The idea that there exists some form of intelligent life on Mars goes back to the claim by Giovanni Schiaparelli (late 1870's) that there are canals on Mars. This was further popularized by Percival Lowell, who thought that the canals were built to transfer water from one Martian city to another. This idea was fictionalized and expanded to a full scale Martian invasion of the Earth in H.G. Wells 1898 novel The War of the Worlds. Although deeper scientific exploration reveals no evidence of intelligent, technologically advance Martian life, many conspiracy buffs and believers in the paranormal still hold that Mars is or once was inhabited by such beings.
Warner Brothers offers one view:
Most everyone has seen pictures of the so-called "Face on Mars."
As we have seen, there has been a good deal of exploration of Mars since the Viking missions of the mid-1970's. The Mars Global Surveyor imaged the Cydonia Mense region again on April 5, 1998. The image is at a much higher resolution than the Viking photo. Here it is:
However, there has been some recent discussion of Martian life in the scientific community again! Let's look at the data...