The Martians: The Story of a Craze that Captured Turn-of-the-Century America

We're delighted to be joined this month by best-selling author David Baron whose most recent book, The Martians, covers a fascinating aspect of history. Just a century ago, Martians were thought to be real creatures. Noted and respected figures of society such as Alexander Graham Bell proclaimed that these Martians were a highly civilized and intelligent race of beings. Nikola Tesla detected radio signals in 1899 that he believed came from Mars. This Martian craze swept many more.

A mere century ago, Martians were thought to be real??"not fictional??"creatures. “Mars is inhabited by a highly civilized and intelligent race of beings,” proclaimed Alexander Graham Bell after astronomers discovered what looked like irrigation canals on the red planet. When Nikola Tesla, in 1899, detected radio signals that he believed came from Mars, an all-out craze swept society. You could read about the Martians in The New York Times, hear of them in Sunday sermons, and see them depicted on the Broadway stage. Biologists debated whether the aliens were winged or gilled. Inventors devised schemes for communicating with Mars. Philosophers and theologians proposed questions Earth might ask its older, wiser neighbor. Best-selling author David Baron spent seven years investigating this strange case of mass delusion. In his fast-paced, highly illustrated talk??"filled with period photographs and depictions of the putative Martians themselves??"he reveals what the episode says about the human mind: the fallibility of our senses, the power of belief, and the lure of sensationalism. Although the Martians never were real, the excitement about them was genuine and world-changing, for it sparked a new genre called science fiction and helped launch us into space??"toward Mars.

Speaker: David Baron, author

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