Pareidolia, Paranoia, or Prehistoric? Wood Sighted On Mars

More anomalous images from Mars, this time showing what for all the world appears to be a piece of wood.

The images, from the 2008 Phoenix mission, have aroused much heated discussion around the web. The Daily Mail believes the interpretation of the image as lumber is a result of pareidolia, a phenomenon in which the brain interprets vague sensory input as meaningful. Pareidolia is often trotted out as an "explanation" for everything from backwards speech to the well-known Face On Mars. Of course in this case it doesn't address the basic question- What is the object shown?

The Crit believes it is indeed wood, and indicates that vast forests are/have been present on Mars. It's a long way from one image with a vague object to vast forests, but is this leap in interpretation all that different from what mainstream science does all the time?

French philosopher Jacques Ellul believed the secret to successful Propaganda was to never lie about the facts, for you will certainly be caught out, but to control the interpretation. That's the technique by which you can control what people think. Politicians call it "setting the narrative". It's all the same- define what's an acceptable and marginalize whatever isn't.

Wood on Mars? Shadow? Rock (although this raises some questions about what formed the rock in that way)?

We don't know, what we have are some pixels of different shades. Interpretation of those pixels is up to the individual.