Faces on Mars in the early days of space exploration a NASA probe called Viking 1 was orbiting mars to take photos to help mission control decide on a landing spot for Viking 2.
When the images came back the world was stunned.
To see what looked like a giant face that was almost two miles long as protruded from the ground in a region called Sedonia. This obviously fueled speculation that it was an ancient monument built by inhabitants of the red planet. Because how could something like this occur naturally? Those working at NASA already suspected the truth was far less exciting that this was just a martian mesa of which there are many and that shadows just so happen to make it look like a human face.
They also felt that releasing the images would ignite public interest in Mars which they did and the face soon became a pop icon in its own right featuring in countless books magazines and tv shows.
Despite knowing it was just a coincidence the mesa was a top priority site for imaging when the Mars global surveyor reached the planet in 1998 and again in 2001.
To everyone's dismay these new higher resolution images simply showed a large landform and all signs of human features were now to be seen.
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