A strangely shaped object photographed on the Martian surface has reignited bizarre theories about extraterrestrial life on the Red Planet.
The picture, captured by NASA‘s Opportunity rover in 2014, recently resurfaced online after social media users claimed the object resembles an ‘alien gun.’
Scott C Waring, a Martian researcher from ‘UFO Sighting Daily,’ suggested the ‘gun’ is evidence of why NASA sent a rover to Mars to retrieve alien technology.
‘Alien gun on Mars photos, only one still exists, others deleted by NASA,’ Waring shared on X on Tuesday.
The image was previously circulated by Waring, writing in a blog post that the supposed weapon was ‘about one foot long.’
‘I have to admit… It’s incredible,’ he shared. ‘The exact location of the gun is at SOL 3773, which is between Mt Edgecumbe and Wdowiak Ridge.’
NASA’s Opportunity rover landed on Mars on January 25, 2004, touching down in a small impact crater known as Eagle Crater on the Meridiani Planum.
However, the robot fell silent in June 2018 during a severe, planet-wide dust storm that blocked sunlight from reaching its panels. After spending months attempting to re-establish contact, NASA officially declared the mission complete in February 2019.
The picture, captured by NASA’s Opportunity rover in 2014, recently resurfaced online after social media users claimed the object resembles an ‘ alien gun.’
However, it seems the UFO researchers’ claims are nothing more than a case of pareidolia, a psychological response to seeing faces and other significant and everyday items.
While Waring is sure Opportunity spotted a gun on the Martian landscape, others believe otherwise.
One X user commented: ‘I’m not an expert, but I believe this is a rock….’
While another joked: ‘Why would aliens have guns designed for human hands and fingers? lol.’
Waring has been sharing bizarrely shaped rocks on the Red Planet for about a decade now, with one in 2016 that he claimed was a shoe.
‘While looking through some Mars rover photos, I found a lone shoe on the edge of the crater,’ he wrote on his website.
‘This is probably a shoe of a species that was at war long ago, the shoe being the lone evidence that the person had ever existed.’
The discovery was spotted on August 24, 2016, however, the original photo from the Opportunity was taken in 2013.
The image was first circulated by Warning in 2016, writing in a blog post that the supposed weapon was ‘about one foot long’
Waring has been sharing bizarrely shaped rocks on the Red Planet for about a decade now, with one in 2016 that he claimed was a shoe
The NASA image shows a cluster of rocks spread out on the dusty planet, and the lone shoe can be seen to the right among the rubble, which may also just be another rock.
However, Waring is sure this ‘shoe’ is all that is left of a soldier who lost their life on the battlefield.
‘How many times on a battlefield or at a catastrophic event have we seen photos in the newspaper of the shoes of victims…alone…evidence of how hard they were hit, how fast they were taken from us? Well, this is such evidence,’ he wrote.
