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Update: Did NASA Fake Data To Hide Mars Anomalies?
James Burk
 Bottom images: NASA's official release from THEMIS website Top Images: The alleged high resolution "real" data revealing heat signatures in Cydonia (Courtesy Enterprise Mission)
[Note: this report was edited to reflect the fact that ONE nighttime IR image was released from the NASA/ASU/THEMIS team months ago. It does not change anything - there is still no nighttime IR data from Cydonia.] Sept 10 - We are continuing to uncover more details about this issue. So far, NASA's response to this controversy is that "there is no controversy" and that the low-resolution images on the THEMIS webserver are the only ones acquired by Odyssey. Their standpoint is that anything else out there is "doctored" and certainly didn't come from the Odyssey IR instrument. Other media outlets are picking up these claims. Well, they simply aren't doing their homework as journalists. We on the other hand, are... To wit: There are several problems with NASA's response. First of all, any reasonable person who compares the high-resolution image available on the Enterprise Mission website with the low-resolution NASA version can see that they are from the same dataset - the Mars Odyssey IR instrument. It is impossible to ADD that much data to NASA's low-res image to create the high-res version, as many are claiming was done. However, the reverse IS possible; one could make NASA's low-res image from the high-res image on the Enterprise Mission website. This signifies they are the same data, and back up our claim that NASA knowingly posted false data to the THEMIS website while withholding the "real" high-resolution version. Second, to understand this issue, one must understand the difference between "filtering" an image, and "doctoring" an image (which is what many are claiming Hoagland & company are doing). Every image which has been acquired from Odyssey and released by NASA has been filtered to some extent. Filtering does NOT make any changes to the data contained within the image, but may bring about visible changes so that the image can be studied by human eyes. Doctoring means adding or changing the DATA (making it, in effect, "fake data") -- that is the claim which many are making to explain the results which Hoagland & co. have achieved. Hoagland & co are adamant that they have only used filtering technology to obtain the images, and we have not seen any hard evidence to the contrary. Sure, one could make anything out of a Mars image by "doctoring" it, but that's not what has been done here; all the methods they have claimed to use fall within the concept of "filtering" -- no changes have been made to the data from their high-resolution image. On a related note, NASA official Dr. Phil Christensen made the claim to MSNBC's Alan Boyle that his teenage son could come up with the high-res "doctored" images like what Enterprise Mission has. To make this claim, Dr. Christensen must not know anything about images, despite his position as head of the THEMIS team. As outlined above, making the high-res images from NASA's low-res image is impossible. Third, many have made the claim that the individual known as "Bamf" who apparently released the high-res image to EnterpriseMission was not who Hoagland claimed him to be, NASA/ASU/THEMIS engineer Noel Gorelick. Well, this person has admitted to many that he is in fact the individual known as "Bamf" who has spent around 1000 hours visiting the Enterprise Mission website & posting on their forums in the last three months. If NASA doesn't have any interest in Hoagland, why is one of their engineers basically spending the majority of his time, on the job and off, on Hoagland's website? Finally, there is this burning question, which may put this matter to rest if it was addressed: Why has NASA never released any nighttime IR images from Cydonia? There were claims that NASA acquired a nighttime image of Cydonia around the end of July and it has not been released. In fact, only ONE nighttime IR image from Mars has ever been released by THEMIS. We challenge NASA to explain this issue, with no more deception or ignoring these important questions. On the new images apparently showing City-style terrain. We are taking a neutral stance on that for now, but nothing so far indicates these images are "doctored". Again, they have apparently been "filtered" from the high-resolution images. We will follow up on that issue when we have more details to report. As for the Phobos 2 data, at this time we can find no confirmation as to where that image came from -- I.E. if indeed it was released by the Russian space agency and composed of data from the ill-fated Phobos 2 mission. So if one of our readers has additional information, please contact us. On a personal note, taking off my journalist cap, I'd like to point out that MarsNews.com is among a very few media outlets that are seriously covering this issue*, and our coverage is despite all types of ridicule and idle threats such as "I'm never visiting your site again", etc. When we started this publication, it was to cover News about Mars. We are only interested in the truth and have no other agenda, despite what many may claim. Covering Mars news from a journalistic standpoint is what we are doing here and what will we continue to do. As a patriotic American, I am shocked and disgusted that all other outlets that claim to cover space science are either ridiculing or simply ignoring this issue. So if they choose not to take seriously what could turn out to be the biggest Mars news story ever, it's their loss. We will not put ourselves in that position. James Burk * I give Kudos to Alan Boyle and the crew at MSNBC for initially covering this issue in a balanced way. But their initial report has now been supplanted with this latest update, which ridicules this issue. If they are abandoning their balanced coverage for these types of tactics, then they are simply joining the rest of the media in turning their backs on this issue.
Anatomy of a "Bamf" (Our October 1st Update) Our Initial Report from Aug 30th
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