Scott C Waring, editor of ufosightingsdaily.com, has highlighted several NASA images taken by its rovers on the Red Planet, in which he claims there is evidence of an array of creatures, including a groundhog, bear, seal, monkey, mouse, crabs and scorpions.

But he has admitted on his website, he may have been persuaded by a growing conspiracy theory that NASA has not actually sent any rovers to Mars.

The so-called Mars "truthers" claim NASA is actually filming all its alleged Martian footage from Devon Island in Canada.

A large uninhabited island, NASA has previously admitted the scene “resembles the Mars surface in more ways than any other place on Earth”.

Mr Waring posed the question in a blog on his website entitled "Could NASA Successfully Fake The Rover On Mars?"

He wrote: "Many readers have suggested that the Mars Curiosity rover is not in space on Mars, but actually on Devon Island in Southern Canada.

"I have to admit that we have seen a lot of evidence that intelligent life was in those Mars photos, but in truth, I see that there is so much in most of those photos that it couldn't possibly be a place on Earth. How could such unusual artefacts exist on Earth and were never discovered by anyone?"

But he conceded that "evidence that the Mars rover is not on Mars at all is growing."

He said: "In the colour photos, 90 percent of time NASA puts it into false colour, with a red filter to make the photo look like a red planet.

"This may be a psychological trick to convince the public it really is Mars.

He pointed to the recent attempt by the European Space Agency to land a rover on Mars, which was dashed when it exploded on impact.