Subject: "NASA UFO Videos (Gemini, Apollo)" - A Response
Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1999 04:56:33 -0800
From: Anonymous
 To: "James Oberg (Researcher)" <jamesoberg@aol.com>

One of Galileo's most significant writings is in the form of a dialogue. He shows one of the religious hierarchy his discovery through his telescope: that Jupiter has moons. The response to his discovery is that it is not important what he may see through his telescope. The only thing of importance is WHAT HE SHOULD HAVE SEEN. Things have not changed much in the ensuing years. As Kip Thorne points out repeatedly in his "Black Holes...." [which, incidentally, may not exist if Yilmaz is correct], scientists stubbornly resist new ideas and it often takes decades or longer for a cherished precept to be re-evaluated properly in light of contrary evidence.

Take, for instance, poor Dr. Frank of Iowa, pilloried for his idea of mini-comets approaching the environs of the Earth. [There is a suggestion of this in some of the early Lunar Orbiter photos, though.] His evidence is weak, so far - but to be ridiculed for the very thought!! "It can't be," chide his opposition. But the oxygen we breathe may well be had, not from plants, but derived from such a source. Perhaps the only real contribution of Richard Hoagland, also "of NASA," is his showing of the exact same Apollo frame, but printed from two different depositories.

Clearly one has been significantly altered - this curious piece of rock ["shard"] sticking in the moon disturbed someone enough that they decided that "it shouldn't be there" and darkened that portion of the frame so it couldn't be seen. [Mebbe a "moon cloud" did it?] And, more importantly, someone felt that you SHOULDN'T see it. Other, first hand testimony from other former NASA employees indicate that there is an ongoing NASA policy to alter photographs, to "correct" them for "anomalies" "which shouldn't be there." True, some, as appeared in the Fortean Times last year, are an illusion created from an ignorance of the inherent properties and artifacts of photographic film: the "blooming" that results in ordinary reversal film usage in high contrast situations.

However, even one of the "alterations," as Hoagland shows, puts the entire NASA data base into question: what is real, and why is NASAs charter not being followed? The origin and creation of this "Lunar and Planetary Institute" is murky at best; many feel that its sole purpose is to thwart NASAs charter of free and open information and which also provides that nothing would be "secret." Let me tell you that I was more than a little surprised when I worked at Goddard as a research assistant and saw all the barbed wire and guard houses. Was this a prison or a research facility? I cannot understand why anyone would want to break in to see, say, X-ray data. [Good luck to them!] There are many facilities
which actually do carry sensitive information of national security interest, but they aren't built and guarded like this.

Then there is this "contract" that NASA "signed" giving away the public's right to the information that they paid for. At the Martian meteorite press conference someone asked Goldin whether any future photos of Mars would be distributed to the public "in real time." "No," was Goldin's emphatic response. Any why are the shuttle video transmissions now no longer Live? And what was that on the Hubble repair mission that streaked across in front of the Orbiter, that led one of the crew to turn to the camera and ask "Did you see that"? Whatever it was got rid of Live transmissions! Probably some swamp gas. Or a weather balloon. Tracers from an ME-262?

So when Mr. Oberg states that he wants to "clear up" the misrepresentations and alleged alterations of photos by the UFOites, what is he going to use? He may well be sincere in trying to get rid of the "Bogus Counterfeit," but may, instead, just be replacing it with a "Genuine Counterfeit." Until the public has free access to the first generation archival prints at the repositories, then the entire NASA data base remains suspect and tainted. From the reports of at least one person who says he visited the Houston archive twenty years ago, the originals are as sharp as a tack and, if one looks closely, filled with anomalous features.

Indeed, I recently witnessed an OLD 6' x 8' print of the Moon, printed out of the usual NASA channels, and I could see craters as small as 1/100" across clearly with my naked eye. This was nothing less than astounding. Further, in another large OLD lunar photo, also out of the usual NASA channel, there were, on close inspection, three anomalies on it. While I could not, of course, say that these anomalies were "artificial" neither can I come up with any scientific explanation, or find anyone who could explain them in any known geological process. Indeed, at least one appeared to fly in the face of our current "knowledge." However, there are a number of photographs which were had from the Goddard repository almost in "real time" evidently before this airbrushing became in vogue. And they clearly show features which are HIGHLY unlikely to have been formed naturally. So what are they?

Unknown to me, but I would look askance with someone who comes up with a current NASA photo in which they have all disappeared. So Mr. Oberg has a burden to prove that his "evidence" hasn't been twiddled with, with alterations perhaps unknown even to him.