alt Hacker NewsThe “face on mars” is an image compression artefact that disappeared as soon as they had high resolution imaging of the area. Seeing it as a face is highly dependent on sympathetic lighting and the right time of day, like lots of similar features on earth eg the “Old Man” of Hoy which I have seen first-hand and you really have to want to see it as a man’s face to do so https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cydonia_(Mars)
I've heard this before and the pareidolia argument. The fact remains that in certain other pictures you still can see the face. There are some other unusual formations near it as well. The only example that comes close is the Badlands Indian in North America.
I've always found it an extremely weird formation. I suppose it has been explained by frost shattering and ancient floods. If an ancient race were to leave sculpture behind, millions of years would obliterate most of it. Some people have said that probes should be sent to Cydonia. I hope they send some kind of flying probes round there, since the geology alone makes it of interest, and landers/orbiters may not get it.
As for the Old Man of Hoy, that is something different. Old Man (or Bodach in Gaelic speaking areas) was used for a lot of natural pillars and stacks, standing stones and phallic formations. Occasionally for mountains. Old Man/Bodach is/was a euphemism for the Devil who was said to have created many of these things, and that goes way back before the Old Man of Hoy.
In Gaelic, it takes on a phallic quality: "Bod" means "penis" and "bodach" means "old man". Orkney was never Gaelic speaking as such, but in Gaelic the euphemism is more obvious. This usage carried over there and the Old Man of Hoy probably gets that name because it is tall and thin. Maybe the Picts had such notions too.