ABCNEWS.com : Face On Mars, Close-Up
HOME
NEWS SUMMARY
U.S.
WORLD
BUSINESS
TECHNOLOGY
SCIENCE
HEALTH&LIVING
TRAVEL
ESPN SPORTS
ENTERTAINMENT
WEATHER.com
REFERENCE
LOCAL
ABCNEWS SHOWS
** SCIENCE HEADLINES**
** Probes to Crash into Mars**
** Mars Polar Lander Launched**
** Babies Can Learn Language-Like Rules**
** Implications for Grand Canyon Plans**
** Thais Eye White Elephant**
** Mad or Rad**
SEARCH
ABC.com
THE CENTURY
EMAIL
ABCNEWS.com
SEND PAGE TO
A FRIEND
TOOLS AND
HELPERS
Face On Mars, Close-Up
** Is the Hill a Face or Just a Hill?**
** So much for the face of Mars. A land formation photographed by the Viking orbiter two decades ago looked eerily like a human face. A closeup now reveals it was just another geological feature.** (JPL/NASA)
ABCNEWS.com
April 6 — On Sunday, Mars Global Surveyor snapped photographs of the infamous "Face on Mars" formation. Well, shadows and a distant view can make things seem other than what they are.
What was perceived to be a Sphinx-like face, one mile long, rising out of the Martian landscape is nothing more than one more geological formation.
Alas, there go the possibilities. The first one—the most intriguing—hinted at the possibility of intelligent beings out there.
The reality, as it turned out, was less momentous: the photos confirm the face is a mere trick of light and shadow falling on an unexceptional Martian hill.
** No Aliens—This Time**
In two grainy pictures that the Viking orbiter took of the Cydonia region, there is a remarkable feature that looks like a human face. Some examining the Cydonia images also believe they spot pyramids and geometrically placed mounds—alien ruins, in other words.
A few charge NASA is covering up proof of Martian cities and has been doctoring Mars photographs ever since.
** See? No Tricks**
NASA released the raw data for the new photographs as soon as it received it, which showed an image dark as a blackboard. The better image, above, offers much greater detail.
“What I want to make sure is that we tell everybody every step of the process and everybody knows what we’re doing,” says project manager Glenn Cunningham. “I want to be as open as we can about what’s going on.”
The pictures provided about 10 times the resolution of Viking.
Project scientist Arden Albee sounds almost weary talking about the face. “In my judgment and experience,” he says, “they are natural features.”
Most Mars scientists, he says, “just simply have not felt that that was an appropriate activity to devote their energies.” 
Facing the Face Scientifically
One of the people who will be checking NASA’s Web sites Monday is Mark Carlotto, a research scientist at Pacific Sierra Research Corp.
Carlotto is also a member of the Society for Planetary SETI Research. He doesn’t believe in a NASA cover-up, but like other researchers in the society, he believes scientific analysis of the Viking photographs offer persuasive hints that the Cydonia formations, including the face, were built and not naturally formed.
He points to the realistic proportions of the face. “It’s not a caricature of a face, not a smiley face or Kermit the Frog,” he says. There might be teeth in the mouth and a pupil within the eye.
The company where he works develops military software to spot tanks and other artificial structures amid the surrounding terrain. When Carlotto ran the same software on the thousands of square miles of Cydonia landscape, the face turned out to be the most artificial-looking feature there.
Carlotto admits it’s all circumstantial evidence, but he likens it to the case that some NASA scientists have built for microscopic fossils within a Martian meteorite found in the Antarctic. “It’s weak evidence,” Carlotto says, “but it’s all converging the same way.”
Still, he says he’s keeping an open mind about what Global Surveyor will reveal. “It potentially could be the most unbelievable discovery—or not,” he says. “But we want to know.”
** Surveyor Pictures**
Mars Home Page
** SURVEYOR’S PHOTO APPOINTMENTS**
Target
Date
Time (PST)
** Posted on Internet**
** Viking 1 Landing Site**
April 3
1:58 a.m.
April 6
April 12
8:23 a.m.
April 14
April 21
1:45 p.m.
April 23
Target
Date
Time (PST)
** Posted on Internet**
** Viking 2 Landing Site**
April 3
1:37 p.m.
April 7
April 13
8:01 p.m.
April 15
April 22
1:23 a.m.
April 24
Target
Date
Time (PST)
** Posted on Internet**
Pathfinder Landing Site
April 4
1:16 a.m.
April 7
April 13
7:40 a.m.
April 15
April 22
1:02 p.m.
April 24
Target
Date
Time (PST)
** Posted on Internet**
Cydonia (Face on Mars)
April 5
12:23 a.m.
April 6 (mid-a.m.)
April 14
6:57 a.m.
April 14 (mid-p.m.)
April 23
12:18 p.m.
April 24 (mid-a.m.)
** Copyright ©1999 ABC News and Starwave Corporation. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in any form. Please click here for legal restrictions and terms of use applicable to this site. Use of this site signifies your agreement to the terms of use.**
