Again I ask - Why are they hiding that tower in the first picture of the OP if the towers were all over Detroit?
Here's a few possibilities:
1.) That first picture may have been taken before the Moonlight Towers Narrative cover story was developed within the USA around 1880 and implemented in Detroit in 1882. The streets are certainly wide open and muddy, with just a few people around. This would put the picture before 1880.
2.) This could have been one of the pictures used by the Resetters to recruit immigrants over in Europe. They would not have cared about the shoddy job retouching the photo when it was meant to be reprinted and would have less sharpness. This would also place the picture prior to 1880 when the Moonlight Tower Narrative cover story was developed.
3.) Whoever did the shoddy retouching and cut out the tower also harshly cut out all the sky. Perhaps there was an airship attached to the top of this tower or floating in the sky. This would place the picture before the ceation of the Moonlight Tower Narrative around 1880.
4.) The towers were actually built in 1882 for the stated use and this picture was retouched for aesthetics. Meaning an official picture of the building was needed for the city records (or equivalent), but they didn't want that pesky tower in the shot distracting from the symmetry of the building. This would place the picture after 1882.
5.) The picture could have been altered at the Library of Congress. Their team in charge of covering up the past saw it and covered it up. THEN learned of the cover story that allowed the tower to exist. But they were so busy at that time that they never corrected the problem by getting a replacement image. This would place the picture anytime before 1900, according to several other images in the OP that don't have the tower present.
I cannot choose just one of these. I believe that both 1.) and 2.) are correct.
(Tip of the hat to usselo for format.)
This specific 'Moonlight Tower' obviously became a problem for the City Fathers, probably because of someone altering this particular picture. So it was removed within 18 years of being 'built' to avoid the discrepancy and make later pictures consistant with this earlier picture.
We all encounter a problem with discussing issues that contain several options. It's laborious to set out the options we think might be present and difficult to track responses and arguments for each option's sub-options.
It derails so many conversations, I'd like to know if there is a name for this problem so I could see if anyone has developed techniques to manage similar discussions.
Returning to the light towers... I think our knowledge is deliberately, carefully curated, so when we're shown crude manipulations that stand out as being inexplicably careless, I tend to guess they are inserted or leaked as tests to see if we can detect inconsistencies.
That's the unwritten thought that lay behind
my option 4.
Something like this:
Just for my piece of mind. Or maybe for this week's AI progress report. Source: Westworld
The other suggestions are illuminating. Take
the viziers' spiked hats... Our knowledge curators may hope we spot their similarity to these hats:
Bronze hats from Germany
which
I presented as possible examples of these hats:
Royston Cave wall carving.
If there is/was a communication technology whose equipment resembled these, then perhaps Royston Cave depicts this equipment being used to take bids and share prices over a wider distance on market days above the cave.
But if so, we're still missing materials and methods necessary to understand how this technology worked (specifically: methods and materials for transmission/propagation, modulation and demodulation).
A clue about high lights is that their installers seem to have cared about illuminating rooftops and risks at roof-height. I wonder if there is an airship delivery clue in that. It also tallies with the seemingly unnecessary amount of structure - cupolas, gazebos and ironware that used to poke above roofs in the past.
Put a metal wire high up and you will have voltage.
If I've correctly understood what is going on with atmospheric potential gradient, then: be high in the sky and hang a wire down and you
will also have voltage. Which might be useful for recharging kit that you have with you high in the sky. Or for phase-changing materials that you have with you high in the sky.
One thing that might help is a potted history of Detroit's industries and their time periods, particularly around these photos' 1882 period. See
Industrial Detroit - 1860-1900. with the usual caveat that nothing should be taken as authoritative, complete or accurate.
In that list, the terse line:
1881: Detroit is the center of the nation's stove manufacturing industry.
stands out as odd. It's a power-related industry but what happened that centred it in Detroit at this time? We also see mentions of new technologies coming in around this time but nothing about the industries that were being replaced.
