text: This formation was so astonishing that it was featured in a Hollywood film, Magazines, Books, radio talk shows and even haunted grocery store checkout lines. People thought that this kind of evidence should be hidden. A few scientists believed that the face was an alien artifact, but phototgraphing Cydonia became a priority for NASA when MGS arrived at the Red Planet in September 1997, they photographed the face as soon as they could get a good shot at it. MGS is a mapping spacecraft that normally looks straight down and scans the planet like a fax machine. Eighteen years later they decided to end the mission, they felt that it was important to taxpayers.