Cydonia is a region on the planet Mars, and has attracted both scientific and popular interest.
One of the features in the Cydonia region, the “Face on Mars” (about 1.5 kilometers (one mile) across), has had special notoriety in Western culture since it was imaged in 1976, because it looks like a face.
One of the images taken by Viking 1 on July 25, 1976, a 2 km (1.2 miles) long Cydonian mesa, situated at 40.75° north latitude and 9.46° west longitude, had the appearance of a humanoid “face”.
When the image was originally acquired, Viking chief scientist Gerry Soffen dismissed the “face” in image 35A72 as a “trick of light and shadow”.
However, a second image, 70A13, also shows the “Face”, and was acquired 35 Viking orbits later at a different sun-angle from the 35A72 image. (see more mars anomalies)
