Posthuman Blues

Is The Face On Mars Horny?

Skip forward thirty years and we have new images, published in September 2006 by the European Space Agency (ESA). These images prove once and for all that the formation is just a lumpy hill, skeptics say, pointing to a steeple-like horn near the brow which doesn't look very humanoid at all. Case closed, right? Apparently it seems that the horn actually gives you a reason to be skeptical of the skeptic's proof. The horn doesn't appear in earlier images of the Face. Marc [sic] Tonnies at Posthuman Blues sums up the controversy by pointing out that those following the story "have seen the Face formation modeled repeatedly by computers in an attempt to assess its shape and peer at it from angles inaccessible from orbit. Interestingly, the ESA's 'horned face' is the first such computer-derived image to indicate a steep conical protrusion near the purported 'brow'; this invites the question of whether we're seeing actual surface topology, an error introduced by the ESA's software, or even a deliberate attempt to make the Face appear less face-like."