From my LiveJournal

News from the other side:

There's an article running on FoxNews today (no mention of it on CNN though.... interesting) about an unusual image captured by one of the Mars Rovers.

NASA Photo Shows Humanoid Figure on Mars
Wednesday, January 23, 2008


Is it Bigfoot? A Tusken Raider from the first "Star Wars" movie? Or just a rock?

British newspapers went crazy Wednesday morning about an image from Mars that appears to show a humanoid figure descending a shallow hillside.

The "alien" is actually a blurry detail in a huge panoramic photograph snapped on the edge of Mars' Gusev crater by NASA's Spirit rover in early November, and posted on NASA's Web site on Jan. 2.

Naturally, it took the Photoshop skills of dedicated bloggers to find the "humanoid."

• Click here for the full NASA image. If that doesn't work, try this. The figure is near the bottom left corner.

"NASA scientists have been puzzled by the peculiarly life-like image," declared the Times of London, despite the apparent fact that no one from NASA has had any comment.

The skeptical Web site BadAstronomy.com, however, scoffed, "Puhlllleeeeze. A man? It's a tiny rock only a few inches high. It's only a few feet from the rover!"

Other British papers saw the humo(u)r in the story, with the Sun theorizing that it was Detective Gene Hunt, the drunken, sexist policeman from the BBC time-traveling crime series "Life on Mars."

"It's Usama bin Laden!" declared one Times of London commenter. "All this time we thought he was in Pakistan."

An artist's illustration of the Spirit rover on the surface of Mars.


The edge of Mars' Gusev Crater as photographed by the Spirit rover in early November 2007.


A medium-range shot of the Spirit image, with the mysterious figure indicated.


A detail from a NASA image of a Martian crater shows ... well, something.


Now I'd certainly agree that last photo looks strikingly similar to this one:



I'm curious about the comment from the skeptic at badastronomy.com. Let's assume for a moment that it is only a few feet from the Rover and only several inches tall. I guess we've always assumed that life on other planets must be both humanoid and similar in height and stature to ourselves (thank you Star Trek, Star Wars, et al). It is also easy enough to prove whether it is small and/or rocks. NASA simply needs to issue a command to the rover to return to the same spot and at the same time of day snap another photo. Rocks won't have moved and would be in the same place. Duh!

Or maybe this is just more likely: