A few minutes ago I overheard a conversation between my boss and a few coworkers about Mars. My boss was saying something to the effect that his brother works somewhere that doctors the Mars photos to make them more red and barren. I figured this was going to lead into a conspiracy similar to the moon one, ie insinuating that the photos were of Utah and merely made to look like Mars. That, however, was not the direction things took.
Apparently, he says that the photos orignally are not very red, there is blue sky and furthermore flowing water and even growing plants. He said the pictures were public domain and available at some website he didn't have the URL or the info for offhand. When asked about the motivation for such an effort, he theorized that either people weren't ready to accept that Mars was more likened to Earth than is commonly believed (because of HG Wells era paranoia or some such thing) or possibly so that the US government could exploit it before any other nations, and then he referenced the Church only recently coming to terms with Gallileo.
Normally he is an incredibly sharp guy so I figured this was some sort of ruse to mess with my coworkers but he seemed insistant that this is no conspiracy. If I can muster the resolve to keep from chuckling I want to hear out the rest of this conspiracy in all of its glory. Is this common? Are there more of these floating around?
Obviously the doctoring of photos from the landers is probably standard procedure but I don't imagine its the photoshop kind of doctoring, just typical color/lighting/sharpness adjustment type of stuff. Anybody have good links to Mars surface pics from the landers? This is injecting some humor into my otherwise dull Friday.
Apparently, he says that the photos orignally are not very red, there is blue sky and furthermore flowing water and even growing plants. He said the pictures were public domain and available at some website he didn't have the URL or the info for offhand. When asked about the motivation for such an effort, he theorized that either people weren't ready to accept that Mars was more likened to Earth than is commonly believed (because of HG Wells era paranoia or some such thing) or possibly so that the US government could exploit it before any other nations, and then he referenced the Church only recently coming to terms with Gallileo.
Normally he is an incredibly sharp guy so I figured this was some sort of ruse to mess with my coworkers but he seemed insistant that this is no conspiracy. If I can muster the resolve to keep from chuckling I want to hear out the rest of this conspiracy in all of its glory. Is this common? Are there more of these floating around?
Obviously the doctoring of photos from the landers is probably standard procedure but I don't imagine its the photoshop kind of doctoring, just typical color/lighting/sharpness adjustment type of stuff. Anybody have good links to Mars surface pics from the landers? This is injecting some humor into my otherwise dull Friday.
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