedwhacker


It is only futile arguing with children. They have no comprehension of the way life was only 40 years ago.

This same discussion happens every year after these kids get their laptops for Christmas and start looking for evidence of conspiracies from the evil "powers to be".

I see a lot on here who think Jesse Ventura is some learned scholar when I know he is a buffoon with a cartoon characters name.

Just read this posts and realize how low our society has fallen when these children believe most of this baloney.



[edit on 23-2-2010 by Oneolddude]

I guess you all can blame me for the image getting changed. I sent an email asking about why the image was retouched and I got a reply saying this:

Thanks for letting us know about the problem with that image.

We checked with the folks in the photo lab here, and they believe that the negative for that image probably has a large scratch in that area. The cloning pattern that you mentioned is a remnant from an earlier version of the print using a method that is no longer in use today.

The photo lab has provided us with a “cleaner” version of the photo that isn’t as yellow and doesn’t have the cloning pattern. We will replace the photo as soon as possible.

reply to post by Oneolddude


Ummmmm....40 years ago I WAS A TEENAGER!!!!!

So, I think that is the problem, and your finger is on the pulse.....

Ha ha looks like a low atmosphere...

reply to post by jra

Oh geez. You are so busted.
Actually, good work!

reply to post by Phage


Hey, dude!!!

Did you see your shadow this month, or something??

....because, you have come out a lot, lately....and it's a GOOD thing, in case you're wondering....

(OK....that might seem rude, comparing you to a groundhog....no disrespect intended, just pokin' at you!!!! In a friendly way!!!!)

Originally posted by Phage
Oh geez. You are so busted.

haha yeah I really am.

I didn't actually expect them to change the image. All I asked was why it was retouched and also if they could add something to the caption stating that the image had been retouched.

I like what they did though. It looks much better.

i have one observation for any one in this thread that wonders :

why are the stars not visible ? [ in the appolo images ]

please check the accompanying data for the images , it gives :

film ISO
lens arpeture
the shutter speed

then tell us why the hell you expect to see stars ?

Originally posted by ignorant_ape
i have one observation for any one in this thread that wonders :
why are the stars not visible ? [ in the appolo images ]
please check the accompanying data for the images , it gives :

film ISO
then tell us why the hell you expect to see stars ?

It's Apollo BTW. My guess is that anyone who wonders where the stars are doesn't know much about photography to begin with so they probably don't know enough about film ISO to even understand why that's an issue. So that proof is a bit like giving a proof in calculus to an elementary school kid who still hasn't learned to multiply, it's a valid proof but it will go right over their heads, we need to dumb it down for them a little more I suspect, like "The camera and film were set for daytime conditions and they would have needed to be set for nighttime conditions to record the stars".

Originally posted by jra
I guess you all can blame me for the image getting changed. I sent an email asking about why the image was retouched and I got a reply saying this:

Thanks for letting us know about the problem with that image.

We checked with the folks in the photo lab here, and they believe that the negative for that image probably has a large scratch in that area.

Nice work jra. It would be more conclusive if they didn't use the words "believe" and "probably" but a scratch would be a reason to edit an image although I've seen other NASA images with scratches in them, so I didn't know they edited scratches out!

Now if this was from a one-time irreplaceable shot in the Hasselblad and they retouched that, their answer would make more sense, because what else could they use? But if this is from a movie, didn't they have plenty of other frames that weren't scratched they could use? That's the part I don't really get about that answer. But at least we know who the "NASA spy" was, good work!

Originally posted by Arbitrageur

Nice work jra. It would be more conclusive if they didn't use the words "believe" and "probably" but a scratch would be a reason to edit an image although I've seen other NASA images with scratches in them, so I didn't know they edited scratches out!

Speaking of scratches, the other day some of us were discussing some of the ways one might use to remove a UFO/anomaly from a space image and get away with it by building a plausible rationale into one's censorship.

Needed: 1 space image in need of censorship and at least two sources for image distribution.

What to do: First you remove the anomaly by blacking it out. Then you carefully damage the image near the censored anomaly in the altered area and then pass the image on to one distribution point (Source 1). This is how you will build in a plausible rational which justifies your actions.

Now that the censored/damaged image has been sent to a distribution point, you may release the censored image to any other distribution points that you choose. Should anyone suspect censorship, they will be directed to Source 1 for a plausible excuse ( if you have done as directed, your excuse is quite plausible at this point; the image was altered for aesthetic reasons due to damage).

Do this for every space anomaly you determine to be in need of a censoring...

*Along with providing a plausible and acceptable reason for censorship, your selective damage serves to alert your properly cleared peers to the location of these anomalies in the uncensored images that are held in the archives.

I'm sure there are plenty of other ways and this method primarily applies to the censoring of anomalies which are against the blackness of space and building a plausible rationale into the censorship of those.



[edit on 24-2-2010 by Exuberant1]

Originally posted by jra
I guess you all can blame me for the image getting changed. I sent an email asking about why the image was retouched ...

haha!

I'm quite disappointed I didn't spot this thread before this, because as I was browsing over it, and saw the (newly edited) image in question, it was pretty obvious to me that the image was covered in scratches, and that the (now quite subtle) cloning that was used was obviously in the scratched areas - you can still clearly see the scratch remnants. But now I can only be wise after the event. dang.

These are, after all, film scans, and I know film scans VERY well. I've dealt with similar problems in many of my (terrestrial!) scans of 35mm and medium format (same as Apollo Hasselblad) negatives and transparencies. I don't know how NASA did that initial (awful) scratch treatment, but I can tell you that there are lots of ways to cover them - from careful use of the clone tool (very time-consuming, but can provide very convincing results), to automated tools that intelligently (??grin) recognise scratches and dust and then apply a cloning, blurring or pixel duplication effects.

The automated tools are notorious for leaving horrible duplicated areas and blurs - a wrong setting will create a nightmare. Manual cloning is fraught with issues too, and if you do it at any less than full-resolution, or without being a master at it (modestly coughs..) then the traces are blindingly obvious. And even a superb cloning job can generally be spotted by an expert. (Although I could easily better that new version by NASA... (O; )

But as always, the NASA originals are still there - why, you can even get access to the film itself, or the raw data streams, if you have a VERY good reason. Needless to say they don't do the first very often - you can already see the scratch problem on that image...

It is also worth noting that AS SOON as you capture the image, you have altered it. In the case of Apollo filmscans, the choice of film determines the colour gamut and response, the dynamic range, the graininess, etc. Then it gets scanned - a whole new set of parameters are applied to the image, and a slight difference in settings, or even the age of the scanner can have dramatic effects.

Many Apollo images have been rescanned over the years as scanning technology has improved, so you may find several different resolutions, and you will note subtle differences in colour and contrast. Later scans tend to show more scratches and dust, sadly - nature of the beast. None of the images are TRUE colour, by the way - there is no such thing (happy to debate this, but it is getting a bit offtopic).

And then for digital imaging, the raw data response is determined by the type of sensor, the filters used.. So even though you can get at the raw data (eg google 'FITS images') for most *digital* images made by NASA, it's still 'altered'...

Dranigus - I'm sorry, but anyone who thinks digital still cameras were used in the Apollo missions, really needs to do just a teeny bit more research on the topic before offering technical comments...

Armap - your comment about manipulating a *negative* in the way you cloned out the spacecraft from that image, interests me -- what process are you referring to?

Originally posted by ignorant_ape
i have one observation for any one in this thread that wonders :

why are the stars not visible ? [ in the appolo images ]

please check the accompanying data for the images , it gives :

film ISO
lens arpeture
the shutter speed

then tell us why the hell you expect to see stars ?

I am not sure if you are directing your post at me, however, I will say what I have been saying in the last few posts I have made.

Although I do not trust NASA and believe that wherever there is power there is some level of corruption, I have to hold up my hands and say that I was wrong. I don't mind admitting this at all. I have watched the discovery video posted on this thread and it clearly shows that you would not see stars with that particular lens arpeture. However, that said I am pleased that we have found a common ground for sceptics and truthers to stand on, I know you will hate me saying this but that includes yourself ignorant_ape.

reply to post by Exuberant1


Do you have any smoking guns in your collection which may suggest that NASA has altered their images in order to hide something from the public?

Originally posted by Oneolddude
It is only futile arguing with children. They have no comprehension of the way life was only 40 years ago.

Oh dear Oneolddude, although I do respect my elders and bring up my family to do the same, thats just plain rude. Let me give you an example of how I personally have changed older generations minds. I have explained this before so I apologise in advance if people who are reading this know this already.

When I was about 16 years old I began to exploring life 'outside' of the box. By pure coincedence I met a women who taught me how to develop my interest and experiences. After about some time I opened up to my family and explained to them what I was getting myself in to. At this time my family would ridicule me and not show any interest in life 'outside' of the box, when I talk about my family this includes my grandparents. I rememebr sitting down with them at their house and listening to them about how I should direct my life in a way that will help me to get a mortgage in the future, (the normal grandparents waffle about bettering yourself e.t.c) anyway, I became a little peaved by all this talking down to so I decided to abuse my development and use it for my own gain.

Within a very short space of time thier views changed and my grandparents and my parents thought that I was dealing with 'black magic' (these were older generations, who thought they knew it all, clasping at straws not knowing what to make of it, because it was all new to them) after explaining a few things over a period of months, their views on life started to change and instead of adopting their rigid views on life they (through the experience I showed them) became a little 'humble' to the enormousity of life itself.

This is a true story and this is just one of many many many many people I have met and changed their opinions based on experiences. I am no child and believe me when I say that if you look at life 'outside' of the box in a childish way it comes back to haunt you 100 times over.

The problem with a fixed rigid mindset is that you do not have any room for new things. Instead of closing your mind to peoples views and ridiculing them/patronising them, try to leave that little bit of room for growth.

reply to post by franspeakfree


Why limit yourself to NASA?

You should also include the Lunar and Planetary Institute, at least.

Consider that if the image censorship (and distribution) is conducted and controlled properly, there will be a plausible rationale for any alterations made to the image. And for images lacking an apparent explanation, one can always write the respective space agency and tell them what you have spotted and they will provide you with a plausible/acceptable reason for any alterations. Perhaps they will even take efforts to prevent the confusion from arriving again in the future.

That is why there will never be a "smoking gun" image. The acceptable answer does not have to be the accurate one and it is very much acceptable to denigrate those who would speculate on the correctness of the unacceptable explanation; no matter how correct they may be in their speculations.

*Even if an actual alien spacecraft was captured in a space image, that would be unacceptable and so the next best theory will become the one that most people accept - and the hypothesis for which the most peer pressure will be exerted.
Alien spacecraft do not exist, therefore it is something else other than what it is.(unless NASA specifically says otherwise....)



[edit on 24-2-2010 by Exuberant1]