In 1976, Viking 1 traveled Mars to search for a place that its "sister", Viking 2 could land on by taking photos of different areas of the planet. While taking these pictures, Viking 1 snapped an image of what looked to be a human face on a region of Mars called Cydonia. Since then, two other photos have been taken by Viking 1 in the years 1998 and 2001.

Scientist figured it was just another Martian mesa but what made them a little uneasy about that soulution was the face that looked like an Egyptian Pharaoh. The head was around 2 miles long from end to end and was formed by shadows that gave off the illusion of eyes, nose, and a mouth. Because of the human-like features that appeared in the photos, people began to believe that the "face" was hard evidence that there was some kind of human life on Mars. Due to the fact that some scientist believed that the face was an alien artifact and the picture was the topic of discussion in places all around the world, scientist had to work even harder to find out what the photograph actually showed.

On April 8, 2001 when scientists went back to Cydonia for the third time and snapped an amazing picture using the cameras best lense. The picture that they captured was evidence that proved wether or not life on mars truly existed. With countless hours of research, scientist discovered that the picture actually showed the Martian equivalent landform of a butte or mess, which are common in West America.