The ‘face’ on Mars, a popular landform in Cydonia Region on Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona.

Intrigued by the thought of alien artifacts on Mars, with structures like a Martian-built statue of a giant face surrounded by pyramids or even cities? Better check the math on that. Better yet, Stuart Robbins has already checked that math and BOOM! it doesn't check out.

So called "Mars anomalists" like Richard Hoagland have already been debunked mightily by folks like Phil Plait, but Robbins—who hosts the "Exposing Pseudo Astronomy" podcast—takes it to a whole new level. He's just put out a video version of his podcast about claims about the Cydonia region on Mars, some of the math behind it, an exploration of the "null hypothesis" (what the results would be if it were purely random), and draws conclusions based on the latest orbital imagery of Mars.

Hoagland and others claim some of the features in Cydonia display special geometry and numbers that are encoded within them. And, the only way those numbers and that geometry could be there is if it was created by some sort of intelligence, i.e aliens. Robbins provides detailed explanations of the mathematical simulations and the arguments against these claims.

"What the Mars anomalists do is a really good example of cherry picking/the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy," Robbins told Universe Today. He concludes the video by basically saying, "Hey! Space exploration is still awesome and cool, and you really don't NEED the pseudoscience to make it amazing and rewarding."