Could there be Buddhists on Mars? Extraterrestrial life form enthusiasts seem to think so when they called a rock carving - seemingly depicting Buddha - proof of intelligent life on the red planet.
UFO Sightings Daily found a shape on a rock bed similar to that of Buddha in one of NASA's photos of Mars taken by a space rover.
The site said that this photo should be solid evidence that intelligent lifeforms once existed, or may still exist on Mars. The "Buddha statue" was found by YouTube user Paranormal Crucible.
"This photo alone should be enough to convince the United Nations that intelligent life once existed on Mars," affirmed Scott C. Waring of UFO Sightings Daily while claiming that NASA did not want to share its findings to prevent people from knowing the truth about Mars.
Aside from this Buddha figure, UFO Sightings Daily also showed pictures that show a Buddha head, a woman's figure, a bunker and a rock similar to President Barack Obama's head. All these pictures were taken from NASA's images of the Martian expeditions.
While NASA itself rarely releases statements in response to these claims, some scientists from the organization offer an explanation as to why UFO Sightings Daily and others are having these sightings based on their photos.
"There is no group that would be (happier) to see such a thing than the 500 scientists around the world who work on this Curiosity rover," said NASA scientist Ashwin Vasavada in response to the claims that the photos provide evidence of the existence of extraterrestrial life on Mars.
"So far we haven't seen anything that is so obvious that it would be similar to what these claims are," he added.
Vasavada said that these sightings are, instead, due to a trick of the mind called pareidolia, or the psychological response to seeing familiar objects in random or unfamiliar places.
The sightings can also be connected the psychological phenomenom, apophenia, which is similar to pareidolia in the sense that people tend to see connections in things that are actually unconnected or merely random.
Director Seth Shostak of the Center for SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Research also pointed out that the photos could have been zoomed in or enhanced to make out shapes of faces and figures that may not actually be present.
"Those [who send photos] to me are generally quite excited, as they claim that these frequently resemble something you wouldn't expect to find on the rusty, dusty surface of the red planet," Shostak said.
