Buddhists on the Red Planet? Alien enthusiasts and conspiracy theorists seem to believe so when they spotted a rock formation that appears to be in the image of Buddha, where they claim this sighting to be evidence of intelligent life on Mars.
According to UFO Sightings Daily, an image captured by NASA's Curiosity rover of a rock bed on the surface of Mars reveals a striking resemblance to Buddha. The site claims that this image should be considered as solid proof of how intelligent life forms are lurking or hidden, still existing on Mars. This "Buddha Statue" was discovered by a user on Youtube called Paranormal Crucible.
According to Scott C. Waring from UFO Sightings Daily, this photograph is enough evidence to convince the United Nations that intelligent life on Mars once existed. He also adds that NASA is withholding information regarding its Martian findings in order to prevent people from knowing the truth about the Red Planet.
Apart from this ominous Buddha figure, the site also revealed pictures that depicts the head of Buddha, a lady, a bunker and even a rock in the shape of U.S. president Barack Obama's head. These images were all captured by NASA's Curiosity rover during its expeditions around Gale Crater and Mount Sharp, Mars' tallest mountain.
NASA on the other hand, rarely issues an official statement to these extraterrestrial life form claims on Mars however NASA scientists offer a perfectly logical explanation to these sightings captured on photographs.
According to NASA scientist, Ashwin Vasavada, there are 500 scientists around the world who are currently working on the Curiosity rover and if there is still extraterrestrial life on Mars, no group would be happier to know about this more than NASA. Unfortunately, there is nothing so obvious that will be similar to these claims of alien life on the Red Planet right now, he adds.
Vasavada believes that these sightings are caused by an optical illusion caused by the brain called pareidolia which is a psychological response of associating familiar objects or persons to random objects especially in unfamiliar places.
Apart from pareidolia, the sightings are also linked to a psychological phenomenon called apophenia which is also similar to pareidolia, where humans have the tendency to see connections or connect random things with each other or seek meaning in random events and objects.
According to Seth Shostak who is the director for SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Research, these photos are zoomed in or enhanced, in such a way that figures, shapes and even facial features are seen which are not really present.