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In a series of images from Nasa's Curiosity rover, a white dot appears to descend to the surface of the Mars.

The images are claimed by one Youtuber to be evidence of a UFO landing on the red planet.

But, says Nasa, the anomaly can be easily explained as a so-called 'hot pixel' in one of the cameras.

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This image was taken by the Curiosity rover's Navcam Right camera and appears to show a white dot hovering above a mountain on Mars. In reality, according to an Imaging Scientist at Nasa, it is more than likely just a hot pixel, which is a sort of anomaly in the camera during long exposure pictures

Claims of aliens on Mars are nothing new - many previous supposed sightings have been made.

This latest 'discovery' was taking by the two cameras on the mast of the rover, its head and neck, known as Navcam Left and Navcam Right.

The images were taken by the rover on 20 June, 665 Martian days since Curiosity first landed on Mars in August 2011.

The white light appears to move downwards, suggesting it is moving towards the surface, in two images separated by 31 seconds.

In the first image from Navcam Right the white light is above a mountain.

But the next image from Navcam Left shows it is closer to the ground.

Youtuber UFOvni2012 boldly claims in a video that it is a sign of a UFO arriving on Mars.

Could THIS be evidence of UFOs arriving on Mars?

In the images the light appears to be moving downards, but it's likely just a hot pixel in each 'eye' of the camera. The first image (left) was taken by Navcam Right and the second (right) was taken by Navcam Left 31 seconds later, showing not a UFO descending but rather hot pixels in the camera that caused the anomaly

But speaking to the Huffington Post, Imaging Scientist Dr Justin Maki from Nasa explained what they thought the anomaly was.

'This is a hot pixel that has been around since we started using the Right Navcam,' he said.

A hot pixel can show up when sensors get hot during long exposures.

Why there would be a similar such hot pixel in both cameras at the same time though, is not known.

MailOnline is awaiting further comment from Nasa on the issue.

Other 'lights' in the past have been attributed to sunlight glinting off rocks or cosmic rays striking the surface.

Curiosity has been operational on Mars since August 2012 and is now on its way to Mount Sharp. This 'find' came a day before Curiosity celebrated a Martian year - 687 Earth days - on June 24, having accomplished the mission's main goal of determining whether Mars once offered environmental conditions favorable for life

Another infamous false claim of UFOs in the past was the 'Face on Mars.'

On 25 July 1976 Nasa's Viking 1 orbiter released an image of a region called Cydonia that seemed to show a human face on the Red Planet.

In reality it was nothing more than a phenomenon known as pareidolia, where the human brain picks out faces in an object, in this instance a chance aligning of shifting sand.

In 2006, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) imaged the region and again and showed that the sand had continued shifting, erasing the 'face' from the surface.

In 1976 the Viking 1 orbiter snapped an image of a region of Mars that looked like a human face (left), leading some to claim it was a sign of intelligent life, but 30 years later it was proven to just be a sand dune (right)