It's an honor really But only because I feel I am truly innocent and can just enjoy being the unwitting target of Discover Magazine's "Bad Astronomy" most strikingly identifiable badge of dishonor.

I have admired "The Stupid, It Burns" icon of idiocy from the very first time I ever saw it used on the Bad Astronomy blog. It pops up on their news items frequently to denounce the most hair-pulling abuse and neglect of science. I love how it so eloquently expresses the anguished frustration of brutalized thought. I visited the Plognark Gallery to admire his unique artworks, and never once thought his glorious celebration of stupidity might one day be pasted upon me! But here I am. How did this happen? more...

A few days ago I posted this story about a funny picture posted in the Mars Rover Blog that looked just a little bit like a Martian skull located by the MER Spirit Rover. The Mars Rover Blog is a wonderful Forum where some really, very interesting people share genuine scientific insights into the research being performed by the Mars Rovers. Hortenheardawho for example has a public Flickr gallery with over 6400 carefully crafted images tagged with "Mars". Thats just Amazing.. But back to the story. The blog itself invited others to contribute to developing a biological description of the latest "discovery". All in fun. I posted a description that I thought was kind of amusing and never thought about it again.

This morning when I began my daily review of the latest news from space,#ffcc00;"> (including the thousands of new images just in from the  HiRiSE team who say they will now be sending out images within only days of their capture on Mars, instead of week or months later. Awesome!) when good old Plognark appeared in the news feeds. Now you can imagine me rubbing my hands together with glee. Anticipating "who is going to get it this time"?! An anti-vaxxer? A crop-circle rancher? Ooh! Maybe it will be another psychic predicting earthquakes! I click through eagerly to find that today the Bad Astronomy blog is deriding some poor UFO hunter and the London's Telegraph newspaper. What's the fuss I think? And I click through to the Telegraph.. to find myself quoted!! Holy Cow!

#ff9900;">Another joked: "The coronal ridge shows ample structure to support the musculature of antennae, although none are visible in this view. "The nose area is broad and blunted as you would expect to see in a cold and windy landscape. Is he decapitated or is he buried up to his neck?"

Talk about a slow news day for the Telegraph if they must resort to generating fluff like this from two or three blog posts! Particularly sad because really genuinely amazing things are being discovered on Mars but the media lacks the creativity to make news out of it. Can you believe things get even crazier from here? The problem is the Telegraph deliberately does not provide a source for their speculation, because if they did, the light-hearted nature of the dialog of the Mars Rover Blog would simply not back up their fluff piece.

The Telegraph article isn't so bad, other than saying the images were "satellite images" and implying that "Internet forums are full of chatter" about the picture, they did admit I was joking. Nevertheless, out of context, the words have now been taken by numerous other websites, altered and re-altered to make us appear as Roswell conspiracists, government agents and my personal favorite "pale-grey 300 pound basement dwelling virgins [who] will grab at any straw that claims it has Martians."

I enjoyed in particular two comments from readers on the many news sites and blogs now carrying this silly item. The first, the original source of which, unfortunately, I have lost, but the reader suggested that the poor Martian's condition, buried up to her neck, was a failed effort by early Mars residents to contain Swine Flu. She was joking, For this other commenter, apparently not:

#ff6600;">What we need to worry about is not aliens invading the planet, but our powerful elite using the vagueness around the intelligent hostile alien concept to hide human endeavors that are lowly and ignoble and dangeruos.

#ff6600;">For example, they could be interested in testing droids delivered via drones to militarily sensitive areas. These alien rumours will be the best way to camouflage those activities. They used mass alien hysteria in the late 40s and through the 50s and 60s to conduct secret aircraft research and testing and called everyone fools - even the people who saw the real ai#ff6600;">rcraft - so that their secret would remain.

#ff6600;">This seems to be another attempt at that same strategy - show some “alien” photos get the public hysterical, and in the melee, drop some droids from drones and anyone who sees and reports those, call them crack and silence them.   Said Ellie on May 2nd on this comment

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With this type of brilliant analysis it's no wonder that Phil Plait, the original debunker of the Moon Hoax and official bad-science blogmeister for Discover Magazine has Plognarked me for what seemed like crazy science. However, he also published my explanation of how the story came about in his comments, which I appreciate very much.

And that is how the great Hortenheardawho and I came to be published as UFOlogists in Macdedonia, and India and England and around the world. What a surprise to find myself coming back in through these news feeds I have worked so hard to set up, even if not quite the illuminated light I hoped to have shine on my work here. It just goes to show that people still are curious and excited about Mars, and.. I better watch what I say.

As a final note, I want to say, that on it's own the picture is a fun and humorous example of pareidolia and as a curiosity, can help to keep Mars in the public consciousness. It's just so important that people get to see real discoveries in a positive light, and not presented as secretive and sinister hoaxes or conspiracies.