Fossilized human finger, ancient sandal and Martian animal: UFO hunters spot 'evidence of life' on Red Planet in Curiosity Rover's footage



UFO hunters claim to have spotted lights in the Martian sky

One web user believes he spotted ancient human finger and overturned shoe on Mars' surface



Experts insist they are nothing more than blemishes on the camera




Since Nasa’s mission to Mars got under way on August 6, the Curiously Rover has beamed some astonishing images back to Earth that have left scientists and amateur star-gazers alike scratching their heads and envisioning UFOs.

But even seasoned alien watchers were puzzled when the rover making its way through the Red Planet send back the image of what appeared to be a fossilized human finger.



YouTube user StephenHannardADGUK, part of a group called Alien Disclosure UK, who had caused a stir on the Internet last week after pointing out white ‘flying objects’ zooming across the Martian sky called attention to a collection of ‘mysterious’ items he spotted in a video from Gale Crater.

Ancient digit: A YouTube user claimed that the rover stumbled upon an ancient, fossilized human finger, which in reality is likely just a rock

Martian footwear: Another rock that caught the attention of the UFO enthusiast made him think of a long-forgotten shoe or sandal on the surface of the Red Planet

‘Mars Curiosty(sp) captures a possible ancient finger, a dome shaped object, a shoe or sandal and a possible Martian creature,’ Hannard wrote in the video description. ‘Are these anomalies real, tricks of the light or something else, as always you decide.’



The image shows what appears to be a rock shaped like a digit with a faint outline at one end that vaguely resembles a fingernail. Another rock found nearby resembles an overturned sandal, and a crevice on another geological formation looks like a smiling Martian critter, NBC reported.

Nasa, however, has so far made no ground-breaking announcements regarding the discovery of life forms – or Martian footwear, for that matter - on the Red Planet, leaving UFO enthusiasts guessing and wondering.

On August 18, Hannard posted footage in which he applied a series of filters to a Curiosity, revealing what he claimed to be four objects resembling flying saucers hovering in the sky.

Martian life form: An image of a rock with a crevice in the middle vaguely resembles a grinning extra-terrestrial critter

‘Four objects caught by Mars Curiosity, very difficult to make out on original image so I have used a few filters to highlight,’ he said in the video description. ‘What are these four objects? UFOs, Dust particles, or something else? As always you decide.’



Experts, however, came out saying that the four ‘objects’ are actually just dead pixels in the rover's CCD camera — single points in the camera's imager that have lost functionality and register as white.



Marc D'Antonio, a photo and video analyst for MUFON [Mutual UFO Network], told Huffington Post, ‘I fully concur at this point that these are dead pixels on the imager. All CCD (cameras) have them, and in a bland atmosphere like that at Mars, they would be very obvious as opposed to an active atmosphere like Earth, where they could end up hidden for a long time before anyone noticed them.’

UFO or camera snafu: The same relentless web user posted footage in which he applied a series of filters to a Curiosity image, revealing what he claimed to be four objects resembling flying saucers

Theory debunked: Experts came out saying that the four 'saucers' are actually just dead pixels in the rover's camera

The YouTube video - posted by a Stephen Hannard - puts the photograph through many different filters to try to find more clues as to their existence. A fourth blob can be seen to the top of this image

Just two days after the rover touched down on Mars, back to Earth caused many UFO hunters to perk up. It seemed that Nasa has itself captured something very strange on camera, including a strange white light dancing across the horizon of the red planet, and four blobs hovering in the sky



While the images are certainly a curiosity, Nasa and photography experts insist that these are nothing more than blemishes on the images, picked up by the camera lens sitting on the rover at a distance of 350 million miles away.

So what are the Mars anomalies? View the videos below:



1) Some internet users claim to be able to see a speck of light rapidly traversing the Martian horizon on the images below













2) It may not look like much, but on the dry and barren Mars landscape, any movement is unexpected - and some claim to be able to see a light which apparently lifts itself off the ground below







3) On some returned images from the Curiosity, strange pinpoints appear in the sky - are they spaceships, or just abnormalities on the camera?

So far, Nasa has not commented on any of the strange sightings, but alien hunters have suggested these are alien ships monitoring our baby steps into the universe.



Curiosity, a six-wheeled vehicle the size of a compact car, landed inside a vast, ancient impact crater near Mars' equator on August 6 after an eight-month, 354-million-mile voyage through space.

Earlier this week , the rover was seen wiggling its wheels back and fourth during final checks before it sets off across the surface of Mars.

Engineers at mission control have been running a series of tests before the one-ton vehicle's first drive which is expected in the next couple of days.

The Martian motor was also shown flexing its extending robotic arm for the first time. The 7-foot-long (2.1-meter-long) arm maneuvers a turret of tools including a camera, a drill, a spectrometer, a scoop and mechanisms for sieving and portioning samples of powdered rock and soil.

The Mars rover Curiosity zapped its first rock on Sunday with a high-powered laser gun designed to analyze Martian mineral content, and scientists declared their target practice a success.

The robotic science lab aimed its laser beam at the fist-sized stone nearby and shot the rock with 30 pulses over a 10-second period, NASA said in a statement issued from mission control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Los Angeles.

The strange shimmering lights seen by Curiosity:

The original image from the NASA website: The 'UFOs' are faint in this image, but observable through adjusting the contrast and brightness

A close-up of the blobs: Are these glitches in the images - or something a bit more exciting?