BS: Seashells found on Mars

Subject: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Wesley S
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 01:31 PM

My brother - Mudcatter Ironmule - sent me a link to this site. I thought y'all might want to take a look at this and decide for yourselves. It sure would be nice to send some humans up that way. Or bring some of these objects back for a closer examination.


Seashells on Mars

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 01:38 PM

Consider the source

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 01:48 PM

*shrug*...when NASA issues an opinion that these images are shells, call me.....on 2nd thought, never mind; it'll be on the front page.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: dianavan
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 01:57 PM

Maybe, maybe not.

I did hear some exciting news the other day.

Apparently scientist now have new areas to explore when looking for signs of life in outer space. I didn't catch the whole explanation but the conclusion is that what appears to be lifeless balls of fire or gas or cold, rocky stars or planets may be only crusts that emcompass a complete world INSIDE.

I will try to find more about this as it has certainly opened my mind to a countless number of possibilities.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 02:13 PM

"...crusts that emcompass a complete world INSIDE."

I have a science fiction novel with that precise theme regarding a comet.. It is **wild, creative speculation**.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: bobad
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 02:27 PM

"when NASA issues an opinion that these images are shells, call me"

Don't you know that there's a massive cover up happening, the government doesn't want it to be known that there is a large supply of seafood available on Mars.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Wesley S
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 02:43 PM

Actually there was a series of books by the author of Tarzan - Edgar Rice Burroughs - about a world called Pellucidar inside of the earth. I read them all when I was 10 or 12.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 03:59 PM

ahhh...massive cover-up! Sure, I get it...like the one where they have trained parapsychologists working in secret, but won't admit it because we'd all be nervous about having our minds probed.

"Martian lobster? Sure, $2 each....but the shipping is $178,000,000!"

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: RangerSteve
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 04:13 PM

Well, lobster is plentiful here in NJ, and, to tell the truth, I can take it or leave it. But do they have Martian scallops? Even with the shipping, they might be cheaper than the local ones. And what about oysters? I haven't seen fresh ones in the stores for ages.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Charley Noble
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 04:35 PM

How do we know that someone just didn't drop in from another planet and had the Martian equivalent of a clambake? I'm surprised there are not a few beer cans littering the area as well.

Thanks for the link.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 04:36 PM

No ship wrecks yet?

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: r.padgett
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 05:09 PM

Shells in Mars Bars send for the health and safety people!!
Mars bars UK delicacy which if given to horses they will fail doping procedures


Apparently the space agency have also misplaced video footage of landing on the Moon, which dispels the rumour that it was all shot in a film studio!

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Peace
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 05:10 PM

"there is a large supply of seafood available on Mars."

If theye got crabs there, I ain't goin'!

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 05:31 PM

"consider the source" Yeah...LOL! That's what I do whenever I see a post under the name: Clinton Hammond. They're generally best just ignored, unless you're doing a study on the ill effects of extreme cynicism and are in need of some good case examples.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Mr Red
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 06:02 PM

So it's official - Molly Malone was not Irish (or sired by a Scottish father) but she was a Martian - well whoooooda thought it?

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: mack/misophist
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 06:53 PM

Terrestrial sea shells are quite fragile - calcium carbonate. If there were ever any of them on Mars, they're long gone.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: LilyFestre
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 07:15 PM

It sure would be nice to send some humans up that way

Oh boy...you aren't kidding!!!!!

Michelle

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 09:40 PM

Consider the Sauce... Yum!

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 10:02 PM

Another loon. If this person and his believers used common sense they would have to ask themselves why NASA would release pictues with "evidence" of seashells on Mars? If there were any legitimate reason to think that they were shells, don't you think NASA would jump all over it - or if there were some nefarious reason to hide the "truth", wouldn't they supress the release of these pictures?

I am sure there is life out there somewhere, but lets not see things that aren't there.

Hey wait a minute, the third picture, isn't that the face of Jesus in the rock???? Holy crap!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 10:10 PM

it's obvious, someone has hacked the satellites from a base in Spain...just reading this is making me scratch my head excessively.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 10:13 PM

ROFLMAO...

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Don Firth
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 10:38 PM

These photos strike me as the same sort of thing as the famous (or infamous) "face" on Mars, which was nothing more than a trick of light. Mars rotates a hair in its normal day, changing the angle that the sun hits the bloody big rock, and the face disappears. Given a photograph of random geological debris scattered about (I'm not sure that "geological" is the appropriate word when talking about other planets) and if someone looks hard enough and uses their imagination a lot, I'm quite sure he could perceive a recipe for shrimp filé gumbo etched in the terrain (or a love note from Dejah Thoris).

As to the idea of hollow planets enclosing mysterious civilizations, the civilization would have to be very highly advanced to manage a feat of engineering like that. The reason that a celestial body large enough to qualify as a planet is in the shape of a globe (rather than, say, a cube) is that the gravity of anything over a certain critical size (mass) is going to crush it into a globe. The "hollow earth" stuff back in the Thirties (early days of pulp science fiction) that guys like Richard Shaver tried to pass off as real (but kept secret by the government, à la alleged UFO conspiracies) were simple physically, astronomically impossible.

Sorry.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: John O'L
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 10:56 PM

I suppose next they'll be finding Mars bars in the Seychelles...

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 11:18 PM

Good one, John!

Hollow planets, ha! Someone has too much TV-watching time on their hands. Star Trek (I) addressed aspects of that theory in several episodes.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 12:35 AM

Amazing how people can decide in an instant about something a few million miles away on a distant planet that they essentially know nothing about! My, the presumptuousness of the human ego!

I hasten to add that I have no solid opinion whatsoever as to whether or not there are seashells on Mars, though I find it interesting to consider the possibility that there might be....

I'm not in a position to have a definite opinion about it, and neither are any of you pompous asses who are sounding off on this thread here as though you KNEW for certain sure about it. You don't. Matter of fact, you know nothing about it. You're just mouths that like to hear themselves yammer on.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 01:08 AM

Limpets rule!

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: dianavan
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 02:30 AM

I didn't say anything about civilizations or suggest that planets might be hollow. I did say that scientists are exploring the idea of life inside a planet or a star.

I'm not enough a scientist to explain thoroughly but it has something to do with dust clouds being vented to the Earth's crust from carbon deposits deep inside the Earth. It is thought that this may have been the beginning of life on Earth as we know it. If it happens here, it can also happen in space. In other words, we are exploring the surface of planets when the life forms may, in fact, be deep within.

I'm still searching for a transcript of the story I heard on CBC radio about a week ago.

btw - I don't read science fiction.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Paul Burke
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 04:09 AM

The photographs look remarkably like an Earth beach, complete with wave ripple marks and seashells. So much so, and so unlike the rest of the terrain shown by the Mars rovers, that I suspect a little joke by someone at Nasa, or perhaps more likely a test of the camera before they launched it.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Slag
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 04:36 AM

I wonder if they got abalone? Do you suppose there's a limit on 'em? Any charters headed out that way? Looks like a really nice spacious beach. Shells are kinda hard to come by on our beaches. Wow. I wonder if Martian shell whorl clockwise or counter-clockwise? Just amazing the questions these new scientific finds bring up.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: GUEST,CrazyEddie
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 05:24 AM

She sells Mars-shells, on the Mars-shore
The Mars-shells that she sells
Are Mars-shells I'm sure...



Anyone seen my tinfoil hat? I seem to have mislaid it.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Grab
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 07:56 AM

Amazing how people can decide in an instant about something a few million miles away on a distant planet that they essentially know nothing about! My, the presumptuousness of the human ego!

Indeed - that was rather what I thought when I saw that website. The presumptuousness of those people's egos in thinking they've spotted this, when the NASA teams who are going over the photos centimetre by centimetre every day haven't done so. Either that, or the presumptuousness of them thinking that they're the only ones to have spotted the massive government conspiracy to conceal the truth from the world.

The presumption that they're seashells requires three major suppositions:-

1) There were once large bodies of liquid water on Mars.

2) Life evolved to a sufficiently high level within those bodies of water as to have produced fair-sized predators, because that's the reason these things have evolved shells on Earth.

3) There is no alternative source which would produce objects this shape.

Now the first one is a fairly well-known hypothesis, although short on evidence. The second is pure conjecture, unsupported by any evidence. These photos are *not* evidence, as they are so blurred and lacking in resolution that they could be anything at all (hence point three). And the third presumption is clearly wrong, because there are many things that they could be instead. The "wafer thinness" is completely consistent with a bubble in volcanic rock. The "whelk shell" could easily be two separate rocks close together, one rounded and one straight. And the third "shell" doesn't look anything like a shell to me.

The problem is that humans have a built-in need to find patterns in things, even when those patterns are merely a random element that just happens to have formed a particular shape. Saying "that cloud looks like a crocodile" is fine. Suggesting that it actually *is* an airborne crocodile may be taking things a bit too far...

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 08:54 AM

Just because something is millions of miles away does NOT mean we know nothing about it. The rules of physics work the same everywhere in the universe, and have worked the same everywhere throughout the history of the universe. We know this is true because of the remarkable constancy of the spectral absorption lines for hydrogen and helium for the sun, other stars, and quasars at all distances from us.

Not saying that there isn't life out there (nor that it can't be, or have been, on Mars). Just pointing out that we can and do know a great deal about places that are unimaginably far from us.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: MarkS
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 09:18 AM

Slag, no need to wonder. They gottalottabaloney.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 09:38 AM

"Amazing how people can decide in an instant about something a few million miles away on a distant planet that they essentially know nothing about! My, the presumptuousness of the human ego!"

There is nothing amazing about using common sense and basic understanding of scientific principles. The "evidence" in this case was very specific and the reasons that many of us stated that debunk this loon has nothing to do with our egos but simply the fact that we can think logically.

The only thing "presumptuous" about the human ego is that it tries to create illogical explanations for items it cannot immediately comprehend. That ego then becomes steadfast in its belief and won't accept logic or fact when it is presented. Then that ego evolves into a pompous ass that yammers on about far fetched nonsense and attacks the individual delivering the contrary information, not the arguement or the facts.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Charley Noble
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 10:11 AM

While it is true that actual seashells would have crumbled away fairly quickly, what we might be viewing are fossilized seashells hundreds of milions years old. Of course it's unlikely that these images are authentic images taken by a Mars Rover.

Still, it's fun to ponder on. I'm reminded of when I was leading a group of geology students up a dry river valley cutting into the escarpment towering over Dira Dawa in Ethiopia in 1964. We came across gigantic fossilized sea mollusks in the riverbed, some of their spiral shells over two feet in diameter. It was kind of neat to think we were walking along some ancient sea bed. A more recent sea bed was in evidence in the outcrops on the plains at the foot of the escarpment. There you could see wave cut cliffs, the remains of coral reefs, from when the Red Sea extended into the Danakil Depression only a few thousand years ago. My photographs of that landscape would have been much more convincing than the ones posted above. Maybe I'll dig them up!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 10:16 AM

Little Hawk's recipe for success:

Poke a stick in the middle of a discussion and give it a good stir. . .

:)

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 10:52 AM

yep, SRS... I think you may be onto something there!

"Amazing how people can decide in an instant about something a few million miles away on a distant planet that they essentially know nothing about! My, the presumptuousness of the human ego!"?

but definitive statements about the essential nature of the Universe and 'spiritual forces' uniting all forms of existence are fair game, hmmm? *grin*

That quote may come back to haunt you, Little Hawk...(metaphorically, of course)

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Old Guy
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 10:52 PM

An obvious plant by the Bush administration for the profit of his buds in the space equipment biz.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 11:26 PM

Guys...I said I have NO definite opinion one way or the other about it. What amazes me is how many of you do, and I bet it didn't take more than a millisecond for you to form it. LOL! Boy, we have a whole bunch of interstellar planetary experts right here on Mudcat Cafe who KNOW that there can't be any seashells on Mars. That's really something.

It's more amazing than finding seashells on Mars would be, if you ask me. National Geographic ought to do a cover story on all the geniuses and great minds we have here on our humble little Internet forum.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Peace
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 01:31 AM

Slow down!. I'm still tryin' to define folk music from a thread four years ago.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Peace
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 02:19 AM

WHERE?

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Don Firth
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 02:21 AM

Considerably more than a millesecond, Little Hawk, and I do know quite a bit about cosmology, astronomy, and planetology, not to mention more than you might think about astrobiology.

Who is it who's leaping to conclusions?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Pauline L
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 02:24 AM

WFDU - Ron Olesko said Hey wait a minute, the third picture, isn't that the face of Jesus in the rock???? Holy crap!!!. No, Ron. It's Mohammed.

The only scientifically valid way to tell for sure whether those things are sea shells is to hold one up to your ear and see whether you can hear the ocean.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Peace
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 02:28 AM

It wouldn't surprise me at all if there are seashells on Mars. I hope there are.

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.

Carl Sagan

In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.

Carl Sagan

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Slag
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 03:08 AM

Actually, LittleHawk neuro-chemical impulses travel at about 250 MPH through the human body. Given the distances between the average synapses, we all spent a few hours to a couple of days figuring out our opinions. Leastwise I know I did. I also figured out that them little martian critters must have made their shells out of titanian alloy.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Bert
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 03:45 AM

Well that's not quite true Hawkiemate. I studied those blurred images quite carefully.

There was one rock that at first glance looked a little like a winkle or a whelk, but on closer examination the lines were straight and weren't really like a conical spiral (Or helix for those pedants out there).

I must admit that it would have been nice if it was a sea shell but that one wasn't. Maybe next time.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Stu
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 04:45 AM

Nobondy knows for sure, but it is possible to make an educated guess.

Geologists often apply the principles of Uniformitarianism when studying rocks on earth. The principle states that the laws of nature - the processes of physics and chemistry - operate in a consistent manner throoughout time, and by studying rocks forming today which appear similar to ancient rocks we can deduce how they were formed.

From looking at the images on the NASA website (which are the same as Slag's link) I suspect that we're looking at simulacra - something that occurs naturally looking like something else.

In the wider picture you can clearly see many of the rocks in the frame are full of vesicles - small holes that once housed pockets of gas. As the rocks being examined are in a relatively recent impact crater I would suggest that these rocks are either: a) Volcaninc in origin like pumice, or b) melted on impact and were ejected from the crater, with gas in the rock expanding uner the heat and pressure to form vesicules or having the martian air whipped into it (like a merangue).

The seashells are simply shapes created by the weathering of the rocks that look organic,but in my opinion (and you did ask) are not.

But I could be wrong, and probably am.

stigWeard

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 08:47 AM

One other thing to ponder....

The 'seashells' were on a supposed beach with ripple marks. On a hill-side. Ripple marks only form on a level surface, and I've never heard any suggestions of the tectonic actities needed to tilt strata like that occuring on Mars.

Don't beleive me? Then go to a beach, find a ripple mark on a slope, explain it, and claim your Nobel prize....

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 10:00 AM

"I said I have NO definite opinion one way or the other about it. What amazes me is how many of you do, and I bet it didn't take more than a millisecond for you to form it. LOL! Boy, we have a whole bunch of interstellar planetary experts right here on Mudcat Cafe who KNOW that there can't be any seashells on Mars"

If YOU took the time to read some of the posts, you would see why we came to our conclusions so fast.

NO ONE said that there CAN'T be any seashells on Mars - what we said is that these pictures do not appear to represent seashells. Why is is that this one loon with a website is the only person reporting this? Why is that NASA, who released these pictures, never even said that there was a chance that these pictures could show seas shells?

Before you start calling us names, take a look at how we came to our conclusions. Common sense my friend.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Don Firth
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 01:36 PM

Ron is absolutely right. Seashells would be an incontrovertible indication that life existed on Mars. "LIFE FOUND ON MARS!" would a be a banner headline in every newspaper and the lead story on radio and television news. That would be an incredible success for NASA and all of the space sciences, not only in terms of science itself, but a huge boost in prestige and a powerful lever for future funding. The idea that "one loon with a website," as Ron so aptly puts it, made the "discovery" when xeno- and astrobiologists studying such data, and NASA itself (who issued the pictures) missed it, verges on the silly. After all, searching for signs of life, past or present, is one of the primary purposes of this latest mission.

I have eagerly followed this sort of thing ever since I first started reading the "Buck Rogers" comic strip when I was six years old. No one would be more ecstatic than I would be if signs of life, no matter how primitive, were found on another planet. This would indicate the possibility of more complex life-forms developing, even the possibility of intelligent life-forms. I look forward with eager anticipation to such a discovery.

BUT—I run anything like this "seashells on Mars" thing through a filter of rational skepticism. Although I'm only an "armchair scientist," from reading spurred by a lifelong interest, I venture to say that I'm considerably more knowledgeable about planetology and astrobiology than most.

I'm quite convinced that there is life out there. There is plenty of evidence for the existence of organic chemicals and compounds out yonder, but so far, no Martians, no Vulcans, no Klingons (there is even some doubt as to the existence of William Shatner), and fortunately, no Vogons. Not even a Martian oyster announcing "I'm right here, but you'll have to bring your own tartar sauce."

It's good to keep an open mind about things like this. But one's mind should not be so open that one's brain drops out.

Don Firth