This is just a quick note to say that although the furor over the Martian Bigfoot is starting to calm down, there is still some coverage. My friend Ben Radford wrote about it for Space.com, and I just did an interview with Seth Shostak for our "Brains on Vacation" segment on the radio show Are We Alone. That’ll air next week, and I’ll link to it when it goes live.
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What happened to Bad Astronomy???
If you went to BadAstronomy.com and found yourself here, never fear: the BA Blog has moved to its new home at Discover Blogs. The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking and all that) is still online, too.
Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.
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Death from the Skies!
Order a copy of Death from the Skies! from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Borders.
"If things worked the way I wanted them to, any reporter about to do another 'sensational' story on deadly meteors would consult this volume, and bang! common sense would find its way into the news. How strange would that world be?"
-- Adam Savage, Mythbusters"Reading this book is like getting punched in the face by Carl Sagan. Frightening, but oddly exhilarating."
-- Daniel H. Wilson, author of How to Survive a Robot Uprising -
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DISCOVERmagazine.com: Latest Articles on Space - DISCOVER Blogs: The Loom
January 24th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Why is it called ‘bigfoot’ when it is so small? I thought this Martian artifact was only a few inches high whereas Bigfoot is 8 to 10 feet tall.
January 24th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Phil, you may be interested in knowing that you have also been refered to (and plugged) as “astronomer and unpenitent sceptic”, and your blog characterised as “one of the most prestigious amonst the scientisfic comunity” in the most read on-line Spanish newspaper (electronic division of a regular paper Spanish newspaper):
http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2008/01/23/ciencia/1201120179.html
Hope that helps,
Grey Wolf
January 24th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Also, why didn’t anyone say anything about the horse?
January 24th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
I’m afraid this won’t die. It will retain a cult following like the “Face on Mars”. No amount of explanations will convince those who want to believe.
January 24th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
sorry about before. the post was protected. now it’s not.
Friend of mine discovered a building shaped like a jet space ship (aka trinidad-and-tobagos-secret-y-wing-facility)
January 24th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
bigjohn, it’s called Bigfoot because of the similarity of pose with the famous Bigfoot image from the Patterson film, supposedly showing a Bigfoot in 1969. Also, in case no one has noticed, the mainstream media has NOT commented about the actual size of this outcrop.
January 24th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
Michael Lonergan: “Also, in case no one has noticed, the mainstream media has NOT commented about the actual size of this outcrop.”
I disagree. The newspaper I linked above is about as mainstream as you get, and both mentions that is a small rock, and quotes Phil when he stated that it was four inches high. They even bolded it.
Maybe you need to start reading non-US mainstream media?
Hope that helps,
Grey Wolf
January 24th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
Grey wolf, the UK media did, but I haven’t seen much about the actual size from US media sites. Even CNN’s Anderson Cooper added to the stupidity by having a “Bigfoot” researcher on last night. Granted, I do believe the media is becoming more sensationalist. Anything for ratings.
January 24th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
It was covered on the NBC Today show on Thursday morning, and coverage on their web site.
Chasd
January 24th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
It just won’t end. I mean, even weather.com has a coverage about it…
January 24th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Well, it’s a shame that the article’s on space.com. Do they link to outside websites yet or do they still pretend that they’re the only astronomy/space web site on the Internet?
I used to frequent their site but since they never provide links to other relevant sites–like mission home pages, etc–from their articles (probably in some misguided effort to boost their own page views), I find their site way too claustrophobic for my tastes.
Thankfully there are plenty of more enlightened sources of space information around to chose from.
January 24th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
What’s all the fuss? You know it’s just a Martian in a gorilla suit.
January 24th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Unfortunately stuff like this will never die. People WANT to believe crap like this and unfortunately will always mistrust scientists, science and anything to do with reason. Its a flaw in the human genome.
I say we kill everyone and hand the planet back to the cockroaches.
January 24th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
Has someone really considered the hypotheses of an artifact???? Or is everyoneassuming that such hypotheses is impossible…
January 24th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
McMurdo, Yes, Richard Hoagland. Look, wouldn’t it be awfully convenient for an artifact to be laying just several meters from one of only 2 cameras on the surface of a planet 35 million miles away. The odds against this being artificial are astronomical (pun intended). Why is it so hard to accept it for what it is - a rock!
January 24th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
I’m waiting for the History Channel to run an hour-long special on it.
It will air prime-time just after “Hitler’s Additional Secret Weapons That Were Never Built But What If They Were?” and just before “UFOs from the Sewers of Nostradamus”. The show will be titled “The Martian Little Big Foot - Rock or Martian Marvel?”
BTW - has someone checked to see if NASA has any additional images that take in the same area from a different angle? I bet Little Big Foot looses his shape from another viewpoint.
January 24th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
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January 24th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
“Richard Hoagland”… oh camon Michael… Of course I understand your point. I’ve never denied it’s a rock… but its bizarre shape make us think about some anomalous cause for it.What could it be? I’ve read somewhere: it’s a bizarre shape sculped by wind AS similar ones in Earth. But should we suppose that all the conditions of “wind sculpture” are reproduced in Mars? How do we know that? What are the rock material in Mars? How is the wind there? Why other rocks near do not show any bizarre shape (or they do?)?
I just want to keep the question opened until more reliable data solve the problem (as I believe, maybe contrary to Hoagland, that it happened with “Mars face”).
January 24th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
That’s the point Chip… without any images… it’s hard to decide the question…
January 24th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Local News in Providence, RI just did something on the Martian Bigfoot. They never said that it was a rock formation, only that the image was “greatly enlarged” or something. I think you should call them and set them straight, Dr. BA!
January 24th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
What would really help is some depth perception….
what NASA needs to send to mars is a rover with a camera that can display depth that way there wouldn’t be this “theory” of a “humanoid” would not even be happening. It would show a tiny martian walking around, or a man sized martian walking around, or an ordinary (for Mars) rock/pebble that LOOKS like a person.
January 24th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
[…] Astronomy, mentioned in the article but not linked to, has some terrific commentary and follow-up posts. Posted by Sam on Thursday, January 24, 2008, at 8:27 pm. Filed under funny, musings. Tagged […]
January 24th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
It looks like Jesus to me.
January 24th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
Yannis, come back to planet Earth….we miss you.
January 24th, 2008 at 10:20 pm
Yannis,
Bravo: That was one entertaining comment.
My personal favorite passage:
“Because they didn’t base the system on complex simulations of interplanetary forces, dummy! They did statistics, and found patterns. That’s the advantage of living in an never ending reality loop. You have “time” to observe and perfect. And get to meet people and have fun too. If you want patterns you can just get solar radiation vs cosmic ray activity somewhere. They’re opposing each other. Why do you always think complex? Because they taught you obedience, that’s why. Now you’re stuck till someone you trust saves you. Good luck.”
You have restored my faith in gobbledygook and nonsense.
Want to meet me down by the “never ending reality loop?”
January 24th, 2008 at 10:54 pm
Sam A.,
As it turns out, the Mars rovers do have depth perception. They routinely take 3-D images of the Martian landscape.
January 24th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
…in fact, here it is now: http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00001305/
January 25th, 2008 at 12:43 am
Here’s a GREAT QUestion of Observation:
Do you ntice any other rocks that look like the one in the picture? Out of all the pictures taken from mars that have been sanded over, and smoothed and basically shapen with time….none look like that tiny rock/statue. AS small as it is, to me it looks like any other statue..broze perhaps. Its the same colour all voer..and to further this..I haven’t seen a rock that looked like that in my life. My estimatation is that it is a statue.
January 25th, 2008 at 1:04 am
McMurdo, whenever I mention Hoagland, my tongue is deeply implanted within my cheek.
My understanding of Mars’ weather is that it there is considerably more wind erosion there due to the sand. Windstorms on Mars can produce planet-wide dust storms. I don’t know much about the geology of this area, but one can only imagine the effect of wind and sandblasting of soft rock. Remember as well, this is only a feature that is very tiny, 5-8 cm at the most!
January 25th, 2008 at 1:10 am
Amy, think about that for a moment. If this is a statue, that would imply some type of civilization that produced such a statue. Why then is there no other evidence of such a civilization in these pictures? Also, isn’t it very odd, that a probe flew 35 million miles from Earth, landed in a deserted region, and lo and behold there is a statue sitting just meters away from the camera? I think it would be much like going to the middle of the Sahara and finding some statue just sitting on a sand dune.
January 25th, 2008 at 2:56 am
Good grief. This morning Yahoo’s homepage had a link to an ABC News video about the damn thing. It only ran about 20 seconds, and mainly it says “Is it a man walking on Mars or just a shadow? You decide.” They completely neglect to mention that it was originally found in a much larger photo with a ramp, landing gear, and crumpled remains of the parachute (or airbags) clearly visible. That other photo also shows the “figure” to be a couple of inches high and part of the chute or airbags. The fact that otherwise reputable news organizations are showing ONLY the doctored enlargement is a huge disservice to the public they are supposed to inform.
Phil: A few days ago you had a link to a site with both the original pic and the enlargement. You need to actually post those on your blog side by side. I can’t remember what the site was offhand, but I’m sure your readership is probably much higher than theirs.
January 25th, 2008 at 2:58 am
I so hope they will name this tiny rock Dejah Thoris.
Does anybody have a link to the original Nasa photo?
January 25th, 2008 at 3:35 am
There’s not a single scientist in the world intrigued by this rock and wants further study? A couple of inches high and molded by high winds, no one finds this worthy of further investigation? What’s the point of the Mars Rovers if you’re just going to gloss over anything interesting that appears?
January 25th, 2008 at 6:37 am
The local Chicago news covered it last night. They spent more time on what people on the street thought it was then what reputable sources determined about it. I think somewhere along the way they mentioned that it might just be a coincidentally wind shaped rock formation, but I could be mixing stories at this point since there have been so many of them. They alluded to the fact that it was only a rock at the end of the story by saying something to the effect of “look how far down our list of stories this is”. They were trying to imply that it wasn’t a sign of life because they didn’t use it as the top story. Don’t they understand that most of the audience isn’t going to read into that and only heard “It’s an alien”.
January 25th, 2008 at 6:47 am
Really, does one have to give any dignity by responding to the claims?
If one really has to believe there is a gorilla all by itself on mars, let he/she.
maybe the banana futures in 200mB carbon dioxide is the decider.
January 25th, 2008 at 6:47 am
awesome….
January 25th, 2008 at 6:53 am
Holy… damn i cant use that word… Hell… cant use that one either. Damn its hard being the originator of afaeodontism…
How does any one think a statue has been made on mars???? There is no humic layer anywhere to suggest life got anywhere past amino acids sleeping with each other around the corner from where tarty sugar chains danced the night away.
At least this site doesnt moderate real dissent away like John Paul Mince’s does… or Turd24Orgs does
January 25th, 2008 at 7:30 am
Phil’s blog got a mention on the BBC news site
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7205004.stm
January 25th, 2008 at 8:08 am
Martian Bigfoot For President!!!
January 25th, 2008 at 8:24 am
Amy London said:
“Do you ntice any other rocks that look like the one in the picture? Out of all the pictures taken from mars that have been sanded over, and smoothed and basically shapen with time….none look like that tiny rock/statue. AS small as it is, to me it looks like any other statue..broze perhaps. Its the same colour all voer..and to further this..I haven’t seen a rock that looked like that in my life. My estimatation is that it is a statue.”
So, Amy, if someone were to show you a rock that does appear to be the same colur all over (when viewed from only one side), would that change your mind about the rock on Mars?
Seriously, our brains have evolved to deduce patterns from minimal hints as a survival aid (hey, that thing in the trees that looks a bit like a tiger might just be a tiger - just in case, let’s run away). Thus, we often see recogniseable shapes in unconnected or random patterns or objects. This phenomenon has a name (paraeidolia (sp?)). If I were a gambling man, I would bet quite a lot that the rock on Mars is no more than a rock. Just as the face on Mars is no more than an eroded mesa that looks a bit like a face at low resolution from orbit.
January 25th, 2008 at 8:24 am
Oops. Excuse the typo, that should have been “colour”.
January 25th, 2008 at 8:41 am
Several students brought up this topic in my classes yesterday. Fortunately, I had the BA website and the links you reference to refute their claims of “Men on Mars”.
January 25th, 2008 at 8:59 am
If you find it on a decent resolution version of the image (at http://www.canvin.streamlinenettrial.co.uk/mer/index.html#A1366) and zoom in (in Photoshop for instance), the “bigfoot” shape is not even 3 dimensional - it’s merely a flat, broken off side of a rock in shadow. Very obviously so.
January 25th, 2008 at 9:25 am
Amy,
I don’t mean to pile on, but…this is an image of a rock formation in Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs called “Kissing Camels.”
http://www.douglastriggs.com/nature/garden55-prev.jpg
What’s more likely? That this formation is a weather-worn statue left behind by an ancient civilization, or that this formation is the result of millenia of wind and water erosion on an upthrust chunk of red sandstone?
It’s been stated multiple times before, but our brains are wired to discern patterns in everything we see. The mechanism which allows you to see a bronze statue on Mars is the same mechanism which allows the rest of us to see a pair of camels kissing in the picture above.
January 25th, 2008 at 9:46 am
Michael and others, my point is only the following: do we have enough evidence to reject any other hypothesis than windstorm ? Amy proposed that it could be a statue. Can we really reject it by analogies with shaped rocks on Earth? I just think that more evidence is needed.
Michael: I need to think a little more, but I’m not convinced by your argument on probability…
January 25th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Steve: I accept that “our brains are wired to discern patterns in everything we see.”But suppose that in a forest vegetatin creates a kind of pattern that resembles a carpet. We would tend to recognize a teppish there… But suppose also that a native constructed a kind of carpet to sleep… we would also recognize it as a carpet. The point is: some patterns seen by the brain HAPPEN to be non-natural, intentional… And the problem: how can we distinguish between both cases? How do you know that the pattern in the Mars’ rock is natural and not artificial (remember: our brains would recognize patterns in both cases…)??
January 25th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Yes rocks can take funny shapes. If it truly was a creature; then there would be a corresponding civilzation. There would be thousands of other creatures walking about; and little ones and old ones and sidewalks and cafes and clothing stores….. Its just some eroded rock that took a funny shape and because it looks like a human figure; it fools the average person or republican.
January 25th, 2008 at 10:26 am
Scientists use their own version of the KISS principle, called Occam’s Razor, or the Law of Parsimony, as a rule of thumb.
It basically states “All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best.”
The simplest explanation for a blotch that looks like Sasquatch is that it is a blotch that happens looks like Sasquatch.
It is a perfectly good, rational explanation if the observation, consistent with everything else we know about the universe.
There is no reason to invent an explanation that requires unnecessary assumptions.
There is no way (with the evidence available) to proof or disproof that is a not statue.
But for it to be a statue would require a statue-maker.
An entity for which existence there isn’t one iota of evidence, and there are plenty of good reasons to consider such entity very unlikely.
January 25th, 2008 at 10:47 am
McMurdo, let’s assume this is a statue. If that is the case, then there would be evidence of a civilization that made the statue. Where is the evidence? We have orbiters scanning every foot of the planet. Surely they would have turned up evidence of some civilization? (And no, the Face does not count!
)
Obviously, being 35 million miles away, we cannot PROVE 100% that this is NOT an artificial object. However based on what we do know about the Martian environment, I would peg it at 99.999999999% sure against it being artificial.
I do find it amazing that people actually have the time to scan every pixel of these images for something that looks odd. It reminds me of the people that look at Disney movies frame by frame looking for sexually suggestive images that are subliminally planted by the evil artists at Disney.
January 25th, 2008 at 11:08 am
[…] If you have any doubts in your mind that this is nothing more that just a very small, unusual rock formation, please, please, please see Emily Lakdawalla’s thorough explanation of the image at the Planetary Society’s website, which includes 3-D pictures that really make it clear this is not a humanoid. It’s a rock with a funny shape. And Phil the Bad Astronomer has more info on it as well here and here. […]
January 25th, 2008 at 11:50 am
McMurdo,
The real test would be if the rover moved a lot closer, and started to discern textures such as strands of hair, pores on the skin, eyelashes, and so on. Until then, we know from experience here on Earth that it easily can be just an eroded rock. The whole region about the rover is characterizable by a history of erosion, working the stone into various interesting shapes. I even see a snake with its head raised right off the floor around bottom-center.
January 25th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
I think it’s perfectly obvious what this thing is. It’s a Martian commuter, and I can tell exactly what he’s thinking. “Typical,” he’s saying to himself.”You wait for a rover for an etrnity, and then two of them come along at the same time!” Anyone who, like me, regularily uses public transport will know exactly where he’s coming from…..
January 25th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Maybe NASA needs to outfit their future rover with a mechanism to B***H slap odd features. If they scream, they’re aliens.
January 25th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
ESA signaled the start of a busy period for the planet Mercury, when it signed the contract for industrial development to start for the BepiColombo mission January 18, 2008, at Astrium in Friedrichshafen, Germany.These fearmongers are completely wrong, scaring lots of others, and are apparently unwilling to listen to reason. The videos still make outrageously bad claims and the websites still make utterly false statements.
January 26th, 2008 at 1:44 am
The ‘Man on Mars’ explained. We can all finally put this to rest and everyone can sleep easier now knowing that an invasion of space men is no longer imminent.
http://users.ncable.net.au/~boomy/Marsman.jpg
January 26th, 2008 at 8:02 am
Don’t ya mean “Moron the Martian Bigfoot”?
A moments investigation,thanks to you, easily dispells any notion of such an asinine concept.
I wonder how many other analogs we’re missing.
When such people see rabbits in the clouds to they believe rabbits control the atmosphere? Did they never grow up to realize just because something may in our every complex minds resemble an object, it is yet not that object but merely the media of the image.
Its exactly like that avant guarde art labeled ‘Ceci n’pas une pipe”. Its a painting of a pipe, reminding the viewer that the image is not a pipe.
Here is the picture:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b9/MagrittePipe.jpg
January 26th, 2008 at 9:27 am
Andrew, thanks for the link. When downloaded and zoomed, it is most definitely the edge of a rock in shadow. What’s interesting is the image from the news sites appear, if not an image from another angle, then, for the most part, to be altered copies of the original. For example, note the one at http://www.foxnews.com/images/338849/0_61_mars_spirit_figure.jpg which has the top portion of the shadow shifted, to appear more like a 3D image. Far easier to make a rock look like a figure with a bit of tweaking of the shadow then to make a figure look like a shadow.
January 26th, 2008 at 10:30 am
Not sure if this has been mentioned in all the Bigfoot on Mars discussion.Last night I was wondering youtube when I came across Phil’s talk at the Amazing Meeting 2.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytteylWv0Hw
At 2:23 in the video he shows a picture of ‘Marsquatch’. Even then he was laying the ground for the conspiracy!
January 26th, 2008 at 10:47 am
As early as the Amazing Meeting 2 Phil was already covering for the conspiracy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytteylWv0Hw (at 2:23)
January 26th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
I find it totally amazing that (in the 21st century) America is still engaged in argument over whether or not this is a picture of a being (size & height undetermined) or a sculpture made by a being (again size undetermined) or the result of natural errosion of a rock…
Let me remind all you out in the migwest that your great airospace agency NASA has still to effectively explain some very strange occurences from the Apollo expleditions to the moon in the 60s & 70s.
Cast your minds back people…. a US flag blowing in the wind on a planet with no atmospheric pressure??? Identical backgrount landscape profiles (shape & height of hills, crater marks on surface etc) appear in still frames shot (supposedly) several “Moon Buggy” hours drive apart. BTW people, I work as a professional photographer (and haven’t starved yet) here in Australia, and after 25 years I know that the camera can see what “he who is blind” can not!!!.
In all honesty, I see no reason for anyone to believe that life throughout the universe would be limited to the mess that we have made of human “civilization” (unless you are gullible enough to believe that it actually snowed in Jerusalum at the end of December) C’mon guys…. Get a life (a REAL one)
January 27th, 2008 at 12:41 am
What The, have you actually seen the Main Site where Phil addresses the whole Moon Hoax issue, as well as other conspiracy theories? Didn’t think so.
January 27th, 2008 at 2:03 am
Clearly What The has not seen the site if he/she questions the blowing flag which only ever “blows” when an astronaut is moving it around and blows in such a way that clearly shows it’s in an airless environment.
Unfortunately some people ignore reality.
January 27th, 2008 at 11:29 am
What The??? posts:
[[a US flag blowing in the wind on a planet with no atmospheric pressure???]]
Vibrating, not blowing. They had just jammed the thing into the ground.
[[ Identical backgrount landscape profiles (shape & height of hills, crater marks on surface etc) appear in still frames shot (supposedly) several “Moon Buggy” hours drive apart. ]]
It’s called “parallax.” Take a photo of a car a hundred miles from Mt. Hood. Move the car a thousand feet further along. Take another picture. Wow, Mount Hood didn’t move!
January 27th, 2008 at 10:13 pm
Thought that you guys might be interested in this.
http://pics.livejournal.com/galbinus_caeli/pic/001ytxa3
January 27th, 2008 at 10:16 pm
You guys are telling me that all this fuss is about a little green toy solider… (the ones that used to come in little bags of 50)? Now you guys know that the rover threw it out there and took pictures of it. C’mon my robosapien can throw those little toys too!
And how come on the top of the pictures it shows “NASA Video” in the corner, but only stills are available?
January 28th, 2008 at 11:18 am
Well, people, I’m not a cartesian foundationalist seeking 100% of certainty in order to affirm to have knowledge… The estimation of 99% in the case is enough… the Occam’s Razor is well applied, of course. But as Days acknowledges: “There is no way (with the evidence available) to proof or disproof that is a not statue”. We deal with available evidence and theories. I just hope that we really have access to ALL available evidence (I know that I’m now slipping in a kind of conspiracy theory… but… do NASA really show all the pictures from Mars?)…
January 28th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
That’s just a building, Adrian. I have photographic proof that aliens have landed!
January 28th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Well, the comment page doesn’t like img tags, so you’ll have to visit ancientpond.com/images/ToadRip/aliens.jpg. Sorry.