Doctor Schmalz and his enhanced images of 10X video

4/13/2016

By Doug Crowell - Blockhouse Investigations - Nova Scotia, Canada
In an Extended White Paper sent to David Tobias, of Triton Alliance, from Doctor Mark Schmalz and Doctor Gerhard Ritter, dated January 12th 1995 and entitled "Image Enhancement and Data Analysis in support of Archaeological Field Studies" we have found some very interesting information to relate to you regarding Oak Island and, in particular, the 10X Cavity. The two doctors worked together at the Center for Computer Vision and Visualization at the University of Florida in Gainesville Florida.

The white paper summarized their "proposed work in image processing and data/technology characterization, in support of Triton's efforts in the Mahone Bay area", as was discussed with David Tobias and Bob Atkinson. It was quite a comprehensive proposal regarding the image enhancement of various film and photos taken on the island, as you can see from the Table of Contents from this proposal (shown below).

The image enhancement techniques they used and the science behind those techniques were documented in great detail in their 66 page proposal, of which this excerpt is just a small sample (see image below).

Technical details of Image Enhancement Proposal excerpt - Page 8 and 9

Did you catch that first sentence in the Proposal excerpt above? It reads, "Based upon our previous experience with Triton-furnished imagery".

Previous experience. So this proposal was submitted as a plan to perform further work for the former treasure hunting company. Does that make you wonder what Oak Island photos or film they had previously worked on enhancing? It sure did for us.

Efforts to contact Dr. Schmalz have not received a reply as of yet, but we did discover images from the 10X cavity that they had enhanced. These were found in the late Paul Wroclawski's Oak Island research collection. They were included in a 2007 PowerPoint presentation created by Oak Island researcher and author Les MacPhie, who told me they were gifted to him by David Tobias. We are grateful for Les MacPhie's permission to reproduce them here.

Schmalz Image Enhancement of 10X film of "Chest" and "wooden pole"

Schmalz Image Enhancement of 10X film of a "Chest" in 10X.

These are the clearest images we have seen yet of the contents of the 10X cavity. Doctors Schmalz and Ritter performed some impressive image enhancement on the blurry images most of us have seen in the past. It is unfortunate that Triton does not seem to have taken them up on their proposal for further work in this area. It would have been really interesting to see what they could have done with images of the rest of the cavity.

So what do you think after seeing these images? Is it an actual chest?

Goodnight from The Blockhouse!

30 Comments

Randal Taylor

4/13/2016 01:37:14 pm

Great findings. As usual when I come here I expect to see solid evidence...you fail to disappoint me :)

Carolyn Prest

4/13/2016 01:47:05 pm

Great find and great work! Thanks for sharing.

Tom Moeding

4/13/2016 02:11:35 pm

Looks like it could be a chest with layers of silt on it. If it's been there for hundreds of years you could expect silt to settle on it.

Jim

4/13/2016 03:18:30 pm

The pole could well be from a loading pole lost down the hole. A pole used for loading explosives.

Ron

4/13/2016 03:25:24 pm

Ongoing mystery crap. You are as bad as the rest perpetuating this by continuously rehashing the same stuff over and over. Too frightened to publish all the evidence ( like the newspapers from the time that just say it) they were using a copy of a spanish treasure map everyone had in the 19th century or do you have some finasncial interest going in this?

Doug Crowell

4/13/2016 03:42:13 pm

Welcome back Ron. I almost missed your sour and demeaning disposition. How you equate presenting little seen historical evidence and facts to rehashing crap is beyond my understanding. We make zero revenue off of this site, it simply represents our wish to provide facts to those interested. As I said before, point me to your theory and I will take a look at what you feel is the truth.

Gary

4/13/2016 06:45:33 pm

Ron sounds like a giant douche Doug!

4/13/2016 07:30:52 pm

i think Ron is very resolute in his belief in the "every treasure map is the same map" theory, which I am aware has been around for many decades, but I am not very knowledgable about yet. His impatience in waiting for the rest of us to see the truth seems to manifest itself in a less than personable manner. I fully intend to study that theory though after we wrap up some of our other lines of investigation.

Mike Morgan

4/13/2016 03:52:14 pm

Given that any images from 10X were taken post dynamiting, the chances that it is anything other than rocks and/or debris, are approaching absolute zero.

PS: Thank you for returning back to the fact based posts we all appreciate.

4/13/2016 07:44:29 pm

Thanks Mike. Our mandate will always be to bring the facts to the table and to look at what those facts suggest, but I think there is value in the occasional guest article. Especially those articles that present the background elements, or overview, of popular theories, giving the readers a chance to understand what a given theory is proposing, Armed with a knowledge of the basic premise of a theory, and the known facts about Oak Island, people can better decide for themselves what they believe or don't believe. Thanks for reading!

John Frick

4/13/2016 10:29:08 pm

I talked in private with one of the on island searchers about this, and even after reading the Wonnacott article, they still feel just as strongly at that there are things in 10x. IMO there is 100% likely to be very old things in 10-x, but then I have seen way more than most.

4/13/2016 10:32:25 pm

So its an opinion that it is approaching zero because I and on island searchers have it at a flat 100% likelihood. Also an opinion, but a much much better informed opinion. Especially as they have seen the full video of all the recent filmings of what is down there. Just the little 5 second piece that they leaked into the show has me totally convinced.

Peter Geuzen

4/13/2016 04:48:53 pm

Obvious Answer #1 - It's the head of Hercules wearing an animal skin headdress, part of a larger life size statue that's been there for two thousand years, proving the Roman theory and clearly being a matching artifact confirmation to the Roman Sword. See linked pic:

http://imgur.com/Tl0uWgj

Obvious Answer #2 - If you think people are nutbar who would actually consider and believe Obvious Answer #1, ...well then, it's a chunk of rock.....thanks to the dynamite.

4/13/2016 04:49:24 pm

4/13/2016 04:49:51 pm

4/13/2016 04:50:27 pm

Obvious Answer #1 - It's the head of Hercules wearing an animal skin headdress, part of a larger life size statue that's been there for two thousand years, proving the Roman theory and clearly being a matching artifact confirmation to the Roman Sword. See linked pic:

http://imgur.com/Tl0uWgj

Obvious Answer #2 - If you think people who would actually consider and believe Obvious Answer #1 are bonkers, ...well then, it's a chunk of rock.....thanks to the dynamite.

4/14/2016 06:30:47 am

I got four consecutive error messages when trying to post last night, so I gave up. I see this morning it actually posted four times. Sorry about that - please feel free to delete the extras, if you can.

Blaine Schooley

4/13/2016 05:31:03 pm

I love reading about this and all the info you guys keep putting up. Keep up the good work!

4/13/2016 10:33:39 pm

Keep it coming with the pro-10x stuff. In the long run it will play out that things were down there all along.

Glen

4/14/2016 07:10:18 am

I wonder how many times someone will go down that shaft as ten or twelve already have, find nothing...any yet gullible minds will still believe and 'know' there is treasure there...I'd rate that as 100% probable

Mark Ellis

4/14/2016 09:25:30 am

Another good and interesting read. With the conflicting results between the sonar, ROV, photos, people that have been in the cavity, etc, hopefully someday they find out definitely about what is and/or isn't in there and also the who's, the why's and the how's if something is there. For me hard to resolve, I look at something as a possibility but then when looking at it from another angle, it conflicts with that possibility. Oh well, that is Oak Island for ya!

4/15/2016 06:58:56 pm

There are a couple key problems with interpreting these pics. Firstly, it is basically just one picture but in two views (with an assumed piece of wood in one view for some unknown reason), without any larger context within a larger setting and no other view from any other angle to help explain it. Secondly, we have no idea of scale. Is this corner of whatever it is, a couple centimetres long, or a couple metres long? These points in combination add up to the biggest problem; this is not a picture of an object in it's entirety - we are not seeing the whole object therefore it's impossible to suggest much of anything other than what logic dictates. Key question - what are the details on the accompanying sketches; who did these and for what purpose; are these from Les?

4/16/2016 11:26:17 am

Hi Peter. I am working getting an answer for your last question. You are correct about scale. No way to know from those photos, unless some people are correct about what the pole is, then we could estimate the scale.

4/16/2016 04:08:37 pm

Peter, the drawings came with the photos, so it is assumed they were made by Schmalz.

4/17/2016 08:15:49 am

I think this confirms something, to me at least. In the final episode of Drilling Down when Brian Abbott is trying to explain his sonar interpretation from previously in the season he mentions having seen clear crisp images of 10x in a report shown to him while on the island. He doesn't identify who showed them to him but he says he could see boarding, a lock, and a curved top - all the things supposedly visible in the pictures in this post (as influenced by the suggestions in the accompanying sketches of course), thus I assume exactly the same pictures (he later notes them to be 8x10 and in a well done report). The Laginas and Dave B act surprised and unknowing of what these pictures are. If you listen really closely, Brian says over his shoulder towards the Laginas sitting behind him: "...that Les got from someplace...." - he says it really quickly and its tricky to hear "Les". He then says, referring to the source of the pictures "I don't know the gentleman's name but he's an engineer out of Montreal". Marty replies "Must be Pete". It's not clear if Brian means this was the person showing him the pictures or the original source of the pictures/report. The possibility is that he is really referring to Tobias, not 'Pete' who is presumably a more recent player because the other guys all seemed to nod/chime in and agree when Marty said 'Pete'.

So basically it sounds like the pictures may have really influenced Brian Abbott's interpretation of his sonar. This would be especially true if the accompanying sketches were with them and presumably they were because the source is now confirmed to be the same, i.e. Schmalz. If he hadn't seen these pictures and the sketches, he might not have said the box shaped object in sonar was a chest. i.e. '90% confident manmade' which is what he said during the sonar episode, earlier in the season. It also appears that at the time he did the sonar the team may have not known that he had seen these pictures, because they were truly acting surprised. You have to wonder if they have followed up and grilled Brian for the source etc. and if the team themselves have now seen these pictures (and any others??). The one other thing confirmed I guess is that if these pictures, the sonar image, and John Chatterton's description of the object he actually laid hands on, are all the same thing (which I think is getting pretty obvious now), then its nothing more than a rock (and probably not anhydrite), more or less an imperfectly shaped foot square. If I can go out on a limb here, assuming it's not anhydrite because it might have crumbled as John C picked it up, it might simply be one of the boulders that Dan B used as ballast when he dove back in the day.

4/17/2016 07:15:22 am

The "pole" is obviously proof that Hector Barbossa, the peglegged pirate captain of the Black Pearl, was in the cavern burying a treasure chest when overcome from lack of oxygen, and now only his skeleton, pegleg, and treasure chest are left in the silt. The pegleg floating around is undeniable proof of this...and when they explore the cavern I bet they will also find the skeleton and feathers from his only friend, Polly Parrot...

Dave Wood link

4/27/2016 12:46:02 am

All the features on the "chest" in the first photo are there in the second photo,but no pole even tho there is enough room in the bottom of the photo for it.Why?

4/27/2016 07:31:04 pm

Another good question. Speculatively, maybe there was a piece of wood hung below the camera but on the same line of sight as the lens so that any deflection in the 'pointer' that showed in any given picture would indicate water current action or direction, away from the point of focus. Given that it shows and disappears in these two similar pics might mean it was being affected by current (maybe even spinning).

The other questions that come to mind at this point, is there more, i.e. where's the rest...video, stills? Conversely, if there isn't any more in terms of enhancements, can it be confirmed exactly what date the base source (pre enhancement) video/stills are from? It has to be post 27 inch hole creation, 1970, and pre proposal, 1995, but is the base source Dan's stuff, or something else - was Schmalz ever onsite taking pics/video, and correct me if I'm wrong but didn't the CBC send cameras down as well at one point (?). Another speculative question that comes to mind, even if there are no more pics, I also wonder if there was intentional cropping of these? Note the aspect ratio is taller than wider, but a standard image should actually be the opposite, i.e. wider than taller. Is there something to the left that was cropped out - something that would help NOT make these superficially look like a chest corner?

Susan Lavalle

5/3/2016 01:22:47 pm

Did anyone besides me see carving and chisel marks on the second picture. There appears to be at least two "X" on it.

Maxer link

8/16/2016 09:10:07 pm

post

Doctor Schmalz and his enhanced images of 10X video

Leave a Reply.

Archives

Categories