A California man is suing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration over an apparent rock on Mars that he says isn't a rock at all.

Rhawn Joseph -- who describes himself as an astrobiologist, while records posted on rationalwiki.org show he previously worked as a neuropsychologist the United States Department of Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System -- filed a petition Jan. 27 in U.S. District Court that asks the court to compel NASA to "scientifically examine and investigate a putative biological organism."

In the court documents, Joseph claims the "refusal to take close-up photos from various angles, the refusal to take microscopic images of the specimen, the refusal to release high-resolution photos is inexplicable, recklessly negligent and bizarre ... Any intelligent adult, adolescent, child, chimpanzee, monkey, dog or rodent with even a modicum of curiosity would approach, investigate and closely examine a bowl-shaped structure which appears just a few feet in front of them when 12 days earlier they hadn't noticed it.

The petition continues NASA's lack of scientific integrity is evident in its past comments on the rock, such as a press release that stated the doughnut-shaped object, which is now visible in images of the Martian terrain next to the roving robotic laboratory Opportunity when it wasn't visible in earlier images of the same location, is "unlike anything we have seen before... We are totally confused."

Earlier published reports said a photo taken on Sol 3540 -- or, Jan. 8, the 3,540th Martian solar day since Opportunity landed) -- shows a rock-like object that wasn't visible in previous photos taken on Sol 3536.

Measured by the visual movement of the Sun across the Red Planet's sky, one solar day on Mars lasts about 24 hours and 40 minutes.

A NASA scientist working on the Opportunity suggested to media the object was a rock that was somehow flipped up when it the rover initiated.

However, instead of then trying to capture close-up and microscopic photos of the object, NASA and its rover team "dismissed" the anomaly as a rock or meteor, "which somehow just mysteriously appeared in front of the rover," said Joseph in his petition, an illogical conclusion, since there is otherwise no evidence of impact or a debris field.

Also in a piece published by the online journal Cosmology.com, Joseph said that a photo taken on Sol 3528 shows a small bowl-shaped growth on a Martian rock outcropping. In photos taken on Sol 3540, or 12 Martian days later, the small structure had become a "fully grown bowl-shaped organism resembling Apothecia (a mixture of fungus and cyanobacteria).

In the petition, Joseph asserts that if the object turns out to be a biological organism, NASA must publicly acknowledge Joseph made the discovery and ensure his name appears as the first author on the first six scientific articles submitted for publication about the discovery.

According to court papers, from 2010 to 2012 Joseph lobbied Congress establish an effort to raise more than $100 billion in private funds for a human mission to Mars.