Paradolia? Not as clear cut as one might think.

[paulmcleod67]

Has the term "paradolia" become an over used tool of the skeptically dismissive?

Are potentially genuine images (or partials) of relic hominids dismissed as paradolia with no further investigation ?

Has the term been adopted by the modern general public, without a full understanding of what the term refers too?

Paradolia is without a doubt a genuine phenom of the human mind.

However its not a question of seeing what we want to see...that is psychosis... rather paradolia its a tendency towards pattern recognition developed by human beings
as an evolutionary trait of survival. It begins in our infancy and is expressed initially as facial recognition of parental figures.

But the complexity of paradolia is far more complicated than wishful thinking.

Here is an example of the complexity of the tendency of paradolia and when to argue for or against it.

Years ago during the Mars Global surveyor mapping mission to mars I came across one of the early images it had transmitted back to earth
in an area known as Candor Chasma that seemed to show a massive humanoid figure carved into the wall of this canyon system.

The resulting Science paper that was written on the feature by some very notable space scientists, makes for some very interesting reading on the pro's and cons of
siting paraadolia in an image or piece of film.

This was Circa 2000 AD if memory serves? And shows how things used to work. A claim was made followed by an investigation of said claim as opposed to flat out dismissal
that has bcome all to common in todays world of high speed low attention spans...lol


Face-like Feature at West Candor Chasma, Mars
MGS Image AB108403


Horace W. Crater

The University of Tennessee Space Institute, B.H. Goethert Parkway Tullahoma, TN 37388-8897

Jean Pierre Levasseur

Northern Maine Technical College Presque Isle, ME 04769

http://spsr.utsi.edu/articles/jsesft7a.html

Nice of them to give me mention I thgought.

"Unlike the Cydonia Face, the face-like feature in the AB108403 image was not discovered by a NASA scientist.
It was first brought to the attention of the public on a web site operated by Mr. Paul McLeod.

The conclusions of the paper?

"In our opinion there is too much detail and proper proportion to ascribe the impression of a sculpted face to extrapolations carried on by the mind. We therefore feel new images of the Skullface area should be taken whenever opportunities arise and that because of the profound importance of such potential archeology, this object is deserving of a certain level of mission priority".

Alas no further images of the feature were acquired by subsequent missions to mars.

So...when to invoke paradolia and dismiss and when to investigate further?

Cheers

[paulmcleod67]

So Ill start this off with two clear examples of Paradolia I have made mock ups of .

No I don't think they are real....they are, as I said examples of genuine image paradolia.

[paulmcleod67]

At the time I had many discussions with Dr Horrace Crater, whom had asked me why I felt the image was not similar to "one seeing things in clouds".

My reply to that question was what spawned the work leading up to the publication of the science paper .

I informed him that very few people see the same thing when submitted to blind testing cloud images but the same individuals when asked had seen the figure carved into the cliff face.

That is...I submitted a set of cloud images and the Candor Chasma image
to one hundred individuals via email. I then submitted the same set of images to five internet groups for discussion.

None of the individuals "seen" the same thing in the cloud images.

All of the individuals noticed the "carved humanoid' in Candor chasma although they were not told it was on mars.

Most individuals assumed the image was an ancient carving on earth somewhere ,and compared it to Mount Rushmore.

This included a well known archaeologist from W.A. whom said it may be a significant ruin in the middle east, but retracted that claim when I later told him it was on mars.

The internet "group" discussions came to a consensus as to what the cloud images looked like.

The internet "group" were informed of where the humanoid like figure was imaged and decided they could not see anything in the image ("as a group").

So clearly there are social acceptance issues when strange images or anomalies are brought to the publics attention.

Cheers

[paulmcleod67]

The acknowledgements at the end of the paper give some idea of the calibre of thought that went into it.


Acknowledgements

The authors wish to express thanks to the members of the Society for Planetary SETI Research (SPSR) for valuable critique of the manuscript . They especially wish to thank Vince DiPietro, Dr. John Brandenburg, Dr. Mark Carlotto, Lan Fleming, Harry Moore, Erol Torun, Gerry Zeitlin, Dr. Malou Zeitlin, Dan Drasin, Dr. Conley Powell, Cesar Sirvent, Robert Johnston, Dave Eccott, Peter Nerbun and Dr. Tom Van Flandern for specific and valuable criticism on issues of surface effects, imaging (especially with Figure 9), geology, statistics, and origins. They also thank Dr. Jack Hanson of UTSI for valuable geological insight and to Mr. Phil Liechty for general helpful comments. The authors thank Linda Engels for specific help on several of the images, to G. Orme for bringing our attention to the Skullface image, Robert Smith for invaluable technical support, Amanda Richard for office assistance, and Paul McLeod for the interesting find. Also, the authors wish to thank Dr. James Savage and Dr. Craig Small for their expert and most useful examinations of the Skullface eyes. The authors acknowledge the use of Mars Orbiter Camera images processed by Malin Space Science Systems available at http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/. All Mars Global Suveyor images in this paper are courtesy of Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS) and JPL.


Cheers

[paulmcleod67]

Oh and just a quick explanation of why I thought this was relevant on a yowie hunters forum.

The" can you see the yowie" factor comes up quite a bit on posts here with expected variables in opinion.

And I wanted to highlight my history and exposure to the question of paradolia formerly known as maxtrixing.

I like most others of my generation followed the Apollo program and the Mars Viking missions.
I found serious questions were not being answered by JPL concerning accusations ( by mission scientists no less )
of image tampering and false media statements concerning the returned data, such as life science results and certain orbital images.

I took up an active interest in the space program in 1992 with the suspicious loss of the Mars Surveyor probe.
This interest was re-enforced following the loss of Mars Polar Lander and a spate of other probes.

I was heavily involved in a number of groups that sought answers to questions raised in these "anomalous" JPL actions.

Since the landing on mars of the current Mars Curiosity Rover I have tried to re-calibrate (under advisement) all of MSL's (the rover)
supposed HD raw images predominantly from the "mastcam" using the missions own calibration data.

The rover has 17 cameras and is capable of HD digital footage, of which since 2012 there have been ZERO public releases there of.

So in a nutshell I am trying to explain that paradolia induced by image tricks of light and shadow
is something I am used to dealing with and discounting for the most part.


For those that wish to reference or checkout some of my work in this area...

https://www.youtube.com/user/railgunn67

Cheers

[ChrisV]

Nailing down Paradolia is like trying to catch the wind.
Paradolia only exists at a certain time and in frame. Sure you can go back to a spot and retake the picture and see the source of the questionable object but its usually so fickle that light, angle , subject matter etc combine together to make the image.

There are numerous images around the net that show the classic image of ' thats a bigfoot ..' and to some yes its a certainty but to others is a clear case of Paradolia. Shadows being the culprit most times to deceive the mind.

I am sure there are images out there that are legit. But the issues comes when you flood the internet with other less credible images that essentially ruin the few real ones. But even so - are they real!?

The cycle of questioning continues....

[paulmcleod67]

Fair comments

Cheers

[ChrisV]

Fair comments

Cheers

I think its healthy to challenge all aspects of this subject matter.
Thats why I encourage the discussion about pics that borderline this issue.
I will always take the time to weigh both sides and not discount anything at first glance....unless its J&J Yowie research stuff which deserves the stamp of rejection for obvious reasons.

[Tim*]

My thoughts on pareidolia in relation to the Yowie subject, is unless the photo clearly shows a Yowie, Keep it to yourself.

Anything less than a clear photo, which requires little to no interpretation by the observer, just muddies the water and discredits legitimate research.