Mars Rover Camera Catches Unidentified Object in the Sky

Summary of events and current discovery process

January 7th 2005

 

 

Peter Arvo of Detroit Michigan was looking through Mars Rover raw image files recently beamed from Opportunity on Mars when he discovered one that had an object in an unusual place. It was in the sky. In theory there are no birds or planes on Mars and this object should not be there. Peter showed it to me and yes it certainly did look like some cylindrical object in the sky. This is it! With object pointer and close up.  All the other actual image links, with descriptions of what they represent are provided at the end of this page.

 

We both had an increased interest in the Mars expedition, since NASA announced in a press release last week that something or someone had been cleaning the dust off the solar cells at night on the Mars Rover Vehicle Opportunity vehicle (yes same one that took the UFO picture!) nobody can explain the apparent nightly washing. The regular cleaning had been increasing the efficiency from like 40 or 50% to almost 100%. Just enough to get the picture?

 

Peter Blogs here and is updating the story as I write on the INSIGHT web journal with the latest news. He got a reply from Whitley Strieber  which he posted there on his blog. He is also posting detail responses from NASA technicians and photographic experts  I am blogging under Richard's Web Journal blog with my findings and perspectives. In summary NASA's response has been "There is something there". For now it is unidentified qualifying it for UFO status and regardless of what anyone says it is definitively Extraterrestrial. (it is on Mars!)

 

We began to research the images, was it a spec of dust or some artifact on the lens? No it wasn't as we show below. We found something else equally interesting the same image with that section blacked out of this one image on a site that seems set up for the press. The NASA site does not have the Sky Anomaly image  listed in the NASA Press section, it is only found the raw image section. The educational sight did have the picture containing the anomaly. 

 

We found the images taken one minute before and after. There was no artifact on the lens. This means it was not a chunk of dust or something. If you look at the object itself, it is reflecting light off the top from the sun and is dark underneath as it should be. It appears to be metallic.

 

We were able to determine that the object was moving at high speed probably vertically. This is because these are stereoscopic cameras positioned just like your eyes. The cameras unless NASA has set them up differently would be connected by Gen-Lock. One camera would trigger the other camera when it was fired. This would create a delay of just a few milliseconds between the exposures. If the object had been moving towards the surface it would have shown up in the Right Camera image. It does not. Being that it was so close the the top of both cameras field of vision. It obviously left the camera field of vision moving vertically.

 

This is the Exploratorium education site where the unidentified sky object image was discovered by Peter.

 

This is a second site I found, when searching the image file name using Google, the site seems to be providing images to the Press, . It has the image containing the section with unidentified sky object blacked out. Why would that be? Not sure yet.  This is the same JPEG with the anomaly having the upper part of the image blacked. What is interesting is if you go to www.lyle.org, there is no actual web site. The Mars stuff is buried under a specific directory. http://www.lyle.org/mars/

 

Read about NASA’s explanation about the blacked out portions here, and our take from a computer technology point of view why it doesn't look valid.

 

List of links to actual images on NASA site  (these are in the raw image section these images are not in press section)

THE UFO  (Sky object image anomaly) - Left Navigation Camera Non-linearized Full frame EDR acquired on Sol 323 of Opportunity's mission to Meridiani Planum at approximately 13:48:23 Mars local solar time. NASA/JPL
Site Image link with info Full Image

 

ONE MINUTE BEFORE

Left Navigation Camera Non-linearized Full frame EDR acquired on Sol 323 of Opportunity's mission to Meridiani Planum at approximately 13:47:33 Mars local solar time. NASA/JPL
Site Image Link with info Full Image

 

ONE MINUTE AFTER

Left Navigation Camera Non-linearized Full frame EDR acquired on Sol 323 of Opportunity's mission to Meridiani Planum at approximately 13:49:13 Mars local solar time. NASA/JPL
Site Image Link with info Full Image

 

THE RIGHT CAMERA FIRED MILLISECONDS AFTER THE FIRST

Right Navigation Camera Non-linearized Full frame EDR acquired on Sol 323 of Opportunity's mission to Meridiani Planum at approximately 13:48:23 Mars local solar time. NASA/JPL
Site Image Link with info Full Image

 

All Opportunity Rover Images

 

I will be updating my blog and Peter will be providing updates on Insight if you get a chance read Mr Urgo Diamu one might wonder if he may have something to do with this image getting through.

 

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