Thank you to Draper and its Hack the Moon initiative for supporting PBS Digital Studios.
The red planet has captured our attention throughout human history.
With its relative proximity to us and to the sun, early astronomers thought it was possible
for life to exist on Mars.
We’ve imagined martians as everything from humans with silver antennae, to skeletal invaders
with exposed brains.
From a helmeted cartoon to muscular, four-armed bipedal warriors.
Annddd whatever this thing this.
PBS even has its own Martians.
Some martians are depicted as monsters, while others are allies.
Why are they all so different?
Technology plays a role, and so does biology, natural history, and war.
But the whole martian craze began with just a single mistranslated word.
[Monstrum Intro]
The modern history of Mars began in 1877 when a crucial discovery was made: a network of
lines were visible on the surface.
The Italian astronomer who discovered these grooves named them “canali.”
“Channels” in English.
In 1895, astronomer Percival Lowell published the first illustrated book on Mars.
Lowell observed the same lines, and writing for an English-speaking audience, translated
the word canali to “canals” rather than “channels.”
And that’s when a fateful mistranslation changed Mars history forever.
He speculated how life could survive there if it did indeed exist.
But then, Lowell’s theories got a little out there: His book claimed that the surface
markings visible on Mars were deliberate as quote: “no natural theory has yet been advanced
which will explain these lines.”
He theorized that what he was seeing were changes in vegetation made possible by a vast
series of irrigation canals.
And even though he insists that he is only referring to the possibility of an intelligent
lifeform on Mars, he also says “Certainly what we see hints at the existence of beings
who are in advance of, not behind us, in the journey of life.”
Now that a scientist had suggested intelligent life on Mars, the public couldn’t get the
idea out of their heads, and the press had a field day.
Newspapers and magazines reprinted Lowell’s maps, adding a visual element to Mars mythology.
Depictions in literature of the time presented Martians as humanoid in form-and their society
utopian.
No war, no poverty, no social classes, no prisons, and no alcoholism.
Martians were portrayed as advanced beings both in technology and intelligence.
They were odd, but kind of appealing.
Until The War of the Worlds that is.
No not that one.
Nope, not that one either.
Further back.
Yes, this one.
Not only did H.G. Wells give us one of the first alien invasion novels of all time, his
Martians were very far from human.
Although they did possess a superior intelligence.
They also wanted to kill humans—and inject themselves with our blood.
Initially serialized in Pearson’s Magazine in 1897, the story was collected and published
as one volume in 1898 and was an immediate success.
It has never been out of print.
It increased in popularity after Orson Welles’ infamous radio broadcast in 1938.
On October 30, listeners tuned in to hear his dramatic reading of the book.
The show was so realistic he managed to convince some people Martians were actually invading
New Jersey.
Other than my beloved Yip Yips, and Marvin the Martian, these were the first aliens I
was ever exposed to, and they left a lasting impression.
How could they not?
After all H.G. Wells’ aliens were essentially giant heads about 4 feet in diameter with
no nostrils, a fleshy beak, large eyes, and sixteen tentacles arranged in two bunches.
Their internal structure was basically all brain.
What was so scary about these Martians was their advanced war machinery.
Wells describes a “monstrous tripod” 100-feet-high capable of traveling with the speed “of
an express train.”
These machines, driven by the Martians, have flexible metal tentacles, heat-ray guns, and
a chemical weapon in the form of “black smoke.”
See?
Terrifying.
In what is regarded as one of the best plot twists in science fiction, the Martians are
destroyed not by human military or weapons, but by bacteria.
While serious, persistent criticism of the supposed canals on Mars began in the 20th
century, that did not stop authors from writing about life on the red planet.
Some authors latched on to Mars as an uncharted frontier ripe for nostalgic romance driven
by masculinist fantasy, a place for swords and magic, beasts and treasure, slave-girls,
princesses, and other beautiful female Martians just dying to be loved by a human man
Even film picked up on the trend
Following World War I, we see a shift in Martians.
The human explorers traveling to Mars in these texts were met with menace, and we see a surge
of non-mammalian extraterrestrials similar to Earthly insects, reptiles, or worms that
were, more often than not, predators.
Stories of aliens from this period could be read as American anxieties about nationalism
and racial segregation.
When Martians were described as more humanoid, they were still a threat because of their
advanced weaponry.
It wasn’t really until after World War II that Martians were more commonly referred
to as “aliens.”
This word alien was specifically linked with a new term and concept for the time—the
“unidentified flying object.”
As consumer cameras and recording devices became more accessible, so did the popularity
of UFOs.
People could now capture and share “alien” experiences.
Martian literature post-WWII reflected a desire to escape Earth.
To flee from repressive governments, nuclear weapons, and other human-created evils.
Like in The Martian Chronicles, where humans flee Earth for various reasons including nuclear
war, government censorship, and racism.
As its author, Ray Bradbury once famously said, “Mars is a mirror, not a crystal.”
As our science and technology advanced, and the idea of life on Mars was largely debunked,
a belief in Martians became even more of a fantasy.
After the invention of in-space telescopic photography, and the Mariner 9 and Viking
Missions, people pretty much gave up hope that above ground organisms lived on Mars.
Of course this hasn’t stopped people from creating stories about them.
Mars is more visible and more accessible to us than ever.
While many still hold out for the possibility of life on Mars buried deep below its crust
or in the polar ice caps, we are more concerned with trying to put humans on Mars than encountering
some kind of life form there.
Today, narratives about Martians have changed.
We’ve moved away from imagining Mars as a pre-existing utopia, populated by a Martian
race superior to our own.
Now, we envision Mars as a utopia in-waiting, a promise of hope and a better life, off-planet
for Earthlings.
PBS is bringing you the universe with SUMMER OF SPACE, which includes six incredible new
science and history shows streaming on PBS.org and the PBS Video app, like The Planets from
NOVA.
There are also many celestial episodes from PBS Digital Studios creators!
Thank you to Draper and its Hack the Moon initiative for supporting PBS Digital Studios.
You know the story of the Astronauts who landed on the Moon.
Now, you can log onto wehackthemoon.com to discover the story of the male and female
engineers who guided them there and back safely.
Hack the Moon chronicles the engineers and technologies behind the Apollo missions.
Brought to you by Draper, the site is full of images, videos and stories about the people
who hacked the moon.