For anyone who thought “Mars Attacks” could have been a documentary, recent photos transmitted back from the Red Planet show a mysterious object that UFOlogists are claiming is a Civil War-era cannon. 

The image shows what looks like the vague outline of an older artillery cannon that consisted of a wheel-mounted barrel. It was taken by the Curiosity rover’s right mast camera on July 29. The Curiosity has two mast cameras on the right and left, two navigation cameras on the right and left, and two hazard cameras in the rear and front of the rover.

Curiosity constantly sends back images to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA. The images are first stored on the rover and then transmitted to Earth on NASA’s command. Each image is time-stamped with the date it was captured, not the day it was transmitted back; the time stamps are in UTC, or Coordinated Universal Time.

Both rovers- Curiosity and Opportunity- frequently send images back that are pored over by Mars enthusiasts, NASA scientists, and UFOlogists. Curiosity has been on Mars since 2012, but Opportunity landed in 2004 and has been operating consistently for over a decade.

Other items “spotted” by UFOlogists include dinosaurs, a half-human face, traffic light, thigh bone, and a children’s toy boat. NASA has not verified any of these claims.

Interest in Mars is booming due to increased research and private interests. The Curiosity rover is currently exploring the base of Mount Sharp, an area rich in geological history that could provide scientists with an answer to how Mars lost its water supply. India’s recently launched Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM for short) will be studying the Red Planet’s atmosphere. Meanwhile, Tesla founder and visionary Elon Musk has stated that he plans to colonize Mars with over a million people one day in order to secure the future of humanity.

Unless, of course, that’s really a working cannon on Mars.