On July 25, 1976, the Viking 1 orbiter beamed back an image of the Martian region of Cydonia showing a massive two-kilometer humanoid face staring up into space. The geometry was uncanny, complete with a brow, nose, mouth, and headdress, and it ignited a decades-long firestorm of speculation.

This deep dive examines the collision between cold space-exploration data and the deeply human desire to find life out there. We trace how a single grainy photo became a cultural phenomenon, how NASA engineers and a famous conspiracy theorist amplified it, and how modern high-resolution imaging finally killed the myth. Along the way we explore pareidolia, the brain's hardwired drive to see faces, and one astonishing cultural ripple the image left behind.

• The original image was only about 50 meters per pixel, so each pixel covered land half t ...