Info-ParaNet Newsletters, Number 136 Friday, January 26th 1990 Today's Topics: face Skeptomania is cool Replies Cow mutilations Re: Mars Face Re the face on Mars discussion... STONE REJECTED Re: Lazar/Area51 The Nullabor face Skeptomania is cool ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com Subject: face Date: 25 Jan 90 20:30:55 GMT What many people don't realize is that the "face" is only visible with some heavy image processing, and that to the unaided eye (were there one on Mars) it would look like a rockpile. If you take an high altitude photo of the Rockies (even out of the window of a commercial plane) and digitize it, and play with it, you can find all sorts of things. It's like looking a clouds and seeing what they look like. I can show you a part of the Rockies which, if you expand contrast so that anything darker than N is black, and lighter than M is white, and spread 128 grey scales unevenly across the N..M scale which both look like dark grey to the eye... under those conditions you can clearly see a giant hand with the middle finger upright. I have also seen demos of doing image processing on data from the voltage variations on a wall socket, and getting a good picture of a Dalmation. You can over process raw noise and think you see things. I *am not* claiming that this disproves the Mars face as an artifact. Just that we have the processing power to make a silk purse of a sow's ear, and we shouldn't start thinking "coverup" when scientists saw "unproven and unlikely." When people go to Mars and find tool marks (or grafitti) I'll believe. Until then I will suggest more investigation. -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: keith@raptor.cray.com (Keith A. Fredericks) Subject: Skeptomania is cool Date: 25 Jan 90 20:31:51 GMT Many of the skeptics are just trying to protect us all from the evils THEY see... sort of like a team of rabid consumer advocates...sort of like the Spanish Inquisition. A basic tenet with skeptics and others is that skepticism is healthy. I have to take issue with this type of logic. This, I believe stems from the (paranoid) belief that everyone is out to get you. Theories become guilty until proven innocent. And you assume that everyone is lying to you. You make up a list of ideas that are GOOD and a list of ideas that are BAD. So, if you march lock-step with the skeptic party line, then everything will be okay for you. If you speak out with ideas from the BAD list, you will be raked over the coals, but good. It might actually be more accurate to characterize skepticism as a disease. And it certainly is more aligned with elitism and totalitarianism than it is with the ideas of freedom and democracy. Scientists should be free (and indeed encouraged) to investigate whatever strikes their fancy. Didn't we learn this lesson already with Galileo and the church? Nope. They actually burned Reich's books in the late fifties and sentenced him to prison where he died...in America! We have had our collective creativity stifled long enough by this brutal abomination masquerading as healthful in the name of good science. My vote is for information to flow freely, and for theories and experimental data to be evaluated impartially, without applying any mandatory skeptic-sanctioned filters. Let's stop wasting time and get some real work done! -- Keith Fredericks, Cray Research Inc., 1440 Northland Dr. Mendota Hgts., MN 55120 keith@cray.com (612)681-3258 -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: chalmers@violet.berkeley.edu (John H. Chalmers Jr.) Subject: Replies Date: 25 Jan 90 23:55:51 GMT If anybody has a biblography of ooparts, I'd appreciate a copy. The alleged ooparts I've seen at the Institute for Creation Research were all embedded in sand/lime concretions such as "beach rock," which is known to form quickly (years to decades). The fact that such secondary "rock" can form in the cracks and voids in exposed rock of eearlier geologic eras in no implies that they were contemporaneous. The famous "batteries" of Hellenistic or early Roman age that were found in the Near East are very interesting, but certainly mundane. The Pillar of Iron and the other wonders of Von Daniken and other popular sources don't seem to be very oop to me. Bryon: Can you send me references to large human skeletons? I'm very dubious that humans of normal proportions can grow as tall as 10 feet without severe mobility problems and probably pituitary tumors as well. Because of the "square-cube law," a 5 foot high human weighing 100 lbs would become a 10 footer weighing 800 lbs if all the dimensions were doubled to keep the proportions the same. Frankly, 7 foot East Africans would appear gigantic to ancient mediterraneans as even under the later Roman empire, the average soldier was about 5'6" based on skeletal remains. Much of the difference in stature is nutritional; postwar Japanese average several inches taller than their parents because of dietary changes, chiefly more protein. Truly giant humanoids would have to have quite different proportions from normal humans. Whether such races would still be human is another question. Interbreeding might be a problem mechanically if the fetal size were proportionally larger. Martian Ventifacts: The shape of a wind-sculpted object will depend both on the direction and speed of the local winds and the resistance of the material to wind erosion. Roughly five side-objects could be formed naturally, and pyramids with pentagonal bases would exhibit relations involving the "Golden Ratio," and the square root of 5 by mathematical necessity. How good are the approximations to e and pi? Both are near 3 (e=2.71828, pi=3.14159). The height and therefore the slope of the sides is related to the strength of the material. Depending upon the strength of the rocks, the slope and height might have some surprising mathematical relation to the base and other dimensions of the "pyramid". Eqyptian pyramids provide a fairly accurate approximation to both pi and the Golden Ratio (phi or tau) (the roughness of the Great Pyramid makes it impossible to tell which if either was meant as the slope angle is near 52 in both cases). However, there is evidence from a collapsed and a "bent" pyramid that the slopes were derived empirically and that the surprising mathematical relations may be quite accidental. The later Eqyptians were aware of the pi relation as Herodotus reports that the pyramids were constructed to exhibit it, but Herotodus was a greek writing about 2000 years after the Great Pyramid was built and both Egytptian and Greek mathematics had developed greatly in the interim. My skepticism about earlier civilized human races is partly because of a lack of archeological traces of ancient industries, mining, oil drilling etc. A civilization which could build UFOs time machines, etc. would have had a to have a fairly large population and to have had some industrial infrstructure and some history. Where's the evidence? Most anthropologists believe that preliterate cultures remember events for only a few centuries at most before they become lost or unrecognziable. There is evidence that the African geneologies in Arthur Haley's "Roots" were mostly made up to please him. There is an account of a a great black bird with white wings from which strange humanoid creatures emerged in the legends of the Amerinds of the Pacific Northwest, whose material culture was very sophisticated. This event has been identified as a visit by a Drake in a sailing ship a generation or so back, but it had already become mythologized. I suppose aliens could have taught a a few thousand savages all the skills they need, helped them mine just the ore required, etc, but that's begging the question about prior human civilizations. Sagan and Skhlovskii have speculated in "The Cosmic Connection," that the Sumerian myth of Oannes, the fish-like "animal with reason" who emerged from the Persian Gulf and taught the Sumerians to write is the best historical account of an ET contact and cultural exchange. Sumerian iconography is full of strange creatures, constellations, etc. --John -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: s30735p@taltta.hut.fi (Jyrki Jouko Juhani Kasvi) Subject: Cow mutilations Date: 26 Jan 90 10:26:09 GMT These incidents remind me of old Finnish folklore concerning 'trulls', the evil witches who came to cut pieces of your cows (pieces of skin and the milking apparatus). The witches used these pieces to make their own cattle milk better. These trulls were especially active around Easter and for example my parents have witnessed cows mutilated this way when they were young. In some areas it was customary to guard your cattle through Easter nights. Do any other people have similar folklore? Yours, JJJ -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: gross@dg-rtp.dg.com (Gene Gross) Subject: Re: Mars Face Date: 26 Jan 90 16:20:08 GMT >From: mailrus!wuarchive!texbell!swarren@convex (Steve Warren) Subject: Re the face on Mars discussion... Date: 23 Jan 90 15:53:34 GMT -+ -+ Don't be too quick to assume that geometric forms and mathematical ratios -+ are evidence of intelligent intervention. There are a myriad of mathematical -+ relationships built into the structure and physical laws of the universe. -+ Often the normal interplay of natural forces and matter can give rise to -+ fairly complex structures. Specifically, lava flows can sometimes -+ crystalize into a series of huge hexagonal columns that at first glance -+ might appear to be the work of some prehistoric architect. There are -+ many other examples. -+ -+ This is an interesting subject. But make sure you eliminate the mundane -+ explanations before resorting to the bizarre ;^). Steve: I grant you that mathematical ratios and geometrical forms are not evidence of intelligent intervention. The mathematical relationships found in naturally occurring structures are also granted (subatomic world notwithstanding). The information I posted was not of my own doing. It came from a conference held sometime back for NASA scientists and engineers. They were evidently impressed by it, since there seems to be bit more cooperation from NASA. I would not be adamant in stating that the objects found are of artificial origin. Nor would I be adamant in stating that they aren't. However, I must point out that the Face appears in two of the photos--one taken close to sunset (the first photo of the Face to be seen) and the second taken with the sun higher in the Martian sky. With a little computer wizardry, it wasn't hard to combine the two photos to produce a computer generated 3-D series of photos. The object is clearly bisymmetrical. The "hairline" appears on both sides of the Face equally. The eyes appear to be quite detailed showing the ball and pupil of each eye in detail. If you haven't obtained photos of the Face, I highly recommend that you contact the Mars Project and order copies. You can contact them at: Society for the Study of Native Arts and Sciences The Mars Project 2319 Grant Street, #2 Berkeley, CA 94703 Again, if these are objects, especially the Face, are the results of some geologic activity, it is something that we have not seen before. Now I wouldn't be at all surprised if this were indeed the case considering how little we really do know about the universe. But if these objects are the result of intelligent design and construction, then we are all going to have to rethink our sciences and philosophies--religions included. Shoot, this will be the case if we can ever prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that UFOs are of extraterrestrial origin and have been visiting this planet for ages. But as I recently noted in a post, I will endeavor to keep my personal thoughts out of any future posts on the Face and related objects. I would rather the discussion be about them and not my particular viewpoint. Just to be sure that my bias is well noted, I'm tending to lean toward the artificial origin for most of these objects simply because the current evidence seems to lean in that direction. Let me close with a quote that seems to apply to the research in these fields (UFOs and the Martian objects): "When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be...the truth." Sherlock Holmes (a.k.a. Conan Doyle) Maybe the researchers will soon eliminate many of the impossibles so we can get down to the improbables. ;-) Gene -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: ZAK@cu.nih.gov Subject: STONE REJECTED Date: 26 Jan 90 18:20:46 GMT >From: paranet!p0.f19.n19.z1.FIDONET.ORG!Bryon.Smith -+ ... When talking about Christ the bible makes mention of several -+ things that related to a structure of some kind, that structue had a "Chief -+ Corner Stone" and they said the stone that had been rejected by the builders -+ had become the "Chief of the Corner," if this is true then they are talking -+ about a pyramid type structure and the "top" stone that was said to have -+ shone like the sun... For another interpretation of this "stone rejected by the builders," see *Holy Blood, Holy Grail,* by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln. -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: paranet!p0.f0.n1032.z9.FIDONET.ORG!Michael.Chapman Subject: Re: Lazar/Area51 Date: 24 Jan 90 02:40:00 GMT Byron, This message was initiated by a script gone wild in Telix 3.12, the Sysop was notified and I had asked for it's deletion as I realised it might be sent halfway around the world causing hassles - so it appears it was!! Anyhow I am an extremely enthusiastic follower of the ParaNet UFO & ET echoes and I wait with bated breath for all new info coming forth on the Lazar / Lear topics. As an Amatuer Astronomer (and a Laboratory Scientist) I find staring at the night skies thru a 'scope an absolutely stimulating experience full of incredible majesty, wonder and exitement. I've followed the abduction subject closely thru the paperbacks - eg: The Andreasson Affair, Missing Time, Intruders, Communion etc, etc. Furthermore books such as Above Top Secret and several others including works of Jenny Randles have convinced me of the PHYSICAL reality of the UFO (as well as having one experience myself with sighting of two objects in the night sky which were obviosly not from around here!). By the way "ASTRONOMY" mag 12/1974 contains an excellent analysis of the Betty Hill, Zeta Reticuli Star Map from the scientific point of view and it's cetainly not an anti Fish interpretation, in my opinion! I'm enjoying this echo tremendously. Talk later.... Michael -- Michael Chapman - via FidoNet node 1:104/422 UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name INTERNET: Michael.Chapman@p0.f0.n1032.z9.FIDONET.ORG -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: paranet!f0.n1030.z9.FIDONET.ORG!Bob.Fletcher Subject: The Nullabor Date: 27 Jan 90 06:31:00 GMT Hi Vlad: Nice to be chatting to you at last through ParaNet. I would like to bring your attention to the file OZTRAIN.AUS uploaded to my system by David Galea. You will see that it refers to a sighting near Zanthus in WA. There is a comment that three trains many kilometres apart reported the same thing at the same time that beong 21:00 hrs WST. I now refer to UFORA89055 where the Hennessy's reported a UFO at 22:30 hrs CST. I note that in September the nation is on standard time and that CST it 1 1/2 hrs ahead of WST. That makes the Hennesey's report occur at the same time as the Train Drivers. It would also put the distance very much greater over 100s of kilometres. As the railway official said,"Whats going on". Have you any update on these reports. Bob..... -- Bob Fletcher - via FidoNet node 1:104/422 UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name INTERNET: Bob.Fletcher@f0.n1030.z9.FIDONET.ORG -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: paranet!f37.n114.z1.FIDONET.ORG!Jim.Speiser Subject: face Date: 26 Jan 90 06:43:00 GMT > What many people don't realize is that the "face" is only > visible with > some heavy image processing, and that to the unaided eye (were > there one > on Mars) it would look like a rockpile. Are you saying that the image we see in the original Viking frames is not just computer-enhanced, but computer-modified somehow? That if I myself were in orbit around Mars at that altitude, that I would not see the "face" except as a rockpile? Somehow, I don't think you've got that quite right. I've read tons of skeptical, and some quite cynical, arguments against the Face, but no one has ever mentioned that. If that were true, I'd be ready to abandon all defense of the Face as an anomaly. Jim -- Jim Speiser - via FidoNet node 1:104/422 UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name INTERNET: Jim.Speiser@f37.n114.z1.FIDONET.ORG -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: paranet!f37.n114.z1.FIDONET.ORG!Jim.Speiser Subject: Skeptomania is cool Date: 26 Jan 90 07:08:00 GMT > > Many of the skeptics are just trying to protect us all from the > evils THEY see... sort of like a team of rabid consumer > advocates...sort of > like the Spanish Inquisition. Ah, Keith, Keith, Keith. So much of what you say contains kernels of truth, and is obviously inspired by a real thirst for knowledge. But you are painting with a very broad brush. Skepticism, in its purest form, is very desirable, even for those of us interested in exploring the fringes of science. It should not be a hindrance to that exploration, but rather a very useful tool. We NEED skepticism, to keep ourselves in balance. And yes, we need SKEPTICS. Without them, how could we judge how well we are doing? Without skepticism, how are we to judge the veracity of our own arguments? SOME skeptics, not many, but some, take things too far. They exhibit a very complacent, self-satisfied smugness that irks the HELL out of me. When I engage these types in conversation about UFOs, it usually turns out that their smugness is largely due to an almost incredible ignorance of the main issues. These I have learned to ignore (and pity). A true skeptic does NOT assume you are lying. He is simply satisfied that the universe possesses a logical order, that that order manifests itself in the form of empirical evidence, and that he is under no obligation to commit himself to believing anything unless empirical evidence exists in its favor. This is not DISbelief (negative belief, as in the belief that you are lying), it is simply NONbelief, or a withholding of belief until further notice. Sometimes, as in my own case, this neutrality is accompanied by overwhelming curiosity, which impels one to join in the fray and search for clues. Often, however, it is a frustratingly dispassionate neutrality, exemplified by those who say, "Alright, its unidentified. So what?" or, "I'm a scientist. I deal in demonstrable, established truths." (This last can actually be seen in a thread on the Infinity BBS in Atlanta. Couldn't believe my eyes when I read it.) In closing, let me tell you what led to my advocacy of UFO research. It wasn't a personal sighting, I've seen absolutely nothing. It wasn't Keyhoe, or Hynek, or Hopkins, or Strieber. It wasn't the MJ-12 documents, or Aquarius, or this Lazar situation. It wasn't any speech at any UFO conference, it wasn't a photograph, it wasn't even the Hudson Valley case. It was a book by Phil Klass - the world's foremost UFO debunker. See why we need skeptics? Jim -- Jim Speiser - via FidoNet node 1:104/422 UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name INTERNET: Jim.Speiser@f37.n114.z1.FIDONET.ORG ********To have your comments in the next issue, send electronic mail to******** 'infopara' at the following address: UUCP {ncar,isis,boulder}!scicom!infopara DOMAIN infopara@scicom.alphacdc.com ADMIN Address infopara-request@scicom.alphacdc.com {ncar,isis,boulder}!scicom!infopara-request ******************The**End**of**Info-ParaNet**Newsletter************************