Alien hunters have identified what they describe as an unexplained shadow on the surface of Mercury, insisting it is cast by a massive artificial structure rather than any natural feature of the planet.
In a video posted on YouTube by the channel Secureforce10, viewers are shown a black rectangular shape in a NASA photograph of Mercury’s surface. Conspiracy theorists claim the feature could mark an entrance of some kind. The shadow is highlighted in red in the original NASA image circulating with the claims.
The object was first noted in 2012 by the site UFO Sightings Daily. Scott C. Waring reported it then as a “doorway” more than three miles long. In the newer analysis, alien-hunter Tyler Glockner argues it may not be a doorway at all but a huge rectangular monolith.
“I took a really good look, it became clear to me that this is not an entrance at all. In fact, it’s something much more magnificent,” Glockner says in the video. “This is a shadow … where is the shadow coming from?”
According to Glockner, the angle of the sun casting shadows on the northern walls of nearby craters indicates that the black rectangle is the shadow of a standing structure. “That my friends, is this large, long rectangular object, monolith-looking structure towering up above the surface,” he states. “What we have here is a very tall, rectangular object… that is standing up over the surface, casting this perfect shadow.”
Zooming in on the image, Glockner continues: “Whatever this object is, it has to be miles, likely. But it is a structure.” Citing his experience examining other planetary images, he adds: “I know how shadows work as well as [how] natural formations react to the sunlight. As you guys are seeing, this is clearly a large rectangular building, the top and front of it is being hit by the sun, the back of the structure is in darkness and we have this very long shadow being cast down on the surface behind it.”
The 19-minute video has already drawn more than 260,000 views.
The original NASA image, captured by the Messenger probe, shows a crater left of center that is approximately 26 miles (42 kilometres) in diameter. The claims rest entirely on visual interpretation of that publicly released photograph and the geometry of sunlight and shadows across the cratered terrain.
Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun and the smallest of the eight planets in the solar system, experiences extreme temperature swings—from lows of –173°C (–280°F) to highs of 427°C (800°F). A day on Mercury lasts 176 Earth days, while a year lasts only 88 Earth days. These harsh conditions make the idea of any large surface structure, artificial or otherwise, all the more striking to those advancing the anomaly claims.
Whether the dark rectangle is a shadow thrown by a towering rectangular object, an entrance, a monolith, or simply a natural play of light and topography remains a matter of interpretation. The original NASA imagery is available for public examination, and the latest video analysis has reopened discussion among those who search planetary photographs for signs of non-natural features.