It just happens that AB has been downloading Mars Exploration Rover images since day one. When we heard about the 'statue on Mars', you can bet we were skeptical. We opened our 134mb image of that particular Spirit panorama shot, fully prepared to enhance, expand, debunk the whole thing.

Well, as Gomer Pyle used to say: 'Surprise, surprise, surprise! Gee, Sergeant Carter...I see somethin' in that picture I can't explain!'

Exactly.

What is it? We don't know. We have some thoughts, but right off the top of our heads we think NASA should have Spirit do an about-face and head back to the same spot for another picture.

Just in case.

We worked on the original image for quite a while. We avoided any enhancements to the images except those involving contrast or lighting. When a picture gets transmitted a hundred million miles across space, it's okay to use digital tools to enhance close-ups. But only the ones that are fair.

The picture is disturbing. The figure differs significantly from the surrounding terrain. It doesn't seem to fit. Sure, it could be a trick of the light and all. However, it convinced us enough to change the back cover of the next issue of our magazine - at the last minute. We don't usually do this sort of thing, but the image is interesting. It teases, it makes you wonder.

Old thoughts about 'where did we REALLY come from' surface again. You never know.

Haven't you ever been curious about how mankind just happened along in the last couple of million years and still managed to take over the planet?

I mean, that's damn quick, a nothing blink in the total stretch of geo-time that life has actually existed on Earth.

Makes you wonder, anyway. Who knows? If we find pyramids on Mars later, then we'll know.

No one here claims to know one way or another WHAT the images represent, or what they actually show. We will tell you that we enhanced them carefully and gently from an original that we know is legitimate.

The rest you can judge for yourself.