Artificial intelligence could trick us into thinking we have found potential aliens, researchers have warned.

Even computers could be prone to identifying shapes as evidence of extraterrestrial civilisations, a new study has found – and humans could then be deceived into believing they are real.

Artificial intelligence is one of the breakthrough technologies in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, being used to sort through huge amounts of image in the hopes of spotting "technosignatures", or indications of alien life.

But the new discovery suggests that people could be get excited about potential discoveries spotted by AI, only to find that they are actually meaningless, accidental formations on alien planets.

The study used a particular formation on the dwarf planet Ceres, which excited alien-hunters when it was first discovered. The small world, which sits in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, was the subject of frenzied speculation when astronomers spotted bright lights glowing on its surface.

Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures Show all 10 1 /10 Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures Mystic Mountain, a pillar of gas and dust standing at three-light-years tall, bursting with jets of gas from fledgling stars buried within, was captured by Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope in February 2010 Nasa/ESA/STScI Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures The first ever selfie taken on an alien planet, captured by Nasa's Curiosity Rover in the early days of its mission to explore Mars in 2012 Nasa/JPL-Caltech/MSSS Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures Death of a star: This image from Nasa's Chandra X-ray telescope shows the supernova of Tycho, a star in our Milky Way galaxy Nasa Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures Arrokoth, the most distant object ever explored, pictured here on 1 January 2019 by a camera on Nasa's New Horizons spaceraft at a distance of 4.1 billion miles from Earth Getty Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures An image of the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy seen in infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory in January 2012. Regions of space such as this are where new stars are born from a mixture of elements and cosmic dust Nasa Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures The first ever image of a black hole, captured by the Event Horizon telescope, as part of a global collaboration involving Nasa, and released on 10 April 2019. The image reveals the black hole at the centre of Messier 87, a massive galaxy in the nearby Virgo galaxy cluster. This black hole resides about 54 million light-years from Earth Getty Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures Pluto, as pictured by Nasa's New Horizons spacecraft as it flew over the dwarf planet for the first time ever in July 2015 Nasa/APL/SwRI Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures A coronal mass ejection as seen by the Chandra Observatory in 2019. This is the first time that Chandra has detected this phenomenon from a star other than the Sun Nasa Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures Dark, narrow, 100 meter-long streaks running downhill on the surface Mars were believed to be evidence of contemporary flowing water. It has since been suggested that they may instead be formed by flowing sand Nasa/JPL/University of Arizona Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures Morning Aurora: Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly captured this photograph of the green lights of the aurora from the International Space Station in October 2015 Nasa/Scott Kelly

They were eventually let down when Nasa's Dawn mission got close enough to the dwarf planet to find that the lights were actually the result of volcanic ice and salt emissions.

The planet's surface includes what appears to be a square structure within a triangle one, and appears to have been intentionally built. The discovery of the crater, named Occator, led some to speculate that it had been constructed by an alien civilisation – though it is most likely just an accident of light and shadow on the surface.

In the new research, conducted by scientists from the University of Cadiz and published in the journal Acta Astronautica, participants were shown one of those mysterious formations on the planet's surface. They were then asked to describe what they saw, with many people pointing out the unusual formation.

The scientists then did the same with an artificial intelligence system, which had been trained to spot squares and triangles in images. The AI also spotted the formations – and, once it had, it meant that participants also saw them too.

"Both people and artificial intelligence detected a square structure in the images, but the AI also identified a triangle," said Gabriel G De la Torre, the neuropsychologist who led the study. "And when the triangular option was shown to humans, the percentage of persons claiming to see it also increased significantly."