People from the NASA think that aliens built the face on Mars, but actually it is a natural landform. Scientists figured it was just another Martian mesa, common enough around Cydonia, only this one had unusual shadows that made it llook like an Egyptian Pharaoh.

A few days later NASA unveiled tthe image for all to see. The caption noted a "huge rock formation... which resembles a human head... formed by shadows giving the illusion of eyes, nose, and mouth.

" The authors reasoned it would be a good way to engage the public and attract attention to Mars. The "Face on Mars" has since become a pop icon. It has starred in a Hollywood film, appeared in books, magazines, radio talk shows, even haunted grocery store chechout lines for 25 years! But not everyone was satisfied.

The Face on Mars is located as 41 degrees north martian latitude where it was winter in April '98, a cloudy time of year on the Red Planet. Mission controllers prepared to look again. "It's not easy to target Cydonia," says Garvin. "In fac, it's hard work.

" Mars Global Surveyor is mapping spacecraft that normally looks straight down and scans the planet like a fax machine in narrow 2.5 km-wide strips. "We just don't pass over the Face very often," he noted.

What the picture actually shows in the Martian equivalent of a butte or mesa-landforms common aroud the America West. "It reminds me most of Middle Butte in the Snake River PLain of Idaho," says Garvin.

"That's a lava dome that takes the form of an isolated mesa about the same heigh as the Face on Mars."