New MySpace Page

Check out my new MySpace page for updates on the "Dark Mission" book project with Richard C. Hoagland.

http://www.myspace.com/michaelbara

Face it, You're a Jackass...

Once again, we have a new image of the Face on Mars, and once again we have a series of seemingly coordinated mainstream press attacks designed to convince people there's "nothing to see here."

Besides the usual tripe from the usual suspects (like Space.com's NASA shills Leonard David and Rob Roy Britt), this time we had the testimony of a supposed "converted believer" attacking Richard Hoagland personally on the official MRO website.

The disinformational tripe of David and Britt is bad enough, but when the NASA folks have to drag out a phony "believer" for a personal attack on Richard, you know they are getting desperate. This "believer," Richard Lies (now that's an appropriate name if I've ever seen one) claims he was once an avid listener to Coast to Coast AM but repents the fallacy of his ways and realizes the Face is just a pile of rocks. However, this jackass doesn't stop there. He goes on to call Richard Hoagland a "charlatan" without making one single reference to anything Hoagland has said that was knowingly untrue. He of course worships at the alter of Carl Sagan, without apparently realizing all of the the ways Sagan showed he was a Face supporter.

Taking Mr. Lies at his word, I guess the best thing you can say about the man is that he is an admitted sellout. He credits Hoagland for inspiring him to go into a science career, but I guess you forget all that when the NASA people are paying your mortgage, huh Mr. Lies?

As to the image itself, it shows many things we would have expected (and that Richard predicted) it would. It is also by far the worst MRO image that I have seen (isn't it funny how that always seems to happen only to Cydonia images?) and in my opinion, shows clear signs of image tampering. We will discuss all this in the future, but let's just say for now that the parts of the new image that we suspect are genuine absolutely support Hoagland's specific "honeycomb" model of the Face.

Richard and I will more to say on this in the near future, but for the moment, let's just remember "don't believe the Lies."

MRO Images Pathfinder Landing Site

Earlier today, NASA released the first MRO images of the Mars Pathfinder landing site (19.5 degrees N by 33 degrees W). They show, among other things, the lander itself, some of the bigger rocks in the vicinity, and the surrounding area. The context images show many of the familiar features we have come to know and love around Pathfinder, like the Big Crater and the famous "Twin Peaks."

Some of you may remember that several years ago I authored two articles on the Enterprise Mission web site concerning what appeared to be a distant (and artificial) object in the Pathfinder panoramas, apparently at the base of the Twin Peaks. I dubbed this object the "Pathfinder Sphinx."

I was of course immediately attacked by the usual twits (like Mac Tonnies -- do we post anything he doesn't attack out of hand?) who claimed that the object should have been visible in images of the site taken by Mars Global Surveyor. They were of course wrong about that, but in any event I was hopeful that MRO images might resolve the issue.

Today, we got an image that could in fact prove I'm right and Tonnies and his pals are wrong. In the new MRO image, a bright straight line, precisely where I claimed the "Sphinx" was located, is visible at the base of the Twin Peaks. It is casting a distinct shadow, and there is nothing else in the image that is anywhere near as straight or casting a similar shadow. Unfortunately, the context image that I am drawing from is nowhere near the maximum resolution of the MRO camera, which can see objects just a few inches across. Only a small enlargement of the Pathfinder lander itself was released in full resolution. The context shots are "high resolution jpegs" -- a laughable term in any event.

So far, NASA has not released a full resolution version of the entire image strip, and it may not be easy to obtain one. But based on today's image and the anomalous nature and (perfect placement) of the shadowed object, I'm willing to bet it will show that we're right, and Tonnies is wrong.

That makes it about:

Enterprise 87 - Tonnies 0

We'll see.

Democratic Take Over Bad News for Space Program

Now that the Democrats have successfully taken over both houses of congress (it appears), there are likely to be grave consequences for both the American space program and the American people. I'll spare readers what I think of the new house and senate leadership -- you've got plenty of places in the blogosphere to get conventional political opinion-- and simply say the Republicans had it coming for the last several years of timid leadership.

The more important factor in this change is what it does to president Bush's plans for Moon and Mars exploration, what it will mean for a possible ballistic missile defense, and what the impact will be on NASA's overall budget.

While most of the democrats who won seats on Tuesday ran as moderates, the fact remains that the leadership of the party is stacked with radical, America hating far-leftists who have little use for a space program or anything that would make America safer. You can expect to see Bush's space exploration program under immediate assault, with democrats attempting to divert the money to other programs in an effort to buy votes in the next election cycle. Liberals of the ilk of Nancy Pelosi, Charles Rangel and (recently impeached for fraud) former Federal Judge Alcie Hastings will do what liberals always do: they will radically cut defense and high tech spending in order to fund these pet programs.

Richard's position is that the Space Initiative is too important to be cut, but I still think that real world politics may not reflect secret agendas. How vigorously Bush defends his plans will tell us a lot about which one of us is right.

Dark Mission Book Project

Please lay off the emails to Adam @ Feralhouse publishing. Richard mis-spoke last night on Coast to Coast AM. There is no way it can be ready for this year, or even the Spring. Adam is making all attempts to get the book out as soon as possible. We'll have more on the project as it develops.

Mike

Joshua Tree

I'm finally recovered from the Joshua Tree experience with Richard Hoagland and pals. It was a very cool weekend. My mind is still processing everything I saw and heard. For those that missed it, Lunar Anomalies Steve Troy and I both presented, although my presentation was on Columbus day. Despite getting lost once, it went pretty well and the weekend as a whole was a great success. Don't miss Richard at the CPAC conference this weekend if you get a chance to go. More soon.

SMART-1 Makes a Sudden Impact

A few days ago, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) SMART-1 space probe was deliberately crashed into the lunar surface in the region of the Lake of Excellence. The reason was for the destruction of the probe was to study the plume generated by the impact in hopes of using ground based telescopes to analyze the chemical composition of the lunar material that was ejected. Everything seemed to be going along fine until about 45 minutes prior to the scheduled impact at 46.2º West longitude and 33.3º South latitude (note the “ritual” qualities of that location).

At that point, message boards monitoring the spacecraft reported a sudden and unexpected loss of signal from the orbiter. Images from the ESA control room showed a complete lack of data return from the spacecraft. This outage lasted more than 3 minutes before communications were just as suddenly restored.

Normally, this not would be such a big deal, but there was never any explanation from ESA regarding the 3-minute blackout. No mention of the cause, not even a guess. A few hours after the impact, a neat set of "live" infrared CCD views from the Canadian-French-Hawaiian 3.6-meter Telescope on Hawaii were posted on the CFHT official website. These three images showed a before impact image, an impact image showing a very bright flash, and an after impact image. Our (Richard C. Hoagland’s and mine) suspicions had been raised by the odd communications blackout, and in examining the three images something seemed “off.” The three images are virtual clones of each other, the only difference being the bright flash at the point of impact in one of them. Now, the moons illumination doesn’t change much from moment to moment – it rotates very slowly – but the “after” image (taken 15 seconds later) should have shown something different, even just a rough impact area or the remnants of the plume. The impact was expected to leave a 3m by 10m crater on the Moon, spreading debris over 78 sq km (30 sq miles). The smart impact page shows an animation of the plume rising from the impact, but curiously this is not one of the still images presented.

One thought on this is that maybe something happened around that three minute loss of contact window. Something really strange. Perhaps something similar to Surveyor 4, which Hoagland has alleged splattered against the towering lunar glass structures he has documented over the years. So maybe, SMART-1 met a similar demise, and these images are just Photoshopped to avoid uncomfortable questions about the probes real fate.

Just a thought.

Certainly, we’ll know if they release the spectral data on a timely basis whether or not they got any legitimate information from the impact.