At first glance, this picture is absolutely horrifying. In this enhanced photo, there definitely appears to be some sort of creepy crawly lurking in that crevice. The weird spindly limbs and brighter hue suggest that this might genuinely not be some old rock like the others we have looked at so far. However, there is a reasonable explanation for what we're seeing here. The issue with some of these strange Martian artefacts is that they appear way off in the distance of their respective photos and so keen eyed ufologists do the classic CSI "zoom and enhance" to make things a little clearer. The problem is that if you pump up the contrast on almost any photo, you're going to end up with some pretty strange looking features if you're not careful. Edges become very well defined but so do areas that were never edges in the first place. In this instance, the blurry smudge of the original photo is ironically a much better depiction of that cliff face. Bizarrely, you can actually make things even more confusing with a bit of well-meant photo enhancement.
Peter Austin initially joined WhatCulture as an occasional contributor to our Film, Gaming and Science sections, but made the mistake of telling us that he'd been making videos in his bedroom for over a decade. Since then he's been a vital member of our YouTube team and routinely sets the standard for smart-casual wear in the office.
