The Rise and Fall of Super-Intelligent Martians

In 1892, the Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle reported to its readers that an elderly French woman had "bequeathed a considerable sum for attempts to communicate with the planets." She wasn't insane, she just really wanted to talk to Martians. The column's author, however, thought her a little nuts; clearly the way to contact Martians is to flash sunlight at the planet using a giant mirror. The Martians would certainly see that, provided they were looking at Earth through their telescopes at the time. Which they certainly were. The Victorian era was an interesting time for Mars. The planet received a lot of attention from Earthly admirers, most of which was directed towards the intelligent Martians. Never has Mars been so alive.

In the mid 16th century, Copernicus successfully stripped the Earth of its celestial centrality — he proved that the Sun and not the Earth was at the center of the solar system. From that point, scientists and the scientifically-inclined lay person alike began arguing in favor of life on other planets. The argument boiled down to privilege. If we humans weren't special enough to be the center of the universe, how could we think we were alone in the cosmos?

Of all the planets in the solar system, Mars was the likeliest candidate to harbor life. The similarities between Earth and Mars were too striking to ignore. Both planets are of a similar size. Both have similar daily rotations — 24 hours on Earth and 24 hours and 37 minutes Mars. Even the observed surface characters on Mars were comparable to those on Earth. There were muddy-colored continents, dark oceans, and snow at the polar regions.

Astronomers focused their observations on the poles. Snow was seen accumulating in the winter and melting in the summer, which provided Martians with a lovely spring season complete with a natural flood to kickstart crop growth. Many were quick to draw analogies with Earth. The Egyptians used the flooding Nile to start their growing season, why wouldn't Martians?

These overwhelming similarities astronomers observed outweighed the differences between the planets. Mars' weaker gravitational pull and its greater distance from the Sun just meant Martians would look different from humans. That wasn't too hard to believe. Life on Earth comes in many shapes and sizes, Martians would just add to the variety of life forms in the cosmos.

But it wasn't enough that there was life on Mars. Astronomers went further to prove that life on Mars was intelligent. This was another conclusion drawn from analogy. Mars is further form the sun than Earth, therefore it is a cooler body. With that came the assumption that Mars was further along in its development than Earth. It is in a different geological era, indicative of Earth's future as it cools. The planets age affected its residents as well. Martians were further evolved than any life on Earth.

At the end of the 19th century, Mars was looking like a great place to be — there were big seas, seasons, natural phenomena that supported the regular growth of vegetation, and super-intelligent life forms. These conclusions, however, had little to no foundation in real science. Astronomers had telescopes at their disposal, and that was it. The rest was analogy and speculation.

Assumed life on Mars took on a new form in the early-20th century as telescopes became larger and more powerful. Astronomers also added a new science to their arsenal: spectroscopy. Spectroscopy allows observers to determine a planet's chemical composition by analyzing the absorption pattern of the light reflecting off its surface. Every element disrupts the complete spectrum of visible sunlight. If an element's interference pattern is known, astronomers could determine the composition of a planet based on the interference pattern. The two methods combined to further 'knowledge' of life on Mars: telescopes revealed surface features while spectroscopy revealed of what those surface features were made.

Almost immediately, spectroscopic study of Mars revealed that there was a trace of water vapour on its surface. This was, and still is, considered a cosmic jackpot – life needs water (NASA's planetary directive is to follow the water). That there was water vapour on Mars solidified the already widely accepted theory that the ice caps melt in the summer to naturally irrigate the planet.

The case for water on Mars was taken up by Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli. Schiaparelli observed not only the seasonal melting of the polar caps, he saw evidence of water moving across the surface of the planet. As the ice caps melted, a dark area around the pole appeared. He assumed this was a temporary sea. Dark lines appeared, extending from the sea across the Martian surface. This, he thought, was Mars' natural irrigation system at work. The seawater was traveling across the planet. Schiaparelli effectively gave Mars a natural life cycle.

Schiaparelli termed his observed irrigation system 'cannali', the Italian work for channel. Channels are natural features on Earth, so it was reasonable that the natural features on one planet would appear on another. The idea struck a chord with many Martian observers, particularly with American astronomer Percival Lowell whose observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona is still open today.

Lowell's Martian theories became wild after one major mistranslation. He took Schiaparelli's 'cannali' as 'canals' — not a natural feature like channels but a complex series of man made structures that requires a great grasp of engineering principles and interpersonal (or inter-Martianal as the case may be) coordination. The intelligent Martians astronomers had been hoping to contact and understand for decades suddenly got a whole lot smarter.

But Lowell's Martian engineers didn't last long. As telescopes began advancing at an impressive rate in the first half of the 20th century, greater resolution proved that the 'cannali' weren't real. Higher resolution observations of Mars actually led Mars to fall out of favor with astronomers as classic theories were disproved one after another. For his part, Lowell offered his fans a fitting end to his super-intelligent Martians. He proposed that the canals were the last efforts of the race to get water across the planet as resources became scarce. The structures he saw from Earth were the last vestiges of a long-gone society.

Martians have taken on a very different form in more modern times — simple single-cell organisms are now the hoped for find rather than a being that can teach us the meaning of life — but the hunt for life continues. Somehow, though, I don't think signaling single cell organisms with giant mirrors will be the way we'll meet our cosmic neighbors.

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