Twenty five years ago something very uncommon happened on our planet Mars. NASA sent a shuttle taht can take pictures of anything, NASA sent the shuttle out into space. The shuttle NASA sent out was called "Viking 1". Viking 1 was a shuttle that took (past tence) pictures of plantes. NASA sent the shuttle out to look for possible landing sites for its sister ship Viking 2. As the shuttle taking pictures it spotted a shadowy likeness of a human face. The Human face had a enormous head nearly two miles from end to end. Threw the cameras it seemed to be staring back at the cameras from a region of the Red Planet called Cydonia. Those are some little details about the "Human Face".

Even though i'm a scientist at NASA, some of my friends who were also scientist we all agreed it was probably it was just another Martian mesa, they were common around Cydonia, but this one had unsual shadows that made it look like an Egyptian Pharaoh. I was dissusing the "Face" with someone who thinks it was created by aliens. I was telling him (John) we unveiled the image for all to see. The caption noted a "huge rock formation... which resembles a human head... formed by shadows giving the illusion of eyes, nose and mouth." But now that the word got out people think the Face is bona fide evidence of life on Mars. He was also saying "Its evidence that evidence that NASA would rather hide." Me personally believed the Face was an alien artifact.

And so on April 5, 1998, when Mars Global Surveyor flew over Cydonia for the first time, so friends Micheal Malin and his Mars Orbiter Camera which we called (MOC) team snapped a picture ten times shaper than the original Viking photos. We were very anxious to see the picture... the picture revealed ... like we said a natural landform. There was no alien monument after all.

Everyone wasn't satisfied. The Face on Mars is located 41 degrees north martian latitude where it was winter April '98 which was a cloudy time of year on the Red Planet. The camrea on board MGS had to peer though wispy clouds to see the Face. Perhaps, said skeptics, alien markings were hidden by haze.

So then I ordered mission controllers to look again. Mars Global Surveyor is a mapping spacecraft that looks straight down and scans teh planet like a fax machine in narrow 2.5 km-wide strips.

April 8, 2001 coudless summer day in Cydonia Mars Global Surveyor drew close enough fro a second look. They had to roll the Space craft 25 degrees to center the Fce in the field of view. Each pixel in the 2001 image spans 1.56 meters compared to 43 meters per pixel in the best Viking photo. Meaning in a digital image 3 times bigger than the pixel size. So if there we objects in this pictures like airplanes on the ground or Egyptian-style pyramids or even small shacks youll know where they were.

The picture showed the Martian equivalent of a butte or mesa landforms. So they we never alien sights. Even though John never blieved what i said.