Lake Erie

[mscoffman]

As you may be aware, these particular "UFO's" are called camera lens flares which are
caused by internal light reflections inside the optics of the camera taking the pictures.
That's why they have size repetitions and geometric positioning feature fidelity. All
cameras have them to some extent and you'll even see these in NASA pictures
sometimes.

What I have come up with is that lens flares show up in a picture geometrically related to bright
areas in it. (Before cropping) For example if you have a single bright spot of light from a distant
light source in a picture, the lens flare will be at another one spot in the picture. On the other
hand  if the bright area is complex over a large area you will get multiple sizes and repetitions
of the flares. In effect the flares are a mathematical processing function of the camera
optics. You can see these bright areas driving the flares in the two pictures that you have
shown above. The flares are a function of total light energy or net light flux and not
the amplification of light from small dim features. (Like the aircraft contrail.) It's somewhat
fun to look for the brightness light source for flare source features in various pictures.

These mathematic optical processing functions are similar to the wind carving features on
mars and why rocks are carved to a given shape. This means that the object being "imaged"
is related to the lay of nearby objects and their shape in the near by wind field environment.
We have these on earth to some extent but rain and acid work to remove the details over
time. What I am thinking is that someone might want to formalize the processing equations
then they could be used to justify the shape of carved objects on mars versus the shape
and position of other objects in the nearby wind environment. A kind of wind ray processing
tool would result.

This could add some value back for the otherwise wasted time for intelligent object recognition
on mars.

[TinselKoala]

Yes, that's right, and they could also be "blurfos", images of dust specks or droplets or even insects close to the camera lens. Note that the square symmetry is aligned with the camera frame. Test this by rotating the camera 45 degrees. If the blurfos are images of the camera's aperture, as caused by lens flare or out-of-focus specks of dust or etc. , the square symmetry will remain aligned with the camera frame-- it will rotate along with the camera.