The "Face on Mars" is a natural landfrom. It was not created by aliens or other forms of life because there is no proof that it was but there is evidence that proves it is just a mesa or butte.

In 1976 NASA's Viking 1 spacecraft was circling mars when it spotted the shadowy likeness of a human face. It was about two miles from end to end. It seemed to be staring back at the cameras from a region on mars. But scientists figured out it was just another Martian mesa. They were common in that area on mars, but it had an unusual shadow that made it look like an Egyptian Pharaoh.

A few days later NASA unreveiled the image for all to see. The headline said that it was a "huge rock formaiton, which resembles a human head formed by shadows giving the illusion of eyes, nose, and a mouth". The authors thought it would be a good way to engage the public and attract attention to Mars. It did.

After that the "Face on Mars" became a pop icon. It starred in a Hollywood film, appeared in books, magazines, and radio talk shows. It even haunted grocery store checkout lines for 25 years.

But some people think that NASA was hiding it as being bona fide evidence of life on Mars. But NASA defenders said "they wish that there was an ancient civilization on Mars". Although few scientists believed the Face was an alien artifact, photographing Mars became a priority for NASA.

So on April 5, 1998, when Mars Global Surveyor flew over Mars for the first time, Michael Malin and his Mars Orbiter Camera team snapped a picture ten times sharper than the original Viking photos. But not everyone was satisfied. The picture of the face was taken when it was a cloudy time of year on Mars, but some skeptics believed that the aliens were trying to hide the Face by using haze.

After that in 2001 NASA took another picture of the face with 3 times the pixel size, so if there was anything the martians used to build it you could see it. What the picture actually shows was a Martian equivelant of a butte or mesa.