In 1996 NASA launched the long awaited Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft with Dr. Malin once again at the camera's helm. We were told that the MGS would thoroughly map the whole planet, including Cydonia, with the most detailed images ever taken of the Martian surface. The Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) began imaging the Red Planet in September of 1997. On April 5, 1998 the Mars Orbital Camera (MOC) aboard the Surveyor was slated to reimage the "Face" and put an end to the controversy. On April 6, 1998 Dr. Malin immediately released a distorted, low contrast image of the face to the international media (figure 1) and proclaimed that the "face was just a pile of rocks". This raw image of the "Face" was distorted and so stretched out that it was immediately said to look more like a "sandal print or a stuffed chili pepper" than a face, by the New York Times.

    A substantial amount of concerned researchers thought the original Viking picture of the "Face" was of better quality. The new image was so strange that some advocates even speculated that Dr. Malin took a picture of the wrong mesa! The new image of the "Face" was soon titled the "Cat Box" by many critics. It quickly became clear that something was very wrong with this new image of the "Face". When the quality of the "Cat Box" image is compared to the archives of the many fine MOC images of the Martian geography, which had been imaged just a few months earlier, charges of another NASA cover up soon followed.
The MOC is equipped with a dynamic range of 2048 x 4800 pixels per image, which is exceptional. With the capabilities of this new, high resolution, camera we should have received a spectacular portrait of the "Face". Earlier in the year NASA took a multitude of clear, high resolution photographs of distinct regions of Mars, however, when it came to the "Face" the quality was comparatively poor. So what happened? It seems that the powers that be at NASA decided to extend the downtrack capabilities of the camera, at the expense of the crosstrack and image resolution, in order to ensure capturing the "Face" mesa. Thus the resolution was reduced to from 4.3 meters per pixel to 2.1. However according to other experts the problem in capturing the "Face" mesa was not in the downtrack capabilities but in the crosstrack, evidenced by the fact the mesa was in the center of the downtrack range. On top of it all, according to JPL's own image log, before the MGS image was released to the public it was processed through a"high-pass filter". This process basically suppresses detail and is normally utilized with line drawings and high contrast black and white pictures. The decision to use such a filter has never been successfully offered by NASA or JPL however, it's results are evident. The new image was found to have only 42 shades of gray while a normal MOC image was capable of 256. So where were the high resolution images of the "Face" we were promised?

    How could any NASA scientist make a fair and accurate decision about the nature of the new MGS "Face" within just six hours after viewing the raw image? This would be like taking a dark distorted picture of Mount Rushmore and stating to the world that there are no faces carved into the sides of this desolate cliff, it's only "shadows and rock". This rush to judgment and 'shoot from the hip' analysis is disturbing and at most poor science. Where is the careful and proper analysis of this fresh data? The distortions of the raw "Cat Box" image can be confirmed by simply examining the elongated oval shape of the crater, just below and to the lower left of the "Face" mesa. In the original 1976 Viking image of the "Face" it is clear that this crater is perfectly round (figure 2)!