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Pareidolia, the Mars Rover, and Tin-Foil
Enough is enough. The comical nature of the conspiracy theorist has fallen to new lows, and, unfortunately, so has the subject matter. No one will ever take the search for alien life seriously. Well, not as it is being presented now, anyways. Every week, some random object becomes proof that NASA is lying, and that the Moon, Mars, even space itself, is littered with life, or the remnants of it. Oh, how the tinfoil-hat-wearing conspiracy theorist must rejoice.
Every week there is a report that NASA “cut a live feed” when an “alien craft” came into frame, or that the mars rover spotted a skull, a lizard, or a statue of a singing lady. Really? Unfortunately, not one of them is real. Yes, I will make this statement even though I cannot prove it. Even, and this is a big “what if” there was an off chance that something strange was happening, it gets lost in the constant need to report every speck of dust that flies in front of a camera.
It’s like the boy who cried wolf; only people are crying alien conspiracy. And they are doing it constantly. Even if we did discover alien life, it would end up being categorized as a fake, not due to some underground government organization, but just because people are tired of all of the constant speculation.
The very mindset conspiracy theorists criticize the public of having (being sheep, and not opening their eyes to the truth) is being created by those very conspiracy theorists (If one of them read this post I will no doubt be labeled as a part of an underground shadow organization. I wish).
To better illustrate these problems, let’s look at commonly repeated claims, and then explore them.
The Mars Rover Sightings
Pareidolia is the instance of seeing things that are not really there, and can occur in everyday activities. Just stare at anything that has texture, and you will likely see something unusual, it just depends on your imagination. Pareidolia describes our inherent ability to see patterns or objects in random noise. It’s human nature. Our world is complicated, and we evolved trying to make sense of these complications.
While Pareidolia describes our ability to see patterns, apophenia is the need to make sense of information, which is bascially our ability to seek out patterns. Pareidolia is a form of apophenia. So not only are we predisposed to see patterns, we go out of our way to look for them. Just look at the history or astronomy and you will come across various examples of pareidolia. From the constellations to the purported canals on the moon – a 19th-century theory pushed by Giovanni Schiaparelli, people have been seeing things that are not really there.
The advancement of technology has led to an increase in extraplanetary photographs. Each photograph provides evidence of a lost civilization, or a mothership stealing our sun’s energy. This is getting absurd. I mean if I were to write a post every time I thought I saw an image in a random pattern I would have… a lot of posts… (I like to stare at my popcorn ceiling – you can see crazy things in those ceilings).
The sightings that seem to occur from the shuttle or the International Space Station (I.S.S) can be classified in a similar way. It might not be Pareidolia, because the object may be there, but it more likely a case of people not understanding what they are seeing.
A piece of ice, an overexposure, a reflection, even a detached tether can be mistaken for UFOs. People over simplify everything, but conspiracy theorists like to claim that NASA’s explanations are “over-simplified”. There is nothing simple about a piece of ice that formed on a section of equipment in the vacuum of space. If anything the process is probably complex, just like how it broke off, floated around the space station, and then got captured by a camera with no reference points (space is a void remember). If you think I am just part of the cover-up, then I recommend heading to your local Wal-mart. I heard they are having a sale on tinfoil.
