Another NASA Curiosity Photo Stirs Up Conspiracy Theories: Our Favorite ‘Strange’ Sightings On Mars

NASA's Curiosity rover has discovered plenty of amazing things since it landed on Mars on Aug. 6, 2012. Whether its evidence of ancient lakes, organic compounds, streambeds -- all of which confirm that Mars could have once supported life -- or, more recently, the detection of methane spikes, it seems as though for every Curiosity discovery, there is a new conspiracy theory.

A Man On Mars (Or Just A Shadow)

A photo taken on Sept. 26, 2012 by Curiosity's Navcam seems pretty ordinary. The rover's camera captures the Martian landscape and the shadow of Curiosity. Well, until you start really looking at it, and you'll notice what appears to be a man tinkering with the rover, according to conspiracy theorist Scott Waring. "The person has no helmet and their short hair is visible and in high detail," Waring says in his blog post. If that's the case, that means Curiosity is not on Mars but right here on Earth.

Looking at a selfie of Curiosity, it's pretty easy to see how some components of the rover's body could be mistaken for a human.

Mars Rat

A classic Curiosity conspiracy theory: Waring was the source of this alleged sighting of a Martian rat hidden in the rocks. If you squint, the rock does look a bit like a rat, but it's just a psychological trick known as pareidolia, the phenomenon in which we see anthropomorphic shapes in random objects (e.g., Jesus in a taco).

Mars Coffin

Can you spot the coffin in this photo? The object is located in front of the first rock outcrop in the center of the image.

Mars Jelly Doughnut

The mystery surrounding this rock that randomly appeared in front of Opportunity stumped NASA scientists when they first received the image. The rock was clearly seen in a photo taken by Opportunity that was not there in an older photo. It turns out the rover kicked the rock into the area as it was traveling around the red planet.

A Skull On Mars

This one is a bit of a stretch, even for conspiracy theorists. The skull can be found in the upper left area of the photo, but it looks a lot closer to a regular rock than anything remotely human. Another skull found by Curiosity (diagonal from the large rock at the bottom left of the image) looks slightly more like a skull, but not by much.

If finding unusual objects is not enough, there is always the theory that life on Mars was destroyed by ancient nuclear war.