I don’t know what’s worse: people who really think they are seeing skulls on Mars, or people in the media who think this is honestly worth reporting.
C’mon, The Telegraph: srsly? This is news?
I wonder if it’s any better than MSNBC posting a picture of two Mexican wrestlers staring at a griddle they think has the Virgin Mary on it.
Yes, you read that correctly.
Skeptics. Our work will never be done.
And, of course:
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Tip o’ the Rorschach blotter to BABloggees Spencer Cunningham and Vernon Balbert.
May 6th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Actually I think the wrestlers viewing the holy griddle is totally worthwhile just for entertainment value.
May 6th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
It’s a skull of an Andorian who travelled back in the past, to save Earth unfortunely his caculations were a little off.
May 6th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Long gone are the days of the Torygraph, these days the Maily Telegraph is more interested in running click-winning online stories about breasts and UFOs than trying to report any news.
May 6th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
Actually, I’d like to know about people seeing skulls on Mars or saints in greasy griddles for the sheer entertainment value. It’s pretty hard to make this stuff up.
May 6th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
We are living in the post-news world. From now on, “News” will be:
1) Coverage of events as they are happening: disasters, politics and scandals.
2) Nonsense, including Top X Lists, beauty pageant contestants, and crap that people see in toast.
May 6th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
Come on…..read the tone of the article and it’s clear that this isn’t a serious article. Citing internet forums and even mentioning that the posters are joking is a big clue here!
I’ll grant you the article shouldn’t be in the Science section – the “how about that’ section would be more appropriate, but please – chillax, people.
May 6th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
I hesitate to leap to The Telegraph’s defense, given that pimping for hits is still pimping for hits, but it seems they’re giving this story all the credence it deserves.
For example, the longest quote is identified as a joke–I especially liked the speculation that the entire alien remains are present, but that the corpus delecti extraterrestrialis is buried to its neck!
Also, while the ‘face on Mars’ is mentioned at the end, it is also properly identified as a trick of the light. Credulous reporting would have at least presented the ‘face’ as being “controversial,” but The Telegraph didn’t go there.
I think just maybe I detect a tongue planted subtly in The Telegraph’s cheek.
(Okay, there’s a mental image I regret.)
May 6th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Funny. Nobody spotted the L shaped object in front of that skull slightly to the right.
Remember: if in doubt, always assume aliens and ufos did it. Don’t listen to those damn skeptics. They are all Freemasons and therefore in league with Satan and the Antichrist.
May 6th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
I thought the same thing when the article hit the intertoobs (http://www.astroengine.com/?p=5223)
It was written like a blog post, with no sources linked to, contained no information and it was posted under “science” – I think the Sun’s write-up was better…
As Donald Trump would say: “Telegraph science reporter. You’re FIRED!”
May 6th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
There are plenty of anomalous formations on Mars worthy of closer attention without crap like this muddying the waters.
May 6th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
The once-great now utterly worthless L.A. Times gave that stupid toast picture nearly a quarter of a page.
Honestly, every day it seems a greater and greater percentage of the population is in serious need of a slapping.
May 6th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
From the same people who brought you Cheesus and Jesus burnt into toast.
May 6th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
This morning, while I was eating my breakfast, I think I saw cheerios in my bowl instead of a religious icon.
What’s wrong with me?
May 6th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
It’s a good one, you gotta admit…
I wonder why they think aliens look like that though.
May 6th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
@Jeff Fite,
But why would they even bother with such an asinine story?
Clear skies, Alan
May 6th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
Huh. I saw a certain, um, adult novelty amusement.
May 6th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
I guess pareidola reflects what you think about a lot.
May 6th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
I would like to know why the people with the jesus toast haven’t gotten together with the people who have the mary grill…it is obvious that they belong together.
May 6th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
Some skull, was that one!
May 6th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
Phil, why didn’t you comment on what state (Ca.) they were in?
May 6th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
Well, at least the Virgin Mary on the griddle is in the Weird News section where it belongs. It’s still total hogwash, but at least it’s correctly classified.
May 6th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
A kid saw the face of Jesus in a piece of wood in shop class when I was in middle school. Then I sanded it off with the belt sander, painted it and attached it to another piece to make a trebuchet.
Still have that project even after making it almost 6 years ago.
May 6th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
They just report on this stuff for the entertainment value. And Mexican wrestlers doing almost anything is usually entertaining.
May 6th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
yay for my 3rd mention on the blog! boo for reading this crap way too early in the day
May 6th, 2009 at 7:32 pm
Stupid? Clearly Ms. Brenda Martinez has found a way to double up free press with partially financing the new griddle top. 5 bucks will get you and a friend into the stora^H^H^H^H^H shrine.
May 6th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
Hi, I am one of the two people “quoted” in the Telegraph article. The telegraph chose to obscure their source on what was obviously a slow news day for them. The original source is http://www.marsroverblog.com/discuss-128917-whos-this-bloke-on-mars.html from the Mars Rover Blog – a really cool, but mostly scholarly blog reviewing the geological and cosmological discoveries made by the Mars Rovers. But they took a break one day for some humor.
Please, no one ever seriously believed it was really a head! Do I actually have to say that? Yes, I do, because now, the internet pipeline has picked up the Telegraph’s unreferenced story and insanity has busted loose. Now, apparently we are either 1)Roswell ufo “experts” seriously discussing this “discovery” 2) disturbed scare-mongers out to terrify everyone or 3) government agents set on distracting the populace with stories of aliens on mars while robot drones are being launched into the cities of the world. I kid you not. I’m just amazed at how a bit of satire has spawned such nuttiness.
May 6th, 2009 at 9:22 pm
AND THEN… there’s this one about lunch meat spelling “GOD”.
It looks like “GOO” to me.
May 6th, 2009 at 9:49 pm
equinox Says: “or 3) government agents set on distracting the populace with stories of aliens on mars while robot drones are being launched into the cities of the world”
Isn’t this exactly what we’d expect government agents to say if they were trying to distract us? Nice try MiB’s, we’re onto you.
May 6th, 2009 at 9:50 pm
@equinox
Looks like your a victim of Poe’s law
May 6th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
It’s always dangerous to talk to news folks, plain and simple. I don’t know if it is time pressure, or disinterest, but it is amazing how often they get things wrong or mixed. Some completely innocuous remark can get turned into something else. Things get changed in strange and unexpected ways.
Even printed copy is not immune. I once had a news release printed almost verbatim, except that “Scientific American” got changed to “Popular Mechanics” – who most certainly didn’t publish the classic ATM books. A release on the Perseids had the added advice “sit under a tree.”
Clear skies, Alan
May 6th, 2009 at 11:08 pm
@Alan French
I’m assuming the motive was benign, at least to superficial thought. Clicks = revenue, and the story wasn’t considered serious, just popular.
Of course, that kinda leads to your recent point. We may take seriously the role of the debunker, but a reporter may simply be trying to satisfy an editor who wants a fluff piece. One doesn’t even have their full attention, much less their interest.
Cattle prods might help, I’m thinking. Focuses the mind.
–J
May 7th, 2009 at 1:20 am
Just looks like a ‘rock’ to me…
May 7th, 2009 at 1:44 am
You want a skull on Mars?? I’ll get you Skull on Mars: http://zuserver2.star.ucl.ac.uk/%7Eidh/apod/image/0609/cydonia_marsexpress_big.jpg
Just check a little left of the “Face”
May 7th, 2009 at 2:12 am
Chill Phil. I thought the tele article pwned the crank well and as for the wrestlers pure gold. I would hate a world without nutters. Just keep them away from important knobs and buttons.
May 7th, 2009 at 4:41 am
Is that the best the Telegraph can come up with? Heeeeeeere’s Hoagland with even nuttier nuttiness. Crashed shuttles, gas masks and hi-tech objects (which look remarkably like rocks) everywhere.
Folks: YOUR GOVERNMENT IS LYING TO YOU!!!
http://enterprisemission.com/spirit.htm
http://enterprisemission.com/spirit2.htm
Think how much sleep I lose over a dead alien skull on Mars??? (hint: none)
May 7th, 2009 at 5:49 am
Shame that telegraph page has no facility for comments. I would like the opportunity to let them know how dumb they are.
May 7th, 2009 at 5:51 am
There is so much real science they could be talking about. They are a waste of readers brain bandwidth.
May 7th, 2009 at 6:52 am
[...] Hat tip to Phil Plait. [...]
May 7th, 2009 at 7:12 am
Everyone’s being sarcastic, and nobody understands each other… maybe we should TAKE A HINT…
May 7th, 2009 at 9:20 am
The rock looks like Baby Dinosaur from the Dinosaurs TV show. Them Martians sure loved our sitcoms.
May 7th, 2009 at 9:23 am
Finally, proof that X-Com: UFO Defense was a training simulator!
May 7th, 2009 at 9:26 am
“two Mexican wrestlers staring at a griddle they think has the Virgin Mary on it. ”
Now I know, religion is fake….
May 7th, 2009 at 10:23 am
I once had an albino puff in a bowl of Cocoa Krispies. Is this an omen?
May 7th, 2009 at 10:45 am
What ever the reason they ran the story you would think they would get their facts strait.
“UFO spotters are claiming they have spotted an alien skull on Mars after NASA beamed back satellite images from the planet.”
It was not a “satellite image”, it was transmitted by satellite communication.
“Internet forums are full of chatter about the picture, taken by a panoramic NASA camera known as Spirit.”
The rover is named Spirit, not the camera.
I know this is a small detail here, but if they can’t get this right how can we trust the information in the more important stories?
Allowing this type of misinformation to persist, saying “you know what they meant”, that allows leaps of logic like the one taken by anti-vaccine people when they went from Thimerosal in vaccines causes autism to vaccines causes autism when the Thimerosal was removed. Science is biased on facts but we communicate those facts by language. If you dilute your language and allow that to be imprecise and accept its rules as suggestions, then you dilute the facts that are being relayed, making them useless.
May 7th, 2009 at 11:00 am
The Ms-mbc story could be taken word-for-word, with the picture, and published by The Onion. If I read it there, I wouldn’t even think twice.
“… the griddle has been taken out of service and placed in a shrine in a storage room.” That’s some beautiful satire writing!
May 7th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
@AndyD
No, she got it wrong…it actually spelled DOG.