The Press and the Man on Mars Options

[ElkGroveDan]

I wouldn't want to have your job today Veronica. We'd be happy to pick up those inquiries. Go right ahead and send them here. Or if you need an easy quick quote, "It's just a rock for Pete's sake! " Dan Brennan, Amateur Mars Rover Enthusiast, Elk Grove, CA

[nprev]

Good quote, Dan, and my complements on a carefully-chosen expletive phrase...

Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy taught me a new word today; also worth the attention of any media people you refer here, Veronica:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia

[Eric Hartwell]

Stop the presses! If you take a closer look at PIA10214: Spirit's West Valley Panorama (False Color), you can find more of Bigfoot's buddies. The polar bear and duck are neat, but my favorite is the high-speed turtle zooming through the dust ...

[Greg Hullender]

I think the one labeled "Gonzo" is really a tree stump, proving Mars once had trees AND lumberjacks.

--Greg :-)

[Astro0]

Eric - that's brilliant!
I'm going to use that sets of images in my talks over the weekend.

Astro0

[nprev]

My complements on what should be called the "Rorschach Montage" of Home Plate, Eric!

It is indeed weird how much we seem to recognize (or form) familiar patterns from chaos; probably an artifact of the predator/prey dynamic when we were still in the wild state, not that long ago in evolutionary time. In that light, this is yet another adolescent crisis to get over. We'll stop seeing faces when we really see the faces (if any) of things someday that aren't of Earth...and they damn sure ain't on Mars.

BTW, thinking of frying up some pancakes this weekend with "life"-sized images of Marsminibigfoot...$200 (cheap!) each for any takers...(That was so cynical that I'm near tears, because I'm certain that I'd get a few offers.)

[vmcgregor]

Thanks again for all the support! Eric, the montage is fantastic. If we get any more calls on the rock tomorrow, I can ask whether they mean the duck, the polar bear or the turtle. And I'll be sure to credit you and umsf.

[helvick]

Eric that's absolutely fantastic. I may need a new laptop now though as I spat my morning coffee all over the keyboard.

Brilliant.

[Tesheiner]

Great job Eric!
Emily, I think you should add that one to your blog.

[Doc]

Ive gotta hand it to you Eric. That Big foot sure looks ready to pounce!
I think he is the reason for that skull:-)

[jamescanvin]

I think he is the reason for that skull:-)

I think the reason for the skull is the monster poking it's head out of the bank just to the left...

Hey this is fun, has anyone noticed the nice model of Concorde on the far right just above Oppy's solar panel.

Nice work finding these 'artifacts' Eric. - I never thought I'd say that on this forum!

[Doc]

May I present the best psychlological test for a corrupted head.

Based on Paraidolia.

Works every time, guarenteed.

Here is what u do; If you see dolphins inside a bottle then ur head is OK! If you see two people......no need to panic (it got a lot people in my family in an uncomfortable position).

Test ur head now (before its too late:-)---> http://www.alundgren.se/files/bottle.jpg

[djellison]

Emily has done the full smackdown on this at her blog, which Phil's picked up and reposted at badastronomy.org - There was one comment asking about the shutter speed of Pancam and how it wouldn't show motion. Just to mirror here what I've clarified there - it's not the duration of the exposure that's the problem, it's the time taken between the three filtered images. Plus, the Navcam images taken a few sols before. I had a look at some typical Pancam images, and exposures of 256ms are fairly normal.

Doug

[climber]

Test ur head now (before its too late:-)--->http://www.alundgren.se/files/bottle.jpg

The message in french says "Love message from dolphins".
I know it. I've been told that young children can only see dolphins because their mind cannot process what they don't know about (my son is now 13 and he didn't see the dolphins ).
This make me wonder : since we're on Mars, we're supposed to see Little Green men" instead of "Little men" and it's may be because we do NOT know how they look like that we do NOT see them.
Keep looking friends, they MUST be somewhere in the nearly 200.000 pictures (easier if they were standing near the Sundial actualy!)

[climber]

the high-speed turtle zooming through the dust ...

I agree !!!
Can you bring it closer to the solar panel so they can pickup some wind ?

jamescanvin : Nice work finding these 'artifacts' Eric. - I never thought I'd say that on this forum!
When it's said there's work worth a one generation scientists to decipher all MER data, I gess there's also worth one generation UMSFers to follow Eric's exemple.