Facing The Face Controversy

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

April 6, 1998 / 7:43 PM EDT / CBS

New images were released today from a NASA spacecraft orbiting Mars. They were selected to help resolve a debate over the so-called "Face on Mars."

This is a feature on Mars photographed more than 20 years ago. It has become part of folklore because this feature on the face of the red planet...in the 20-year-old photograph...seems to bear a likeness to a human face.

New images of that very site on Mars were recorded over the weekend by the great Mars Global Surveyor--America's latest explorer of Mars orbiting up there and out there.

The so-called face is in a region of Mars called Cydonia. Mainstream scientists say the face business is interesting but it isn't really a likeness of a human face on Mars.

The image, they say, is in reality a trick of light and shadow on natural features. They have been saying that for a long while. And now they say these latest photographs tend to support them.

However, the first raw images from the very latest photographs may not actually be of the very spot where the "face" photographs were originally taken.

This still gives supporters of the "face" as being evidence that some life exists or existed on Mars, that the "face" was deliberate, a piece of art so to speak and so forth -- a little wiggle room.

Certainly enough to continue arguing.

Supporters of the "face" theory have suggested that the Mars Observer mission 20 years ago -- the one that produced the controversial photograph -- was deliberately disabled by NASA, to avoid photographing any more "artificial structures" on Mars.

NASA repeatedly has dismissed such accusations as, in effect, garbage. And there are no hard facts or credible testimony to support it.

So where does this leave us? Well, for one thing, with yet another conspiracy theory. For another, new evidence -- in these latest photographs -- that may help unravel the controversy for all who are open to reason.

But -- so far -- still nothing absolutely, positively conclusive.

So, each person must make up his or her own mind...for his or herself.

While doing so, one may want to consider that NASA has problems and makes mistakes -- don't we all -- but, the agency has never been in the habit of engaging in conspiracies or deliberately manipulating data -- not on any scale hinted at in this controversy anyway.

Mostly what all of this tells us is: exploration of space is fascinating. Is it ever.