Fossilized spines and vertebrae found on Mars (video)

A video making the rounds on the web has alien hunters and Mars watchers excited with what looks remarkably like a fossilized skeleton of a lizard-like creature photographed by the Mars Curiosity rover.

What is it?

Paranormal bulletin boards are on fire with still images, enhanced and enlarged, which do bear a striking resemblance to fossils of ancient creatures found on Earth.

The video, uploaded to YouTube on Feb. 19, is a vignette made from a single photo taken by Curiosity earlier in the month. The photo seems to show the outline of animal vertebrae snaking into what looks like a tail and exposed above the rocky Martian soil.

Of course, if it can be proved that the skeletal remains are from an ancient creature, it would be definitive proof that life on Mars was, and possibly still is, a reality.

That's a stretch, since only visual examination is possible at this time. Photographs of the anomaly are popping up all over the web, subjected to a high degree of scrutiny by avid Mars watchers poring over every pixel of images beamed back to Earth, snapped by the rover's high quality digital cameras.

The unusual formation undeniably resembles a spiny animal, with a spiky, seemingly fossilized bone structure peeking out from the surrounding rock. An unusual, curved structure appears to be connected to the skeletal "spine" of the object and a tail seems to snake away from the "body" in the dusty trail of the formation.

It's the most provocative image discussed so far, trumping the crystal "flower" debated last month (a piece of plastic which fell off the spacecraft itself) and the dozens of UFOs, both flying and grounded, which alien hunters have claimed to be littering the Martian surface and zooming through the skies.

So far, NASA has discounted the UFOs as lens flare anomalies.

What will the space agency say about this?

Source: Examiner.com