UFO spotters think they've found a 'crab alien' on Mars (they haven't)

The alien rumour mill (it's a thing) went into overdrive when some people on the internet thought a Nasa picture from Mars had revealed some sort of crab-like, alien monster.

And when you zoom in:

Hm...

SETI Director and astronomer Seth Shostak told the Huffington Post that the constant desire to see things where they aren't (pareidolia), has its roots in evolution when early humans needed to spot predators.

Recognising a crab in a landscape filled with wind-weathered rocks is no more surprising - nor more significant - than seeing a winking face in a semi-colon followed by a parenthesis. ;)

Regardless, we still like this top comment on the Facebook post above: "Maybe we could ask a rich dentist to go and kill that thing."

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