--- title: Morse Code on Mars: Here's What it Really Is description: An apparent sign of intelligent life is nothing of the kind canonical: https://time.com/4402622/heres-what-explains-the-morse-code-on-mars/ author: Jeffrey Kluger article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-07-12T14:25:38.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T23:11:39.590Z article:section: Science og:title: Here's the Truth About the 'Morse Code' on Mars og:description: An apparent sign of intelligent life is nothing of the kind og:url: https://time.com/4402622/heres-what-explains-the-morse-code-on-mars/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd5ba63700506650c/69889b925f570ffa13b21aa0/mars-morse-code-wide.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: Mars-Morse-Code-Wide og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Here's the Truth About the 'Morse Code' on Mars twitter:description: An apparent sign of intelligent life is nothing of the kind twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd5ba63700506650c/69889b925f570ffa13b21aa0/mars-morse-code-wide.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Here's What Explains the 'Morse Code' on Mars > Sponsored content. 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Future Proof is TIME's weekly climate and energy newsletter, written by senior correspondent Justin Worland. It connects the energy transition to the decisions reshaping business, technology, policy and markets. #### Where can I follow the energy transition as a business story? Future Proof covers climate and energy as an economic and business story rather than only an environmental one. It publishes every Friday and is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who writes Future Proof? Justin Worland, a senior correspondent at TIME and an award-winning climate journalist, writes Future Proof. #### Is Future Proof free? Yes. Future Proof is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-futureproof-2026q3/newsletters?i=2e9df48c-a80c-401f-a6b7-05ef611142c3&cr=time-nl-futureproof-2026q3-v1)  by [Jeffrey Kluger](https://time.com/author/jeffrey-kluger/)  ## Jeffrey Kluger Editor at Large Jul 12, 2016 2:25 PM UTC  NASA/JPL/University of Arizona  by [Jeffrey Kluger](https://time.com/author/jeffrey-kluger/)  ## Jeffrey Kluger Editor at Large Jul 12, 2016 2:25 PM UTC At last the evidence is in and no one can deny it any longer: There is intelligent life on Mars, it’s sending us a message and that message is: “Zrrmgc tflmtip brzzzz.” OK, so maybe it’s not so intelligent at all. The “message,” to the extent it exists, is a series of dots and dashes on the Martian surface photographed by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, that looks for all the world as if it’s written in Morse Code—even if that code would be gibberish when translated. All the same, it’s striking and almost eerily deliberate looking, the kind of thing that really does appear to have been created by an intelligent hand—or flipper or pseudopod. But it wasn’t. The entire series of markings sits inside a circular impression that is likely an ancient impact crater, located below the North Martian Pole in an area known as the Hagal Dune Field. The walls of the crater scramble the flow of incoming wind, causing it to blow from two directions at once, creating a sculpting effect that forms the long markings in the soil. The short ones, resembling the dots, are created when the wind, blowing randomly, briefly pulls up short and stops. The walls of the crater also prevent more sand from the outside from blowing in and filling the markings as soon as they’re created. That means that while later winds will likely, slowly erase the current marks, more will probably be formed in the future. This is not the first time we’ve gotten a false alarm from Mars. In 1976, the Viking 2 spacecraft captured an image of what appeared for all the world to be [a face staring up from the surface of the planet](http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/ast24may%5F1/). This gave rise to all manner of conspiracy theories and one truly execrable [2000 movie](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0183523/) (don’t pretend we don’t see you there, Brian de Palma). But a later visit by the Mars Global Surveyor revealed that most of the ostensible face had blown away over the course of just 20 years. If there is an intelligent mind involved in any of this, it doesn’t belong to the Martians who create the formations, but the hopeful Earthlings, looking for signs of life elsewhere, who read meaning into them. We may well find some cosmic company one day, but today, alas, is not that day. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4402622/heres-what-explains-the-morse-code-on-mars/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4402622/heres-what-explains-the-morse-code-on-mars/"},"headline":"Here's What Explains the 'Morse Code' on Mars","datePublished":"2016-07-12T14:25:38.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T23:11:39.590Z","description":"An apparent sign of intelligent life is, alas, nothing of the kind","url":"https://time.com/4402622/heres-what-explains-the-morse-code-on-mars/","keywords":["Space","NASA","Mars","Science topic"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd5ba63700506650c/69889b925f570ffa13b21aa0/mars-morse-code-wide.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Jeffrey Kluger","jobTitle":"Editor at Large","url":"https://time.com/author/jeffrey-kluger/"}],"articleSection":"Science","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd5ba63700506650c/69889b925f570ffa13b21aa0/mars-morse-code-wide.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Mars-Morse-Code-Wide","caption":"","creditText":"NASA/JPL/University of Arizona","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/science/","name":"Science"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/space/","name":"Space"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4402622/heres-what-explains-the-morse-code-on-mars/","name":"Here's What Explains the 'Morse Code' on Mars"}}]}] ```