Juventaean Face

Marsrocks,

Thanks a lot for that brillant analysis!

It has certainly been an eye-opener to see how much an image changes when you use the IAS viewer. I need to download and start using it. No point getting excited about anything before it's been viewed on IAS it seems. I've stared for 10 minutes at your pictures and I still can't locate some of the features I see in my own image!

You've killed, or at least placed in suspended animation, one of my darlings, because what was so attractive about this picture was that it would be a very nice piece of art if it were artificial. But you're right, if IAS is the final authority, this on its own is far from being conclusive evidence of anything.

I am still not crying, however, because by "Lionman" or "Juventaean Face" I am referring to the first image, I've posted; the one you call the "Gorilla". That is my favourite, and it survived your first test.(Once again, this doesn't mean I am equating Lionman and the Cydonia Face. A lot more tests, including better images, would be needed to confirm the quality of this face. The Lionman could still end up as inconclusive as the "Masks"). I think I may have confused you as to what was what because I also said the "Masks" were associated with what could be interpreted as a lion's body. I have seen several pieces of terrestrial art with this kind of body and feet.

I encounter a lot of figures like the ones you mention to the right of the Masks. I usually dismiss them because they are 2-D, and it's not so easy to perform on those images the kind of devastating test you have just performed on the Masks. But if I see a really good one I'll keep it in mind.

Claus

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Claus</i>
<br />It has certainly been an eye-opener to see how much an image changes when you use the IAS viewer. I need to download and start using it. No point getting excited about anything before it's been viewed on IAS it seems. I've stared for 10 minutes at your pictures and I still can't locate some of the features I see in my own image!

You've killed, or at least placed in suspended animation, one of my darlings, because what was so attractive about this picture was that it would be a very nice piece of art if it were artificial.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">In the words of Bruce Willis in "Die Hard": <b>"Welcome to the party pal!!"</b>
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">I think I may have confused you as to what was what because I also said the "Masks" were associated with what could be interpreted as a lion's body. Claus<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Claus, I don't think you confused him. What you are witnessing is the pareidolic behavour. One of the things that first made me think all of this stuff was pareidolia was this exact same thing.

When Neil started posting all of his artworks many months ago, every once in awhile I would see one and think, "wow, that's cool". I would see the image beautifully. Then the next day he would post a "key" in which he erased all of the background data to reveal his find. Invariablly, my reaction would be, "oh wow, that's not what I was looking at."

That's pareidolia. It's personal. Sometimes the images are so distinct that they cross boundaries among viewers, and two or more people will see the exact same thing, but in many cases (especially the lessor quality ones) the two human minds fuse two different images.

It's all very interesting, and who knows, some of them might actually be Martian Art.

rd

Rich, you make a good point about two different people seeing two different things when an image is vague (or subject to multiple interpretations).

In this case, I actually never saw a lion, but I did see numerous masks and half-masks in the original image, some of which partially survived the better view.

In this particular one, we have a great deal of complexity. If this were an intended art form, the complexity, like an abstract, would have been intended to allow different viewers to see different things. We have abstract paintings in my house where my wife sees some things and I see other things. I even see different things on different days, depending on the lighting, or my mood. Of course, the complexity or abstraction that is going on makes this a particularly bad example to use as evidence of Martian art. The pareidolia argument will simply win the day on this kind of example every time.

Of course, consider the reverse argument; Can we say that something simple and which is interpreted by everyone universally is more likely an intended art form? Unfortunately, the answer to that is also negative. Think of the ESA Happy face crater. It's simple and everyone sees what it is immediately. But being so extremely simple, it is common and quite easy for nature to produce, and therefore, it is even more quickly dismissed as likely a product of random geology.


Rich, do you see the gorilla and the chimp faces?

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by marsrocks</i>
<br />Rich, do you see the gorilla and the chimp faces?<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Oh absolutely. I always see the faces in the images. Whether or not I define the boundaries exactly the same way is questionable, but it's rarely been a matter of me not seeing the face at all. I just don't think they're artificial, and as I've said many times I think pareidolia is boundless.

rd

Richard, Marsrocks,

When I made that first ill-fated comparison to the Cydonian Face, I assumed that I was looking at an image with "good 3-D depth", as I put it. I thought this Face might follow the contours of the landscape in the same way as Cydonia. I further imagined I could see an outline of at least part of a mesa, although I stated I wasn't sure.

Marsrocks has concluded for now that the central features of the
Face(s) do seem to follow ridges in the terrain. However, my encounter with the radical alterations in the IAS view has increased my uncertainty with regard to what I am looking at. For instance, the "Mask" in my second image had a pretty clearly defined eye on the near side, both with regard to colours and shape. In the IAS view, the eye was not only less convincing, as one might reasonably expect; it had disappeared altogether. I have not been able to locate the coloured bands that created the impression in the first place.

So I have to ask, do you see a possible mesa around the gorilla face? Is it possible to get an idea of how likely a different view is to destroy the apparent symmetry of this face, or make its individual features disappear altogether? I thought it was a plus that it was in the shade, since it would exclude tricks of light and shadow. Now I'm not even sure about it really being in the shade. Maybe it just looks like that because of the way the image is processed?

How about the grayscale photos, are they as likely to trick the eye as the coloured ones? You might have seen that I have posted pictures of seemingly symmetrical/artificial objects of different kinds and from different Missions to get an idea of how reliable the eye is under varying circumstances.

Claus

This feature is located a little to the right of the two gorilla faces. Some of its strengths and weaknesses are pretty obvious. The, eye, nose and mouth features are relatively clean. Especially the nose ridge is remarkable. The face is neatly framed on the left side, presumably by a natural ridge, while the top and right side are less satisfactory as far as framing goes. The mouth seems disproportionately large, and it's not certain that it's evenly distributed across the two halves of the face. One could also wish for some more detail from a presumably advanced artist.







hirise-pds.lpl.arizona.edu/PDS/EXTRAS/RD...1755_RED.abrowse.jpg


Claus