The Lumberjacks Of Mars

Mars Rover was rovin’ along the Red Planet where it snapped a picture of what looks like … a log of wood?
The photo of course set of a conspiracy theory rush in the blogosphere:

The unusual image was featured in a NASA press release in 2004, although the space agency made no mention of the timber-like object captured on the spacecraft’s 115th day on Mars. But one website insists it is a leaked image that ‘could get someone killed.’ A writer from TheCrit.com said NASA’s claims Mars was a desert world were ‘lies’ and that ‘there are vast forests on Mars, ones that are kept from the public.’ They go on to speculate the ‘wood’ was brought to its present position by a flood of water that must have happened within 40 years ‘because the wood is intact.’

This fantastic discovery, of course, is in a long list of strange objects (humanoid, skull, doorway, cave) already found. But for some reason the UK newsies brought it up to to discuss pareidolia, where a random stimulus is perceived as having significance, be it a symbol seen in a cloud or a face on a piece of toast. Or space logs.