Odds & Ends

Hello everyone,

I haven’t posted anything in quite awhile, but that is about to change. I’ve reorganized most of my Moon-related threads and moved them into a new area called Copernicus’ Corner, which is where you will now find the Caves of Copernicus thread, for example.

In addition, I am starting a new thread in the Corner called Odds & Ends… this thread.

This will be a fun thread where I will post any new “unidentified” oddities that I find while searching LROC images. I will not be making any “this looks like a city and/or mining operation!”-type posts (common to Lunar Orbiter image claims), but I will “call it like I see it”.

A lot of the Odds & Ends that I find are in only one image, unfortunately, since a second image is either not available or is unusable due to black shadows. Yes, sometimes there is a “low res” image available as a second image, but the object, or the detail on it, is not resolved at that resolution (less than 1 meter per pixel resolution). What this means is that a lot of these objects can not be confirmed… at least not at the time of posting, anyway.

All of the images that I post will be from the original IMG file which I have converted to BMP, without compression (using the PDS Image utility). On occasion, I may use a Zoomify screen cap, and if so, it will be identified that way. The only image enhancements that I will use in these images are basic brightness, contrast, and sometimes gamma adjustments.

Also, I present all of my images in the correct orientation with regard to the lunar landscape. Probably 75% of the original images are not in the correct orientation (due to the way the orbiter takes the images), and you should be aware of this if you are using Zoomify. For whatever reason, NASA hasn’t bothered to correct the orientation of the images before making them public. (And yet they “correct” other things before making them public, as per Sander1967 and Luna Cognita.)

Since this is meant to be a fun thread, I will not post ‘Locater’ images for these objects in order to keep the posts to a manageable size. For those of you interested in getting the image for yourself, the LROC image number on the image will be what you need.

There will be some posts, however, that I consider important enough that I will include Locater images so that you can see exactly where the object is on the Moon.

Though I intend for this to be fun, we may find more that we thought.

Check this recent news article on Discovery:

http://news.discovery.com/space/our-solar-system-might-be-littered-with-alien-artifacts-111109.html

We are just beginning to take close-up look[s] at other planets with enough sharpness to see small artifacts, if they are there.

Most promising is NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), which is photo-mapping the moon down to a resolution of just 20 inches. The moon would offer a handy platform for an alien visitor to camp out and keep an eye on the Earth.

The highlight is mine. Please note that when they are referring to “artifacts”, what they replace it with in the article is actually “alien space probes”.

The article says that researchers conclude that:

Extraterrestrial artifacts may exist in the solar system without our knowledge simply because we have not yet searched sufficiently. The vastness of space implies that it will take some time before every nearby object can be considered devoid of (space probes).

And finally, one last quote from the article, which should be of major interest to us here:

What would the reaction of a mission science team be if something blatantly artificial-looking popped up in a routine photo survey of the moon, Mars or an asteroid? Would it be kept under wraps?

Yes, that is the million-dollar question, isn’t it? Given the rules imposed on that Agency and the past record of that Agency, I think we all know what the answer is!

So… I will be posting weekly in this thread, if not more often than that, and I hope you will enjoy my finds. There may be some real surprises in store, so stay tuned!



C

Knowing how dedicated you are to your research, I can only say thank you and that I am very excited to see your findings so far!

I wasn’t sure which object to use as a start for Odds & Ends, but I think this one will do nicely. The oddity here is the shadow, as you will see, and something needs to be there (or not!) to make the shadow, of course.

This marks one of the few times when I’ve found something in a “low res” image of less than 1 meter per pixel, though magnification is required to see the shadow anomaly properly.

So here we go… here’s the low res shot:



As you can see, this odd-looking boulder appears to have rolled a short distance down a slope. Notice the boulder’s shadow… it almost looks someone holding their hand in front of a bright light, like a sock puppet.

Even with the high res images coming up next, I’m not sure what caused the shadow to look that way.

Next, here’s the high res shot:



The high res image is quite a bit clearer than the low res one, but wait… the sock puppet shadow is not there?!!

Nope, no sock puppet, but if you look closely, you can see something odd about the east edge of the shadow, which is created by the top of the boulder…



It’s much easier to see at 300%... the shadow appears to show something sticking out of the top of the boulder… like a gun barrel… ?!

That is a pretty odd-looking boulder isn’t it?

Well, that’s it for this time, but who knows what I’ll find for next time!



C

Hi,
I like lunar anomalies so I am looking forward to any you have found.

The "odd shadow" I think might be due to a rock or rock on a hill in the shadow region of the boulder. The rock and little hill are high enough to be above the boulder shadow for some sun angles.

Have you looked through the vast MoonZoo archives with all its weird things they have seen in images? I haven't gone through all of them yet.

Later!

Hello once again, LCG!

Yes, I thought of the “small rock on a hill” idea right away when I noticed the shadow in the high res image. So… I checked the low res image, and was surprised to see the “sock puppet”. Given the combination between the high and low res images, I felt it was worthy enough to present.

Another NAC would certainly be helpful for determining whether something really is protruding from the boulder, and showing what created the sock puppet shadow.

I have not checked the moonzoo gallery, so it is possible that at least one of the Odds & Ends (to come) is in there, but thank you for the suggestion. By the way, I have found another Cave Candidate, and I will present it here in Odds & Ends

C

Hi there,

This looks like the object I recently found on an Apollo image (video released soon). A little object on top of a boulder carefully removed with paintbrush, yet can be made visible with ELA and AMS. Looking forward to see more of these odds and ends.

Greetz,

Sander

Hi Sander!

I'm looking forward to seeing the video that you mentioned. It will be a treat

C

My first post featured a subtle shadow from a very odd-looking boulder, and I was undecided on whether to continue on with odd boulders this time… I’ve got lots of those!

Well, sorry boulder fans, but I think I’ll do another “subtle” this time… too subtle for some, perhaps?! This is more of a perception thing, and perception is individual to each person.

So, that said, I’ll also mention that this thread is not strictly for unexplained or unexplainable things, but for odd things I find in the LRO images.

Now, what caught my eye was the straight lines in this small crater.



As I concentrated on the lines, I realized that this almost looked like someone sitting in the crater!



Can you see him sitting there with his legs almost pulled up to his chest? In the first image, given the contrast, it almost appeared that he was looking up at the orbiter… which was eerie. But in the magnified image, he obviously isn’t looking up at all.

This bit of colorization might help you see him better…



It almost looks like he’s trying to pull himself out of a hole!

Yes, a rather odd thing to find on the Moon!

‘Til next time…

C

Thanks for this new info! Looking forward to it!
Rick :-)

Since today is Thanksgiving Day in the US, I thought I would do a post that is somewhat “on-theme”.

First up is an image from Apollo 17 showing evidence of life on the Moon. I‘m not sure how this one escaped being airbrushed



Obviously that is an alien beside the astronaut, since it doesn’t need a spacesuit!!

Next, is an object that I found while I was hungry…



I sure wanted a hotdog with ketchup and onions when I saw this one!



There is one other NAC of this object, but it doesn’t look anywhere near as delicious as in this one!

Finally, for the budget-minded, I found some Moon-spam…



Note that if you see the white markings as craters, then your perception is tricking you… these are actually small boulders. It is easy for this to happen, and tough to change back… funny how the mind is tricked that way.



This looks like a half-buried can of spam with an open end, with moon dust spilling into it. If you’re still not seeing the boulders, try looking away for a minute, and then back at the image.

Happy Thanksgiving!

C

Thanks C!!

I'm just getting ready for breakfast, so maybe it will be Spam and eggs

Was the "turkey" perhaps a disguised NASA administrator??

Looking forward to catching up with you & Jackie...

Cheers, Rick

Is it December already? Time to do Christmas cards… and to post!

Today I have a pair of anomalies from the same NAC… we’ll start the month off with some light… or more precisely, an oddly-lit rock.



As you can see, this rock almost looks like it’s glowing all of the way around at the base of it. Luminescent, perhaps? Notice the other rocks are black on the east side, to the right.



And a bit of a closer view.

Interestingly enough, the big rock in the next image looks quite similar in shape… but it is not what caught my attention…



In this image, the object above the big rock looks very much like a rocket with cylindrical tanks around one end.



Kind of sci-fi-ish, I would say.

‘Til next time…

C

Are you telling me that turkey is NOT an artifact on the moon? It looks so real...(and potentially delicious!)

Copernicus, you bring some interesting objects to the table. This is a whole lot of interesting finds you brought us, and it will take some time to...digest.

- Thank you!

You know, Jackie, I hate to say it, but Lit Rock in the last post reminded me of an ice cream sandwich... while the similar rock in the next image made me think of a hamburger!!

Don't what it is with Moon anomalies and food lately...



C

Hmmmm...I believe modern science tells us that the moon is really made of cheese...Maybe that's why you get the food connection?

Today I have for you a geometric object that seems out of place.

I should mention that boulders with rectangular faces appear to be fairly common on the Moon, and I imagine that it has to do with the way they were fractured. The rectangular surface is perfect for presenting odd designs in low angle light conditions if there are highly reflective areas on the surface.

So let’s visit the crater Pickering at 7 East, 3 South. This crater is approx. 16km in diameter with highly reflective walls inside the cone.



The object that I found is located in the crater about midway down the eastern slope of the cone.

Here it is at 50%



At this resolution, about 1 meter per pixel, you can clearly see the object. This is how it might appear (at best) in a Lunar Orbiter image, if there was one. (There isn’t, I checked). Aside from a rock face(?) just to the north of it, the object is very noticeably “all by itself”. It was quite startling to run across this “in the middle of nowhere”!

So, here we are at 100%



The object appears to be a cube that is 10 meters per side with a height of about 3.5 meters sitting on the inside slope of the crater. Unfortunately the contrast in the NAC isn’t the greatest, but we can still see some detail on the top of the cube. The object just north of it is still unclear.

Let’s bump it up to 300%



Now we can see that the object to the north is either an exposed rock face or a half-buried boulder. The cube itself appears to have some ridges and possibly a couple of craters on the top, and is sitting nice as you please on the crater slope.

It would be nice to have another NAC to confirm this object, but it is invisible in the shadows in the only other (medium res) NAC of the area.

So, anyway, there’s no indication of how the cube got where it is, and it almost appears to have been just placed there, like a piece in a game Perhaps the Borg are involved?

What will we find next week, I wonder?

C

Bravo!

To an untrained eye, they look to have been dropped there~*~

Something very unique from what I have seen, my friend. Thank you!

Jackie

Well, here we are with a week to go before Christmas, and some people are off now for 2 weeks… but not me. It is a busy time of year, and now we have a new NAC upload to go through, as well!

This time around, they lowered LROC’s orbit for one month to take higher resolution images, but that still leaves about 2/3 of this upload at normal resolution. It appears that the higher resolution images during that one month were at about 0.40 meters per pixel, instead of the usual 0.50 meters per pixel.

The new 0.40 resolution is about 15 inches per pixel, and though I do appreciate having access to images of this resolution, I am also disappointed since I was hoping for something like 0.30 resolution.

I have had a very quick look through the areas pertaining to some of my previous posts, and was disappointed to find no new images of these. In particular, I was hoping for another image of my Cave Candidate E in Copernicus, the Cube in the previous post, the Lit Rock, and the Shadows image… no such luck. Also, it comes as no surprise that there is still nothing of the Farside Ship.

James, I have not yet had a chance to look for images of your Cave Candidates, or mine, A-D… I imagine you’ve already beaten me to it!!

So today, I have a simple anomaly… a post of a little fella who appears to have gotten quite lost… perhaps he crawled out of one of Copernicus’ caves, since this image is in the crater Copernicus.



You can see him there in the center of the image… quite startling, actually.

And now at 200%...



I guess it’s obvious by now that you just never know what you’re going to find on the Moon if you look for it!

Until next time!

C

Copernicus - That image you share with us is startling and the product of a careful work. Whatever it is, the 'little fella' sure looks out of place. Maybe, the folks that have two weeks off will be inspired to resume their own searches with more hope? Excellent discovery!

Aristarchus… bright crater with mysterious TLP’s… and some say a… fusion reactor???

Well, I decided to have a closer look at Aristarchus, keeping an eye out for unusual things.

It is a very interesting place with lots to discover, and one of the first things I found there was a large triangular-shaped pit, somewhat similar to James’ H1 in Copernicus crater. Since we were using the term “Cave Candidate” for these features, I will continue to do so, though this is more of a pit than a cave.

There are actually 5 NAC’s that show this feature, but the light angle is fairly similar in 4 of those, so I will show just one of those, and then one with the sun in the opposite direction.

First, let’s locate it:



Note that the NAC mappings shown here are prior to the Dec. 15 upload, but there are no new ones of the feature.

Next, a little higher res image to help better locate Ari1:



Now that we can find it, let’s look at the first high res NAC:



As you can see, the pit is quite similar to a guitar pick in shape.

Next, Ari1 with the light from the opposite direction:



And zoomed in to 200%:



Finally, the first image at 200%:



I wonder… is this an exhaust vent for the fusion reactor?

More to come!



C

This is an interesting concept, that a fusion reactor could be on the moon....

Has anyone indicated what clues might lead to the possibility of such a reactor?

What level of detail would be necessary to resolve these clues from photo's?

Thanks for the enlightening updates!

Rick ;-)

Hey there, Rick!

For those interested in pursuing the possibility of a Fusion Reactor in Aristarchus, there is some interesting information and images here:

http://www.thelivingmoon.com/43ancients/41Group_Lunar_FYEO/02files/FYEO_Lunar_02.html

I understand that the crater walls are made of different material than the central peaks, so that may be a factor contributing to the beautiful blue glow seen in the images on the linked page... and to the extensive number of TLP's seen there, even by the Apollo astronauts.

C

Hey back!

Will look into it further see what comes up....

Merry Christmas (or happy Holidays, if you prefer..:-) Rick

It’s Christmas Day and a time of light and peace. I have not found a Christmas tree or a reindeer on the Moon, but I do have a star for you today.

This is in the area of Mosting crater…



Unfortunately, I was forced to use the Zoomify version of the image, since I couldn’t quite match their contrast and brightness when using the original IMG.

Here it is at 200% (Zoomify)



It is fairly obvious now that the star looks more like a starfish!

Here’s wishing Jackie and Rick a Merry Christmas!!

And, of course, I’d like to extend the same wishes of Merry Christmas, and peace to all, to everyone reading this… on this world… and beyond!!

Copernicus

Wishing you the Best of Holidays!!

AND, a BIG Thank You for the hardwork!!!

Sincere Regards, Rick :-)