In 1976, Viking 1, a spacecraft, was in search for its sister ship, Viking 2. When searching, they snapped photos of various Martian landmarks including what is now known as "The Face on Mars." They took this photo from an angle where it look as if a face was coming out of the ground. At first, NASA thought this might possibly be an artifact from Martian civilization, but were disappointed when they found it was just another landmark. Conspiracy theorists believed NASA was simply trying to hide the truth from them, but all of NASA's research proves the face is just an unusually shaped landmark.

Viking 1, the initial spacecraft to spot the landmark, didn't have the best technology. compared to today's technology, the picture would be considered blurry and out of focus. Yes, at first a few scientists believed the face was an alien artifact, but instead of jumping to conclusions, they did more research. this meant another spacecraft would be sent to get better evidence.

On April 5, 1998, NASA sent the Mars Global Surveyor to get the better quality pictures to conclude their research. At this point in time, the technology had improved tremendously and the picture turned out ten times sharper than the first picture taken by Viking 1. This helped both scientists and some conspiracy theorists to understand it was simply just a landform. Still, there were some people who believed it was an artifact. They complained they took the picture during a cloudy time of year, and that this might have affected the picture quality.

Again, even though it was becoming quite an expensive mission for NASA, they returned to get another picture. On April 8, 2001, Mars Global Surveyor came close enough for a second look. The 2001 one picture was such a high-quality picture, it was said if there were any objects on the ground, they would easily be able to zoom in and identify what it was. Now NASA had proved that this brilliant "face" was only a landform.

NASA did endless amounts of research in hopes of finding evidence of martian life, so why would they hide something like that? Releasing this to the public would benefit them more tahn if they hid it. The latest picture the spacecraft took of the landform proves that it simply IS only a landform. The research NASA has put into may not have given them the results they wanted, but it may later benefit them in finding life on Mars.