A strange shape filmed on Mars by the Spirit Rover

The Spirit rover has taken many pictures of Mars during its mission. One of its pictures seems to show a kind of flying saucer.

A strange shape was filmed on Mars by the Spirit Rover
© Space Frontiers/Getty
A strange shape was filmed on Mars by the Spirit Rover

After the alien spoon, the alien faces, the alien door... Here comes the alien ship? Mars makes us all curious and rover missions such as Perseverance andCuriosity are a godsend for all astronomy and science fiction enthusiasts who want to know what our neighbouring planet looks like. Every video of the rovers is scrutinised, every picture is analysed, and regularly some people think they have found details that NASA itself has omitted.

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A saucer-shaped UFO?

An image from the Spirit rover which dates back several years - the rover's mission ended in 2010 - has gone viral thanks to the YouTube channel UFO Sightings Daily. In a three-minute video, the channel deconstructs the photo and zooms in to highlight a silhouette that looks like a drone standing upright.

The photo is in black and white, and when zoomed in, the silhouette is severely lacking in detail, but that doesn't stop UFO Sightings Daily from declaring that ‘it's incredible’ and that this object could ‘be huge and at a great distance’ from Spirit.

A stain on Spirit's lens?

We recently told you in the article about the famous ‘alien door’: seeing familiar shapes (faces, spoons, etc.) in insignificant landscapes is a phenomenon called pareidolia.

But the reason why some people seem to see an alien ship in this video could be completely different. As several people point out in the comments section, it could simply be... Particles on the lens that make it look like something is in the distance.

Sure, it's a lot less exciting than the spy drone hypothesis, but at least the Martian invasion is not tomorrow.

This article was translated from Gentside FR.

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