NASA Mars Photo Shows 'Pig' On Red Planet; Other Creatures Spotted

The NASA Mars mission is hands-down one of the most exciting projects of the U.S. space agency. Aside from scientific breakthroughs including the possibility that there’s alien life who live or could have lived on the Red Planet, Mars mission enthusiasts have also stumbled on interesting figures that may or may not be signs of life on the planet.

The latest "discovery" is what looks like a pig roaming the surface of planet Mars. The photo, which was taken by the NASA rover, Curiosity, was discovered by space fan Steve Martin of Kent in England. According to a report, Martin has been spending hours just looking at NASA images on its official website when he discovered what looked like a dark swine amidst a bunch of rocks on the Red Planet.

The Curiosity rover has been beaming back photos of the Martian surface since 2012 and for years, alien theorists have claimed to have detected some anomalies in the photos. These include “discovering” animals such as monkeys and penguins on the Martian surface. IBTimes even reported seeing the Star Trek logo etched on the dusty floor of Mars.

Recently, news of a flying bird was said to have been discovered in one of the videos taken by the rover. The image first appeared in a video uploaded by user Sandra Elena Andrade and was picked up by UFO enthusiast or “UFOlogist” Scott Waring of the website ET Database.

Per the alien theorist, the image proved a long talked about conspiracy theory: all the images that NASA’s rover Curiosity has shot did not originate from the Red Planet but was taken from somewhere on Earth. The Curiosity rover is currently exploring the Gale Crater region of Mars.

The rover was put there to help scientists study the climate and geology of the Red Planet and discover the existence of possible life on Mars. Earth’s cousin is a hotbed for extraterrestrial search because its geological makeup is similar to our home planet.

Recently, scientists made a major discovery when the rover stumbled on high amounts of methane gas, the highest ever recorded by the space agency. Methane gas is often a byproduct of microbes called methanogens which survive in rocks found deep underground in Earth and even in digestive tracts of animals. Using this theory, scientists wondered if the methane on Mars was also produced by similar living microbes.

The methane gas, however, eventually died down a few days after it was first detected making scientists think that it could have simply been a fluke.