Don’t know how I missed this news item:

Is this photo an alien or dinosaur thigh bone on Mars, as some conspiracy theorists have suggested? Highly unlikely, NASA scientists have concluded.

The photo, taken by the Curiosity rover on August 14, had conspiracy theorists in a fit online over the past week because they believed it showed a bone-like object lying on the surface of the red planet.

“Simply put, this shows that there were some living things on the Mars ,” an anonymous writer at Northern Voices Online claimed, while a popular UFO blog compared the alleged bone to previous images of a “fossilised, reptilian spine” and a “human finger”.

In an effort to stop the speculation on numerous sites, some of which said it proved there had been life on Mars, NASA finally decided to give its opinion on Friday, a week after it was taken.

“Seen by Mars rover Curiosity using its MastCam, this Mars rock may look like a femur thigh bone,” NASA’s scientists said. “ mission science team members think its shape is likely sculpted by erosion, either wind or water. If life ever existed on Mars, scientists expect that it would be small simple life forms called microbes. Mars likely never had enough oxygen in its atmosphere and elsewhere to support more complex organisms. Thus, large fossils are not likely.”

http://www.stuff.co.nz/science/10416692/Conspiracy-theories-on-Mars-alien-thigh-bone

Shopped.

it is quite obviously not a fossil. It’s a rusty toploader stick shift.

Photo looks like it was taken on my back lawn at the height of the last drought.

Probably belongs to the bloke whose face appears elsewhere on the planet.

captain_spalding said:

Probably belongs to the bloke whose face appears elsewhere on the planet.

Or a smuggler who was killed for exporting Mars Bars.

That bone on the far right is presumably its skull. Looks like a sheep. In a good state of preservation too, because you can still see its ears and an eye.

Well I’ll be! You appear to be correct!

Michael V said:

Well I’ll be! You appear to be correct!

All of which would put the red boxed image, out of context.