O'Neill's bridge
Martin Dunn
in the Mare Crisium in 1953 [Don Wilson "Our Mysterious Spaceship Moon"
(Sphere, London, 1975) ]. Why? Because I had only ever encountered this in
Arthur Clarke's "A Fall of Moondust", and had previously thought it was
something Clarke had invented for background!
This account goes on to claim Patrick Moore (amongst others) also saw the
bridge, but thought it was natural rather than a construct.
Does anyone have any more reliable information on this?
John Beaderstadt
> This account goes on to claim Patrick Moore (amongst others) also saw the
> bridge, but thought it was natural rather than a construct.
> Does anyone have any more reliable information on this?
You might check with Brad Guth.
--
Beady's Seventh Law of Social Harmonics: "Before you begin, pee."
Martin Dunn
"John Beaderstadt" <be...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:3D1EE04...@mindspring.com...
> Martin Dunn wrote:
>
> > This account goes on to claim Patrick Moore (amongst others) also saw
the
> > bridge, but thought it was natural rather than a construct.
> > Does anyone have any more reliable information on this?
>
> You might check with Brad Guth.
*Thanks*, John.
Possibly some confirmation from Moore?
Martin
Paolo Ulivi
This message was better posted to sci.astro.
Anyway, the O'Neill bridge was an optical illusion due to a play of
shadows in Mare Crisium. It is dealt in some detail in the book "Epic
Moon" by WP Sheehan and TA Dobbins (Willman Bell 2002, ISBN
0-943396-70-0), a very good book on the era of telescopic exploration of
the Moon.
Paolo
OM
<be...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>Martin Dunn wrote:
>
>> This account goes on to claim Patrick Moore (amongst others) also saw the
>> bridge, but thought it was natural rather than a construct.
>> Does anyone have any more reliable information on this?
>
>You might check with Brad Guth.
<SLAP!> Beady, you *know* better...
OM
--
"No bastard ever won a war by dying for | o...@need-to-know.basis
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb bastard die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society
- General George S. Patton, Jr
James Oberg
Here are some notes from an article of mine I'll modify for a future book:
More than a quarter century ago, the "bridge over the Mare Crisium" joined
the literature of "modern moon mysteries". A number of trained and
presumably competent observers reported what appeared to be an arch running
between two promontories at the edge of a dead lava sea. But some of them
recalled that they had searched that same area only months before and seen
nothing, so it was hard to conceive of the bridge being natural in origin
(and hence billions of years old).
TBS - O'Neill/Wilkins quotations...TBS. Descriptions of what the men
claimed to have seen.
Reading over the original reports of these observers now, it can be deduced
that at first none of them really saw the bridge itself, but only the
fan-shaped sunlit region which they presumed was bordered by the shadow of
the bridge's structure. This image of "sunlight streaming through the arch"
(and later, "arches") of a giant new, artificial construction was a powerful
one, and it grabbed the imagination of the public.
Author Frank Edwards, in Stranger Than Fiction (1959), told how "the
gigantic structure appeared sharply in outline". UFO author and lunar
enthusiast Don Wilson reworded essentially the same story in his books (Our
Mysterious Spaceship Moon, Dell, 1975, and Secrets of Our Spaceship Moon,
Dell, 1979), but George Leonard (in Somebody Else is on the Moon, 1976) went
even further: he presents a photograph that's supposed to show SEVERAL
bridges in the area, and asserts about the 'bridges' : "That they exist is
probably one of the least controversial things about the moon -- now.... Now
the controversy revolves around their origin."
And in the 1980s, amateur observers were still seeing the bridge and related
"structures". Over the years, FATE magazine published a series of reports by
observer Jack Swaney and others, including detailed drawings of these
mysterious structures.
A new crop of literally "looney" books came out, with titles such as
Moongate (already introduced) and Alien Bases on the Moon (by Fred
Steckling). Other lunar enthusiasts privately circulated their own versions
of the "secret Apollo discoveries".
TBS (Baron Kemp and James Safran, for example).
How about photographic evidence?
The photograph which George Leonard displays as plate 1 in his collection is
NASA HQ PAO number 72-H-835, a copy of a color shot from Apollo-16 numbered
AS16-121-19438. Despite Leonard's claim and swarm of helpful arrows, it
turns out to show no bridges at all. An observer may speculate that perhaps
the bridges are just at the limits of resolution and it takes a keen eye
(and imagination) to see them.
But there is a major problem with this speculation. The "bridge" seen from
Earth was at least twelve miles long, according to the best accounts --
otherwise it could hardly have been visible. But on the close-up Apollo
photographs, twelve miles is several inches. A structure of that size would
be plainly visible on even a highly degraded photographic reproduction.
But it is not there. Leonard's structures (and today, Swaney's and others',
too) always seem to be just at the limit of resolution. Leonard's "bridge
photo" proves (quite correctly) that the twelve-mile structure which O'Neill
and Wilkins saw in the early 1950s simply does not exist. In place of it,
Leonard conjures up tenth of a mile structures which conveniently are barely
visible.
A series of Earth-based moon photos taken in 1954 and published in "Sky and
Telescope" suggested the source of "the shadow of the bridge on the moon"
(as the mystery should more properly be called). The solution has been
confirmed by Apollo photography, including the shot shown by Leonard. The
"shadow" is a quirk of local topography visible from Earth only under rare
lighting conditions.
The edge of a subdued crater called Yerkes runs into a long ridge connecting
it with the smaller crater Yerkes-E. This elevation, at a very low sun angle
(the only time the "bridge" was allegedly seen), casts a sharp-edged shadow
across the entire Mare Crisium. This is the shadow line which appeared to
have been cast by the arch spanning the gap between the Promontorium
Lavinium and the Promontorium Olivium.
Wilkins's own sketches of the shadow are remarkably consistent with this
reconstruction. They show the fan of sunlight cast by the setting sun,
streaming through the gap between the two promontories. At the apex of this
fan is a tiny curve marked "arch".
These sketches were made in August 1953. The following January, Paul Rocques
of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles took a series of photographs of
the same region. He used a 12-inch refractor, while O'Neill had claimed to
have seen it using only a four-inch refractor. The final photo in the
sequence was taken when the sun angle was practically identical to that
during O'Neill's first sighting.
Reviewing the Rocques photos in the April 1954 issue of "Sky and Telescope",
editor Joseph Ashbrook suggested that the fan-shaped sunlit area was "easily
explained by sunlight coming through the pass and over the sloping shoulders
of the promontories falling on rising land to the westward." Concluded
Ashbrook, "The existence of the bridge is quite unlikely."
As far as astronomers were concerned, the matter was closed with that
comment. Wilkins raised a stir in England when other members of the British
Astronomical Association reported that they were completely unable to see
the alleged structure. When they suggested that Wilkins was no longer seeing
things as clearly as he had when he was younger, the old author and moon
mapper resigned from the organization in a huff.
How good a visual observer was Wilkins? As a young man, he was an undisputed
master at it. But based on claims he made later in his life, his last work
wasn't very good at all. Commenting on the mysterious "disappearing crater
Linne" controversy, he wrote (in Our Moon, 1958), "Let it be clearly stated
that today Linne is a pit on the summit of a dome...." But according to
close-up Apollo pictures, it is nothing of the sort -- it is a quite fresh
and sharply defined impact crater.
"In his last years he tended to be that way", commented Dr. Ernst Both, moon
history expert and curator of astronomy at the Humboldt Park Observatory in
Buffalo, New York. "His 'washbowl' inside Cassini-A is an example", the
astronomer continued. "It is not a depression but a dome-like elevation!"
The "moon bridge" seems to have been a "last hurrah" for the declining
careers of Wilkins and O'Neill (who died soon afterwards). But the legend
which they launched did not die. It was adopted and nourished by many UFO
enthusiasts, who heaped vilification upon some astronomers who dared to
announce that they could not see the bridge.
When Donald Menzel observed the area through the fifteen inch refractor at
the Harvard College Observatory, and reported negative findings, he was
labeled "one of the Army stooges" in the British journal "Flying Saucers"
(May 1959). Dr. G.P. Kuiper studied the region with the McDonald
Observatory's 82-inch reflector and reached the same conclusions about the
'bridge'.
And Menzel and Kuiper were proven correct fifteen years later by film
brought back by astronauts on Apollo expeditions. Rocques, who retired in
1982 from the Griffith Observatory, recalls viewing the pictures of 'bridge
region' with deep emotion. "When we took our views in 1954, we thought they
were the best we'd ever get in our lifetimes," he said. "We never imagined
how soon these new closeup views would be possible."
The Apollo photos even show what Wilkins must have seen as the "arch"
itself. A small crater with the cartographic code 'Proclus-AA' lies smack
between the tips of the two promontories. Its sunlit eastern rim could
indeed have looked like an arch to an observer with less than once excellent
eyesight.
But UFO buff Donald Keyhoe, contrary to the consensus of the professional
astronomers, fought on. In The Flying Saucer Conspiracy (1955) he first
claimed that the Mount Palomar Obseratory had made a spectrographic analysis
of the bridge and proved it was metal. The phony nature of this fairy tale
is obvious from Keyhoe's complete misunderstanding of the function of a
spectrograph, which would require heating the material in question until it
became a gas.
Jack Swaney's reports in FATE described "easily observable alien artifacts
on the moon." The Las Vegas, Nevada amateur astronomer published several
detailed drawings of such structures which, he asserted, would not be seen
in NASA's "heavily retouched photos". Wrote Swaney, "there is a wierd rig in
crater Pallas (alternate name "Murchison") which shimmers with an intense
metallic whitish texture. In most photos it's altered by an artist to look
like a hill!"
Concluded the lunar observer, "High-priced, sophisticated telescopes are not
required to see any of these anomalies. The 60mm astronomical telescopes
sold in discount stores are equal to the task and can keep one busy
recording alien artifacts." So perhaps the coming years will see more
published drawings by Swaney and other people 'seeing things' on the Moon.
TBS Swaney observations.
More of these kinds of interpretations are found in Alien Bases On The Moon
(G.A.F. International, 1981). Author Fred Steckling is an ardent closet
Adamski enthusiast, and his address in the frontispiece shows only a box
number -- which just happens to be (without saying so) the same box number
as the George Adamski Foundation (Box 1722, Vista, CA 92083). Yet with even
these connections, Steckling's book got a favorable review in the MUFON UFO
Journal, when official historian Lucius Farish wrote: "Here is another one
you might want to check out. Fred Steckling was an associate of the late
controversial contactee, George Adamski, so there will be 'scientific
researchers' who will reject the book for that reason alone. Big mistake! It
is not what Steckling says, but rather the photographs which make this book
of interest. . . .If these photos have not been retouched, it is difficult
to see how some of the formations could be anything BUT artificial."
The book's ideas are a bit revolutionary. "I will endeavor to prove that the
Moon's atmosphere is dense enough to support clouds and vegetation,"
Steckling declares almost immediately. And the Moon is inhabited: "Something
is moving around up there, waving lights, cutting mountains, building domes,
walls, pyramids, tunnels, and water reservoirs with reinforced walls....
There can be no doubt, even in the most feeble minds, that many of the
lights, and especially the glowing, moving objects, are intelligently
controlled.... Even the most conservative reader must admit that something
unusual is happening up there."
But through it all, Steckling manifests a classic crackpottery of
delightfully breath-taking proportions. One certainly is forced to admire
his ambition at pontificating on subjects so obviously beyond his
understanding. A hundred examples might be given, but some of the funniest
are:
In insisting that there is native lunar vegetation, Steckling explains the
brown color of Apollo-8 (Dec 21-27, 1968) photographs: "Could it be that the
brown color stemmed from winter vegetation during that season?" In a photo
section, he shows an Apollo-8 print with the words, "The Moon in Full Autumn
Colors". Both times he forgets -- or never knew -- that just because it is
winter in Earth's northern hemisphere, the conditions which caused it are
not necessarily shared by the Moon!
In describing how Russian scientists theorized that the moons of Mars might
be artificial (a genuine theory, subsequently abandoned more than a decade
ago), Steckling just makes up "facts" for dramatic effect. "Both of the
Martian moons were orbiting too close to the planet, only 3700 miles away",
he wrote incorrectly ("Strike One"). "Both moons reflected too much light to
be natural [and] both are orbiting the planet in a clockwise [retrograde]
direction." Strike Two! Strike Three! The actual basis for the theory --
that Phobos was decaying in its orbit too rapidly unless it were hollow, was
not even mentioned.
Steckling's basic planetological logic is bizarre. He wrote, "Planets...
receive warmth from their sun in forms of friction by rays striking their
atmospheres. All planets need an atmosphere simply to equalize the pressures
set up from within. No planet could exist without air, for it would
disintegrate otherwise in a given time." Oh?
A small group of amateur astronomical observational enthusiasts in
Pennsylvania publish a mimeographed newsletter called Selenology. In a 1983
issue, editor Francis G. Graham examined the alleged photographs of alien
lunar artifacts published in Steckling's and Leonard's books. He concluded
it was all illusion, with occasional hilarious mistakes such as this one:
Leonard claimed that a photo showed 'machinery and stitches' near the
Bullialdus-Lubinicky area. Wrote Graham: "The objects are not unambiguously
machines and certainly their comparative reflectivity shows them to be
non-metallic. The 'stitches' are in fact the Apollo antenna protruding into
the frame of one picture. The only 'stitches' are the ones a person gets
from laughing at the error!" Alas, detailed analyses such as Graham's are
very poorly circulated.
Conclusions... Linne and moonspire discussion.
Generalization: We see patterns at the limits of our resolution, and those
patterns are imposed on natural randomness by our own minds. On Earth,
similar chimeras were "just over the horizon". In space, the horizon receded
to astronomical distances but the humanization of the new frontier saw the
same old human response, as further chapters will show.
OM
<james...@houston.rr.com> wrote:
>More than a quarter century ago, the "bridge over the Mare Crisium" joined
>the literature of "modern moon mysteries".
...Wasn't that a Simon & Garfunkel song?
James Oberg
"OM" <om@CT_is_a_troll_AND_a_putz.too> wrote in message
news:m5hvhu0tsn7hf62e7...@4ax.com...
Greg D. Moore (Strider)
"OM" <om@CT_is_a_troll_AND_a_putz.too> wrote in message
news:m5hvhu0tsn7hf62e7...@4ax.com...
> <james...@houston.rr.com> wrote:
>
> >More than a quarter century ago, the "bridge over the Mare Crisium"
joined
> >the literature of "modern moon mysteries".
>
> ...Wasn't that a Simon & Garfunkel song?
No, but it's a great tune that you can whistle. What's impressive is
watching the locomotive go over it at the end though.
OM
<james...@houston.rr.com> wrote:
>No, that was 'Bridge over Mare Turbulentarium', as I recall.
...Off the same album as "The Pugilist" and "The Condor Flies", IIRC
:-)
Bruce Sterling Woodcock
"James Oberg" <james...@houston.rr.com> wrote in message news:xdHT8.11433$eF5.4...@twister.austin.rr.com...
> George Leonard (in Somebody Else is on the Moon, 1976) went
> even further: he presents a photograph that's supposed to show SEVERAL
> bridges in the area, and asserts about the 'bridges' : "That they exist is
> probably one of the least controversial things about the moon -- now.... Now
> the controversy revolves around their origin."
James,
I wonder what you think about the other photographs in Leonard's book;
I have an old copy of it. While I agree many of the structures he sees are
speculative at best, the two things that did strike me most are the pictures
of the worm-like "X"s, and the dust-cloud events. Any thoughts on what
those are in light of modern science?
> The photograph which George Leonard displays as plate 1 in his collection is
> NASA HQ PAO number 72-H-835, a copy of a color shot from Apollo-16 numbered
> AS16-121-19438. Despite Leonard's claim and swarm of helpful arrows, it
> turns out to show no bridges at all. An observer may speculate that perhaps
> the bridges are just at the limits of resolution and it takes a keen eye
> (and imagination) to see them.
I often wanted to order the original photos but the numbering system Leonard
mentions used by NASA then seems to be different from what NASA uses
now. Do you have a translation matrix? (You see to have matched up
72-H-835 with AS16-121-19438) and I'd like to see the originals for some
of the other photographs.
Bruce
Martin Dunn
"James Oberg" <james...@houston.rr.com> wrote in message
news:xdHT8.11433$eF5.4...@twister.austin.rr.com...
>
Thanks for that!
Martin
Martin Dunn
"Paolo Ulivi" <paolo...@tiscali.it> wrote in message
news:3D1F0C25...@tiscali.it...
> Martin Dunn wrote:
> >
> > I was surprised to find an account of John O'Neill's discovery of a
bridge
> > in the Mare Crisium in 1953
>
> This message was better posted to sci.astro.
Thank you, Paolo.
James Oberg
Leonard was using the NASA HQ PAO numbers, which include the original
mission numbers on their back, but Leonard never realized that, inter alia.
I'm told that shortly before he died he asked people to forget he ever wrote
the book, he wanted the whole thing to be as if it had never happened.
Sorry to be uncooperative but I really have no interest in any more of his
'photos' and claims.
Jim
"Bruce Sterling Woodcock" <sirb...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:MHTT8.1081$0M2.60...@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com...
James Oberg
I don't post anything here that doesn't get improved based on suggestions,
revealed holes, and the fine glistening patina that high-megaton flash
exposure provides.
"Martin Dunn" <marti...@bigpond.com.au> wrote in message
news:afp3sh$fd7n3$1...@ID-112471.news.dfncis.de...
PUK
the 'mists' or 'fogs' that have been observed - from time-to-time - that
have obscured the 'normal' terrain.These 'mists' or 'fogs' have been
attributed to volcanic outgassing.
Lying as it does near the edge of the visible lunar hemisphere,it is
difficult to observe clearly from earth bound telescopes.It is quite
feasible for a 'fog' to have developed and deceived observers - as it has
done on several occasions
Mare Crisium was visited by an unmanned lunar probe - Luna-24 - in February
1972 landing at lunar 3.5 deg North and 56.5 degrees East. This probe
returned a 1.6 metre long core sample of the mare.The basalt material was
found to be low in titanium but high in iron and aluminium oxides. and dated
at around 3.4 to 3.6 billon years old.
TLP's were observed by Apollo crews during their missions including
Apollo-11 and Apollo-15 crews.
Apollo-11 observed Aristarchus on 19 July 1969 noting increased brightness
on one of its walls .
Earlier,on 1st April 1969 Leningrad astronomer Dr Nikolai Kozyrev had
observed 'volcanism' in Aristarchus by using spectrogram measurements. He
took two spectrograms of the western wall of Aristarchus which detected a 2
km wide red spot . These spectrograms detected molecular nitrogen and cyanic
gases. This 'eruption' was coupled with a major earthquakes that occurred on
31st March 1969 at United Arab Republics and off Japan's coast.A lot of
lunar TLP's have been noted to occur and few hours or days after major
earthquakes and it is believed the two are linked together.
An Apollo-15 CSM experiment noted a rise in the alpha particles being
emitted by radon-222 from Aristarchus compared to surrounding areas
suggesting recent TLP - most likely outgassing from deep within the crater?
"Martin Dunn" <marti...@bigpond.com.au> wrote in message
news:afmko9$fj8c7$1...@ID-112471.news.dfncis.de...
Bruce Sterling Woodcock
"James Oberg" <james...@houston.rr.com> wrote in message news:0eZT8.14618$eF5.5...@twister.austin.rr.com...
>
> Leonard was using the NASA HQ PAO numbers, which include the original
> mission numbers on their back, but Leonard never realized that, inter alia.
>
> I'm told that shortly before he died he asked people to forget he ever wrote
> the book, he wanted the whole thing to be as if it had never happened.
>
> Sorry to be uncooperative but I really have no interest in any more of his
> 'photos' and claims.
Well, okay, so you can't provide interepretations of the other photos.
Fine by me, but at least I did learn something from one of your
observations (the stitching photo).
Can you provide any way of matching NASA HQ PAO numbers to the
other numbers so I can order the originals?
Bruce
Martin Dunn
"PUK" <spa...@netcomuk.co.uk> wrote in message
news:afq0bj$c5f$1...@taliesin2.netcom.net.uk...
> Mare Crisium is well known for TLPs - transient lunar phenomena -
especially
> the 'mists' or 'fogs' that have been observed - from time-to-time - that
> have obscured the 'normal' terrain.
[snip]
Thank you for your detailed answer.
Martin
James Oberg
captions under 'H' numbers, and just reading the AS16-35-2387 for example
number, or Lunar Orbiter number, whatever. This may take some sweet-talking
to make them actually feel inspired to do so.
"Bruce Sterling Woodcock" <sirb...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:wpaU8.2168$4C.81...@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com...
Bruce Sterling Woodcock
"James Oberg" <james...@houston.rr.com> wrote in message news:EChU8.29125$p85.7...@twister.austin.rr.com...
> The HQ PAO office -OUGHT- to be able to do this by lookng up the old
> captions under 'H' numbers, and just reading the AS16-35-2387 for example
> number, or Lunar Orbiter number, whatever. This may take some sweet-talking
> to make them actually feel inspired to do so.
*grumble*
They should make things a little easier on researchers...
Thanks for the insight though.
Bruce
James Oberg
> They should make things a little easier on researchers...
>
Bruce, if it were easy, anybody could do it. (Tom Hanks in 'A League of
Their Own')
PUK
to A-11 from mainly Lunar Orbiter IV images.
The few images of Mare Crisium show nothing untoward on them - apart from
the well mapped features
The 'best' feature in this general area - not too far away on the lunar
surface anyway - is the Straight Wall but that's well documented feature
anyway.
Phill
UK
"Bruce Sterling Woodcock" <sirb...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:wpaU8.2168$4C.81...@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com...