Hoagland's Photos & Claims Are Spurious

It is disappointing to see this article posted on OpEdNews. Unfortunately it tends to give undeserving credence to Hoagland's claims and assertions.

As a scientist (geologist, geochemist, etc.), I was sent an advance copy of Dark Mission to review for a prestigious national publication. Even though it cost me the fee I would have received for writing the review, I convinced the publication's editor that the book was worthless and not deserving of any review. 

Let me make this very clear: I have never received any funding of any kind by NASA, and my association with NASA research is entirely indirect -- that is, reading published papers, books, and scientific reports in order to find information pertinent to my own research on the history of the young Earth and the formation of the Earth's crust. Thus, I am both financially and scientifically an independent but scientifically sophisticated reviewer. I cannot be accused of participating in any "cover up" or of having any material or professional interest in hiding any facts about lunar geology.

This declaration is provided so that OpEdNews readers cannot dismiss my critique of Dark Mission, which actually has two authors, Richard Hoagland and Mike Bara.

ALL of Hoagland and Bara's claims about crystalline structures on the moon are spurious. First and foremost, the structures they describe could not survive the continuous impacts of micrometeorites on the lunar surface. There is no atmosphere around the Moon which can protect the surface from the high-speed impacts of space debris, and supposedly abandoned "crystalline towers" which Hoagland and Bara claim are visible in the photos they published in their book would be rapidly pulverized.

The multitude of geochemical analyses which have been conducted on lunar materials by scientists located in laboratories all over the world show that silica (the material that makes glass) is deficient in lunar rocks. While the geochemistry of basalts is too arcane for most OpEdNews readers, it is nevertheless an important scientific FACT which refutes many of the claims made in Dark Mission.

Other geologic facts concern the nature of the structures on the Moon and Mars which Hoagland and Bara claim are pyramids. I examined the photos published in Dark Mission with a magnifying glass in order to be certain of what I was viewing. The irregular pyramidal forms are most probably of natural occurence, representing on the Moon remnant impact features (most probably central uplift features) and on the Mars possible glacial features (cirques and similar kinds of structures that one can see in the Alps, in Arctic and Antarctic mountains, and even on Mt. Rainier).

Again, the morphology of geological features is an arcane subject, unfamiliar to the general public. The features of impact structures both on the Moon (where there is no atmosphere or ocean) and on Earth (where both atmosphere and ocean influence the remnant structures of impact features) have been studied intensively. Studies have included laboratory simulations of bullets hitting targets, rocks dropped on sand, and many other experimental models. These studies clearly show that the range of impact features is dependent on the direction of impact (straight up versus at an angle), on the size of the impactor, on the velocity of the impactor, and on the composition (a rocky meteorite vs. a comet, for example).

Anyone who wishes to learn more about this research (which has been conducted over the past 40-50 years) can type "impact structures" into their internet search engine and find more than enough information, including hundreds of references in scholarly journals which are entirely independent of NASA.

Similarly, anyone who wishes to know how the lunar surface has changed over time can type "lunar regolith" into their search engine and be rewarded with dozens of websites and journal titles. Regolith is the "soil" that results from the continuous impact of micrometeorites which reduces the surface matter of a planetary body to a fine-grained sediment.

The features which Hoagland and Bara claim to see in their Mars photos are entirely spurious and frankly rather irrational. In photos of the Martian surface, they claim to see geometrical relationships among these supposed "pyramids" that they claim are proof that the geometry is intentional -- that is, that the structures they connect were built by constructive beings. In fact, the connections they claim to show are meaningless. When one removes all those lines, a sensible geologists sees natural glaciated and/or remnant impact peaks and rims blanketed or partially buried in regolith. That is all they are. The photos do NOT show "buried ancient cities". Only the most desperately deluded can imagine that.

As an independent scientist, I have read dozens of NASA histories and there is much about NASA that can and should be criticized. It is an agency in dire need of fundamental reform. However, there is no secret Nazi hierarchy within NASA that has driven the agency's programs. Nor is there a conspiracy related to Orion or any other distant star assemblage. The lengths to which Hoagland and Bara stretch to make their links between this photo and that photo are in the end hilarious to the scientifically informed reader. The book was, in my opinion, so ridiculous, with so much that is false, inaccurate, and utterly mythological, citing "proofs" that are so fantastic and so unsupported by real data, that no one can or should take it seriously. It is not worth spending money on, and it is certainly not worth the paper and ink required to produce it.

There is an old saying that I take comfort in when encountering the kind of nonsense promulgated in Dark Mission: Truth will win out in the marketplace of ideas.

In the long term, as more data become available, as the telescopes of amateur astronomers approach the technical capabilities of professional facilities, more people will be able to see for themselves what the surfaces of other planetary bodies look like. This will inspire them to learn about geomorphology and planetary morphology, and the ridiculous nonsense of Hoagland and his collaborators will be entirely forgotten. Meanwhile, no one should waste their time on this silliness.

And once again, in closing, let me emphasize that I have NO and have NEVER had any professional or financial connection to NASA. I have been a university scientist, and federal funding for my research came from the National Science Foundation Divisions of Polar Programs and Earth Sciences.  My evaluation of Dark Mission is based on being forced to read it after being assigned to review it. My professional critical conclusion was that it was so false that it was not worthy of a review in a serious publication. It is bunk -- bunkity bunk bunk -- of the worst sort.

by S. E. Hoffman (2 articles, 6 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 28 comments) on Thursday, November 20, 2008 at 2:55:51 PM
 

NASA Doctoring Lunar and Martian Imagery

Your critique of Dark Mission is based on examining some of the images in the book using a magnifying glass. You then go to on cite 'probable' natural formations and and 'possible' glacial features as explanations of his theories of what's on the Moon and Mars. As a scientist, surely you would want to go to the original images before making such sweeping claims and dismissing the analysis Richard Hoagland provides. Hoagland's long background in covering NASA missions - former Science Advisor to Walter Cronkite and consultant to CBS news - and former profession as a curator of astronomy and space science make his claims about NASA something worth considering. I recommend you consult the McDaniel's Report for an independent analysis of Hoagland's claims regarding the Face on Mars. http://www.stanmcdaniel.com/mars/brfpref.htm

In Dark Mission Hoagland lays out a persuasive case of systematic tampering of satellite imagery by NASA/JPL. Others have said similar things. I recommend you take a look at some of the whistleblowers who have testified to participating in such image tampering programs while at NASA. I would begin with Donna Hare who testified about the practice of airbrushing anomalies out of moon images: http://www.ufos-aliens.co.uk/airbrush.htm . Similar claims were made by Karl Wolf whose testimony is available here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJPD_emdcBg 

by Dr Michael Salla (20 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 29 comments) on Thursday, November 20, 2008 at 4:17:11 PM
 

Also I would add about possible artificial structures on the

Moon and Mars, who said they would be less hard than the surface? If they are remnants of a previous industrial age on the earth. Ones that may be on automatic. The fact that the DOD is intimately connected to NASA should give people pause. [I do find it hard to believe that humanity sat on its collective thumbs for up to 100,000 years then suddenly in a mere 6,000 years created all we have now.]

Couldn't they have built such structures of tougher perhaps artificial materials that could withstand thousands of years of micro meteorite damage?

The problem is that the national security mind set would preclude telling us if artificial structures, no matter what their origin, would be kept a secret.

by nightgaunt (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 322 comments) on Friday, November 21, 2008 at 1:58:46 PM
 

Mission cover-up

Besides being a top scientific nation for thousands of years - excluding the 200 years of the dark British rule - India tops the world in another field: marking government files TOP SECRET. So I won't be surprised if the data that are beamed down by Chandrayaan remain locked up for years in databases. And even if the Indian boffins find some evidence of ET life, they are sure to keep things under wraps for the same reason that NASA scientists may have done so - there is an elite in our societies that think the man on the street can't "handle the truth".

by Rakesh Krishnan (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 2 comments) on Monday, November 24, 2008 at 12:57:34 AM