text: Skeptics were far from convinced by the 1998 photos, many of them claimed that NASA had chosen to take the picture during a cloudy period of Mars' year to cover up an ancient alien artifact, or possible markings. Skeptics did not realise that NASA would benifit monumentaly from the discovery of an ancient alien monument on the surface of mars. In 2001 the Mars Global Surveyor again was close enough to catch a pitcure of the Face on Mars, the picture spanned a total of 1.56 meters compared to the Viking's 43 meters per pixel photo, The Surveyors photo revealed simply a landform similar to that of a mesa of butte.