Featured Title:
Stone Circle Greetings Cards |
 |
| Eolith Designs Sculptures |
 |
| Login |
|
Don't have an account yet? You can create one. As a registered user you have some advantages like your own home page, fewer ads, and your contributions link to your page. |
| Who's Online |
There are currently, 110 guests and 2 members online.
You are a guest. To join in, please register for free by clicking here |
| |
Moderated by : davidmorgan , TimPrevett , Andy B , Klingon , MickM , bat400 , sem , Runemage , TheCaptain
The Megalithic Portal and Megalith Map : Index >>
Sacred Sites and Megalithic Mysteries >> Mayan light beam photo: Message from the gods, or iPhone glitch?
|
 |
| Author |
Mayan light beam photo: Message from the gods, or iPhone glitch? |
bat400
Joined:
10-04-2006
Messages: 1349
from South Central Indiana, US
 OFF-Line
|  Posted 10-03-2012 at 17:40
When Hector Siliezar visited the ancient Mayan city of Chichen Itza with his wife and kids in 2009, he snapped three iPhone photos of El Castillo, a pyramid that once served as a sacred temple to the Mayan god Kukulkan. A thunderstorm was brewing near the temple, and Siliezar was trying to capture lightning crackling dramatically over the ruins.
In the first two images, dark clouds loom above the pyramid, but nothing is amiss. However, in the third photo, a powerful beam of light appears to shoot up from the pyramid toward the heavens, and a thunderbolt flashes in the background.
Earthfiles.com that he and his family didn't see the light beam in person; it appeared only on camera. "It was amazing!" he said. He showed the iPhone photo to his fellow tourists. "No one, not even the tour guide, had ever seen anything like it before."
The photo has surfaced on several Mayan doomsday discussion forums. But was the light beam a sign from the gods — a warning about Dec. 21, 2012, the date that marks the end of the Mayan calendar cycle, and when some people fear the world will end? Or is it simply the result of an iPhone glitch?
According to Jonathon Hill, a research technician and mission planner at the Mars Space Flight Facility at Arizona State University, which operates many of the cameras used during NASA's Mars missions, it is almost definitely the latter. Hill works with images of the Martian surface taken by rovers and satellites, as well as data from Earth-orbiting NASA instruments, and is fully versed in the wide range of potential image artifacts and equipment errors.
He says the "light beam" in the Mayan temple photo is a classic case of such an artifact — a distortion in an image that arises from the way cameras bounce around incoming light.
It is no mere coincidence, Hill said, that "of the three images, the 'light beam' only occurs in the image with a lightning bolt in the background. The intensity of the lightning flash likely caused the camera's CCD sensor to behave in an unusual way, either causing an entire column of pixels to offset their values or causing an internal reflection [off the] camera lens that was recorded by the sensor." In either case, extra brightness would have been added to the pixels in that column in addition to the light hitting them directly from the scene.
Evidence in favor of this explanation is the fact that the beam, when isolated in Photoshop or other image analysis software, runs perfectly vertical in the image. "That's a little suspicious since it's very unlikely that the gentleman who took this picture would have his handheld iPhone camera positioned exactly parallel to the 'light beam' down to the pixel level," Hill told Life's Little Mysteries.
It's more likely that the "light beam" corresponds to a set of columns of pixels in the camera sensor that are electronically connected to each other, but not to other columns in the sensor, and that this set of connected pixels became oversaturated in the manner described above.
"That being said," Hill said, "it really is an awesome image!"
Thanks to coldrum for the link. For the photo, see:
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/03/02/mayan-light-beam-photo-message-from-gods-or-iphone-glitch/#ixzz1oSEYnDvW
 Profile
 Reply
|
LittleEnki
Joined:
22-01-2012
Messages: 202
from Largo,FL
OFF-Line
| Posted 11-03-2012 at 02:55
Thats a cool picture, Bat, and although it seems a little too perfect when I used a photo editing program (open source, I found the line to be vertical, as well), the possibility it is real, could mean the pyramid is a giant capacitor, which charged mildly with the nearby lightning strike. In that case however the beam wouldve been visible to the eye, right?
Ive been to Chitzen Itza, and the lightning there is freakish!
IMHO it's unexplainable so far, but I cant discount it's authenticity from my laptop, so maybe we will never know.
LE
Quote:
|
On 2012-03-10 17:40, bat400 wrote:
.... A thunderstorm was brewing near the temple, and Siliezar was trying to capture lightning crackling dramatically over the ruins......
It's more likely that the "light beam" corresponds to a set of columns of pixels in the camera sensor that are electronically connected to each other, but not to other columns in the sensor, and that this set of connected pixels became oversaturated in the manner described above.
....
Thanks to coldrum for the link. For the photo, see:
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/03/02/mayan-light-beam-photo-message-from-gods-or-iphone-glitch/#ixzz1oSEYnDvW
|
|
[ This message was edited by: bat400 on 2012-03-12 14:23 ]
Profile
 Email
Reply
|
jonm
Joined:
12-07-2011
Messages: 826
from UK
OFF-Line
| Posted 14-03-2012 at 09:48
Cool picture but if you trace the left hand side of the light beam down, it appears to light up the side of the 'stairs'
Indicates a Glitch in the camera?
Profile
Reply
|
LittleEnki
Joined:
22-01-2012
Messages: 202
from Largo,FL
OFF-Line
| Posted 14-03-2012 at 13:19
Yes, Jon, that's a good observation, it does appear to cast a shadow on the left side of the stairs.
What stopped me short, was the way the beam cuts off smoothly at the top of the pyramid.
If it was a glitch, wouldnt it continue through the entire photo?
It's a mystery still, but I lost my adobe photoshop with my crashing computer last month, so I cant dig much deeper than that.
Littleenki
Quote:
|
On 2012-03-14 09:48, jonm wrote:
Cool picture but if you trace the left hand side of the light beam down, it appears to light up the side of the 'stairs'
Indicates a Glitch in the camera?
|
|
Profile
Email
Reply
|
jonm
Joined:
12-07-2011
Messages: 826
from UK
OFF-Line
| Posted 14-03-2012 at 13:59
Quote:
| What stopped me short, was the way the beam cuts off smoothly at the top of the pyramid.
If it was a glitch, wouldnt it continue through the entire photo? |
|
Looks like a contrast error to me, probably accented on the red sensors: The contrast change at the top of the sky looks the same as the temple. Relative to the top and bottom, the contrast of the lighter 'beam' looks similar relative to the lighter clouds: About 50% higher than it should be.
If it was a light beam causing local atmospheric bounding off particles, the beam at the top of the picture should probably be brighter.
Profile
Reply
|
LittleEnki
Joined:
22-01-2012
Messages: 202
from Largo,FL
OFF-Line
| Posted 14-03-2012 at 15:57
That's probably the best analysis, Jon, and I concur, until the mayans come back to eat us all, but that's okay, I taste like scotch and cheese, and they wont want to eat me!LOL!
Cheers!
Littleenki
Quote:
|
On 2012-03-14 13:59, jonm wrote:
Quote:
| What stopped me short, was the way the beam cuts off smoothly at the top of the pyramid.
If it was a glitch, wouldnt it continue through the entire photo? |
|
Looks like a contrast error to me, probably accented on the red sensors: The contrast change at the top of the sky looks the same as the temple. Relative to the top and bottom, the contrast of the lighter 'beam' looks similar relative to the lighter clouds: About 50% higher than it should be.
If it was a light beam causing local atmospheric bounding off particles, the beam at the top of the picture should probably be brighter.
|
|
Profile
Email
Reply
|
davidmorgan
Joined:
23-11-2006
Messages: 1620
from The New Forest
OFF-Line
| Posted 14-03-2012 at 23:47
Quote:
| On 2012-03-14 15:57, LittleEnki wrote:
I taste like ... cheese |
|
LOL. And you don't even come from Wisconsin.
[ This message was edited by: davidmorgan on 2012-03-14 23:48 ]
Profile
Reply
|
Andy B
Joined:
13-02-2001
Messages: 7043
from Surrey, UK
OFF-Line
| Posted 15-03-2012 at 17:34
If they've been scoping us out with YouTube they may well come just for you:
Cheese Rules - How to Pair Scotch with Cheese
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cp1_2kcKhKQ
but then that's had fewer viewers than our videos so perhaps not
(plug - ahem)
http://www.youtube.com/user/megalithic?feature=watch
Kevin Kilburn's talk coming soon once I can sort out the *&%(^*% sound sync
OK - back to Mayan light beams...
[ This message was edited by: Andy B on 2012-03-15 19:03 ]
Profile
Email
Reply
|
LittleEnki
Joined:
22-01-2012
Messages: 202
from Largo,FL
OFF-Line
| Posted 16-03-2012 at 01:08
Informative, my friend!Megalithic portal videos are still better, though Thanks Andy, and anyone who understands the draw of scotch and cheese has obviously been around a drunken wisconsiner!Mmmmm! single malt scotch....Dubliner white cheddar....
Is that even a word?Wisconsiner?
Back to beam,
It seems like an anomaly of the ccd, or the flash reflecting back somehow, we'll probably never know until someone else gets the same result, and then we can compare the two.
I gotta ask, was it raining then?, as it might be flashback from rain drops, too.
Photoshop, anyone?mine's crashed
On that note, Ill pour myself a........and have a block of.......
Cheers!
Littleenki
Quote:
|
On 2012-03-15 17:34, Andy B wrote:
If they've been scoping us out with YouTube they may well come just for you:
Cheese Rules - How to Pair Scotch with Cheese
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cp1_2kcKhKQ
but then that's had fewer viewers than our videos so perhaps not
(plug - ahem)
http://www.youtube.com/user/megalithic?feature=watch
Kevin Kilburn's talk coming soon once I can sort out the *&%(^*% sound sync
OK - back to Mayan light beams...
[ This message was edited by: Andy B on 2012-03-15 19:03 ]
|
|
Profile
Email
Reply
| |
|
|
|
|
|
IMPORTANT NOTES: This site uses COOKIES. Please do not use this web site if you do not agree to our Terms and Conditions of use.
If you plan to visit ancient sites in person, please make sure you follow our Charter.
Articles, photographs and comments are the property of their respective authors or contributors, please contact them for permission to reproduce. Site design ©1997-2012 Andy Burnham.
|
Main News