text: At first there were no clear pictures of the face and no certain explanations. The Viking 1 found it in 1976 and back then the quality was not so great. Scientists thought "it was just another Martian mesa" but they also noted one unusual shadow, so they were not that clear on the reason. In 1998 NASA took another picture in better resolution but it was cloudy and some people were not convinced that it was a mesa. In 2001 NASA was finally able to capture a clear picture of the formation, putting down any kind of conspiracy theories.