http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7205004.stm

it's a rock man. i checked out an astronomy site earlier that completely debunks the whole thing. i'll see if i can dig it up

EDIT

found it

http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00001305/

EDIT again

oh, lol, it's just like that times uk article about it.

thats a nifty unicron pic btw

yeah like some random animal is just gonna be hanging out w/ no ecosystem or anything...

Human perspective can be afunny thing. one person will see an obscure shape while another will see the face of God him self.
altho there is a certain amount of logic to assume that an E.T. will have a humaniod form, I can't help but think its a lil vain to jump at the prospect that this shape could be life.
also Hammer just because we humans need an eco system, should'nt peclude the fact that life could develop in a manner that is........... (well if you'll excuse the pun), ailen to us humans.
one mans "barren cinder" is another E.T.'s paradise.

http://www.local6.com/spotlight/15126212/detail.html

I'm almost cetrain that claim about it being only 2" tall is a lie. I'm no rocket sicentiest but I have taken a class or 2 in photography.
& the landscapeing would seem to suggest that this thing is severl meters tall, not inches.

You haven't looked at the full NASA picture, have you?

Heh, it looks like sasquach - no wonder they can't find him in the Pacific Northwest...

Nobody is disputing that. NASA says it's not a life form.

apparently not... beautiful picture though, hard to believe it's actually mars

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA10214.jpg

thats the full res pic btw.

I've only seen the pics that are in the links here in this tread.
why, do you have a better shot? if so then let's have a look see.

never mind Hobbs. the link its self is too complex for my phone. when I get a moment i'll go fishing for on on google. thanks any way.

What bothers me about things like this is that NASA never bothers to check them out. Even if it is just a rock it's still infinitely more interesting than anything else in that picture (outside of the funky green sand dunes in the distance). The same thing happened a few years back, when there was an object near the rover that resembled a claw and appeared organic or possibly manmade. Rather than check it out they completely ignored it. One would think that "space explorers" would have SOME curiosity, but they seem more interested in keeping things status quo.

i'm sure they investigate alot more than they publish

An object 2 inches high resembling a humanoid form worn down with the winds of time. Hmm now where have we seen items like that? Oh thats right Egypt, Crete, Rome, China, Japan, Russia... You would have thought that even just for the its curiousity you would check out the object. Search for life? My father said it best, "Science needs to explore all options, too much oldschool logic gets in the way" just spotting a human like shape and casting it off as "a rock" doesnt cut it, you need to study that rock itself, see HOW that object was shaped the way it was, remembering that science is an ongoing discovery process, erosion on Mars may be extremely similar to Earth but any understanding of its minor differences only serves to expand Mankinds knowlege. Search for life? THEN TRY ACTUALLY CHECKING THINGS OUT..

Oh and FYI Rocket Science is actually in the Modern Era one of the easiest. Ironic that people use that 40's coined phrase still to mean something hard..

Indeed.

And, in this case, it's very clearly nothing but a shadow acting as a Rorschach test. How much more can they investigate that? Seriously.

Damn, people. Do you not read links? NASA said it's nothing.

Looks kinda like a Tuskin Raider...

dude you do know the Gov has no problem with lieing to its people right?
so when it says they have no plans to investigate, i'd say that's a wooper of a lie if ever there were one.

oh yeah & sorry if that "oldy but goodie" term of rocket sicentist turns you off. if you please I'm more that comfortable useing "im no quantum physist". & believe me everything about the quantum world IS hard.

you need to get high every once in a while

Hang on a second... Thats my cousin Larry! Bastard. He owes me $20.

Particle Physisist father who is also still consulted by proffessors and members of the NASA science team for his knowledge of Quantum Physics. I never stated that it irritated/turned me off. I stated that it was a great modern Irony, that one of the easiest sciences is often used as the term for something hard.

PETE, the image itself is newsworthy and worthy of discussion, this is what I and many others would term Natural Art, kinda like those rocks in the Mojave desert that resemble elephants and dinosaurs. The news part is that it took geeks like us nerds to notice the human like qualitys to the object/s. A skill that is neccesary for science, EMOTION. Too many scientists are bothered by the science and forget that their technology and work has turned out stunningly beautiful immages. To us the layman as it were, the images of Mars have an almost daemonicaly etherial quality, to the scientist its just a lump of rocks on a bigger rock. We all have had that experience of walking along a familliar path with a freind and them saying "Oh sh!t look at the monster/face/creature" and them showing us that those cracks in the wall and the tree look like a demons face etc.. This image is further proof that we need to keep our eyes open to tricks of the light and not just close our minds..

To what end? All it does is make us think we're seeing things that aren't there.

And it's not like you have to be a nerd or whatever to see recognizable shapes in random forms.

This thread is full of ghey and fail.

OK Mr Meldrew..

Easiest =/= easy.

and Rocket Scientist = Smart.

It still works...

And FWIW, I think Ecology and Archeology are easier that Rocket Science.

That's a point for people who study the human brain, not the people who study the rocks and trees or space.

seriously

I could have tried to accepte your logic if you had not switched from metric to standard in the same sentence fwiw


but back on topic

I dont think that any reasonable person thought that was a little green man, but i could suspend disbelief for a minute to think it could have been a sculpture (whe we were growing up my mother had a rhodin thinker book end)

Not that I think it was actually sculpted or anything...this falls into seeing Jesus in a pancake and stuff.

mmmm pancakes

Sorry man, but if you were in the Sahara desert and were looking for signs of Civilisation, how would you know where to look? Would it be that hill there? That dune there? Or that place with the rocks that look like a worn down animal form? The search for life? The search for evidence of previous life? No it aint, Its the search for Lack of Life. Its easier to prove Dragons are fossils of dinosaurs not creatures whos bones rot too quickly to leave evidence..


The attitudes displayed by Pete et al are teh same attitudes displayed during the Great Stink towards Cholera, No its not the physical or even the possibility of the Physical, its the previous knowlege, teh smell causes it..

The Sahara desert? I was responding to your point that There are no familiar paths in the desert. You want to talk about the search for life in the desert, great, we can do that. But don't change the subject midconversation and act like that counts as a rebuttal.

As for the shape - Dude, it is an inches tall trick of the light. You don't think NASA is honestly too lazy to make the one discovery that would justify their entire existence and win them all Nobel Prizes and stuff, do you? If it were more than that, they'd be all over it. Your desire for it to be more than it is does not make other people bad at their jobs.

That's exactly what I was thinking.

Awwww man, I was hoping for a giant alien robot


CJ

No if they were doing their jobs, they would have examined this "trick of light" and taken steps to show it as just rocks. Without the study of the object in further detail they have failed. You cant call yourself a scientist if you cast things off so quickly, even if it is a trick of light (I ain't denying it is) you cannot discount any possibility. Think about the Pollen on the water experiment. The fact that pollen moved on water was seen as "something in the ether" and just discounted, till there was someone with the guts to actually state that it was down to the new idea of the atom, and the atoms movement http://www.brianjford.com/wbbrowna.htm . To take things and discount them straight away is counterintuitive to science. Discovery isn't just the major advances, its also the beauty of random occurrences creating recognisable objects.

Like discounting NASA's analysis of the rock?

No their analysis thogh quite sound, is flawed, they SHOULD have taken closer shots and 360'd it. That way there would be little speculation or criticism.

The only speculation and criticism is coming from you.

You know, it's hard to take closer shots of 360 angles of a shadow/trick of the light, because as soon as you move, it ceases to exist.

It is a shame that it took people online to spot the image and not the scientists. The very scientists who supposedly aim to find both the scientific and naturally artistic. Exploration isnt just about pure science, and if you suspect it is a trick of the light, then you move and take shots of the items in their real state to demonstrate it. Hell what is so hard to understand.

Yeah, it takes people on the INTERNET to make something out of nothing. I'll agree with that all day long.

WIN