In early February 2025, the news scattered on the Internet: in the pictures of the surface of Mars, scientists allegedly discovered some elevations that form an ideal square contour. Internet users immediately began to build conspiracy theories about their man-made origin. We decided to check if their suspicions are justified.

They wrote about the sensational opening Information, Cognitive And Entertaining Portals, as well as some Russian media, for example "Snob" And "Evening Moscow". "Tsargrad"And he altogether that the scientists discovered a whole building on the neighboring planet, and journalists Eadaily Compared an object with Egyptian pyramids. Pictures of the mysterious structure were discussed by users of social networks ("VKontakte" X, Instagram*) and the Platform blog ("Picabu","Zen"). The popular Telegram channels wrote about this: "Ax - hot news"(264,000 views at the time of writing this analysis),"KB"(238,000),"Rhymes and Panchi"(197 000),"Ivan Utenkov | Kursk"(161 000),"Leprosy"(131,000) and others. The authors of most publications illustrate the news with two pictures of square structures, while photographs differ in degree of clearness. In many messages on this subject, it is noted that the images were not subjected to editing.

Although the pictures were encouraged on the network in February 2025, the original frame was made long before that. One of the images shows the weekend: MOC Image E1000462. MOC, or Mars Orbiter Camera, - a camera on board the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft, which worked in the Martian orbit in 1997-2006. Myself picture It was made on November 4, 2001, and on the website of the University of Arizona, you can see other photos shot during the mission in high resolution.

With comments on extraterrestrial civilization on Mars, two pictures were encouraged after January 31, 2025 of them Laid User social networks x @chrisramsay52. His profile is almost entirely devoted to the aliens, therefore it is not surprising that the blogger looked at the photo evidence of the existence of an alien life. At the time of writing, his tweet scored 23 million views, of which most of them were thanks to the popular American pepper Joe Rogan who did repost With a comment: "This is a damn game." The owner of the X and space company SpaceX Elon Musk in response to the repost of the Rogan declared: "We must send astronauts to Mars for research." After that, the pictures scattered along social networks and the media. However, the image of the alleged foundation It becomes The object of close attention of people who are fond of the search for UFOs is not the first time.

Source: Photo on the left and in the center - social networks, photo on the right - screenshot "Checked" from the site Arizona University

The naked eye shows that one of the hovering images really looks like a picture taken by MOC, but the second was clearly processed so that the supposedly clear square form became more obvious. This edited image indicates the source-site ufo-blogger.com. At the time of writing, the resource is already unavailable, however, judging by the archival copies (and URL address), it specialized in the theme of UFOs and various conspiracy theories related to them. Therefore, it was supposedly both pictures were taken during the space mission and were not processed in photo editors - some exaggeration. Tabloid The Daily MailHowever, it insists that the image was “cleansed”, and not focused, but if so, it is not clear who and why only this area of the photo was “cleaned”. Even if the goal was initially to make this fragment more clearly, the visual allocation of only this square area still misleads the viewer.

In addition, there are other pictures of the same object from other angles, and on them it is also by no means perfectly square form. For example, on picture 2018, made during the mission Hirise, it is even less like the foundation of the building (and in general to the right square) than on the original pictures of 2001.

Source: Screenshot "Tested" from the site Arizona University

In the photo, the protrusions look located quite compactly, and this suggests that this is a single object, but in reality the captured relief is spread out hundreds of meters. In fact, two ridges are visible in the pictures that form the corners (in the picture - the upper right and lower left), although not straight. At the same time, there is not a hint of two other corners necessary for the formation of a square, in the photo there is no - they can only be imagined by completing the picture in the head to the desired image.

This case is not the first time that enthusiasts find objects in the pictures of the Red Planet, resembling earthly buildings. So, in 2022 it was encouraged photo From the surface of Mars, on which the doorway in the rock was allegedly captured. Then the conspiracygologists also saw in the image a testimony that there is a reasonable life on the planet. However, scientists did not agree with them, saying that it was just a natural crevice.

Similar recognition of familiar objects where they are actually not, called Paulidoly. It is because of this phenomenon that people see animals in the forms of clouds, the faces of obviously inanimate objects or even the face of the Virgin on Sandwich with cheese. A test of Rorshah is based on Paecidolia, during which the subjects show ink blots and ask to see any images in them. Experts They thinkthat Paecidolia is one of the evolutionary mechanisms that helped humanity survive. The one who saw in the bushes the outlines of predators hid and survived regardless of whether the beast was actually there or not. Those who could not recognize the danger were eaten. Pareidolia is often mentioned in the context of Mars, because the pictures from this planet often find the most incredible objects - from the already mentioned doorway to persons And Donutors.

Thus, in the pictures from the surface of Mars, a certain structure is really visible, which, if desired, can be taken as a square. At the same time, at least one of the holes was seriously edited in order to more comply with the statement about the ideal geometric figure, which in nature allegedly cannot be. The pictures from other angles show that there are actually no talk about any even right corners, and the fact that some users take over the corners of a whole square, in fact scattered objects that are at a significant distance from each other. The original picture was taken more than 20 years ago, and in 2025 his modifications were encouraged when they were first published by bloggers who were interested in UFOs and then repost or commented on celebrities.

Photo on the cover: social networks

*The Russian authorities consider Meta Platforms Inc., which owns social networks Facebook and Instagram, an extremist organization, its activities in Russia are prohibited.