Creepy discovery on Mars looks just like a human face

Could that be a human face on Mars?

Before you start blasting David Bowie's 'Life on Mars', this picture taken by the perseverance rover may look like the side of a face but it is not.

Although it may appear to be a fully formed nose, a partially open mouth and an eye socket, it is actually just a rock serving face.

The snap was taken on 27 September 2024 and it shows the odd rock surrounded by similar, albeit less exciting, formations. It is believed to be a chunk of sedimentary sandstone, which is not unusual for Mars, ScienceAlert reports. Apparently due to the way the rock in the left corner has weathered and the position of the camera, the rock looks like a someone sleeping.

This rock on Mars looks like a face / NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

If you hoped the rock was a massive Martian having a snooze, sorry to be the bearer of bad news. Instead it’s a case of pareidolia, which describes when humans identify meaningful shapes, such as faces, in random objects.

A classic example of pareidolia is a perceived image of a face in the craters of the Moon, or Jesus being spotted in slices of toast. Dr Jessica Taubert from the University of Queensland said face pareidolia tells us a lot about how our brains work.

The rock is one of a number in the formation / NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

Her study, which was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, looked into this phenomenon and found people are more likely to see male faces in random objects.

“We know when we see faces in objects, this illusion is processed by parts of the human brain that are dedicated to processing real faces, so in theory, face pareidolia 'fools the brain',” Dr Taubert said.

“The participants could recognise the emotional expressions conveyed by these peculiar objects and attribute a specific age and gender to them.”

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