By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2026-08-06 18:38:00 | Updated at 2026-08-06 21:51:28
4 hours ago
NASA’s Curiosity rover has spent 14 years investigating whether ancient Mars could have supported microbial life, but a strange new image has sparked claims that it discovered something far more extraordinary.
The photograph appears to show a dark, rectangular opening cut into a rocky hill, which some observers have compared to the doorway of a primitive dwelling.
Curiosity captured the underlying images in late July while approaching a ledge on Mount Sharp, the three-mile-high mountain it has been climbing inside Mars’ Gale Crater.
The rover was examining possible cross-bedded sediments, geological formations that can reveal how wind or water moved material across the planet billions of years ago.
Multiple images captured by Curiosity’s Mastcam were later assembled into a sweeping, high-resolution panorama of the surrounding landscape.
It was within that mosaic that UFO researcher Scott C. Waring claimed to identify what he believes is an artificial entrance built into the hillside.
‘The entrance is approximately 6.6 feet tall and 3.3 feet wide, about the size of a doorway in an Earth home,’ Waring said.
He questioned why the rover did not approach the feature and speculated that NASA may have already investigated it without releasing the results publicly.
A panorama was taken by Curiosity at the end of July, as it drove up to a ledge to perform some science on possible cross-bedded sediments before climbing up and over to explore higher levels of Mount Sharp
However, NASA has maintained that it has no evidence of extraterrestrial life and has yet to find any signs of current or past life on Mars, saying mysterious objects on Mars are nothing more than oddly-shaped rocks.
Waring did not explain how he calculated the alleged doorway’s dimensions or provide evidence that the space agency conducted a secret investigation.
Its actual size cannot be reliably determined from the panorama alone without knowing its precise distance from Curiosity or identifying a nearby object that could provide scale.
The apparent entrance could therefore be significantly smaller, or larger, than Waring’s estimate.
NASA has not commented on the latest claim, but the agency addressed remarkably similar speculation after Curiosity photographed another door-shaped feature on Mars in May 2022.
That opening initially appeared large enough for a person to walk through, fueling theories that it was evidence of an artificial structure hidden within Mount Sharp.
Closer analysis revealed that it measured only approximately 12 inches tall and 16 inches wide, roughly the size of a dog door.
‘The mound, on Mount Sharp, has a number of naturally occurring open fractures,’ NASA explained at the time. ‘These kinds of open fractures are common in bedrock, both on Earth and on Mars.’
The photograph appears to show a dark, rectangular opening cut into a rocky hill, which some observers have compared to the doorway of a primitive dwelling
Scientists determined that the earlier ‘doorway’ was a small opening created where intersecting fractures caused pieces of rock to break away.
A similar combination of fractured rock, erosion and deep shadow could potentially explain the newly identified formation, although NASA has not yet provided an official assessment.
Such discoveries frequently capture public attention because the human brain naturally attempts to recognize familiar shapes in ambiguous images, a phenomenon known as pareidolia.
It is the same psychological effect that can cause people to see faces in clouds, animals in rock formations or human-made structures across the barren Martian landscape.
Mars has produced several famous examples, most notably the so-called ‘Face on Mars,’ which was photographed by NASA’s Viking 1 orbiter in 1976.
Higher-resolution images later revealed that the apparent face was an ordinary eroded hill whose human-like appearance resulted from shadows and the relatively poor quality of the original photograph.
Waring maintains that the latest rectangular formation resembles an entrance constructed by intelligent beings.
For now, however, the panorama establishes only that an unusually shaped feature exists in the hillside, not that it is a doorway or evidence of a lost Martian civilization.
