Scientists and conspiracy theorists alike have long been fascinated with the idea of aliens and extraterrestrial life. The Vatican itself recently said the possible existence of life outside Earth does not contradict teachings in the Holy Bible.

This fascination about alien life was once more fuelled by new photos sent by a NASA probe, the Curiosity Rover, on the surface of Mars. The playful minds of alien enthusiasts have spotted what seem to be bizarre images on the surface of the Red Planet.

Eagle-eyed conspiracy theorists did some research of their own, zoomed into the photos of rocks on Mars' surface sent by the NASA probe and found intriguing images of what appears to be a spaceship, a mouse, an iguana, a pyramid, a woman and even a mermaid.

UFO buff Scott Waring, for instance, believes that an oddly-shaped rock captured by the Curiosity Rover is actually a spaceship that crash-landed on Mars.

"I found this anomaly in the latest Curiosity Rover photo. The black object looks like a crashed UFO," Waring wrote on the UFO Sightings Daily website.

"The craft is only about 2.5-3 meters across, so it probably only held a few passengers. Since many of the figures we found on Mars are about 5-8 cm tall, then we can conclude that this ship could carry about 20-40 passengers," he further explained.

Scientist Ashwin Vasavada, who works on the Mars rover project, said, however, that all these are just optical illusions, and that people are just being tricked by their brains into thinking that common rocks are signs of extraterrestrial life.

"We have colour HD cameras on this rover that far exceed anything ever sent to the planet before, and yet in order to find these things that kind of trick your brain into thinking it's a mermaid or whatever, you do have to zoom in where it's kind of a fuzzy shadow at that point," Vasavada explained.