Twenty-five years ago, a strange image was projected onto the monitors of mission controllers while the Viking 1 was taking photos of possible landing places for its sister ship, Viking 2. What looked like an alien's face had appeared! Mission controllers back at NASA must have been surprised to see this, but scientists were quick to say that it was just another Martian mesa, common around Cydonia, only this one had unusual shadows to make it look like an Egyptian Pharaoh.

As soon as the pictures were released, there were mixed reactions. Some agreed with the scientists and their research saying that the rock formation was just a common mesa, but some were skeptical. Conspiracy theorists believed that this rock was actually an artifact, saying that NASA was hiding extra infromation about this formation and comparing it to a common mesa.

The 1976 Viking 1 photograph does make it resemble a face, but later pictures denote this evidence. In 1998, the shadows are still visible, but there is no concrete proof that this is an alien artifact. The 2001 photo (taken with a camera of a greater resolution than the 1976 and 1998 photos) further proves my point. In the 2001 photo, you can faintly see the shadows of the face, but they are almost nonexistent.

In conclusion, scientists research proves that this is merely a rock formation. The 1976 photo could only prove that the formation exists, and the shadows could be because of bad quality cameras or just a luck of how the lighting was when the photo was taken. The later photos are more accurate because of our increase in technology, therefore being our number one source for finding out the truth. Aliens do not exist, as far as we know, and scientists continue to prove that theory with updated technology.