When the Viking 1 discovered the face on Mars, many people believed that the face was created by aliens. Forty years later, those consperacies remain in the minds of many people who do not belive NASA when they say, "It's just a mesa." NASA has sent three objects to Mars, the Viking 1 the Vinking 2, and a MGS, in which all three have been able to locate this face shaped messa in a area called Cydonia. Each time the face become a little less noticiable but stil noticable enough to find.

On April 5th, 1998, the MGS along with Michael Malin and his Mars Obriter Camera flew over Cydonia for the first time. They were albe to snap a picture ten times sharper than the one taken in 1976. The picture was uploaded to the internet, where thousands of wed surfers wher waiting to see what it revealed. to many their theory had been proven to be correct, while others still thought it was a alien built structure. The picture revealed a natural landform. There was no alien monument after all. Not everyone was satisfied with the outcome. Some skepticcs said that alien marking were hiden by the haze. The pictures were taken at 41 degrees north martian latitude where it was winter, a cloudy time of year on the Red Planet, causing the Mars Global Surveyor to have to peer through wispy clouds in order to see the face.

The skeptics were right when they said that they had to peek through haze, however they were wrong about the part where they said the haze hid the alien markings. On April 8th, 2001, just three years after the Viking 2 found the face, another mission to Mars reached its location. the 8th of April was a cloudless summer day in Cydonia. The MGS was able to draw close enough for a second look at the face. Garvin said, "We had to roll the spacecraft 25 degrees to center the Fce in the feld of view. Milin"s team captured an extrodinary photo using the camera's absolute maximum resolution." Each pixil in the 2001 imge sans 1.56 meters, compared to 43 meters per pixel in the best 1976 Viking photo. He went on to say, "As a rule of thumb, you can discern things in a digital image 3 times bigger than the pixel size. So, if there were objects in this picture like airplanes in the groud or Egyptian-styl pyramids or even small shacks, you could see what they were!" By saying that, Garvin proved all those speculations about the face being an alien structer, are false.

What the picture actually shows, is not a alien civilation, but is the Martian equivalent od a butte or messa. Buttes and mesas are common landforms around the American West. Garvin addedthat it reminds him most of the Middle Butte in the Snake River Plain of Idaho. He then explained,"That's a lava dome that takes the form of an isolated mesa about the same height as the Face of Mars."

After the first picture of the face on Mars was released to the public, NASA explained the picture is just, "a huge rock formation...which resembles a human head...formed by shadows giving the ilusion of eyes, nose, and mouth." It was later added that it is just another Martian mesa,, common around Cydonia. The only difference that seperates this one form the rest are unusual shadows that made it look like an Egyptian Pharaoh.

Like the man on the moon, the face on Mars is only a structure that resembals the humans that run Earth. The accidental resemblance is quite astonishing to say the least, thought nevertheless, in reality its "just anouther Masa" made by nature not aliens.