The face that you see on mars is actully a landform called martian mesa. It just happened to form like a face with the shadow. When the viking 1 was looking for a landing spot for viking 2 it happened to fly over this landform the viking 1 was already taking pictures so it took a picture of the landformation that looked like a face.

When this picture was later given to the public to see it became a pop icon in a hollywood film, book, magazines, and radio talk shows too. people belive that it is a sign of life on mars and that NASA would rather hide conspiracy theorists, but really if there was life on mars NASA wouldnt hide it they would be getting funding money for a mission to futher investigate. Then on

April 5, 1998 a mars orbiter flew over cydonia capturing a sharper image of the landform it showed a martian mesa with shadows that made it look like a face as NASA said. Yet people were not happy they said it was cloudy on the red plant and that the camera had to take the picture thought clouds and could of missed alien life. So NASA then fleew over the landform one for time on cloudless day at the red plant and took anouther picture it showed the same thing as the second picture. So it was made clear that there was no alien life on amrs or that the face of mars was made by aliens it was just a great landforming.