David Bowie once asked in a song "Is there life on Mars?" -- but according to one man's theory, there may be rodent life on the red planet.

The website UFOSightingsDaily.com identified what appears to be a creature resembling a squirrel or ferret in NASA pictures taken by the Curiosity mars Rover in September 2012. The picture shows a brown form with small beady "eyes" in a formation of small rocks.

"Note its lighter color upper and lower eyelids, its nose and cheek areas, its ear, its front leg and stomach.  Looks similar to a squirrel camouflaged in the stones and sand by its colors," wrote user ScottCWaring on the UFO website.

"Hey, who doesn't love squirrels, right?"

However, according to Fox News, this supposed "Mars rat" was likely little more than a rock, and the strange belief that it could resembles a creature is a result of a phenomenon known as pareidolia, where humans might apply anthropomorphic qualities to inanimate objects.

Mars itself was even looked upon with these qualities: a rock formation discovered by the Nasa spacecraft Viking 1, which orbited the planet in 1976, snapped a picture of a rock formation that gave the appearance of a face; it is now known as the Face on Mars.

Earlier this year, NASA revealed that Curiousity had encountered some signs that life may have once exited on Mars. In February, the rover analyzed a rock sample containing elements necessary to support life.

"We have characterized a very ancient, but strangely new 'gray Mars' where conditions once were favorable for life," wrote John Grotzinger, a Mars Science Laboratory project scientist at California Institute of Technology, in a statement.

"Curiosity is on a mission of discovery and exploration, and as a team we feel there are many more exciting discoveries ahead of us in the months and years to come."

The International Business Times also claimed that "an unprotected rat on the Martian surface wouldn't do well, to put it mildly": The atmospheric pressure on the planet's surface would cause the bodily fluid to boil, resulting in almost immediate death.

Tags: offbeat