Iapetus

[DocPtah]

The Cassini space probe on its tour of Saturn did a close fly by of Saturn's unique moon, Iapetus, back in September 2007.

Prior to that visit, considerable speculation about Iapetus was rampant.

During the visit, NASA also announced that they had "temporarily lost communications" with the space probe -- and as it turns out, just at the time when the close up and detailed photos were supposed to be happening. If one were into conspiracies, then one might assume that NASA wanted to ensure that if any astounding photos (such as, for example, alien artifacts akin to the Face of Mars) were going to be obtained, that there would be ample time to edit, censor, and modify what was being released to the public.

Since September 2007, there have been a fair number of photos of Iapetus that have been released, but also a rather boring set.

The question is... Has anyone become aware of any evidence that there was discovered by the space probe during its fly by of Iapetus that might suggest any sign of extraterrestrial intelligent life?

[Fergus]

I'm sure that the data stream from the probe will have gotten intercepted by a few of the receivers out there outside the US and copied along the way.
It's only a matter of time until things show up on the web if there's something to see, which I'd say there is.
NASA seem to have really not changed with the times as it appears they think we're the same people as when they first got up and going.

[DocPtah]

You raise a good point, Fergus. Surely someone was monitoring the stream of data from the space probe... unless, of course, Cassini was set up to transmit in code. Sounds unduly complicated, but I keep thinking we should be hearing from someone about much more information from Iapetus.

In any case, NASA is certainly living up to is acronym, i.e., "Never A Straight Answer."

[OddThings]

I have to commend you Doc for a very thorough examination of the mystery surrounding Iapetus. I think you hit just about every major point quite well, and there's not a whole lot to say beyond that.

So, let me throw out an idea that I've played arund with on one of your "speculation" points. I think "sign post" is probably a likely explanation, although perhaps a bit deeper than that. Years ago I threw out the idea that there might be some connection between Iapetus and the near 3 billion year old metal spheres of Africa(my friend Mac Tonnies has said the same thing much more convincingly than myself and more publicly).



Of course, just looking at the "grooves" themselves, there can be a case made for natural formation in each case, apparently. A now defunct ring system being one in the larger case, for instance. It's the existence of these ridges and the other strange phenomenon on Iapetus that make the story much more interesting, in my opinion.

If, perhaps, there is some connection,then maybe this is the "message in a bottle" that helps seal the deal that there are/were much more advanced civilizations than our current selves, capable of such a phenominal engineering feat right here in our backyard, so to speak.

The question remains, however, if such a civilization did exist, does what they left as a "message in a bottle" here on earth consist entirely of a couple of metal artifacts? Or are we missing the bigger and better signs at this point in our existence?

As you pointed out in your article, there are legends of the day the moon came into being, so, perhaps the best clue left behind is just out of our reach for those of us who are likely perpetually earth-bound...

[DocPtah]

The odd things you mentioned, Odd... are rather odd.

But my question is, have they ever been extensively studied?

Have they, for example, been cut open, sliced and diced, and really rather thoroughly analyzed in both non-destructive and destructive ways?

Or have they simply been assumed to be nothing more than metallic spheres?

[Fergus]

It seems somebody out there was but the last update was April 8, 1996:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mom/spheres.html

[Fergus]

Surely someone was monitoring the stream of data from the space probe... unless, of course, Cassini was set up to transmit in code."

Yeah, it takes a bit of time to decrypt that stuff......
Ah well, it's just a matter of time really

[granmafunk]

perhaps nasa hoped nobody would notice...

[Fergus]

It now appers that they have extended the Cassini mission for another 2 years -
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/04 ... index.html

"Unmanned probe beamed back 140,000 images since 2004"
I wonder how many of the images have been released so far ?

[DocPtah]

Great stuff, Fergus! Nothing like a press release to cover one's N-ASA!

You're absolutely right to note that out of 140,000 photos returned to earth, how many have been made available to the public... or for that matter really looked at by NASA itself? It's indeed curious.

What got my attention, however, was that in the press release (the URL) you provided, it says:

...extension will allow Cassini to make 60 more revolutions around the ringed planet and fly by its largest moon, Titan, and four other satellites.

Ah, yes! "four other satellites!" And might one of those be Iapetus? I hope so, even if NASA will likely once again downplay the possibilities. But if they do make the second fly by of Iapetus... considering its singularly distinct orbit requiring a bit more effort... then they may be aware of some things they'd rather not discuss.

On a slightly different note, Space-com recently reported on a theory from England that described the extreme unlikelihood of their being all that much intelligent life in the universe -- the possibility of intelligent life developing in the vicinity of a given star to be:

...less than 0.01 percent over 4 billion years...

While I suspect this conjecture was religiously inspired -- i.e., intended to make life on earth singularly important and so rare as to eventually be able to tell humans to "go forth, multiply and subdue the universe" -- the fact remains that the theory was notably lacking in one important aspect:

What is to prevent the theory from assuming a civilization somewhere in the Milky Way Galaxy that reached our current level of civilization -- which we will assume for the moment to be "intelligent" -- but achieved our level of civilization one or two millions years ago?

If so, then what could that civilization have achieved in those million years? Could they, for example, have seeded countless other stars with their genes, such that there are millions upon millions of worlds that have been jump started by an intelligent species far superior to ours in every respect?

Considering one possible very viable theory on Iapetus, was this Saturnine moon the seed vessel for us?

From my perspective, any attempt to reduce the number of possible planets with intelligent life in the galaxy (and the universe) is ill-conceived.

However... if we assume that "it's elementary, my dear Watson's" theory that the development of an intelligent species from scratch -- and without intelligent intervention by another species from another planet or star -- is indeed rare, then we may end up in a galaxy of millions upon millions of species which are genetically similar, or at least stem from the same limited number of sources.

In any case, I think we can conclusively dismiss NASA's claim that:

NASA's Terrestrial Planet Finder is one of several instruments intended to detect planets around other stars. If Professor Watson's model is correct, even if some of those planets turn out to be Earth-like, they're unlikely to host intelligent life.

At the same time, we can ask, Why would NASA want to push this point now? Is there something of which they're a bit worried?

One possibility is that if NASA were about to encounter or be forced to admit to the discovery of a genuine intelligent ET artifact, NASA might think it preferable to play up the idea ahead of time that the chances of actually meeting (a close encounter of the third kind) any of our neighbors is infinitely remote... or just a 0.01 percent chance in say, the next four billion years!

Ah, what a tangled web NASA weaves when first it practices... well... doing just about anything!

Daniel

[Elusia]

Hello all!

Since reading about the Annunaki, I've been wondering about long lived beings and why we always think that someone from another planet would necessarily be 'superior'. What do we mean by that anyhow? Of course their technology would be and possibly their personal skill levels (including psi), but personality-wise they sound just like us........maybe as individuals it all boils down to each of our own personal opinion about anyone else we come in contact with?

Nice to see all the curious people listed here! My net time is dictated by when I can get to the library, so please don't think I'm ignoring you if I don't get right back.

: )
Elusia

[restauri]

I viewed all of the photographs of Leptus graciously given us from Nasa. Although not a complete photo set, I was very astounded as to the consistency of mountainous regions around the center, as we all were. Acient wall? No i don't think so. But consider the planet being hit by a large object with enough magnetic force and in the right place to shift it's plates in such a manner that would raise the surface of Letptus enough to cause the wall like effect, mabye.... and thats a big maybe. But why are the raised regions mountainous????? and not more like a wall? Maybe because the land surface was mountainous to begin with. My other conclusion is that there is something in the center causing the surface to rise, ????? Is that possible? That would mean alot of things happening in the core of that planet. We were deprived a lot of photos that could of answered this for us.....based on the timing and organization of how the photos were given to us, I think we're missing some........so on and so forth.......

[DocPtah]

Hi Restauri,

Welcome back.

Meanwhile, the problem apparently continues to be:

We were deprived a lot of photos that could of answered this for us.....based on the timing and organization of how the photos were given to us, I think we're missing some...

One question I would have with regard to your review of so many photos, to what degree as the height of the "wall" or equatorial bulge consistent? Was it all pretty much 60 miles in height? And what natural process could account for such consistency?

I guess I'm still waiting to hear something from Hoagland... whose motto has always been that "NASA stands for 'Never A Straight Answer'!"

DocPtah

[restauri]

I want to retract calling Iapetus a planet first of all. I meant to say satellite of Saturn. I was getting a little ahead of myself and not paying attention to what I was typing. So that being said.... I have to review my download of the photos to see if the consistency of the wall like or mountainous regions are equal in heigth to somewhat of a degree of coinsidence. I'm only guessing that something so consistent around the equator is a shift or something inside. I'm not a scientist, but I pay attention to detail, given time. I guess it's my nature thats made me so aware of the little things that matter. I'll get back with more info. Thanks for responding.

[WhiteTiger]

The first thing that came to my mind when I saw the closeups of iapetus and the ring bulge was something from back in the "space madness" days of the late 60's and 70's, when everybody and their dog were coming up with proposals for megastructures for space.

The one I have in mind is essentially a method of constructing an enormous hollow spherical habitat. The proposal was to round up asteroidal materials and use solar mirrors to heat the mass until it's molten, then you impact it at a precise velocity with a manufactured comet of some frozen gas. If the temperature of the molten body is known and the velocity and mass of the impacting gas body are properly regulated what you get is the huge wad of molten material being blown into a ragged hemisphere. You do two of these, then trim the edges to uniformity and maneuver the two hemispheres with reaction motors (rocket engines) so that they are facing each other. You then use your solar mirrors to bring the edges of the "cups" to a near molten state and fire up your motors and drive the two hemispheres together. The additional frictional heat of impact creates what amounts to a scarf weld at the area of contact and raises a uniform ring of displaced material all around the plane of contact... you now have a large hollow habitat with a "ring wall" just as is seen on iapetus.

As with any scarf weld, the density of the raised ring is higher than that of the parent material... and according to the spectrometry of the surface of iapetus, the ring wall is "dirty ice", just like the rest of the body, but it should not have the structural strength to support itself at that height according to thegravitational forces claimed to be known for iapetus.

Just something to mull over



Tiger