text: The "Face on Mars" has since become a pop icon. It has starred in a Hollywood film, appeared in books, magazines, radio talk shows even haunted grocery store checkout lines for 25 years! Some people think the Face is bona fide evidence of life on Mars-evidence that NASA would rather hide, say conspiracy theorists. Meanwhile, defenders of the NASA budget wish there was an ancient civilization on Mars. And so on April 5,1998, when Mars Global Surveyor flew over Cydonia for the first time, Micheal Malin and his Mars Orbiter Camera team snapped a picture ten times sharper than the original Vikings photos. Thousands of anxious web surfers were waiting when the image first appeared on a JPL web site, revealing. . . a natural landform. There was no alien monument after all.