FIRST LIQUID SURFACE

WATER ON MARS

Report #052

Original 7/15/03 – Updated (8/11/03) (10/25/03)

Joseph P. Skipper

 

J. P. Skipper can be contacted at jskipper@marsanomalyresearch.com

This report is about older liquid water evidence sourced from 25-year old Viking satellite imaging science data and considered the first discovery of liquid surface water of any kind on Mars. This cause has been taken up before by others, most notably scientists in the group known as the Society For Planetary SETI Research (SPSR) and more specifically Drs. Stanley McDaniel and Vince Dipietro in that group. However, their online treatment on this has been rather brief with limited imaging and, since this is such a very important matter, it will receive additional more in depth treatment here from me. Hopefully this will add some useful information to the issue of surface water discovery firsts on Mars as well as help ensure that credit for this significant discovery is not ignored and goes to the right place.

In August, 1978 the Viking Orbiter 1 satellite camera system took two consecutive images of the Solas Planum region on Mars. The first was Image ID #775A10 from camera "B" taken at 12:27Z and the second was Image ID #775A11 from camera "A" taken a few seconds later at 12:32Z according to official Viking statistical data. Among others pouring over the received Viking Orbiter data back then was Dr. Leonard J. Martin of Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, a well respected and reputable mainstream planetary scientist. The December, 1980 official newsletter "NASA Activities" (Vol. 11, No. 12) indicates that Dr. Martin reported discovering a small cloud at terrain level casting a shadow on the ground in the two images.

In Dr. McDaniel's report on this found HERE (scroll down the page), the NASA Activities article goes on to say "According to Martin, the unusual shape of this shadow and the rapid cloud changes over the 4½ second interval between the two pictures suggest it was explosively expelled from the surface as a geyser or steam vent." Dr. Martin's interpretation that the cloud, whose shadow apparently clearly demonstrates it to be a vertical column almost a half-mile high, was quickly and aggressively challenged by a Viking project scientist Dr. Conway Snyder.

Even though Snyder's rationale and arguments seemed to be rather emotionally based, incredibly weak and without merit, this discovery was quickly and effectively plunged into controversy and then immediately and mysteriously seems to have disappeared off of everyone's radar. Does it make any sense to you that NASA or JPL as a whole would just ignore such a potentially momentous discovery of possible first liquid surface water of any kind on Mars? No enhancement of the Viking imaging in question, no careful scrutiny, no real peer debate, no real analysis at all, and even no subsequent imaging of the area in more current probe surveys like the MOC data. Yet incredibly that is just what happened. Even now with all of the official probes and focus for discovery of water on Mars, not a peep out of NASA or JPL on this now 25 year old potential surface water discovery.

Apparently, SPSR, Dr. Vince DiPietro, and Dr. McDaniel subsequently tried to influence NASA to focus on this issue but were essentially stonewalled. DiPietro has also done some media work trying to motivate some action with of course no real headway being made there either. You can find a short media article on him and this subject at www.laurallee.com found HERE and a little more lengthy Florida Today traditional media article found HERE. (sorry but this 10/10/1998 article apparently is no longer archieved at Florida Today which serves the Cape Space Coast area)

Since that initial spat of discovery in the early 1980s, Dr. Martin himself seems to have strangely voluntarily disappeared into the woodwork saying so little about this momentous discovery that even fellow colleagues at his Lowell Observatory over the following decades seem to have been unaware that he had made this huge discovery in the Viking data. Was he just the non aggressive type preferring to avoid a controversial public and professional fight, or is he the type to "cooperative" with the powers that be, or was he simply warned off by NASA and/or JPL very much able to influence the careers of scientist like himself? Who knows? I did find out that Dr. Martin continued at Lowell Observatory in a influential capacity and working with NASA and JPL on Mars work, including on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) program, until his death on April 7, 1997. For more information on his general contributions to science and Mars data, check out this summation of his work and life found HERE.

Now we all know that NASA and JPL with all the many multiples of higher education degrees in their ranks cannot possibly be considered ignorant or dumb. Likewise, there is no denying that liquid surface water on a supposedly arid planet like Mars within reasonable traveling distance from Earth is a major discovery of the highest importance. Water is the precursor to life as we know it and key to everything on Mars! Obviously, this apparent official we're not interested "duh" mentality just doesn't fit or compute. Therefore this silence and stonewalling can only logically be explained as being purely intentional choice on someone's part. So the question is why? If you've looked at the considerable evidence here at this website, I suspect you'll know the answer to that as well as I do and do not need it explained here by me.

Meanwhile, what about the evidence in images #775A10 and #775A11 that is at the heart of this matter? You should know that both of the original science data images accessed online at PDS are very dark to the point that little detail can be seen in them without the necessary software for quite a bit of lightening and clarification work that must be done on them. Also, the versions at PDS have an orientation that is opposite vertically and horizontally of the scene orientations I've shown here.

I flipped the PDS sourced images vertically and horizontally for the view you see here in order to provide a direct comparison with and comply with the historical imaging orientation of others like Dr. DiPietro as seen online. I can only assume that this older historical imaging probably complies with the original data disc set V0-1029 where the original official science data resides representing the technology levels of the 1970s. I can see no reason why DiPietro or others would have flipped their imaging from the true originals and therefore suspect that it is the PDS images that have been flipped.

At the top of this report is my first clarified image showing the #775A10 image evidence at official resolution size much as Dr. Martin probably first saw it, after some clarifying graphics work. The water geyser and its shadow on the ground are clearly seen standing out sharply from the surroundings. Note that the long shadow cast by the geyser's massive vertical column complies with the direction of the sunlight coming from the top toward the bottom of the image as confirmed in the large impact crater just to the upper right near the geyser. You can see how strongly this geyser stood out and logically would have immediately come to the attention of a experienced Mars researcher like Dr. Martin.

The above second image is also of #77A10 but with an increased doubled zoom factor, which is about the maximum of what these original strips can handle before too much grain and pixelization becomes a factor. The uniform row of short vertical lines and larger black dots are camera tracking artifacts intentionally artificially introduced onto the image at official level and the tiny widely scattered white dots are probably bad defective pixel artifacts. All this has to do with 1970s technology, so please just ignore these as they have nothing to do with the evidence.

As you can see, the water geyser with its diffuse boiling top head and the shadow being cast are fairly obvious. Note the direction of the sunlight in the craters demonstrating that the geyser's almost half-mile height vertical column's shadow is correct complying with the other pertinent physical evidence in this scene.

ADDENDUM 10/25/2003

I'm updating this report on 10/25/03 by drawing attention with an arrow and label to a very perfect raised effect numerical "2" clearly shown in the terrain close to and just to the lower left of the water geyser in my above second image. Note that my label "2" appears right above the evidence in my above image for a easy A-B comparison of the "2" shapes. Obviously, the probability for such a precisely exact "2" in the image to be an artificial created shape is very high and the possibility of it being of chance natural origin is very low.

I left this particular piece of evidence out of my original reporting because I thought it may be related to the image tampering that covers the background terrain in both the 77A10 and 77A11 images giving the terrain in both images a very grainy quality covering over true background terrain features (except for outlines) and not legitimate ground level anomaly evidence. That is because the terrain in each image, in my opinion, has a tiny overlapping geometric pattern tampering application in it around this water geyser completely covering up the true terrain. The tiny geometric forms that constitute it can be seen at maximum zoom factors.

If you will look at my fifth and last image below creating a side-by-side comparison of the two 775A10 and 775A11 images, you can also see very subtle differences in the background terrain indicating that these are two separate images with ever so slight different tampering applications patterns in each. Remember that these two images were taken only 4-5 seconds apart and there should be no changes at all in the terrain even though there would be of course with the water geyser because of its boiling movement.

My initial thought was that the "2" in the terrain was perhaps a subtle created label camouflaged in the tampering application itself. However, some sharp eyed viewers reminded me of this anomaly's presence and my lack of reporting on it, so I've come back now to include it in my reporting after all. Further, it is also possible that the tampering application done at far closer resolution may have mapped over and around something distinct raised and real in the terrain retaining this "2" outline. The problem with this concept, as you can see in the images below, is that the "2" is not visible in the subsequent 775A11 image taken few seconds later, only in the 775A10 image.

Whatever it is and even if there is a ground level object there, just make sure that you consider that you're are not seeing the "2" shaped object itself, only the tampering application covering it. Therefore, although the "2" shape is almost certainly artificial in origin, I am unable to say whether this evidence is a shape representing an artificial object on the ground under the tampering or a camouflaged label created by the tampering itself.

This inability to answer this question with a sufficient sense of certainty is one of the reasons why I did not report on it initially. In retrospect, that was perhaps an error because it certainly is evidence of artificiality of some sort and viewers should have the opportunity to decide for themselves. Much thanks to those that brought this to my attention.

The above third image is of the next #775A11 at official resolution taken a few seconds later by a different onboard camera. Again, the water geyser and its now broader shadow are clearly seen along with the sunlight direction demonstrated in the craters. Note how the shadow has now changed shape and broadened in just those few seconds.

This clearly demonstrates that the geyser column and top are in rapid flux as would be typical of a giant water geyser. It also clearly demonstrates that the dark shadow is indeed shadow reflecting the shifting dynamic changes in the geyser column as opposed to dark constant state track that might have been left by a dust devil that some with hidden agendas might want to argue. Oh yes, this is definitely a geyser shooting liquid in the air and not a dust devil.

However, note that there is an additional anomaly in this image pointed out with a question mark and arrow that does not appear in the 775A10 image. At this distant resolution, this appears to possibly be an object on the ground with a dark center and a highly reflective light color outer perimeter surface. However, this is misleading and I suspect intentionally so.

The above fourth image is a closer view of the #775A11 image and geyser. Note that in just 5 seconds the geyser here has slightly changed shape in its boiling top head as has the broadness of the shadow that it is casting. The strange looking anomaly to the lower left of the geyser is now more prominent but closer examination at greater zoom than this indicates that this is actually a larger cluster group of white pixels with a smaller cluster group of dark pixels applied in the center of it.

In my opinion, unlike the other scattered lone tiny white single pixel artifacts, these clusters of white pixels are not natural camera artifacts. Rather, I suspect that the group with the cluster of black pixels applied to it and the two entirely white pixel cluster groups just to the upper right of the geyser as also pointed out with arrows in the above fourth image are the same thing and representations of three fast moving smaller objects crossing in the air above ground level past and on either side of the geyser traveling at an angle from our upper left to our lower right.

This course direction is demonstrated by the clearly seen slight tapering or lessening of the pixel count on our left end of each object pixel group while the pixels are bunched and thickened on the right end. In my opinion, these are likely aircraft in flight above ground level and just too small to be seen as true physical objects in the poor distant resolution imaging but they are light reflective causing the camera to still register them on multiple pixels as they cross diagonally across the base rigid pixel grid.

Probably, someone came along, recognized them as fast moving aircraft that aren't of course suppose to exist on Mars and, afraid they will be recognized as such even as just pixel clusters, did then manually install a small cluster group of dark pixels on the one anomaly to the lower left of the geyser in an attempt to break that object up and thereby break up the more obvious pattern of all three of these anomalies. The tactic is of course that these three anomalies then all just blend in with all the true camera artifacts in this scene, which is no doubt effectively what happened.

With this new information in hand, we can now perhaps understand better why NASA and JPL in the 1970s and 1980s to the present has not wanted any attention and very close scrutiny to be brought to bear on this old Viking water discovery imaging. One reason is because surface water recognition leads to the speculation of the presence of life on Mars right when the official position is that Mars is a frozen, dry as dust, dead as can be world not worthy of closer scrutiny. Another reason is because obviously there was lot more than liquid surface water was at stake here in this imaging.

Now the silence and the incredibly strange ignoring of this evidence and the stonewalling of attempts to bring it to attention begins to make more sense, particularly in the Cold War military-intelligence-security paranoia influence of the 1970s and 1980s. Likewise, we might even be able to understand why Dr. Martin in this time may have voluntarily cooperated and let this most important first liquid surface water discovery of his die a quite public death.

Well, even though the probable aircraft and intelligent life evidence here in this old Viking imaging is actually very minor compared to the much stronger multiple discoveries now being revealed coming out of the more current Mars probe science data, we're not going to let this old important water discovery die a quite death now are we. Why not? Because, even though Dr. Martin is gone now, he did make this most important surface water discovery and both he and it and his legacy for this deserve better treatment from us and from historical posterity.

In any case, the above fifth image with its telling side by side 200% zoom factor split screen comparison of the geyser target in each of the Viking 775A10 and 774A11 images that you will not fine anywhere else gets back to the water on Mars issue. Remember, these two images were taken only 4½-5 seconds apart, so any changes in form that Dr. Martin observed and reported will be very minor and subtle. Even so, you can clearly see the subtle change in shape of both the geyser boiling top and its shadow. The shape changes in just a very few seconds clearly demonstrates that this is a active dynamic changing object just as Dr. Martin describes and the shadow clearly demonstrates its great height extending in the air far above ground level.

In evidence that I have not yet released but which is on the way, I too have discovered water geysers including long ago an immense one much more pronounced and better imaged than the one you see here. I can tell you that official interpretive comments in the science data, when present at all, often identifies objects like these as dust devils (tornados) in a constant ongoing misdirection campaign promoting that Mars is a dry as dust and dead as can be world. Sometimes such identifications are on track but often they're also just ongoing misdirection propaganda to.

You should be aware that I too have made a first surface water discovery on Mars but not to be confused with Dr. Martin's. Where Dr. Martin's is of a liquid water geyser erupting above the surface and therefore correctly the first liquid water of any kind discovered on Mars, my discovery as report #002 titled First Discovery of Standing Liquid Water is also very important because it is the first standing liquid surface body of water. The distinction is very important. Dr. Martin's geyser it is assumed is erupting via force from underground to the heights above the surface and it is assumed that this eruption by force is temporary by nature not ultimately to be sustained as a body of water on the surface. That means that the presence of this geyser does not conflict with the official position on atmospheric conditions that Mars is freezing cold place preventing the presence of surface water in a liquid state. In other words, the geyser just hasn't enough time and exposure to freeze yet.

On the other hand, my first discovery and other discoveries I've already reported on of standing liquid surface bodies of water conflicts directly with the official position on Mars atmospheric freezing conditions as well as dry conditions. The fact is that, because hard freezing conditions and LIQUID surface bodies of water can't exist at the same time and place, someone is most definitely seriously wrong. On the one side, you have this all powerful deep pockets huge science-military-industrial-government complex that you acknowledge as your experts and leadership in this area telling you that Mars is a dry as dust hard frozen hostile place essentially devoid of life. They would tell you the truth, wouldn't they?

On the other side there is just me the nobody but producing a large growing body of hard visual evidence that tells a completely different story about Mars and, worse, its drawn from their own official science data. Further, with the release soon of all the liquid surface water evidence I have been holding back, the plot is definitely going to seriously thicken.

Unlike Dr. Martin and his time, I'm not voluntarily going to go away or allow this body of evidence to fade into obscurity in the face of opposition. Even if he had been so inclined, Dr. Martin in the 1970s and 1980s had no reliable voice outlet or method of making his evidence or side of things known to the public if the media stonewalled him. Further, he was in a profession heavily influenced by the all powerful "complex" where a misstep could be disastrous to his career and welfare. The computer and Internet age has now changed all that. Dr. Martin was elderly and unfortunately no doubt tired by the time of the Internet's full emergence but now the people can economically have a voice and I have every intention of taking advantage of this on behalf of legitimate evidence, the truth, and gaining real knowledge.

So who will prevail? Actually, the more appropriate question is what will prevail? Only truth and reality prevail in the end and I'm satisfied with that. The key is what will you let into your perception and life and when? Are you satisfied with secrecy and subterfuge and not knowing or do you really want to know? The choice is yours.

ADDENDUM: 8/11/2003

I received e-mail feedback from a friend and supporter but in this case he offers some reasonable "devil's advocate" counterpoints on this report. Since they are likely representative of the views of some others, I've decided to include them here along with my response. Perhaps this will help clarify some of the issues that I may not have treated in enough detail in the report.

COUNTERPOINT: "... Now in your report you have water and an aircraft portrayed, could this geyser be Cardon-Dioxide gas venting? Most scientific minded folks would ask this question - if it is water where's it landing and either freezing or running off into a river or pool? This looks like vapor venting into the atmosphere Patrick; I don't see the proposed aircraft as such in the images in the report either..."

MY RESPONSE: Good and valuable feedback. Your counter points representing a potential opposition point of view are telling and well taken. They draw attention to where I may not have adequately dealt with these legitimate points in the original report.

As for the geyser being CO2 gas venting, that is possible simply because anything is ultimately possible but it is still very improbable here. Mars is not the super frigid frozen world with a surface devoid of liquid surface water to the degree officially depicted. This is a carefully crafted illusion just like a lot of the image tampering to steer everyone clear of the true reality. When I release the many hard evidence liquid surface water discoveries that I have been holding back from the very beginning of my research, this will become abundantly clear. Many of these will be presented in the forthcoming book along with others at the website timed with the book but that is all that I am prepared to say about that at this time. Let's just say that solid evidence is on the way.

As for the absence of "... water landing and either freezing or running off into a river or pool..."evidence, first we need to remember that we're talking about 25+ year old Viking imaging here with the technical limitations of that time decades ago that is of course not the quality of the more current Mars imaging. Even ignoring tampering considerations, the geyser is a gigantic object as is of course the matching shadow that it casts and that is the only reason why we can see it at all. Any lesser size evidence such as you describe would not be visible in this imaging's limited resolution.

Second, there is the very strong likelihood that this is a newer temporary vent (as most such vents would be) that has had insufficient time to build up the massive amounts and therefore the huge size residual CO2 ice, liquid water, or water ice evidence in the terrain around the geyser's base area that would be necessary to be visible in this old and poorer Viking resolution. Remember, water geysers we are familiar with here on Earth are pressure release events and temporary eruptions by nature that cease activity once the pressure that initiated them underground is released.

Third, the spotty quality of the dark shadow in comparison with the geyser vent more solid shape at the same resolution, suggests and indicates that the visuals around the base of this great object have been subjected to tampering, particularly with resolution tampering. Perhaps I should have said more about this in the original report but the problem is that I'm burned out on endlessly talking about tampering and I try not to bring every bit of it that exists in a scene up in my reporting. If I did that, each report would be prohibitively long for presentation in the limited space available on the Web as well as exceedingly boring. Remember, where there is civilization evidence, there is always tampering and the tampering evidence is far far more plentiful in a scene than any (if any) evidence left out of what it attempts to cover up.

As for the aircraft not being readily visible, I think I did try to briefly explain why and that you can't see something that small in the Viking imaging, only the iconic images formed by clusters of light color pixels similar to what one might see on a radar screen imaging of a reflective object. Still this is significant and would be verifiable by satellite imaging experts, if improbably an objective group of them could ever be found that didn't care whether they irritated the big boys and their agenda or not. The old Viking camera did see three objects there and they are clearly moving from left to right. This is clearly demonstrated by the trailing out (lessening) of the pixels at the left end of each of the three objects as opposed to be thickly bunched and solid pixels on the right end of each object. These are reflective objects in motion.

Remember, there are two images and taken only about 4½ seconds apart of the exact same scene. The objects are not in the first image at all, only in the second image. That conclusively rules out ground based objects and the only possibilities left then are either that they are camera defects meaning they would not be real objects or the camera did see something real and reflective traveling at high speed diagonally down across the camera's pixel field of view from left to right.

There are no other pixel clusters like these in any of the rest of these two strips or in other sample strips that might suggest camera defects that look like this. Indeed, there are many camera defects present in this old Viking imaging but they're readily identifiable as such and I pointed these out in my report. But, there is nothing similar to these three objects. Further, all three of these objects have the same iconic shape pixel representations with a well bunched solid dense appearing group of pixels on the right end and a tapering or lessening of pixels on the left end. All are the same in this regard and this clearly points to the camera capturing three reflective objects moving across the pixel field in the same direction on parallel courses and fast enough to show up diagonally crossing multiple pixels at the instant of the camera shot.

Only the fact that such smaller objects are crossing diagonally across multiple pixels in the image pixel field allows us to see even an iconic representation of their presence. If they had been sitting still, they would have been far too small and appeared in just one pixel and of course would not have been visible at all even as a speck. Further, the fact that they were not there 4-5 seconds earlier in the first of the two images, tells us that this kind of extreme speed of travel across the camera's pixel field is not consistent with anything sitting still on the ground or traveling on the ground. This leaves aircraft in flight between ground level and the camera as the only scenario that properly fits this particular type of evidence. Again, any well qualified objective group of satellite imaging specialist would be able to verify this.

Additionally, the presence of the smaller group of dark pixels very obviously artificially applied on top center of the lower of the three light color pixel clusters demonstrates, at least to this researcher, that someone at official level was well aware of the implications of this evidence and attempted to break up their pattern visually by this type of tampering application. This type of anomaly evidence was very minor to start with and I suspect they thought this would be sufficient to take care of it under normal circumstances and they were right until now 25+ years later. Dr. Martin, focussed on the much more obvious geyser and doubtless excited by what he considered to be the huge first probable water discovery on Mars, probably paid little attention to other much tinier evidence in this scene and probably did not initially recognize this for what it is. Remember to that he would be looking at this with 25+ year old graphics software that may have had trouble adequately displaying the much smaller objects in flight evidence.

I suspect that it is the choice of dark pixel cluster tampering technique, its ultimate insufficiency to adequately obscure all the objects in flight evidence, and this evidence's objective remaining verifiability potential that makes this so objectionable to the secrecy crowd and worthy of stonewalling and censoring. Water on Mars is a big deal now and would have been an even bigger deal back in the 1970s and 1980s and the excitement generating many scientists and imaging specialists going over these two images with a fine tooth comb would not have been good from the secrecy agenda point of view. If this kind of evidence ever got before an objective group of satellite imaging specialists, especially some within the planetary scientific community that could be objective, the resulting interpretation would be likely to cause the secrecy types a lot of problems. Worse, it might have also led to other uncomfortable awareness complications as well and even risked creating a unraveling effect on the whole secrecy agenda.

In any case, the main point is that the smaller evidence that you describe and would want to see in this scene would not be discernible due to the limitations of this decades old Viking imaging and therefore not a factor in drawing conclusions. That's the reason I did not discuss many of these points in detail. Upon hindsight in reading your comments, I see that my original presentation may have insufficiently anticipated some of these issues and I probably will have to now alter the report to deal with these points.

In any case, thanks for the insightful feedback. It will help me do better reporting.

SUMMARY POINTS

(1) Viking 25-year old data here clearly demonstrates a huge water geyser on Mars.

(2) This is probably the first liquid surface water discovery of any kind on Mars.

(3) Dr. Leonard J. Martin of Lowell Observatory is the one who first discovered this.

(4) This evidence does not challenge the official position that Mars is hard frozen year round.

(5) NASA & JPL appear to have intentionally ignored & stonewalled this first discovery.

(6) Probable aircraft in flight evidence in one of the images may have caused this stonewalling.

DOCUMENTATION

The easiest way to verify the visual evidence here behind me is to access the old Viking Orbiter 1 official #775A10 and #775A11 science data images via PDS now moved to USGS at the links below. Note that sadly these images are apparently no longer available in browser complatible versions but only in archievd .IMQ format versions. Note too that both images are very dark and will require graphics software to lighten and clarify them to view the discovery site adequately as well as also flip them vertically and horizontally to match my imaging orientation as well as others out there on the Internet.

ftp://pdsimage2.wr.usgs.gov/cdroms/viking_orbiter/vo_1029/f775axx/: After changes at PDS (Planetary Data Systems) since my above original report, both the Viking Orbiter 1 f775a10 and the f775a11 official science data images can now be found at this link archieved at this USGS government location. However, note that they are now only in the non browser compatible .IMQ format. Here there will be a number of images but the above two image numbers will be prominant. Just click on the appropriate icon for that image number and download to your hard drive. Note that this is a FTP site short cut to the images. If this link is unstable or doesn't work for you, go to the link below.

http://pds-imaging.jpl.nasa.gov/Admin/resources/cd_viking.html: Note that the above link is a "FTP" address. If it doesn't want to work for you properly, this link will take you to the front door .html site and there you will find a long list of Viking products. Scroll down a little more than half way on the page until you come to the number "vo_1029" in the left vertical column. From that number look across to the right in the last right column and verify the "images in the range 772A01 - 825A52." Now go back to the left and in the middle column click on the left blue USGS icon. This will take you to the "FTP" site front end and there you should choose the folder "f775axx." This will then open up to the same above first FTP site first link and it should be stable for you.

Joseph P. Skipper, Investigator

 

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