If you could place any object on the surface of Mars, purely to confuse NASA scientists, what would it be?
For me i would just place like random paintings, like NASA would be very confused on why Mars would have paintings lmao.
The flag of North Korea.
Something simple, like a bolt from one of the rovers. But make sure it's from one that has never been in that half of the planet.
A standard automotive bolt. Maybe something that was ubiquitous in the 1950’s but isn’t used today in place of something cheaper and more reliable
A newspaper from the day of the moon landing
Better yet, my missing 10mm socket.
It's always the 10mm
An orb with a print for a three fingered hand.
Quaid... start the reactor...
Elon Musk
We could only be so lucky.
A copy of ET for the Atari 2600
A waffle house
Not a single act, but a series of actions. The rovers power down during Martian nights, right? So, during these periods, you could rearrange the rocks nearby. At first, NASA might not even pick up on the changes, but eventually, someone's bound to notice.
Imagine the buzz it would create! The scientists studying the photographs sent back by the rovers would be left scratching their heads. They'd probably first suspect some unknown natural phenomena, or even the rovers themselves, until the changes became too orchestrated to explain away. It would be a cosmic puzzle, a Martian mystery that would have them combing through data for answers.
No extraordinary or unnatural objects, just ordinary Martian rocks moved around. Instead of presenting them with an object that screams 'alien intervention,' you'd be nudging them into a mystery, all with the Martian surface's naturally occurring elements.
The rocks change in a pattern, I swear it's a single character substitution cipher! Wait a minute... "drink more Ovaltine" what the crap?
That would definitely fuck with NASA, i can already see Youtube Videos being made about this and their being theories and stuff. This would also be very interesting, how would the Governments react to this? How will UFO Conspiracy Theorists respond to this?
Continue to escalate the situation until it reaches a fever pitch, then stop cold for a week
My body in a lawn chair, with my right thumb extended out for hitchhiking, my left hand holding an American flag, and a sign in my lap saying "California or bust!"
Shouldnt've taken that left at Albuquerque
A "Welcome to Venus" sign. Just imagine their faces, they'd be so confused...
A half-eaten tuna sandwich. By the time they manage to retrieve it for examination, it would definitely be all soggy.
NSFW
Great for catching tigers though.
A giant head of Lenin. It’s a red planet after all.
A stainless steel commemorative plaque that says "Site of humanity's first successful time travel experiment - March 13th 2153"
@YolkBrushWork402 - A giant florescent dildo.
@YolkBrushWork402 - Or possibly Donald Trump.
Came here to say dildo. Im on board. One giant dick for man kind.
Can't believe I had to scroll this far to find the only right answer.
A single horseshoe crab, naturally deceased.
My 1952 soviet bulgaria coin
Assuming size is not an object, a pyramid; doesn't matter if it's Myan, Aztec, or Egyptian, heck make it a mix, and have it buried in a mound of dirt or in a mountain with just parts of it sticking out.
Or if we aren't going supernatural teleportation of items, I'd think something like the person who said moving rocks around, maybe lay rocks out in shapes like roads or the foundations of houses.
"HELP" or "SOS" in rocks would be pretty funny
Dildo
Mars bar
A dinosaur skeleton
Human skeleton would work, too.
I'd put an exact replica of the NASA HQ on Mars.
Haha, I was going to say an exact replica of the Curiosity rover.
An altered skeleton, half buried. Give it a larger than normal skull or extra long arms or toes or something like that.
That would for sure fuck with NASA scientists
A sealed hab dome, containing a fish breeding tank that outputs a portion every so often into another tank, and a flock of penguins. There are also penguin shaped space suits mounted next to the air locks
Ooh. A small broken octagonal habitat shape with the fossilized remains of dolphin bones and dolphin shaped mechanized suits. As well as some kind of buried damaged “launch pad” that could fit a decent sized ship.
Wait… that would be less confusing and more exciting as a earths history kind of thing.
A simple message: "ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT MARS, ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE."
A "Kilroy was here" graffiti.
That missing sub.
Sir there's no air on Mars though! They would surely die!?!
I'd put an empty spacesuit from the Apollo era.
Make it a Soviet space suit from the Apollo era. That would cause every politician in the US to shit bricks.
@YolkBrushWork402 A human skeleton.
Even worse: a complete neanderthal skeleton
A post with the Liberian flag attached to it.
Liberian Pride 🇱🇷🇱🇷🇱🇷🇱🇷🇱🇷🇱🇷🇱🇷🇱🇷
1960's era microwave oven.
A statue like the ones on Easter island!
purely to confuse NASA scientists
Ah then it is simple: we place an ESA spacecraft there.
A German flag colored towel
A private property sign.
Stranger, yer a-trespassin’ on my dirt farm.
The Ozymandius Statue, with the exact quote from the poem.
What was the quote?
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
Something that's flying around here as well, and often. Maybe they wouldn't even realize that it doesn't belong there at first. Like a condom wrapper or a dog turd.
How about a live seagull?
Some Neanderthal skeletons mostly buried in the sand so that it looks like they were just uncovered by erosion
Maybe a Roman coin hoard?
A throne with a skeleton decked out in ancient roman clothing.
Why not the Great Wall of china? Like not the exact Great Wall of China but a duplicate of it that is one to one scale. It would be clearly visible when people are looking at Mars with relatively strong telescopes so we would know it was there long before we were there
The great wall isn't visible from Earth orbit. That is a lie that's spread by, well, a lot of people for various reasons.
It would still be something to see if it was on Mars, but you'd have to see it from the surface or with a very powerful orbital telescope.
A Viking longboat.
I'm thinking either the golden disk from Voyager, or the puzzle box prop from Hellraiser.
Rick Astley
A pen lid with the long bit broken off, a shopping trolly token, 1 threadbare sock, a novelty rubber (eraser), and one of those black twisty wires that are used to tie up new USB cables, all sealed in a sandwich bag with 'aubergine curry' written on it in janky handwriting.
Why all this random rubbish? Because it'll absolutely screw with their brains!
A green 1987 Lada Niva.
SOLD OUT
"They will look just like you. Do not trust them."
A sign that says "Moved to Earth"
Pioneer 10.
If I would have to put it now to be discovered in - lets say- next week - black monolit from Space Odyssey
If i could put it back in time - replika of some ancient piramid with gliphs stating that human flow to Mars to help martians to build the pyramid
A boat. Specifically one made for taxing through canals.
I'd get some clay, make some nonsense sculptures, then just dot them around. There'd be whole reports written on what a triangle with a dot on it could possibly mean.
A Martian globe.
Not one, but five General Motors TBM Avenger torpedo bombers.
a chemical toilet
A few planks of wood.
A 1950s branded household item, like a toy or something that is no longer in production and had a hard end date. I would place or within the path of the rover but in a place it hasn't been yet
An old rotary telephone.
A hot pocket
a rocket perfectly designed for the martian environment, so that the rocket doesnt destroy itself on launch like the starship prototype for one example, and for humans to return home from mars.
Penguin Originals: "An Epic of Gilgamesh".
A primitive water bucket, made of Moon minerals.
NASA: "We Found Evidence that Moon had Water, and Life!"
I would put one of those rock faces 🗿. It would make nasa think ancient tribes had space travel capability.
I would draw the iconic S on the ground.
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Sometimes people just come up with brilliance, this is that moment
Man, I was gonna saw draw Dickbutt but this is better