Update (April 21, 2007): Welcome people from dpreview! I see lots of folks coming in from there, and I hope you like the entry!
You know, I could almost feel sorry for Richard Hoagland. Here’s a guy who has built an entire career in pseudoscience, and it all relies on a single thing: the idea that an eroded mesa on Mars is actually a giant sculpture of a face, built by aliens, or humans from the future, or apes-who-evolved-from-men, or what have you.
I could go into great detail here, but why bother? I already dissected and destroyed this silly claim on my main site.
But still, the desire to dogpile on these goofball ideas is hard to deny. After all, Hoagland is on late night radio all the frakkin’ time promoting his goofiness, and he’s dissed me on several occasions. But how, oh how can I resist the urge to pile it on when image after image comes in from Mars declaring that the Face is just a rock?
The latest is from HiRISE, a camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which takes incredibly high-resolution images of the red planet. When HiRISE went online, I wondered if they’d target Cydonia (the region where the "Face" sits), because of the face, but also because it’s an interesting region.
They did, and the results are in:
It’s not a face! Unless you’re Doctor Zaius.
Duh. Every image taken of the face shows it to be … a rock. The latest 3D tour from the ESA last year was yet another nail in that particular coffin (see #7 in my Top Ten Astronomy images of 2006).
If you want to see a tad more detail, HiRISE took a fantastically hires version of this image — 22,000 x 21,000 pixels. Warning: and no kidding, I am warning you– this is a whoppingly huge image. It’s 300+ megabytes, and you need special software to even look at it because it’s so huge. But wowee wow wow! That’s cool.
Man, I love being right. But when it comes to stuff like this, I’m used to it. I guess the only question left is, how will Hoagland distort reality to fit his preconceived claims about the face? I may have to listen in to Coast to Coast AM to hear what he has to say. That should be amusing. 
Tip o’ the tin foil beanie to Doug Ellison from unmannedspaceflight.com!
April 12th, 2007 at 1:55 pm
He’s going to say that NASA is faking data as part of a coverup, of course. Have you seen the rock with your own eyes?
April 12th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
You are ignoring one fact that you simply cannot deny:
On the planet mars, there is a rock outcropping, which, when viewed under certain lighting conditions, looks kinda sorta a little like a face. Not really a human face or anything, but one side definitely has a depression… or possibly a hill or some other black thingy in the general vicinity an eye would be and it also has a thingy of close to the same size on the other side. And also, there is something which could qualify as a mouth, I mean if you assume it continues into the shaddow area where you can’t see it.
Now some will point out this: The proportions of the features are not consistent with a human face and the “eyes” and nose aren’t even strigt like you’d expect them to be. That is simply more proof that the face is alien, since aliens would have faces unlike anything we’d have, but also with two eyes and a mouth and stuff, because otherwise we’d have a lot of trouble trying to visualize them staring us down or something else scary like that.
Now, I’m just going to ask you one simple question, and don’t try to dodge it:
Does this rock outcropping, when viewed at a certain angle and under the correct lighting conditions look a bit like a simplistic figure of a face?
Yes or no! Yes or no! Fess up. The proof is in the pudding.
BTW: Having viewed many images of mars, this is certainly not the only anamoly which was clearly created by intelegent beings. I found an outcropping of craters which looks like mickeymouse with one ear a bit small and also a depression that looks kinda like a sock with a thing that looked like a football and a thing that looked like a rabit’s head with an elongated nose only a few KM away!
April 12th, 2007 at 2:33 pm
Wow! I never noticed before but it does look like Doctor Zaius! Maybe Mars is the real Planet of the Apes…
I’m surprised that Hoagland or some other nut hasn’t jumped on Galle crater, which looks like a happy face, even in high resolution.
April 12th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Obviously those sneaky little green aliens changed the face. The real face is behind that fake rock designed to fool any scientific instrument. Here’s the proof: If you’ve been selected as a chose one, you can close your eyes and see the face. According to my psychic, this is not to be tried by week minds. Having crystals and planet alignment make it easier to see. I must go center my inner space with positive vibes now…
April 12th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
Holy smokes! It DOES look like Dr. Zaius!
Surely a message from the aliens that the Planet of the Apes totally rock.
April 12th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
Under certain lighting conditions the Moon looks a bit like a (worry wart) face, does that mean intelligent beings created the Moon? Come on Dr. Buzz give up the ghost, the Mars face is obviously the result of natural weathering processes on Mars. Humans are predisposed to see faces it has great survival advantages especially for social animals like humans.
April 12th, 2007 at 2:52 pm
Since that picture isn’t substantially different than one he’s been using on his website for many years, I don’t think it’ll make any difference to him.
http://www.enterprisemission.com/catbox.htm
April 12th, 2007 at 3:02 pm
I saw a comment once on one of the ‘anomalies’ boards that summed it up pretty well…one of the conspiracy folks there was wondering why, every time a high-resolution picture of the area was taken, the face looked less face-like.
Apparently “because it doesn’t really look much like a face” never occurred to them.
April 12th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
Actually, I see quite a nice picture of the Virgin Mary when I turn the pic upside-down. (seriously!)
April 12th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
OMG! It’s the Blessed Virgin Mary!!!!!!
Can we sell Mars on Ebay?
April 12th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
I bet if you looked closely at the full 300Mb Jpeg2000 image you’d find all kinds of stuff that looked like stuff. That might be a fun contest. A “find the coolest thing in this picture!”
Of course then that’d fuel the woo woo heads. “Bloggers find ’57 chevy and gigantic shoe on Mars!”
April 12th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
My understanding is that open-source web browsers don’t support jpeg 2000 because of patent issues, and the Microsoft one doesn’t support the standard because the open-source ones don’t support it.
The need for special software to view the large image is probably only indirectly related to its size — the large size may have prompted the creator of the file to choose a format with better compression.
April 12th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
There’s a psychological effect that enables people to connect closely spaced dots and see a “line” even though there is no line, to see resemblances in objects that are not real, to see faces in trees and puppy dogs in clouds.
I think it would be a hoot to try the following (all documented to really make it fun)
I bet if you took a hi res picture of a horses rear in the desert and then a low res one later but showed the low res one to one of these wackos and told them it was a picture from Mars they might see a face or something. You could then show them the hi res pic but they would deny it and claim conspiracy or something and stay believing in the low res pic.
April 12th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
oops, i just stained my desk with a bit of good ole guiness beer. wait a minute, what the… the blob on my desk, when i look at it at a certain angle with my eyes semi closed, looks just like a … constellation hydra kinda blob. wow! that must mean something, now i gotta stop writing and measure the thing to see what incredible mathematical data and geometric proportions i can get from this phenomenon. its bound to be a message from someone…
April 12th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
I don’t know. I think Phil has it all wrong on this face business. It’s fun to play the geological features that look like things game, and as far as geological features go, this looks an awful lot like a face. Even more so in the 3D, if you ignore the right half. And if you don’t, it looks a lot like the Phantom of the Opera..
It certainly looks a lot more like a face than the “man in the mountain” that New Hampshire appreciated enough to put images of everywhere.
I think we get so caught up in debunking the “it looks like a face, therefore Martians must have made it” that we forget that it really does look a lot like a face, and that the amazing diversity of geological features can give rise to interesting formations makes the field all the more exciting.
April 12th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
I know I know. I was just playing stupid before. Okay… so lets agree then, if you look at it, and are looking to see something, as humans tend to do….
Then yes… it does kinda sorta look a bit like a face… not that much… but more than some other things.
Mars is a big place. Not as big as earth, but there’s land since there isn’t any ocean. Think about it: In the whole damn earth, what do you think is the likelihood that a natural feature will look kinda-sorta like a face, based entirely on chance…
pretty damn good, because there was that damn thing in New Hampshire, there are mountains which look kinda like a face and others that look like other stuff. Many of them moreso than this alleged face.
Therefore I present to you a few examples:
Nude Man Carrot: (yes… fully equipped)
http://www.liamselwyn.com/nudecarrot/nudemancarrot.html
or
The Richard Nixon Eggplant:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rjl20/33705389/in/photostream/
also a terrifying muffin (which I found in my kitchen)
http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_78754574f03b86181.jpg
Obviously none of this is worth anything more than maybe a small giggle
April 12th, 2007 at 5:31 pm
well. i see a couple of buffalo there…
how’s that?
after hearing “face” everyone expect to see “zi face” (which can be seen when you have it out of focus, or in bad resolution just as in older nasa images). c’mon folks, use your imagination.
April 12th, 2007 at 5:39 pm
1) “he’s dissed me on several occasions.”
Is a gross understatement. He usually gets in at least one “pot shot” at you every time he is on C2C, which considering that he’s George Noorey’s (suppresses gag reflex) “science adviser” is quire often.
2) Hoagland will never give up on the “face”, because it’s his “cash cow”. As long as enough woo-woos keep sending him money, he will never have to get a “real job”. And, with George giving him all the air time he wants, that will be a long time!
Nancy Lieder is STILL pushing Planet X even though even the woo-woos on GLP laugh at her.
April 12th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
I am 100% certain that the upper troposphere is inhabited either by dragons or bunny rabbits, because that’s what I see most often in those so-called “clouds.” (which are really interstellar communication devices which use trans-warp pictographs….. )
Gotta go, medicine time.
April 12th, 2007 at 6:03 pm
Mike, I never said it doesn’t look like a face. In fact, I say it does look like a face. But it’s not a very good resemblance, and in fact it’s not really a face. That’s the whole point.
April 12th, 2007 at 6:08 pm
Alright, so Hoagland may be a nut, but he is inadvertently responsible for my being a skeptic. That and “In Search Of”. I will be darned if Leonard Nimoy’s hypnotic voice did not have me questioning pyramid building life on Mars. However, a couple of years ago I had the distinct pleasure of seeing Mr. Plait live at a campus lecture titled “Mars Attacks”. He definitively proved to me that the face is a natural formation and persuaded me to visit his webisite. This turned me into a blog-reading, Randi-following, skeptics guide-listening, skepchick-oogling pure blooded skeptic. Hoagland just may be responsible for a few skeptics too, and we can be just as loud as the “true-believers”.
April 12th, 2007 at 6:13 pm
Not only are you right (which is a beautiful thing in itself) I have to say the image has a kind of majestic beauty of it’s own. Once again, makes me wonder why we have to worship/credit mystical or greater beings with creating beautiful things when the wonders of the universe are just so magnificent on their own.
April 12th, 2007 at 7:38 pm
I agree with what Rosemary just said in the last post; couldn’t have said it better myself.
April 12th, 2007 at 8:09 pm
Sure, sure, but he’s totally right about Galileo causing a nuclear explosion on Jupiter! An explosion that threw out just enough material to send shock waves all the way to Mars that landed on the Face and marred it just enough and in just the right way to make it look like an ordinary mountain.
That’s just how devious those NASA bastards are.
April 12th, 2007 at 8:29 pm
Next I suppose there is no rabbit on the moon. Whatever.
April 12th, 2007 at 10:29 pm
I still think it’s vaguely pharaonic and esp at low-res … Didn’t someone claim there was a photo of a B-19 or B-23 on the moon?
April 12th, 2007 at 10:37 pm
It’s easy…NASA used Photoshop to distort the facial features.
April 12th, 2007 at 11:01 pm
Hoagland is on C2C now, claiming that the new hi-res images prove “incontrovertibly” that he is RIGHT!!! Yep! He says that it PROVES that the “face” is an artificial construct. As I said earlier, he will not give up his cash cow!
April 12th, 2007 at 11:13 pm
That was some classic stuff on C2C. Hoagland says we can see the girders. Martian girders apparently look nothing like Earth girders. I feel kind of bad for him, it looks even less like a face than it did before, and before it didn’t look much like one either. Hell even in the old low res pictures it didn’t. Now it looks so little like a face he’s snapped and thinks it looks exactly like one.
Or he wants to sell some more books.
And Markk, there’s no rabbit on the moon. Hoagland will tell you there is an android head and ancient domes on the moon. I don’t know what drugs he does, but they must be amazing.
April 12th, 2007 at 11:18 pm
JP2 images (well, reasonably-sized ones) work fine in Safari. And the 22000×21000 image itself loads into Preview if you have enough memory. (I was able to do it on a 1.42GHz G4 MacMini with 1GB RAM — took about 15 minutes. 5% scale filled the screen. Zooming to 25% took ten minutes. Scrolling takes about a minute. Zooming to 100% took another 10 minutes. Now scrolling takes three or four minutes. I need a bigger Mac!)
It’s an amazing image. Each zoom level brings in a whole new set of textures. Scrolling over the full-scale image gives the impression of endless variety, with hills, gullies, rocky plateaus, etc. etc. I’d love to take a virtual-reality stroll through the data, if I had the equipment!
April 12th, 2007 at 11:29 pm
If there are girders in that photo, Monument Valley is constructed from concrete.
April 13th, 2007 at 12:17 am
I always wondered what Hoagland would do when we finally got some good pictures of that site. I foolishly assumed that he’d go hide under a rock somewhere (that probably also looked like a face). I heard the C2C broadcast. I couldn’t believe it. I guess the best defense is a good offense.
BTW, one of my favorite weird rocks is Camel Rock in New Mexico. The day I saw it, it was covered with snow. That smoothed it out and made it look even more like a camel. Here’s one picture I found:
http://www.earthwisdom.com/newmexico/nm_camel.html
April 13th, 2007 at 1:05 am
If you squint it looks almost like the face on the Shroud of Turin. Allah be praised! Oh Christ, wrong religion. Oh bugger, I’m really going to Hell now
To drbuzz0 – the proof is in the EATING, not the pudding.
April 13th, 2007 at 4:01 am
Is it a “rock”? Isn’t it more like a hill or mesa? Looks like a good hiking spot.
April 13th, 2007 at 4:31 am
Here is a picture of the real face on Mars that NASA is covering up, courtesy of the HiRISE team blog: http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/HiBlog/?p=81
April 13th, 2007 at 5:14 am
Hoagland will tell you there is an android head and ancient domes on the moon
No, the android head is under San Francisco….duh! ;-P
April 13th, 2007 at 6:13 am
Dr. Zaius, Dr. Zaius — Dr. Zaius!
Dr. Zaius, Dr. Zaius — Dr. Zaius!
Dr. Zaius, Dr. Zaius — oh ooooh — Dr. Zaius!
April 13th, 2007 at 6:55 am
Tyler, do you have any data for your claim? Oh, wait. Nevermind.
DouglasG…hey, a fellow musical connoisseur!
April 13th, 2007 at 7:14 am
Ah, the heck with the Face. I just wanna know,,,who filled in all the canals?
Weren’t they supposed to be the work of MArtians? Barsoom where are you???
Gary 7
April 13th, 2007 at 7:15 am
For Mac users, I strongly recommend GraphicConverter – for all your imaging needs. Lemkesoft has done a great job setting it up to display (and convert) all manner of image formats.
Took me about 2 minutes to load the full image on my G4/500 with 1G RAM – scrolling around and resizing is a little sluggish, but not unacceptable. (I was worried at first, since the image opened in the upper left corner – which is black – outside the actual bounds of the image.
There’s not much doubt that the original low-rez shots looked like a face – in fact, it reminded me most of Stan Lee/Tony Stark’s creation…and products of the same basic source: Some guy’s imagination.
I’ve been a fan of martians/sirians/galactics/Mother Thing (insert favorite alien here) since I started reading SF when I was 5. However, I credit my physicist father with pounding a *little* sense into me: wishful thinking does not equal proof
April 13th, 2007 at 8:03 am
It looks a bit more like Beaker from the muppets to me. Which makes sense if you think about it….. I never did trust Dr. Bunsen Honeydew. (^o^)
April 13th, 2007 at 9:09 am
good news Phil! “Coming Soon” at http://www.enterprisemission.com Hoagland plans to explain, not only this wonderful image of a rock, but also the hexagon on Saturn. I really can’t wait to read this stuff. If a hexagon is proof of alien intelligence….man….i’d start keeping a very close eye on bees from now on….
April 13th, 2007 at 9:49 am
Actually, now that we have greater detail, it’s fairly obvious that we are looking at an image of a Greek-style bronze breastplate (albeit a little pudgy around the middle).
Proof of Zeus.
Or, if you lean your head to the right almost upside-down, it takes the shape of an Egyptian death mask.
Proof of… of… Tutankhamun. Wait, we already have proof of him… but it’s even MORE proof. Space aliens built the pyramids.
I rest my case. Until I can think of another case.
Wait! I just leaned my head again. If I squint, it almost looks like a woman leaning HER head, like that Venus-on-a-shell painting. I am racking up the proof like gangbusters, unbelievers.
April 13th, 2007 at 10:30 am
[...] “Defacing Mars“, no Bad Astronomy. Hoagland continua a defender a artificialidade da face de Marte. Mas as evidências estão aÃ… [...]
April 13th, 2007 at 10:46 am
Tyler, do you have any data for your claim? Oh, wait. Nevermind.
’twas a Trek refference…was hoping it wasn’t too obscure.
Ah, well. ;-P
(“Time’s Arrow”)
April 13th, 2007 at 11:08 am
I was working way too late last night, and on my short drive home I heard a few minutes of that quack on C2C. I heard him say something like, “If you start with the assumption that this was built by humans from the future, then everything I’m about to say makes perfect sense.” (I don’t remember what his exact words were.)
And everyone knows what happens when you “assume” something…
Zapp: “The great stone face of Mars. Hmm, the only known entrance to the marsian reservation.”
Leela: “What about the great stone ass of Mars?”
Zapp: “Well, yeah. But it’s way on the other side of the planet.”
I love that show.
April 13th, 2007 at 11:30 am
No one has said it does not resemble a face in the original Viking image. What we are saying is that the resemblance to a face is a coincidental combination of the geometry of the mesa combined with the overhead viewing angle and the specific lighting angle from the Sun. It is the combination of effects that creates the resemblance to a face, not any inherent faceness of the feature. Subsequent better quality images, such as this one, disprove any artificial faceness of the mesa. It is an interesting conincidence, nothing more.
April 13th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
a dropped pixel or two didn’t hurt, either. That is why only one side has any face-like features, the “eye” on the other side is a missing part of the image.
April 13th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
At the end of the day, the “Face” headcases will only be silenced when someone stands on Mars and takes us on a video-tour of the damned thing and shows us what exactlty it is…the Martian version of Ayres Rock. So roll on 2030! It’s the same with the Moon Hoax folks. They won’t be perminantly consigned to history until some astronaut in the -hopefully- not too distant future walks up to some Apollo hardware and kicks it live on TV. Maybe even bring a small piece of it back? Or would that be defacing a monument?
April 13th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
It’s not Dr. Zaius. It’s the Grinch!
Flip the photo 180 degrees. The lighter parts of the photo clearly show the Grinch in profile, his left eye closed, his lower lip jutting.
If it isn’t the Grinch, it must be the Virgin Mary, and with a mug like that, no wonder she was a virgin.
April 13th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
Tyler…I got (and appreciated) your reference. I should have capitalized the word “data” in my comment.
April 13th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
ABR
LOL, I should have picked up on that, my bad ;-P
April 13th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
The terrifying muffin must have been boo-berry.
April 13th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
Ancient aliens and such aside, the Face does look pretty interesting.
What caused the thick rim to the left side (as seen in the canonical pictures) and the thinner and slightly more distant rim on the right side?
What, geologically, is the thing?
April 13th, 2007 at 10:06 pm
I downloaded the BIG image and then downloaded Irfanview to look at it (I remember using Irfanview when I was in grad school!).
Wow.
As I zoomed in and out, I saw lots of image compression features. No doubt RCH had a field day with those. But it’s amazing to see this land formation in such incredible detail!
April 14th, 2007 at 1:31 am
[...] Bad Astronomy Blog » Defacing Mars Apparently the Face on Mars is the Virgin Mary – if you squint. Read the comments for details. Astronomers still claim it’s just a rock. (tags: astronomy pseudoscience antiscience mars) [...]
April 14th, 2007 at 11:02 am
Aww, come on – we all know Hoagland will just say that the image was photoshopped and released to hide the real details of the face and the city. It’s all part of the conspiracy (and as a sop to Nouri, the Illuminati will make an appearance). I do agree that Hoagland will bring out his Paint program and play with the compression features to “prove” his point.
April 14th, 2007 at 11:11 am
Are you all blind? That’s a perfect representation of a Martian’s face. Perfect I tells ya! It’s like a Da Vinci drawing. Are you all blind?
April 14th, 2007 at 9:46 pm
(begin “art history snob” mode)
Ahem. That’s Leonardo, not “Da Vinci.”
(end “art history snob” mode)
April 15th, 2007 at 10:22 am
Oh, sorry. I was just repeating what the Greys told me.
April 15th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
“There’s a psychological effect that enables people to connect closely spaced dots and see a “line†even though there is no line, ”
Classic example – Lowell’s “Canals” on Mars.
That Mars was crisscrossed with canals was virtually a given of any teaching involved with the red planet, until Mariner IV took the first close-up images and showed that the canals did not exist. Even that did not dissuade the believers; as a child, I can remember my brother telling me that “Mars is covered with mysterious canals which don’t show up in photographs!”
April 16th, 2007 at 7:44 am
TheBlackCat, yes, a dropped couple of pixels helped.
April 16th, 2007 at 10:07 am
Personally, I thinkif you rotate the figure 180 degrees, and look in the shadowed region, you see a spaceman, outfitted in a spacesuit. Perhaps he was the one sent to clean up the face? Quite large folks they are… For reference, the spaceman’s arms are close to the “nose”, you can see his rounded helmet, EVA backpack, legs, etc. Looks a bit short, but otherwise, looks quite clear to me!
April 18th, 2007 at 6:39 am
tuvas, you are right!
April 21st, 2007 at 7:42 pm
FOOLS! Just like the accursed Richards you are BLIND!
The structure is a monument to ME, Victor Von Doom! I traveled billions of years back in time, conquered the inhabitants of the Red Planet, and forced them to sculpt it for me!
THUS SPAKE DOOM!
February 5th, 2008 at 11:47 am
Missing Mars by only 6.5 Mars radi, asteroid 2007 WD5 passed within the orbit of Deimos.
Phobos and Deimos are in near-perfect “circular” orbits — so perfect that they have “eclipsed” many times under the watchful eyes of Spirit and Opportunity.
Methinks it would have been better for you Earthlings if WD5 had impacted Mars.
NASA stated that neither orbiting Martian satellites nor Martian rovers imaged WD5′s “near-miss” — so what did?
One Down and Eight to Go,
Metatron
P.S. Live Free or Die.