In 1976, the Viking 1 took a photo of what seemed to be a face on mars. It looked like it had eyes, a mouth, and a nose, but really, it didn't have those features. It was a just natural landform. It was not created by aliens.

It is, in fact, a mesa, or butte, like on earth. It is a platform of naturally formed rock on the surface of mars. The shadows on the mesa make it look kind of like a face, when it is actually just a natural formation. The picture showed the differet cracks and dips in the formaton that made the shadows on the mesa. In America, there are lots of different mesas, such as the Middle Butte in the Snake River Plain of Idaho.

It may look like a face on Mars, but that is ecaue of the Viking 1 didn't have the most accurate cameras. The pictures were taken more than 35 years ago. They didn't have cameras as advanced as we do. The Viking 1 took those pictures in 1976. Each pixel spanned 43 meters. That is not a very defined picture. In 2001, the Mars Global Surveyor took some pictures of the "face" with a more advanced camera at its highest resolution. Each pixel only spanned 1.56 meters. That means that its a very accurate picture. It showed how the "face" was actually a mesa.

There are always possibilities of alien life having to do with the formation, but that is a very very slim chance. Conspiracy theorists are not necessarily profesionals. NASA scientists can easily see how the face is just a formation. They would probably be really glad if the formation was made by extraterrestrials, but they know that it wasn't made by aliens.

In conclusion, the "face on Mars" is just a land formation called a mesa. Scientists have taken more recent pictures with the Mars Global Surveyor to prove that it is a land formation. There is a possibility it was created by aliens, but it is illogical and not likely. NASA's scientists know that it is really just a mesa.