"No one ever thought that the Old Man in the Mountain was something carved by people or aliens or anything else. Grant likes to compare it to the Old Man in the Mountain in New Hampshire (which fell down in 2003). This process forms a relief that then creates the shadow, making it look like a face at certain times. Different parts of the planet's surface are more resistant to erosion than others and don’t erode as quickly, leaving some areas higher and others lower. High resolution photos taken in 19 have confirmed that the "Face on Mars" is a trick of the eye, seen when light hits the mesa at a certain angle. When scientists first viewed the image, they were confident it was an eroded rock formation, probably a mesa. "In fact, there was a little bit of a misconception about what kind of life scientists were trying to discover on Mars, which was relatively simple life versus complicated life forms that were carving big faces in rocks," Grant explains. The trouble, says Smithsonian geologist John Grant of the Center for Earth and Planetary Studies, is that people assumed it was a sign of advanced alien life. Once the public saw the "Face on Mars," as it came to be called, people became interested in the neighboring planet and possible life there. I had indeed discovered some kind of artificially constructed Martian 'complex.'" The image inspired tabloid headlines like "Monkey Face on Mars" and books like Richard Hoagland's The Monuments of Mars, in which Hoagland claimed, based on the photos, to have seen "an entire city laid out - on Mars! - with the precision of a Master Architect. The photo was captured by Viking 1, the first spacecraft to successfully travel to and land on Mars. Thirty-three years ago this week, in one of the first images sent back from Mars, people thought they detected the likeness of a human face rising from the dust of the red planet.
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