Low resolution pictures - Don't believe everything you see!

As we progress in our understanding of the universe, we also increasingly progress in the embedded probes technology that allows us to go closer to the moon, planets and asteroids and to have better and better resolution pictures.

However, it doesn't seems to matter, as we regularly sees, here and elsewhere, common things in these high-resolution photos that appears to some people to be extraordinary or artificial things, simply because they don't look at the original hi-resolution picture, but at some low resolution that shade off natural artifacts in landscapes.

Here are some examples of what I'm talking about:

1- The Phobos monolith

The Discovery

While studying the above Phobos image (a composite of sp255103 frames A through O) my eye caught something sticking up out of the surface (inside blue square), it was difficult to make out at the browser size so I downloaded it into Photoshop and zoomed into that area, and there it was, an apparent cylindrical shaped object casting a longish shadow and having a slanted roof.

See animation below for zoom in close up.

Read the full article here

Here's Efrain Palermo's interpretation of what this 'monolith' could looks like:



And here's what it's most likely looks like:


Image drawn by Andy Romano



Christopher A. Joseph 3D image rendering

source

This haven't been confirmed yet, but I bet that the future Phobos mission (see wiki page) will confirm, using higher resolution pictures, that this is only a geological feature consisting of a single massive piece of rock, designed as 'monolith'.

SOURCES:
Phobos monolith
Palermo's project pages
Lan Fleming study on Wayback Internet archives
Bibliotecapleyades



2- 'Faces' on Mars

As this subject has been debated over and over, I thought that pictures speaks louder than words:



High resolution picture source



High resolution picture source

Lots of others Mars pareidolias here



3- 'Unusual rocks' on Moon and Mars

I recently saw an ATS thread were the OP thought he saw an unusual brigth object on pictures during an extra vehicular activity of the Apollo 14 astronauts.
Edit: thread deleted?

The question is still debated other there as to define if this is an artificial artifact or if this is only a rock seen under special light conditions.

Anyway, there are here, on ATS, plenty of examples of natural geological formations misidentified as artificial:

- "Fallen castle" and "array of buildings" here



- "Forests" here



- "Gorilla" (Yes!!) here



- "A wrench" here



And so on.....

Conclusion and moral of the story
- Never believe anything what your eyes sees and that come from a low resolution picture
- Always work and think on the best resolution picture you can find
- Otherwise, refrain from post and discuss the matter, as it has been demonstrated many times in the past that this is only a waste of time.

Well done OP, a concise and respectful demonstration of the flaw in low resolution photographs. Also proved to contain simple and effective advice for everyone. I believe the same applies to UFO, ghost, and phenomena footage in general.

Good post. Try and tell this to the folks who have made it their religion to prove apollo hoax, aliens on mars or loch ness etc. One point to add that even the best resolution images can show things that appear strange but that does not automatically make it so. Good example is perspective and it's effects. A line of shadows might appear to go to different directions depending on perspective. If you look at the same scene directly overhead though you see that they actually do go in the same direction. There is tons of photographic effects such as that. Most people who advocate their religion are reluctant to learn and to take that into account for their diety.

Great post, and when you consider other aspects such as lens errors and un-calibrated screens it is no surprise they sometimes occur. Even on earth you find trees and other formations to have an artificial appearance but when you pass by thousands of rocks eventually you will find something with recognisable features.

I only see 2 images out of bunches!


Great post! Good to see this brought to light.

You forgot to mention that many of these "anomalies" only turn up on Google! The images on GoogleMoon, GoogleMars, and GoogleSky are stitched together, which causes imperfections in the image.

Originally posted by DJW001
You forgot to mention that many of these "anomalies" only turn up on Google! The images on GoogleMoon, GoogleMars, and GoogleSky are stitched together, which causes imperfections in the image.

Yes, you've got a good point!

Almost each time there's an 'anomaly thread', Google is invested....

- Google Street View:



- Google Earth:



- Google Mars:



- Google Sky:



- Google Moon:



So maybe I should add to the thread title: "....especially coming from Google!"

Thank you for finally stating what so many of us have argued for so long, in a clear, concise and evidence-based manner. Nice work.

...but that's DEFINITELY a gorilla.
If you squint, take a 640x480 picture and blow it up to 64000x48000, and hold your head sideways... you can almost see a banana in his pixel... I mean... hand.

They WANT to believe.

They figure it will change everything, they want change because they haven't gained control over what they figure is a mass conspiracy of the powers to be suppressing their every advancement. They figure these powers got their powers from extraterrestrial communication and suppress every account of disclosure by these powers to be.

I suppose ET would overturn the evil mind altering religions that drive wars here, and disclosure would somehow end that. Or they want some asteroid disaster to wipe out the monetary system and make a new level playing ground to start over, though what might not be considered is that an ELE event would also likely kill them too.

It is a strange habit to stare at rocks at unknown or little understood resolutions and see Bambi or something and point at it like they made a discovery from Google Mars/moon/earth that somehow escaped the notice of the people who assembled those images taken through many years of remote viewing technology they never really study.


Whatever, some people seem to have a lot of free time, time not spent getting out from under the clasp of the powers to be, just dreaming and wishing some lottery will draw their number one day, anything but point blame for their tripe to themselves, its always something else.

Excuse me I may have missed it but how are you explaining away the last three photos. I appreciate that the thread is about perspective based on resolution however you have used the first few examples to explain away the last few examples.

I think some of the high res photos actually help do these claims justice. Especially the mars pics.

It's like ATS. When you first join it seems things are normal but after time and closer inspection it's seems the place is full of paranoid wacko's

As a photoshop user myself, i can respect your effort to show people how low resolution pictures and even just any pictures can be more (or less) then what meets the eye.

Great debunk!

Although..there are things on this very planet that we can't capture, with our eyes, or our cameras. But they're still here.

We catch glimpses of them, out of the corner of our eyes, in our dreams..

You all know you've seen it

Don't be afraid, it's our destiny, to see more clearly. You've proven that with this post!

reply to post by Illustronic


Wowwww.

I don't know what to say!

Did someone major in psych???

I betchu did big boy!




Come on dude, we're all only human.

Some people don't know how to be the change, so they hope it'll come along for them in an asteroid, or some face on a planet, or maybe even little green men that will come along and free us all!

I agree with your basic premise, but how do we account for Bud Aldrin's very public statement about that very same monolith on phobos?

Is Bud just a liar then?

Although I said I agree with the premise about people making big claims using a crummy image as their "proof"

I just can't accept the view as proof of a debunking of many of the same claims based on other cross testimonies by trustworthy sources.. And no, I never simply believe something, just because I may wish it to be true..

Nasa has done this same thing by slandering half of their astronaut workforce in the past.. The pattern of rubbishing attempts by them and their "shills" is pretty common, and they use every method in the book...

In the end, most people just give up and ignore everything, including what might really be an actual anomaly..

One of the best threads I have seen on matters related to things on other planets...very well done. I am a skeptic but not naive enough to believe we are the only living breathing beings in all that space out there...i want to see evidence but am always disappointed when someone draws a line around several rocks and states without any doubt it is proof of intelligent life on another planet.

Some people claim that NASA and various PTB are hiding the facts...some are hidden but I sincerly doubt that they are hiding intelligent life or life of any kind from us...and if they are they would not provide proof in the way of pictures with buildings or space ships...they would just not provide the picture at all.

It is known that NASA has always colored pictures from space and planets based upon what they think it would look like in accordance with the infrared and others means of cameras they use to take the shots but why would they just blur photos or photoshop half an image and leave the rest...for prying eyes.

When we do if ever meet other intelligent species out there it will most likely be contact from those beings themselves and not some you tube expert that "discovered" another space lab on the moon.

Think about it, why are most of these "anomalies" low resolution? Its because thats where human mind can fill in the details with alien structures. You dont get a clean high-resolution picture of a UFO or alien base, because in that case everyone can see its just a rock. Its always the blurry ones that keep the imagination going.

reply to post by Maslo


I agree Maslo. The imagination is and should be a wonderful thing. Without it, we would still be walking around in the buff, scrounging for food and shelter. The imagination aids in the formation of new ideas, technology, etc. But, the imagination can also give license to invent, to see and compare to other things, to change perspective and think outside the box, so to speak. This is where creativity comes from. It is a wondrous aspect of the human mind. I think it is what makes life interesting. Otherwise, there would not be an ATS, or anything else for that matter.

reply to post by alienreality

I agree with your basic premise, but how do we account for Bud Aldrin's very public statement about that very same monolith on phobos?

Is Bud just a liar then?

No, he was using razzle dazzle to sell a project he feels very strongly about. He makes it very clear that he believes the "monolith" is a big rock. To keep this squarely on topic, I want to use this as an example of how these blurry, low res images get "spun" by the paranormal industry. There is nothing like using production values to spark the viewer's imagination. Here is NASA's Mars Global Surveyor image, SPS252603, on which the "monolith" was first detected:



www.msss.com...

MOC Gallery. Enjoy!

To people interested in planetary science, this photo is amazing in and of itself. It reveals a plethora of fascinating features, none of which would fire the general public's imagination. However, if you zoom in to the limit of resolution, that magical sweet spot that marks the boundary between objective sight and the twilight zone of imagination, you get something exciting:



It is, of course, a huge boulder. When you push the magnification even further, you can begin calling it a "monolith." The word "monolith" carries connotations of artificiality.

Buzz Aldrin is involved with a private sector company that wants to run the orbital refuelling franchise. In order for it to pay off, there need to be manned missions to other planets. Note the twinkle in his eye as he mentions the monolith in this original broadcast:



When he was later interviewed by Alex Jones, Jones was obviously much more interested in getting him to talk about aliens than his orbital filling station. Note that Buzz makes it clear that he thinks it's a big rock, then mischievously mentions that others might believe it was built by the same people who built the Pyramids on Earth.



Now we get to the point of this exercise. Aldrin's comments, along with the blurry photos, get edited, enhanced and posted on YouTube with appropriately creepy or inspiring music. This one, with its "X-Files" soundtrack is typical. The presentation all but hypnotizes you into believing what you're not really seeing is true:



Wow, even the font looks scientific! How can you read something in that font and not believe its 100% good science? Of course, you can take exactly the same material and mold it to fit an entirely different agenda:



Yep, God put it there. The music says it all.