Mystery solved? NASA identifies party hat-shaped object that perplexed experts

Cone you believe this?

The mysterious party hat-shaped object on Mars which perplexed experts has been identified as a naturally occurring rock shape, attributed to the Martian winds which have been known to produce other exotic, Earth-like shapes on the Red Planet, according to NASA — but one expert isn’t buying it.

The smooth, metallic-looking cone piqued the interest of scientists, including Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb, who called on the space agency to use the Curiosity rover to review what appeared to be a small, smooth, and metallic cone on the Martian surface.

NASA now claims the object is no big deal.

“We’ve seen many, many Martian rocks that exhibit shapes that, from a particular angle, look like a more familiar shape,” the spokesperson said.

The object is also substantially smaller than was estimated by some scientists, including Loeb, who had speculated the “mysterious” object to be roughly 20 centimeters and possibly “human-made debris.” 

The smooth cone is a mere 1 cm and was photographed by the rover from 13 feet away, the space agency stated.

Winds on Mars are far weaker than those on Earth — with recorded wind velocity measured maxing out at 100 mph, according to a 2025 study from the University of Switzerland — but can result in surreal shapes.

Researchers located a smaller-than-a-penny “flower” on the Martian surface that looks like a coral reef, but was carved by wind.

Another stone looks like an old book with pages flaked by eons of time on the atmosphereless rock.

The face of a bear appears on the face of the Red Planet when a formation is viewed from an eagle-eyed angle.

NASA claimed the cone-shaped object is just another example of the phenomenon pareidolia, which is the perception of familiar patterns in randomly shaped or ambiguous formations.

Harvard Astrophysicist rejected NASA’s claim that the object is naturally formed rock and doubled down on his own measurements.

“The image clearly shows that there is no rock resembling this anomalous object within its natural environment,” Loeb told The Post.

“Also, a rock is not expected to have a smooth cylindrical surface with a flat end. If this object is a rock, we should see other examples of it,” he stated, adding that “its size was estimated to be 20 centimeters.”

Loeb threw down the gauntlet to the space agency to prove their claims.

“I challenge the NASA representative to show us another example of a rock that resembles this object in any of the Curiosity rover images,” Loeb concluded.