Stonehenge-style rocks spotted on Mars

From floating spoons and coffins to crabs and pyramids, alien hunters are often reporting strange structures in images beamed back from the surface of Mars, reports the Daily Mail.

Now, the latest 'discovery' seen using high-resolution images of the Martian surface, a mysterious circle of stones have been spotted on top of a raised mound on the planet.

Dubbed 'Marshenge', alien enthusiasts have been comparing it to the famous stone circle at Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England.

The strange cluster of stones has already triggered theories that it may have been built by aliens.

However, experts have in the past said such stone circles may form as a result of natural processes that also occur here on Earth.

For example, the freeze-thaw cycle of permafrost can cause sediment to churn and separate by grain size that can cause boulders or large rocks to produce stone circles or polygons on low slopes.

The stone circle was highlighted on the Facebook page of a group called Journey to the Surface of the Mars, which regularly pinpoints unusual 'alien' features.

In a video posted on YouTube, however, one self-confessed alien hunter calling himself Mr Enigma, said: “It looks eerily similar to what we have here on Earth.

“I'm just saying there is something strange about this area and that it looks very much like the mysterious ancient stones of Stonehenge.

“Could the builders of Stonehenge have visited Mars and did they build the same thing there or did we have visitors teach us how to build these things and do the same for long lost beings on mars as well, or is this just another face on mars illusion.”

Nigel Watson, author of The UFO Investigations Manual, said 'Marshenge' was likely to strengthen the
determination of those who believe ancient monuments like Stonehenge were built by aliens.

He said: “Pyramid structures have been regularly spotted on Mars that have been linked to the ancient pyramids of Earth, now with Marshenge we have a link with our earlier prehistoric structures.

“The scorn of the sceptics have failed to erode such theories and with the discovery of Marshenge, it builds an even stronger case to suggest astronauts in the past visited our Solar System and had an enduring impact on human history.

“At present it is a huge leap of the imagination to compare Marshenge with the likes of Stonehenge, for example, we do not know the scale of these objects or what they look like in any detail.

“Up close they could prove to be random stones cast up by marsquakes - the equivalent of earthquakes - in its distant past.”

Stonehenge on Earth has long been associated with supernatural folktales and stories that it had been built by aliens.

Little is known about what the site was actually used for when it was built in around 3,100BC.
Many experts believe it was used for religious ceremonies or to mark the summer solstice.
Others believe it served as a meeting point for the surrounding areas or even for prehistoric people to monitor the heavens.

Earlier this month archaeologists announced the discovery of another line of standing stones around a mile away from Stonehenge that dates back 4,500 years.

The buried stones were found along the south-eastern edge of what later became known as the Durrington Walls "superhenge" – a circular earthworks a third of a mile across.

The stone circle on Mars was spotted in images captured by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRise, camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

It is the latest in a number of 'mysterious' objects seen in images of the surface of Mars.

Recently these have included a coffin-shaped rock, another shaped like a Star Destroyer from the film Star Wars, a crab-like creature shaped like a facehugger from Alien and cutlery.


Nasa rarely comments on these claims but in August a one of its scientists spoke out on the topic to insist that the agency was not trying to hide evidence of alien life from the general public.

Ashwin Vasavada, who works on the Mars Curiosity Rover mission, said: 'There is no group that would be happier to see such a thing than the 500 scientists around the world who work on this Curiosty rover.

“So far we haven't seen anything that is so obvious that it would be similar to what these claims are.”

Instead he said the sightings were a form of pareidolia, a psychological response that causes the mind to see familiar objects in random places.

In his book Mars, a Warmer Wetter Planet, Jeffrey Kargel, a senior scientist at the department of hydrology at the University of Arizona, said stone circles could appear on Mars as a result of natural geological activity.

He said: “Hummocky patterned ground on Mars is probably closely related to permafrost 'stone circles' and other forms of sorted terrain on Earth.

“Sorted stone circles and permafrost hummocks form in extreme polar environments where melting is minimal and this alone should caution us from drawing too definitive conclusions regarding Martian processes.”