A conspiracy theorist claims to have found evidence that aliens have been watching our early attempts at space travel . UFO researcher Scott Waring says he has spotted an extra-terrestrial spacecraft in a 55-year-old photo from Nasa 's Mercury Project . Scientists say radical claims such as this are a simple case of pareidolia , which is the psychological response to seeing significant items in random places . A close up view of what Scott Waring believes is the UFO coming into view . The image was taken as part of Project Mercury , which was the US ' first mission to put men in space . Scientists says claims such as this are a case of pareidolia , which tricks the brain into seeing familiar objects in random places . Many scientists believe UFO sightings such as this are down to a psychological phenomenon called pareidolia . Pareidolia is the response to seeing faces and other significant and items , such as UFO , in random stimulus . 'The vast majority of these images are as vague and elusive as those posted by UFO witnesses on Earth , and many have a fairly mundane explanation , ' Nigel Watson author of the UFO investigations Manual told DailyMail.com . 'The problem is that the more Nasa denies such things or explains them , the more people think there is a conspiracy to hide the truth that aliens are visiting our planet . ' The image was taken by unmanned space probe Mercury-Redstone 1A on December 19 , 1960 . 'Why would n't aliens be interested in watching a historical moment in human history ? , ' asked Waring in his blog . 'Especially since the capsule was unmanned , there were no worries that they would be seen . ' The image was taken as part of Project Mercury , which was the US ' first mission to put humans in space . It started in 1958 and ended in 1963 . The objectives of the program were to orbit a manned spacecraft around Earth , investigate man 's ability to function in space , and to recover both the astronaut and spacecraft safely . The first United States astronaut was Alan Shepard , whose suborbital flight of the Freedom 7 space capsule on May 5 , 1961 , was the first success of the Mercury program . 'It 's actually the Earth in the background and the UFO is in space observing the Mercury capsule , ' Waring said . This is n't the first time UFO hunters have scoured old Nasa images in the hope of finding evidence of alien life . Earlier this year , Waring claimed to have seen two mysterious glowing objects in a photo from a Gemini mission in 1966 . And a ten-year old image of the Martian yielded what Waring believed to be a rock shaped uncannily like the President Obama 's head - and that it could be part of a statue . The image was taken by unmanned space probe Mercury-Redstone 1A on December 19 , 1960 . 'It 's actually the Earth in the background and the UFO is in space observing the Mercury capsule , ' Waring said . Earlier this year , Waring claimed to have seen two glowing objects in a photo from a Gemini mission in 1966 . Many scientists believe UFO sightings such as this are down to a psychological phenomenon called pareidolia . This describes the brain 's response to seeing significant objects in random places . 'The vast majority of these images are as vague and elusive as those posted by UFO witnesses on Earth , and many have a fairly mundane explanation , ' Nigel Watson author of the UFO investigations Manual told DailyMail.com . 'The problem is that the more Nasa denies such things or explains them , the more people think there is a conspiracy to hide the truth that aliens are visiting our planet . '
Image was captured by Mercury-Redstone 1A probe in December 1960 . Part of Project Mercury which was pareidolia ' first mission to put men in space . Scientists believe UFO sightings such as this are caused by US . Condition tricks the brain into seeing familiar objects in random places .