Conspiracy theorists think they've found bones on Mars, after viewing Mars Rover photos of some rocks.
In a video lengthily titled Fossilized Bones, Petrified Wood, Fungus & Lichen, Growth & Movement, Life on Mars, Curiosity Rover, conspiracy group Martian Archaeology claims that bones, mushrooms, and even space prawns can all be seen in photographs sent back from the Red Planet.
If you still aren't convinced that NASA has photographed life on Mars, then you're more skeptical than the channel's 34,000 subscribers.
"WOW DO THIS, GO TO 2:50 AND CHECK OUT THE WEIRD THING AT YOUR RIGHT HAND," one YouTuber commented in all caps, describing a rock. "THAT LOOKS LIKE THE HEAD OF A LIZARD OR STRANGE SMALL DRAGON"
The video itself, however, focuses in on a random picture of Mars from the Rover mission and highlights something the creators think looks like a Martian prawn. Yep.
The images from the NASA Rover are seriously cool, and completely accessible to anyone who's interested on NASA's website. You should check them out ASAP if you haven't done so already.
But unfortunately, if you put a red circle around pretty much any rock on any photo, conspiracy theorists will claim it's some sort of alien mouse.
Sadly the photos seem to be enough to convince conspiracy-inclined people that NASA is involved in a cover-up.
"After years of research and study, I'm convinced now, more than ever, that there much more to Mars than what NASA admits to," TJ Devereaux writes. "There's just far too much evidence to ignore this possibility."
So why do people see these things in photographs of rocks?
The phenomenon of seeing familiar patterns in objects where none exists is called pareidolia. In terms of our evolution, it makes sense that we spot patterns that could be a danger to us (e.g. a snake) as quickly as possible.
Carl Sagan explained in his book The Demon-Haunted World – Science as a Candle in the Dark, that the ability to identify threats was imperative to our survival.
Early humans that ran away from what they thought to be a lion hiding in the shrub survived. Those who couldn't spot this lion "pattern" would be eaten by it. And if they ran away but it turned out that the lion was in fact just a rock, that's fine; those humans survived either way and passed on their genes.
Sagan said that finding patterns (where patterns exist or not) was a vital precautionary survival skill, but could lead to the misinterpretation of random images or patterns of light as faces and familiar objects. In this case, people are seeing rocks as human faces.
The whole video can be viewed here, if you'd like to see the rocks for yourself.
