The cool thing about truth

        "The cool thing about truth," per Mike Bara on the Farces and the Chirps  yesterday, "is that it eventually becomes self-evident no matter what 'scientists say'."

        Scientists say that the following passages from Mike's books are poppycock, balderdash and codswallop:

"Many of the planet's orbits, which ... should be perfectly circular by now, are highly elliptical. In fact, Mars's orbit is so eccentric that its distance from Earth goes from 34 million miles at its closest to 249 million miles at its greatest." -- The Choice, p.34

 "[T]he clouds are the highest in the atmosphere, meaning that they are reflecting more light back to the camera and at a faster rate. Since they are returning more light, the clouds are the lightest. The surface areas ... are darker, because they are a bit further away from the camera than the clouds and therefore the light has to travel further before it is reflected back. The deep blue oceans are therefore the darkest, because the light has to travel all the way to the ocean floor before it is reflected back to the camera."-- Mike writing about images of Earth from space, Ancient Aliens on the Moon  p.125

        Mike's going to need to wait a long time before either of those catastrophically wrong  ideas becomes self-evident, or even merely evident. As for "truth," forget it Mike.

Robert Morningstar has his little joke

        Robert Morningstar, the "civilian intelligence analyst," is one of the darlings of internet woo-woo radio. Why? It's simple -- like Hoagland, Bara, Icke, Hancock, Morton etc., you push his button and away he goes. The interviewer doesn't have to think much or even bother to read the trash these clowns write.

        In a recent outing on OffPlanet radio, hosted by Randy Maugans and Chris Holly, Morningstar was off and running with a strange mixture of humor and error. He surely must have been having a little joke when he told us, very early on, that there was more than one space station in orbit. The other one, he explained, belongs to THE SEEKRIT SPACE PROGRAM^{note 1}. It's HUGE, he said, and his mate in Hoboken got a great photo of it just the other day. Why haven't the tens of thousands of other amateur astronomers ever seen this? THAT'S THE JOKE, duhhhhh. He suggested it was actually Black Knight, the well-known hoax story that's been around since 1899.

        There were more jokes to come. The US Army moonbase. The story, attributed to Clark McClelland, about a Nordic alien conferring with astronauts in the Shuttle cargo bay, while a massive Black Triangle mothership hovers in the background. Very funny, Robert. I'm sure NASA would have been thoroughly amused as a massive hazard approached the Shuttle dangerously close. Oh yeah.

Planetary astronomy revised
        Then came the errors. This blog has already reported Morningstar's track record of error in respect of the crashed spaceship on the Moon, the dire prediction of city-destroying earthquakes, and the "hangers" [sic] in some Apollo 17 mapping camera frames. Now this genius of our age gave us the pseudo-fact that Jupiter and Saturn used to be stars, but then lost their fusion reactions and devolved into gas giants. He talked himself into that one because he was developing the theory that the Gray aliens came from Titan, so he needed to warm Titan up a bit. Just to get life started, don'cha know. He says the US Gubbmint has an alliance with the Nordics against the Grays. He wrapped that in with Felisa Wolfe-Simon's arsenic-tolerant extremophile bacteria GFAJ-1 -- managing to misunderstand Wolfe-Simon's research very thoroughly^{note 2}. Oh, maybe this was more joking, come to think of it.

        Then we were off to Mars, with a bullshit notion that the Tharsis Montes are an exact representation of the layout of the pyramids of Giza (they are not), and the pseudo-fact that the very word Cairo means Mars (it does not, it means The Conqueror. A word for Egypt is Mas'r, which has nothing to do with the Red Planet).

        OffPlanet radio's promo described Morningstar as...

"A man you can truly learn from. Men like Morningstar are the men who will reignite our brains in to [sic] finding answers by way of knowledge and great thinking."

        I can only assume that was their little joke. And oh, by the way, this hour of fun-and-games was only Part 1. There's another whole hour to come, but I'm not sure I can stand to listen.

Update:
        In e-mail, Chris Holly questions my credentials and expresses flagrant disgust:

"I ... want nothing to do with whoever this expat jerk is and do find him a hate filled arrogant fool who really thinks he knows what he is talking about but is very mis informed.  Expat needs a name and a punch in his nasty mouth   .  I doubt he has any personal experience at all in any of these subjects much less information that is not soaked in mean spirited rejection of things he knows nothing about due to the fact those things may frighten him poop less."

        I reiterate what I have written previously: I'm an acknowledged expert in the history of Apollo and Shuttle, plus to a lesser extent NASA's Mars and Lunar orbiters. I have met and interviewed key figures in the space programs of the USA and Russia. Contemplating the errors of amateur observers like Robert AM* does not frighten me in the slightest.

        Holly also implies that "Bigelows space station" is the space station AM* was referring to. If so, that is manifestly absurd. How can a Bigelow-designed orbiter belong to the SECRET space program???? Genesis II is not a space station, it's an experimental habitat. It is not, and never could have been, peopled. In addition, AM* specifically referred to something very large, and Bigelow is not Big. Genesis II's pressurized volume is 11.5 m³ (cf. 837 m³ for the ISS). Nice try, Chris Holly. Your pal is wrong, wrong, wrong.

Update 2:
        In a further brief e-mail, I asked Chris Holly how such a small orbiter, with no facilities for human crew, could be classified as a space station. I got this answer:

"Look Expat , go get a life and do not annoy me with your hate and denail of things you can not deal with. How about this , man to woman, get lost I think your a jerk and a loser who I want no part of and do not care about at all what you think, do , go  none of it. I am busy and have no time for you, dime a dozen downers... lets just call you not in my life so  end it now and leave me alone please, I  have a big life with lots going on and really think you should think what you want, and I will do things my way.  Your a NASA bleiver which is hilarious , I bet you love your government and think our fighting men are fools, go away please."

I presume that could all be summed up as "Gee...I don't know."

Update 3:
        Well, I did in fact listen to the second AM* interview, which went way over an hour. As it turned out, there wasn't much of my type of material in it -- other than a reiteration of the obviously false claim that the voice recording equipment in the Apollo Command Module was installed without the astronauts' knowledge. For it to do its job effectively--reporting some terrible accident behind the Moon--they had to know it was there. ^{note 3}

        Almost all of the interview was mythology, UFOs, abductions -- not my area of expertise at all. What stuck in my mind was that AM* claims personal experience of alien encounters. He related how he successfully thwarted an attack by an alien monster reaching a "three-fingered claw" towards him in a bid to steal his soul.

I believe Robert AM* practices psychiatry.
 

==============================

1] He was promoting the Secret Space Program conference, coming to an astonished San Mateo Event Center this summer.
2] He added that Felisa Wolfe-Simon is an example of someone who got slapped down by the "establishment" for daring to suggest there was evidence for extraterrestrial life. The facts are that "Iron Lisa" never said any such thing, and she was slapped down because her research was faulty.
3] Here's the CM instrument panel. If, as AM* claims,  the astronauts didn't know about the voice recorder, they sure must have wondered WTF that switch labeled TAPE RECORDER was down in the bottom row of Panel C.

The wit and wisdom of Youtube commenters (2)

        Thank you thank you, Youtube commenter "Jett Rink". Commenting yesterday on a Mike Bara video, JR wrote:

"What a thunderous pile. You are either completely ignorant of science or lying.  Which is it?"

        The video concerned is the one in which Mike tries and fails to reproduce the image-editing steps needed to  create the utterly dishonest image Bara and Hoagland call "Data's head." In other words, how to get from this....

 credit: NASA JSC

...to this.

credit: Richard Hoagland

        This utter travesty is one of the very first things this blog commented on, six whole years ago.  I went to the trouble and expense of ordering up the 46.1 MB, 5190 x 6175 px tiff file from JSC, and did my own analysis proving that Hoagland's manipulation was fraudulent.

        When, last year, Mike Bara produced his own video, using Microsoft Office Picture Manager, I again commented at some length.

        Why Mike chose to resurrect this comedy of errors, on The Farcebook and The Chirper yesterday, is a mystery. But it's what prompted "Jett Rink"'s appropriate comment. Mike's reply was very typical:

"I propose a 3rd alternative: You are a complete idiot."

I know which option I believe.

Mike Bara decides not to do the decent thing, again

        Today's message to Mike Bara is almost self-explanatory, but here's the back-story for those who have better things to do than listen to silly radio chat shows:

        On 28th October last year, Bara appeared as a guest on Coast-to-Coast AM, basically to plug his appalling error-filled book Ancient Aliens on Mars. George Noory was aware of the controversy Bara's previous book had stirred up over the so-called "Daedalus ziggurat" on the Moon, and asked about Dr Stuart Robbins' criticisms of Bara's deductions (Dr Robbins is a fully qualified planetary astronomer with very good knowledge of selenology). Bara said something to the effect that Robbins didn't know what he was talking about, and Noory said "He's a scientist, though, isn't he?" Bara snorted and replied "Yes, he's a scientist, but he sucks at it."

        Robbins had already sent e-mail to Noory asking for a right of reply, something that had loosely been agreed to already after a previous Barathon. Noory replied actually during the Oct 28 show, saying that Mike Bara had agreed to an online debate but would not be available until February. February came and went, and Noory suggested April. April came and Noory stopped responding to Robbins' e-mails. Finally, this week, Derek Eunson ("binaryspellbook") urged Cost-to-Coast to get this debate set up and got the reply "It takes two to tango."

To: Mike Bara <mikebara33@gmail.com>
cc: Stuart Robbins, Derek Eunson
From: Expat
Subject: So -- it's official. You ran away from debating Stuart Robbins
Date: 5.14.14

As I predicted when the idea first came up. What a little charmer you are, Mike -- asserting that Robbins is "a scientist, but he sucks at it", providing absolutely no justification for that remark, then refusing to be open to questions about your sorry-ass opinion.

I'm going to continue to slag you off on the net any way I can. You're a despicable human being.

Regards,
Expat

        JUST IN CASE anyone from Coast to Coast monitors this blog, here's my message: MIKE BARA SHOULD BE BANNED PERMANENTLY FOR THIS. DR STUART ROBBINS SHOULD BE INVITED AS A GUEST TO RESPOND TO BARA'S DESPICABLE LIES.

DO IT. 

PS.Derek Eunson has also blogged this today.

Mike Bara decides not to do the decent thing

        Back in February, the Seattle Seahawks won the Superborebowl. Last week, Manchester City FC won the Football League Cup for the third time in their history. These are Mike Bara's favorite sports teams -- he reserves his most nauseating insults for supporters of opposing teams -- so he's a happy boy right now (other than not getting the expected call to shoot more rubbish for Uncovering Aliens).

        I thought it might be a good moment to approach him about withdrawing his utterly despicable accusation that critics (and I assume he includes me) have sent sexually harassing messages to his Faceache floozies. I sent the following:

To: Mike Bara <mikebara33@gmail.com>
From: Expat
Subject: Man up, Mike Bara
Date: 5.12.14

Now that your two sports teams are both champs, it's time to be a man and admit you lied.

It's been six months since you accused your critics of sending sexually harassing messages to your Facebook cuties. You have been asked to provide examples and you have failed.

We, on the other hand, have provided two examples of the reverse process. In case you've forgotten here are the citations:

http://binaryspellbook.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/bara/
http://binaryspellbook.blogspot.com/2013/08/mike-baras-internet-wife.html

Since you made the accusation in the foreword (you called it a forward) to a published book, the appropriate place for your retraction and apology would be a foreword in AAoM2. You should, right now, also issue a retraction and apology on your FB pages.

BE A MAN.

        "AAoM2" is shorthand for Ancient Aliens on Mars Part2, a book Mike is writing right now, for publication September-ish. I got no reply, but I know Mike has been at the computer since he's been tweeting about how much he misses his brother's dog. So I guess even if his sports teams are champs, Mike himself cannot step up to the plate.

Robert Morningstar produces his best evidence

from James Concannon

        Appearing for an hour on Far Out Radio yesterday, Robert Morningstar produced his best evidence that the Moon is occupied by aliens.

        He plays the exact same game as Hoagland & Bara. Namely, show only forty-year-old images at low resolution, so that there's as much doubt as possible about what we're seeing. He produces this image, which he says is a Lunar Orbiter image of the Mare Imbrium, and he speculates that it also shows what are probably "hangars" -- indicating some civilized activity.

image credit: NASA/Morningstar

        Just as with his story about the "crashed spacecraft", Morningstar has the wrong mission. This is not from Lunar Orbiter at all—it's Apollo 17 Frame #AS17-M-2444, from the mapping camera. So it's 42 years old, and its resolution is a couple of hundred meters per pixel.

        The huge crater on the horizon is Copernicus. The view is looking almost due South. Morningstar says the crater in the center is Euler, but in fact it's Pytheas, at 20.6°W, 20.5°N. It apparently hasn't occurred to Morningstar to check the Narrow Angle Camera strips in the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter image library, which tell us all about this region at a resolution of 0.5 m/px.

        Here's a permalink to the region in the ACT-REACT quick map. Morningstar's "hangars" are the two knobby hills at 24.06°W, 19.87°N. Zoom in as far as you like, see if you think there are any UFOs in there. Ask yourself why hangar roofs would be cratered just like all the surrounding terrain (should that be "lunain", perhaps?) Ask yourself what kind of hangars would be 5 km wide.

        Here's the complete set of Morningstar's "evidence." Astoundingly, he also includes what is very obviously a transmission fault in a Soviet Zond 3 image. That one dates from 1964, and its resolution must be many kilometers per pixel. To claim this shows a tower exposes him, I would have thought, to ridicule.

Update 1 (8 May)
        I messaged Morningstar  pointing out his errors and asking if he would retract. He refused, and added this:

"I used the names for the craters given on the Apollo site where I downloaded them. And for "0.5 m/px" photo, it is typical of their technique of degrading image to hide the evidence, like your image of the terrain purported debunking the crashed ship."  

        I pointed out that he and I are getting imagery from the very same source --NASA. The difference is that he only looks at the ancient low-res pix and I prefer to use the better ones.
--JC


Update 2 (9 May)
        Stand by for a good laugh, fans -- this is hilarious. Morningstar got a second hour on Far Out Radio last night, and dealt with my objections. After a fashion.

        First, he said that he'd spent five hours studying this problem, and he'd noticed that "the astronaut taking the pictures" had kept the "hangars" in view for several frames, proving that he was interested in them. Right there he showed for sure that he doesn't understand that these shots are from the mapping camera, not the handheld Hasselblad. The mapping camera was fixed in the SIM Bay^{note 1} -- it was not under astronaut control but pointed wherever the spacecraft (the CSM) pointed^{note 2}. Oh dear, Robert. But it got worse.

        Then he said the result of his five hours was that he'd decided the view in that frame was not South, toward Copernicus on the horizon, but West. The huge crater on the horizon, he'd decided, was not Copernicus but Aristarchus. The crater in the foreground was not Euler, not Pytheas, but Krieger. He actually re-labeled his image, saying "NASA mislabels things." (He didn't cite any examples of that, natch)

        Well, overnight he seems to have changed his mind again because he re-re-labeled the image, making it even more wrong.

image: NASA, fucked up beyond all recognition by Morningstar

        Now the large crater up on the horizon, actually Copernicus, isn't called anything. The label Copernicus is used for Plato. The foreground crater, unmistakably Pytheas, is labeled Aristarchus. The satellite crater Pytheas A is called Krieger. The small crater Helicon is re-christened Pytheas. Draper and one of its satellites are given names I can't read.

        Copernicus is one of the Great Rayed Craters of the Moon -- easily visible with an ordinary pair of binoculars when it's in sunlight. Slapping that label on a crater that in reality is one third the size, with only a very small ejecta blanket, is a major FAIL.

        For some God-unknown reason he's stitched together three versions of this utter fuckup, and persists in calling them Lunar Orbiter imagery even though he knows perfectly well that the image is from Apollo 17. Here's the page he prepared for Far Out Radio.

        He warned me at the start of the week that I'd have egg on my face after his Thursday night performance. Funny -- I sure can't feel it. I'm left with the conclusion that there's no hope for Robert Morningstar. He just doesn't know enough about lunar photography or lunar anything-else.
--JC

============================
[1] Scientific Instrument Module -- a panel in the Service Module containing spectrometers as well as cameras
[2] Here's the complete sequence from rev. 6. The "hangars" appear in frames 2443-8.