text: Although , few scientists believed the face was an alien artifact photographing . So they photographed the face as soon as they could get a good shot at it . On April 8, 2001 a cloudless summer day in cydonia Mars Global Surveyor drew close enough for a second look . When they had did they a pixel in the 2001 image spams 1.56 meters , they image was not a face anymore it was really Martain equivalent of a butte or masa . It reminds me of the Middle Butte in the Snake River Plain of Idaho," says Garvin. "