Sunday, April 09, 2006

Here's the transcript of my UFO-Planet.net chat.
Posted by Mac at 3:16 PM

1 comments:

W.M. Bear said...

Great chat! I was at work when you were "live" but I read the transcript. One thought --

About 1/4 of the way down, Martin uses the 1936 aerial photo of the Sasanian palace ruins in Iran juxtaposed with the MRO 34 deg. S./304 deg. E. orbital photo, a pairing that he got off Hoagland's TEM.

Regarding this pairing, Mac, you note: [Mac Tonnies] 7:24 pm: Hoagland's comparison technique is both interesting and potentially misleading. Since he's not an image processor, I recommend taking his photo-essays with a grain of salt. That said, there do seem to be some similarities between terrestrial archaeological sites and some formations on Mars.

I would only argue that one does not have to be expert in photographic imaging techniques to make useful comparisons of this sort, since what is being noted are simply basic patterns in the terrain. Although it is true, as we have learned from the extensive "reimaging" of the Face, that imaging techniques can having a striking effect on what is revealed (or concealed). And getting back to this whole can of Martian sandworms, of all the Earth-Mars photo comparisons that Hoagland posted (and this is a technique that I still think is a major breakthrough of sorts, imaging expertise or no and granting that he didn't invent it) this seems to me to be one of the most suggestive and compelling pairings. (This is, in fact, basically what I was praising Hoagland for in the previous thread on this topic, not the rest of his admittedly problematic modus operandi.)

10:41 AM