Check this

why the fcuk is this in pseudoscience?
Move it to "general debunking"

Is this a joke?

Interesting stuff. Clearly pretty old because the lines are impacted by a number of large craters. The 'road' idea is a bit of a leap in the dark, reminiscent of the old 'canals of Mars' nonsense. Rather than wild conjecture, I'd prefer to wait for a scientific analysis.

Roads. Pshaw! Everyone knows that Martians have flying cars.

Roads of clap, perhaps.

But all the ancient aliens were on Earth, why would they bother with Mars?

Obviously this trickster has not read enough Von Daniken to realise the truth!

the_5th_ape wrote:why the fcuk is this in pseudoscience?
Move it to "general debunking"

You originally posted this in the Astronomy forum. Anything preventing a bit of civility if you want a topic moved?

Oh no not this again. First its canals and now this!!! I mean flippin 'eck Mavis. My cousing went to some convention somewhere to do with all of this alien civilisation stuff and was so into it and talked on about it for so long it bore me to tears. He even bought a book about it!!! Whaaah? he says he knows people into it all and who study it and claims that they know what they are on about but why should I hear him out when he isn't presenting any hard evidence to begin with in the first place? Who can even debate with that? he is very gulible and will believe just about anuthing, well, almost any thing, that,someone says to him with a straight enough face.

The original NASA image shows marking but they don't look anywhere near as similar to roads as the ones on the site in the OP:
http://viewer.mars.asu.edu/planetview/inst/moc/R1102407#start

Personally i think its a case of over applying various photoshop filters. You end up with an images thats less representative of what was actually there and more a result of the mechanics of the image analysis process used.

Macky Avelli wrote:Oh no not this again. First its canals and now this!!! I mean flippin 'eck Mavis. My cousing went to some convention somewhere to do with all of this alien civilisation stuff and was so into it and talked on about it for so long it bore me to tears. He even bought a book about it!!! Whaaah? he says he knows people into it all and who study it and claims that they know what they are on about but why should I hear him out when he isn't presenting any hard evidence to begin with in the first place? Who can even debate with that? he is very gulible and will believe just about anuthing, well, almost any thing, that,someone says to him with a straight enough face.

The problem with people like that is that they get excited about an idea, and hooked to that excitement, and then look for every opportunity to reinforce that belief, without ever looking properly at the solidity of the foundations. They also do not seem to think it relevant that valid criticisms are brushed aside without serious consideration.

This is all part of confirmation bias, the 'pet theory' phenomenon.

Yeah pet theory is right. He's the kind of guy tha goes to Mongolia because he thins there are so many spiritual people there.He actually wants to go.

chairman bill wrote:Interesting stuff. Clearly pretty old because the lines are impacted by a number of large craters.

John Carter, the 'Bomber Harris' of Mars infrastructure.

Maybe Curiosity has backfired a few times

Jumbo wrote:The original NASA image shows marking but they don't look anywhere near as similar to roads as the ones on the site in the OP:
http://viewer.mars.asu.edu/planetview/inst/moc/R1102407#start

Personally i think its a case of over applying various photoshop filters. You end up with an images thats less representative of what was actually there and more a result of the mechanics of the image analysis process used.

If you have photoshop you can check it out for yourself. You do not have to apply "various filters"
Just hit CTRL+i and then CTRL+m (play with it)
And there you have it. You will get to see all the details (straight lines) with much clarity

The thing is the image is first cropped from a larger one. Who knows what resolution based issues that could introduce.

Secondly its then been inverted and then the neon glow filter has been applied. Thats not analyzing the image thats changing the image.

Its also not clear what the source file format was. Many formats involve forms of compression which alter the original image and thus make it unsuitable for proper analysis. (Jpeg is horrible for introducing artifacts in zoomed in images for example)

Jumbo wrote:The thing is the image is first cropped from a larger one. Who knows what resolution based issues that could introduce.

Secondly its then been inverted and then the neon glow filter has been applied. Thats not analyzing the image thats changing the image.

Its also not clear what the source file format was. Many formats involve forms of compression which alter the original image and thus make it unsuitable for proper analysis. (Jpeg is horrible for introducing artifacts in zoomed in images for example)

Dont worry about file format.
- Just click the link in NASA webpage that takes you to the original image
- Click PLUS to zoom the image Full size.
- Now take screenshot (Printscreen)
- Open photoshop and paste it there.
- Now follow the steps I mentioned in my previous post

Oh for god sake. Why don't all these crackpots pool money together to send their own craft to this area of mars to drill cores and analyse them for evidence of alien civilization? Until then all this is of no use to anybody.

These lines might indeed be the remnants of a long-dead Martian civilisation. We don't know. They might be the result of some geological process unknown to science. We don't know. They might be the result of Martian weather and resultant erosion. We don't know. They look fascinating & it would be really interesting to investigate & discover what they are & what caused them. But we don't yet know any of that. And when we don't know, it's best to simply say, "Hey, this looks interesting, but we don't know what it is or what caused it", and leave it there for now. One day humanity will travel to Mars & check it out. Until then we're left with a simple "we don't know".

Dont worry about file format.

If you are seriously analysing an image then the file format is crucial. The format itself introduces data into the image not present in the thing being photographed in many cases. I used the jpeg example earlier. That format often introduces rectangular artifacts as a result of the way it breaks the image down into blocks before applying compression techniques. When you crop or zoom an image in this file format the compression technique can become a visible part of the image forming geometric patterns. (I'm not saying thats the cause here but starting with a JPEG or similar would be bad start)

The other thing is the tools being used can drastically alter the image. The curves tool brought up with ctrl m has to be used very very sparingly. It can posterize an image easily.