The Face on Mars was not created by aliens. The passage states that NASA's Mars Global Survey spaceraft revealed the Face on Mars for what it really is: A mesa. Although few scientists believed the Face was an alien artifact, photographing Cydonia became a priority for NASA when Mars Gobal Surveyor (MGS) arrived at the Red Planet in September 1997, eigteen long years after the Vikings missions ended.

In the passage, it says that on April 5, 1998, when Mars Global Surveyor flew over Cydonia for the first time, Micheal Malin and his Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) team snapped a picture ten times sharper than the original Viking photos. Thousands of anxious web surfers were waiting when the image first appeared on a JPL web site, revealing. . . a natural landform. There were no alien monument after all.

The pasage also states that not every one was satisfied. The camera on board MGS had to peer through wispy clouds to see the Face. Perhaps, said skeptics, alien marking were hidden by haze. Therfore, researchers sent the spacecraft back to Cydonia, on a coudless day, and took more pictures of the Face. Malin's team captured extraordinary photos using the camera's absolute maximum resolution. What the picture actually shows in the Martian equivalent of a butte or mesa- landforms common around the American West. Proving that the Face was not created by aliens.