# That Famous "Face on Mars"
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-famous-face-on-mars/418713
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [September 10, 2007, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-famous-face-on-mars/418713 "2007-09-10T22:26:12Z")
**Posts on this page:** 17
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Ferd\_Burfel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferd_Burfel)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2007, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-famous-face-on-mars/418713/21 "2007-09-11T15:21:50Z")
[QUOTE=chowder]
Just a minute, didn’t Gary Sinise & Co find the face in the film _Mission to Mars"_
[/QUOTE]
C’mon. That was \*just \*a movie. Everyone knows we can’t really [go to Mars](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077294/) .
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### Author:  [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2007, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-famous-face-on-mars/418713/22 "2007-09-11T15:51:51Z")
> [@](#):
>
> …was NASA and/or space enthusists simply stupid to assume the “face on Mars” was some kind of unnatural, alien formation?
Nasa never assumed that. They said, “Hey, this looks a bit like a face, but of course it’s just a trick of the light”.
The uncanny thing is the way that there just happened to be a “bad pixel” at exactly the right place to [make a perfect nostril](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Martian_face_viking_cropped.jpg). OK, there were lots of these bad pixels, hence the overall speckly appearance, but it’s still a neat coincidence. Without that nostril, it would still look a bit like a face, but wouldn’t have been nearly as eye-catching.
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### Author:  [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2007, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-famous-face-on-mars/418713/23 "2007-09-11T16:00:43Z")
Everybody knows that those little bastard robots NASA sent to Mars have secretly been working on destroying the face and the pyramids.
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### Author:  [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2007, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-famous-face-on-mars/418713/24 "2007-09-11T16:12:24Z")
[QUOTE=Omphaloskeptic]
Maybe he’s talking about [this](http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070528.html) (Astronomy Picture of the day, titled “A-Hole in Mars”… well, almost). Although I guess that’s not far from Valles Marineris either.
[/QUOTE]
Now _that_ would make a great landing site, assuming it actually is a cave entrance (aka “Martian Foyer”) of some sort.
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### Author:  [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2007, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-famous-face-on-mars/418713/25 "2007-09-11T17:25:07Z")
[QUOTE=garygnu]
Now _that_ would make a great landing site, assuming it actually is a cave entrance (aka “Martian Foyer”) of some sort.
[/QUOTE]
I had to look at the URL to see if that was actually a NASA page. It looks like somebody used Paint to draw a crude black circle on the photo.
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2007, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-famous-face-on-mars/418713/26 "2007-09-11T17:32:04Z")
_The X-Files_ even included the Face on Mars in an episode, which is when you know a conspiracy theory has really _arrived_.
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### Author:  [@Omphaloskeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omphaloskeptic)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2007, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-famous-face-on-mars/418713/27 "2007-09-11T18:18:15Z")
[QUOTE=control-z]
I had to look at the URL to see if that was actually a NASA page. It looks like somebody used Paint to draw a crude black circle on the photo.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, it doesn’t look real, does it? Here’s an [update](http://uanews.org/node/15715) (another, more recent, view from MRO).
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### Author:  [@The\_Chao\_Goes\_Mu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Chao_Goes_Mu)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2007, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-famous-face-on-mars/418713/28 "2007-09-11T18:25:21Z")
[QUOTE=GuanoLad]
There are more convincingly freaky ‘faces’ [found on Earth](http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=50%C2%B0+0%2738.20%22N+110%C2%B0+6%2748.32%22W&ie=UTF8&z=17&ll=50.010538,-110.113585&spn=0.004895,0.009978&t=h&om=1) than the one that was seen on Mars.
[/QUOTE]
Hmmm, structures like that have led to speculation that there is intelligent life on Earth. I’m still skeptical, however, until I receive some solid evidence of such claims.
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### Author:  [@scotandrsn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scotandrsn)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2007, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-famous-face-on-mars/418713/29 "2007-09-11T18:26:53Z")
I don’t have time to look for an online image, but an astronomy textbook or some such taht I used to have showed side by side the 1970s picture of the face with a picture taken by one of the 1990s orbiters. The face, and the other shapes around it, had been almost completely leveled by sandstorms in the intervening 15-20 years.
So if the face is evidence of civilization, it’s a civilization that doesn’t do a very good job on maintenance.
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### Author:  [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2007, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-famous-face-on-mars/418713/30 "2007-09-11T18:44:45Z")
[QUOTE=scotandrsn]
I don’t have time to look for an online image, but an astronomy textbook or some such taht I used to have showed side by side the 1970s picture of the face with a picture taken by one of the 1990s orbiters. The face, and the other shapes around it, had been almost completely leveled by sandstorms in the intervening 15-20 years.
[/QUOTE]
I don’t think there’s any evidence that they have been “levelled by sandstorms” at all. The “face” feature is an ancient eroded mesa; it’s hardly going to get sanded flat in a couple of decades. It’s just a question of higher-resolution images and different lighting angles, which remove the illusion that the 1976 image presented.
[Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_on_Mars#The_Face_on_Mars) has a few images.
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### Author:  [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2007, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-famous-face-on-mars/418713/31 "2007-09-11T19:16:20Z")
NASA is hiding the truth that they did, indeed, send Jim Henson to Mars in 1976, where he created this image of [Kermit the Frog](http://www.tampabayskeptics.org/Mars_Kermit.gif).
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### Author:  [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2007, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-famous-face-on-mars/418713/32 "2007-09-11T20:15:51Z")
[QUOTE=GuanoLad]
There are more convincingly freaky ‘faces’ [found on Earth](http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=50%C2%B0+0%2738.20%22N+110%C2%B0+6%2748.32%22W&ie=UTF8&z=17&ll=50.010538,-110.113585&spn=0.004895,0.009978&t=h&om=1) than the one that was seen on Mars.
[/QUOTE]
So the martians have already visited Earth and made a face here. I bet they made a face on each planet marking their territory.
From that picture it is also clear that martians are really ancient humans. They were obviously mayans.
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### Author:  [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2007, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-famous-face-on-mars/418713/33 "2007-09-11T20:45:03Z")
I want to point out that profiles of faces (like on [Half Dome](http://www.yosemitepictures.com/HalfDomeFrColumPt040100.jpg)) are much more easily seen in nature than front-views of faces. Front-views are particularly striking when you do find one ([one](http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f295/bedgyro/rock-face.jpg) [two](http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f295/bedgyro/StoneFace1.jpg)) which is part of the reason why the face on Mars is so memorable and famous.
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### Author:  [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patty_O_Furniture)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2007, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-famous-face-on-mars/418713/34 "2007-09-12T01:51:29Z")
I don’t see anything on half dome. Better go get my face detector checked.
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### Author:  [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2007, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-famous-face-on-mars/418713/35 "2007-09-12T14:54:33Z")
[QUOTE=Ferd Burfel]
C’mon. That was \*just \*a movie. Everyone knows we can’t really [go to Mars](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077294/) .
[/QUOTE]
Well let me tell you something, _they_ want you to think it is just a film, I know different
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2007, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-famous-face-on-mars/418713/36 "2007-09-12T17:46:04Z")
What bugs me is, everyone always forgets about the [other face on Mars](http://www.msss.com/education/happy_face/smile.gif).
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### Author:  [@Tenebras](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tenebras)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2007, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-famous-face-on-mars/418713/37 "2007-09-12T18:39:17Z")
Which just goes to show that albino banjo playin’ kids not only travel, but aren’t above a bit of graffiti once they get there.
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