The picture is at the right place and time. Of course the conspiracy theorists don’t have a leg to stand on.

This picture really isn’t too bad. It’s just a wide angle lens. That means the individuals take up a relatively small area on the camera sensor and there isn’t much detail recorded in terms of number of pixels. Exacerbate the issue with JPEG compression and zooming way in and the blocky look is a natural result. More detail in the subjects could have been resolved with a narrower angle lens. But then the subjects wouldn’t have been captured, they are at the edge of the frame already. Perhaps a wide angle lens with better edge sharpness or a camera like the D800e with more sensor resolution would have helped. But then again, most people don’t have thousands of bucks to blow on camera equipment like that. The only free improvement to be had would be if the lossless raw file is available, but that is unlikely.

I don’t know what the loons are expecting really.

Edit for clarty, I mean the top picture.