Losing Face
The Face on Mars
By Daniel Muniz

On July 25, 1976 NASA's Viking 1 Orbiter, flying high above the Arabia Terra region in an area known as Cydonia of the planet Mars, shot perhaps its most infamous photograph, the so-called “Face on Mars.”

Soon afterwards, the Mars Face has spawned an entire cottage industry of myth and conspiracy theories.

NASA scientists themselves helped ignite the controversy when they inadvertently labeled the rocky formation as a face. After all, it does resemble a humanlike head so it was natural to call it that.

However, the initial impression by certain people was that the “Face” must be some kind of enormous ancient structure, much like the Sphinx in Egypt but gigantic. And if it is artificial, then that means that somebody must have built it, therefore there must have been some kind of intelligent civilization that once existed on the planet Mars.

Unfortunately, such a simple unsubstantiated premise is all that it takes to fire up the imaginations of millions of people.

For instance, who built the massive Face monument, why did they build it, what happened to its builders, and where did they go since the planet is now so desolate? And furthermore, if anyone from that ancient civilization did manage to make it out of Mars before it became inhospitable, did they rendezvous to Earth and are some of them still living here? If so, did they also construct the pyramids in Egypt and did they ever reside on the continent of Atlantis?

You get the picture. Authors and lecturers could go on forever speculating (and selling books and speaking at seminars) about what happened on Mars, what is still there, and the fate of its residents. And besides, not only is there something there that resembles a face, there are also other nearby structures like pyramids. But overall, a lot of ink was spilled for just one fuzzy grainy photograph.

However, NASA immediately dismissed those fanciful uncorroborated assertions.

Instead, they have always contended that the features of this rocky outcrop are natural even if it does resemble the head of a person. Cydonia is in a transition zone that separates the Martian southern highlands from the northern plains resulting in broadly cut, extensive valleys and numerous mounds of varying sizes. These mounds are called massifs and it is a large massif that is the Mars Face.

However, it is also the crummy resolution of that satellite image that gives the fuzzy grainy photograph its skull-like attributes. Remember, this was 1976, long before the advent of the home computer and other advanced technologies that we are now so accustomed to having. As a result, that photograph has a lot of flaws in it. So to clarify what the Face on Mars really is, especially due to the image’s low resolution, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory issued the following statement:

Of course this explanation did little to stem the endless speculation. And this is where the conspiracy theorists got involved. After all, they argue that the government has been covering up UFO sightings for decades and that they are hiding downed alien spaceships, therefore they must be in cahoots with the Martians. Perhaps our government already knows everything about the Face on Mars and the ancient civilization that created it thus they are forcing the NASA scientists to repudiate the issue.

You get the picture. Add in a little governmental cover up and the conspiracy enthusiasts are then running around wild with bizarre claims.

Unfortunately, NASA had to wait a couple of decades before they could obtain high resolution digital imagery that would ultimately prove their case. Numerous costly satellite missions to Mars ended in failure. In one botched mission, an engineer forgot to covert his calculations back to metric and quality assurance never caught the oversight resulting in the satellite crashing into the planet. So for a while, NASA scientists and their contractors looked like the Keystone Cops when it came to sending probes to the Red Planet.

Of course, the conspiracy enthusiasts had more sinister accusations in claiming that the space agency, under the direct orders from the government (or perhaps from the Martians themselves), purposely bungled the missions to Mars in order to prevent the truth from ever coming out.

However, NASA did eventually redeem itself with a string of spectacularly successful Mars missions. And in one particular mission, they purposely put a satellite in an orbit right over Cydonia in order to snap high resolution digital imagery. Afterwards, they immediately released the photographs to the public which showed amazingly clear images that proved that the Mars Face was nothing more than an unusual rock formation.

Naturally, many critics condemned the space agency for such a move claiming that it was a waste of time, effort, resources in order to ingratiate the morbid curiosity of a bunch of kooks who will probably never be persuaded with facts.

In my own personal opinion, I disagreed with the critics and felt that NASA did do the right thing.

Of course, the conspiracy theorists are never going to be placated even with the presence of overwhelming irrefutable evidence. Their unfounded fear of persecution and the machinations of an ominous government border more on mental illness than on ignorance.

But it is ignorance that fuels the myth and that can be effectively countered with facts and evidence. And the mythology is totally different than the conspiracy because facts and evidence doesn’t matter much to the conspiracy enthusiasts. The uniformed public simply needs to be made aware of is true and untrue so that they can let the evidence speak for itself.

And since lack of knowledge can be corrected, I personally feel that NASA acted in good faith. Yes, it is important to study Mars for the advancement of science and to make new discoveries but it is just as important to dispel ignorance.

Unfortunately, there are simply a lot of people who are fascinated with strange things. And I have to admit that a serious discussion about ancient civilizations who constructed massive monuments on other planets is certainly far more captivating than talking about soil and wind erosion on Mars.

But perhaps the mythology of the Mars Face vividly illustrates the urgent need for us as a society to focus more resources on science in our education system. The Face on Mars is not the only urban tale that has enthralled the public and it won’t be last. Perhaps real science may not be as tantalizing as the bizarre things that some people find more appealing but at the very least, the scientific community must be willing to combat these kinds of falsehoods so that everyone can have a better understanding of the physical universe that they live in.

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