UFO enthusiasts claim to have spotted Barack Obama's head on the Martian surface.

They says a panoramic image from 2005 taken by the Spirit rover shows a rock shaped uncannily like the President's head - and that it could be part of a statue.

It is the latest in a long line of claims of heads and other structures on the thousands of images sent back from the Martian surface by Nasa's rovers.

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Is this Obama? UFO enthusiasts claim the rock looks like the President's head

WHERE DID IT COME FROM? The image is taken from the Spirit Rover's Pancam 'Everest' panorama, acquired on sols 620 to 622 (October 1 to 3, 2005) from a position in the Columbia Hills at the true summit of Husband Hill on the Martian surface. The summit region is a broad plateau about 100 meters (300 feet) above the surrounding plains of Gusev crater, consisting mostly of outcrop rocks and windblown drifts. Advertisement

'Searching for structures on Mars I found this head,' said Scott Waring of the UFO Sightings Daily blog.

'From the way its standing up I would say that it is a full statue, but is buried from the shoulders down. '

He believes the structure in 3D printed.

However, another UFO enthusiast, writing on UFO Sightings Hotspot, altered the image on a computer and found Obama's head was revealed.

'By cleaning the image in a software program,

I discovered that this relic has an uncanny resemblance to the United States president, Barack Obama.'

The original image is taken from the Spirit Rover's Pancam 'Everest' panorama, acquired on sols 620 to 622 (October 1 to 3, 2005) from a position in the Columbia Hills at the true summit of Husband Hill on the Martian surface.

It was released online by Nasa, and even turned into an interactive panorama.

Where's Obama? The original image of the Martian surface. The image is taken from the Spirit Rover's Pancam 'Everest' panorama, acquired on sols 620 to 622 (October 1 to 3, 2005) from a position in the Columbia Hills at the true summit of Husband Hill on the Martian surface.

As the image is zoomed in, a skull-like rock becomes more visible

The summit region of Mars is a broad plateau about 100 meters (300 feet) above the surrounding plains of Gusev crater, consisting mostly of outcrop rocks and windblown drifts.

The image is the latest in a series claiming to show faces on Mars.

WHAT IS FACE PAREIDOLIA? Pareidolia is the psychological response to seeing faces and other significant and everyday items in random stimuli. It is a form of apophenia, which is when people see patterns or connections in random, unconnected data. There have been multiple occasions when people have claimed to see religious images and themes in unexpected places, especially the faces of religious figures. Although UFO experts say the rock has the fave of President Obama, experts say it is simply a case of Pareidolia, the psychological response to seeing faces and other significant and everyday items in random stimulus. Many involve images of Jesus, the Virgin Mary and the word Allah. For example, in September 2007 a callus on a tree resembled a monkey, leading believers in Singapore to pay homage to the Monkey god. Another famous instance was when Mary's face was a grilled cheese sandwich. Images of Jesus have even been spotted inside the lid of a jar of Marmite and in a potato. Advertisement

For the the last few decades Nasa has spent billions of dollars on a variety of missions to Mars to find out if the planet might once have been habitable.

But has a YouTube blogger found evidence for past life on Mars in the form of a human face-like rock hidden in an old Nasa photo?

The answer, of course, is an emphatic 'no', but that hasn't stopped the UFO enthusiast from suggesting that the rock may be a sign the planet was once inhabited.

On his website UFO Sightings Daily Mr Waring said he has 'found a new face' on Mars.

The discovery was seemingly made by the Sojourner rover on Mars back on 22 July 1997, but not unearthed by Mr Waring until now.

In a video he expresses bafflement that Nasa has pointed out features on Mars, including the face, with arrows in the image.

'This rover found some objects and Nasa was pointing them out with different arrows.

'I was just thinking 'wow Nasa's really not helping us at all find any of these objects on Mars' and bam, there is an arrow pointing right to the face.'

The actual 'face' spotted by Mr Waring is in the bottom left of the main image.

It appears to bear a resemblance to a human face with a nose, chin, eyes and so on.

Sadly for Mr Waring and similar UFO enthusiasts, this rock like so many others has a simple explanation.

Scott Waring has previously claimed he has found signs of life in an old Nasa photo (Mr Waring has highlighted the 'facial' features to the right). The image comes from the Washington-based agency's first rover on Mars, called Sojourner, which landed on Mars on 4 July 1997. In the image the rock seems to have a human-like appearance

THE SOJOURNER ROVER Sojourner was a rover that travelled with the Mars Pathfinder mission. It landed on Mars on 4 July 1997 and became the first rover to operate on the surface of the red planet. It was designed to last just seven days on Mars but stayed active for 83 Martian days, eventually losing communication with Earth on 27 September 1997. In its time on Mars the rover travelled a bit more than 330ft (100 metres) The rover returned more than 550 images and, through chemical analyses of rocks and soil, also suggested that Mars may have once been warm and wet. Advertisement

Namely, it is simply a chance alignment that tricks the brain into thinking it is seeing a face - known as face pareidolia.

Mr Waring also added: 'Of course Nasa noticed it, but they didn't label the reason for the arrow.'

However, looking up the image in Nasa's library of images reveals the true reasons for the arrows.

'The large rounded rocks in the distance, marked by the red arrows, are comparable to 'Yogi' said Nasa.

Yogi, found previously by Sojourner, was the first rock on Mars found to be made of basalt, which suggested the planet was once volcanic.

Its smoothness also hinted at a wet past for the planet.

'A second population of smaller, angular rocks (blue arrows) in the foreground have unweathered surfaces even on the downwind side, except where covered on their tops by drift' Nasa continued.

'The third kind of rock (white arrows) is white and flat, and includes 'Scooby Doo' in the foreground.'

'Scooby doo' was a pink rock that was coated with a crusty substance and contained a lot of rust.

Mr Waring says this indicates the planet was once inhabited. However the rock is nothing more than a case of pareidolia - when our brain tricks us into see human faces in objects like Jesus in toast. Nasa also said the arrows simply showed different types of rock

The image was taken by Nasa's Sojourner rover on 22 July 1997. This particular rock had an unweathered surface that appeared to have been unaffected by wind on Mars - but it was not a sign that some sort of intelligent civilisation carved a face into the rock

The agency explains how the image is a 360-degree colour gallery pan looking to the northeast of Mars.

In it the colours have been exaggerated to highlight the differences between rocks and soils.

The image is actually fairly remarkable as it is one of the first images ever taken by a rover - in this case Sojourner - on Mars.