Alien spacecraft off the edge of Mercury.

[bless 'em all]

Had a contract ten years back writing software to process satellite images. They had various imperfections due to dust on the lenses, some non functioning pixels and some with less gain and sometimes the thing would reset and cause missing bands. Some problems were sorted by the calibration, some weren't.

We provided the serious customers with unaltered images but for other purposes the images were FAKED. I was sorely tempted to stick in a few pictures so they would discover 300ft giant spiders in the Gobi desert.

FTFY

I prefer the Alien Spaceship explanation.

[xoggoth]

When I was in year 10 at school, in story-writing Sandra Jackson wrote one about a spaceship that went to the sun to scoop out a sample. Using a large block of ice to keep cool

That's nothing. I recall a PUBLISHED Sci Fi story about a man developing a jet propelled-train. A rival sabotaged the magnetic device that kept it on the tracks and it shot off into space where it was eaten by a giant crab and spat out again to land back on the tracks exactly where it left them and nobody was injured except the rival who happened to be standing there. I have never been able to get it out of my head, a work of genius!