In the early 1900s, many very smart people were convinced there was life on Mars. Not just some bacteria or algae — actual intelligent creatures that built civilizations on the face of the Red Planet. For a time, Mars and Martians became all the rage in science, culture, fashion, and literature. The most fascinating part of this mania is that it’s not as crazy as it sounds.
There were dozens of respected scientists scanning the heavens, making notes, and focusing their telescopes. They trained their view on Mars and the scrapes across its face. Percival Lowell, of the Boston Lowells, was a diplomat, mathematician, and Harvard-trained astronomer. He founded the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, prized for its dry, clear air and low light pollution. Inspired by the writings of Camille Flammarion and the drawings of Giovanni Schiaparelli, Lowell sought to make his own stunning discoveries.
As better instruments allowed for clearing views of Mars, Lowell became more and more convinced that the shadowed lines on the surface were not only canals, but constructed on purpose by an advanced intelligence. Other scientists began to suggest these canals distributed melt water from the polar icecaps and irrigated orchards and crop fields. Philosophers posited a Utopian society lived on Mars. Nicola Tesla himself picked up radio signals from the universe and claimed they were Martian in origin.
Flammarion needed no convincing that Mars might well be inhabited, but even he approached the new theory, and new map, with caution. The planet had a history of planing tricks on astronomers, including Cassini, the famous Italian whose name sat affixed to the street outside. In 1666, Cassini had carefully observed Mars and noted distinct shapes on its surface, then measured how long these features took to rotate out of view and back around into position. This enabled him to calculate the length of the Martian day: twenty-four hours and forty minutes, an estimate that proved remarkably accurate. Remarkably inaccurate, however, were Cassini’s sketches. ~Pg. 71
We know now there are no canals, and certainly no little creatures building them, but there was a time in the early 1900s when America was convinced that it was more than possible. And even as science began to show that these “canals” were something else, the seed was planted in the world’s imagination. The possibility inspired The War of the Worlds, the stories of Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Martian Chronicles, even the cheeky cartoon Marvin the Martian. The genre of science fiction has never stopped traveling to Mars.
This book is a riveting overview of a time when very smart people were spectacularly — and delightfully — very, very wrong.
My thanks to Liveright/W.W. Norton for the review copy. I also reviewed David Baron’s previous book, American Eclipse.
Publisher: Liveright
Publication date: August 26, 2025
Print length: 336 pages (English)
ISBN-10: 1324090669