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David Baron – The Martians · Destination Unlimited with Victor Fuhrman

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: My name is Victor Furman. Some call me the Voice.
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  Speaker 1: I've always been fascinated with human nature, spirituality, science, and
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  Speaker 1: the crossroads at which they meet. Join me now, and
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  Speaker 1: we will explore these topics and so much more with
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  Speaker 1: fascinating guests, authors, and experts who will guide us to
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  Speaker 1: Destination Unlimited. For as long as we've had telescopes, we've
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  Speaker 1: been obsessed with Mars more so than our planetary neighbors.
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  Speaker 1: Mars captures our fascination with its seeming potential to nurture
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  Speaker 1: something we've yet to discover anywhere else, extra terrestrial life.
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  Speaker 1: This possibility, scientifically founded or not, has catapulted a pop
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  Speaker 1: cultural fixation on what the Martians and their world could
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  Speaker 1: look like. My guest this week on Destination Unlimited, David Baron,
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  Speaker 1: examines the events between the late eighteen hundreds and early
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  Speaker 1: nineteen hundreds that started a Martian craze. David Baron is
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  Speaker 1: an award winning journalist, broadcaster, and author of The Beast
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  Speaker 1: in the Garden and American Eclipse. A former science correspondent
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  Speaker 1: for NPR, he has also written for The New York Times,
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  Speaker 1: Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Scientific American,
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  Speaker 1: and other publications. David recently served as the bruch S.
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  Speaker 1: Bloomberg NASA Library of Congress Chair in Astrobiology, Exploration, and
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  Speaker 1: Scientific Innovation. His website is davidbarnauthor dot com, and he
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  Speaker 1: joins me this week to share his new book, The Martians,
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  Speaker 1: The True story of an alien craze that sured Turn
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  Speaker 1: of the Century America. Please join me in welcoming to
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  Speaker 1: Destination Unlimited, David Baron. Welcome, David.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Victor, David.
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  Speaker 1: We're going to be talking about your new book, The Martians,
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  Speaker 1: the true story of an alien craze that captured Turn
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  Speaker 1: of the century America. But in the meantime, let's talk
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  Speaker 1: about your background. Let's share with our listeners your path
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  Speaker 1: and how you developed your interest in both astronomy and journalism.
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  Speaker 3: Uh sure. So I was born in the nineteen sixties.
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  Speaker 3: That of course was the era of the Apollo Space program,
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  Speaker 3: so I was very excited about outer space. But it
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  Speaker 3: was also a time when as a kid, I found
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  Speaker 3: myself surrounded by Martians. You know, Martians were on TV,
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  Speaker 3: on bugs, bunny cartoons. There was Marvin the Martian who
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  Speaker 3: was always out to destroy the Earth. It was a
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  Speaker 3: popular sitcom in the nineteen sixties called My Favorite Martian.
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  Speaker 3: There were Martians in old movies and in comic books
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  Speaker 3: and sci fi novels. I went on, because of my
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  Speaker 3: passion about space and science to become a science journalist.
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  Speaker 3: For a long time, I was a science reporter for
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  Speaker 3: National Public Radio. I was a science editor for various
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  Speaker 3: public radio programs, and I've been writing in recent years
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  Speaker 3: about astronomy. And I was reflecting on my own childhood
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  Speaker 3: and thinking about that cultural obsession with Mars and Martians
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  Speaker 3: from back when I was a kid, and where did
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  Speaker 3: all that come from? Because even today, Mars holds a
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  Speaker 3: special place in our culture as a kind of a magical,
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  Speaker 3: mysterious planet. And I wondered where that all started. And
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  Speaker 3: so I decided to go look into history. And when
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  Speaker 3: I started to look at what happened back in the
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  Speaker 3: turn of the last century, the eighteen nineties and the
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  Speaker 3: beginning of the twentieth century, I was just absolutely flabbergasted,
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  Speaker 3: because you could open up newspapers at that time, serious
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  Speaker 3: newspapers like the New York Times and read about the
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  Speaker 3: civilization on Mars and scientists talking about what these beings
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  Speaker 3: might be like and what the civilization was like, and
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  Speaker 3: how we might communicate with them. So, before Martians became
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  Speaker 3: staples of science fiction, they were widely believed to be
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  Speaker 3: scientific fact, and I just found that fascinating and worthy
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  Speaker 3: of a book.
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  Speaker 1: And long before that, the ancient cultures all had interest
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  Speaker 1: in Mars as a deity.
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  Speaker 3: Right, So you know, Mars is named after the god
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  Speaker 3: of war, But Mars always seemed to be odd among
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  Speaker 3: the planets, particularly because of its color. It can be
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  Speaker 3: red or orange depending on where it is in its
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  Speaker 3: orbit and what our atmosphere is like at the time, but.
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  Speaker 2: It has a distinct color.
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  Speaker 3: And also Mars for much of its time in its orbit,
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  Speaker 3: it just gets lost among the stars.
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  Speaker 2: It's quite dim.
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  Speaker 3: But every two years and two months it comes around
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  Speaker 3: close to the Earth and it becomes very bright and
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  Speaker 3: it's very noticed, and it's almost like this new object
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  Speaker 3: in the sky. So from ancient times, skywatchers knew that
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  Speaker 3: there was something special about Mars, and that too was
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  Speaker 3: handed down I think to modern times that again, Mars
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  Speaker 3: is different from the other planets.
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  Speaker 1: We were born in adjacent times. I was born in
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  Speaker 1: the fifties, we were born in the sixties. The space
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  Speaker 1: race was really important to me. How did that inform
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  Speaker 1: your pursuits?
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  Speaker 3: Well, so, you know, I was excited about the Apollo program.
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  Speaker 3: I remember watching Neil Armstrong step onto the lunar surface.
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  Speaker 3: Later on, as a high schooler, I was very much
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  Speaker 3: influenced by Carl Sagan and his PBS series Cosmos. You know,
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  Speaker 3: outer space is this fascinating, all the mysteries about it,
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  Speaker 3: And I'm not really I wouldn't call myself a religious
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  Speaker 3: person or really terribly spiritual person, but I find astronomy
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  Speaker 3: almost spiritual. Maybe I shouldn't even say almost, because you're
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  Speaker 3: really thinking about things that are so much larger and
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  Speaker 3: more powerful than us that there's no question are out
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  Speaker 3: there and we there's so much we don't know about
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  Speaker 3: outer space. And so I find that both space exploration
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  Speaker 3: and astronomy to be the most exciting parts of science.
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  Speaker 1: And I found in your bio that you are an
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  Speaker 1: eclipse chaser.
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  Speaker 3: Absolutely no, I am fanatical about that. And if I
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  Speaker 3: have a religion, perhaps it's total solar eclipses. I saw
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  Speaker 3: my first total eclipse in Aruba in nineteen ninety eight.
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  Speaker 3: I went there because there was a science journalist I
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  Speaker 3: wanted to see what happened when the Moon completely blocked
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  Speaker 3: out the Sun, and it was just the most emotional,
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  Speaker 3: awe expiring, inspiring experience.
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  Speaker 2: I had ever had.
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  Speaker 3: For those of you who've never seen a total solar eclipse,
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  Speaker 3: and most people haven't, although of course we had one
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  Speaker 3: across the United States in twenty seventeen and another in
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  Speaker 3: twenty twenty four, but they're very rare to come where
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  Speaker 3: you are. A total solar eclipse is just an otherworldly experience.
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  Speaker 3: It goes dark like twilight in the middle of the day,
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  Speaker 3: and it's only during a total solar eclipse, which is
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  Speaker 3: distinct from a partial solar eclipse, that you actually can
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  Speaker 3: look at the Sun with the naked eye because the
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  Speaker 3: bright surface is covered and you can see with your
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  Speaker 3: naked eye just what a magical object the Sun is
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  Speaker 3: because it's surrounded by this aura called the solar corona,
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  Speaker 3: and it's the most magical sight in outer space. So
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  Speaker 3: I've now chased total eclipses across the globe. I've seen
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  Speaker 3: nine of them. Next summer, I will be in Greenland
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  Speaker 3: to see a total solar eclipse.
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  Speaker 2: That'll be my tenth.
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  Speaker 1: You're talking about the next state?
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  Speaker 2: Ah, yeah, right, could be by then.
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  Speaker 1: You know, I remember as a kid reading a Connecticut
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  Speaker 1: Yankee in King Arthur's Court and then seeing the wonderful
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  Speaker 1: film starring Bing Crosby who had an accident and woke
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  Speaker 1: up and he was in King Arthur's court and he
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  Speaker 1: was about to be executed and remembered from the books
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  Speaker 1: that he was carrying with him that there was going
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  Speaker 1: to be a total solar eclipse that day, and he
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  Speaker 1: basically said, and if you don't let me go, I'm
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  Speaker 1: going to make the sun disappear. And at that time,
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  Speaker 1: the eclips took place, and they let him go and
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  Speaker 1: he used his Connectic Yankee ingenuity to save his life.
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  Speaker 3: Right, And that's actually based on a true story of
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  Speaker 3: Christopher Columbus when he came to the New World and
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  Speaker 3: was having trouble with some of the natives on one
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  Speaker 3: of the Caribbean islands. He had a nautical almanac with
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  Speaker 3: him and he knew that there would be a total
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  Speaker 3: lunar eclipse. So that's when the moon goes and it
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  Speaker 3: gets very dark, turns out of a blood red color.
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  Speaker 3: And he said, if you know, if you don't give
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  Speaker 3: me what I want, I'm going to turn the moon
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  Speaker 3: to blood, and sure enough it.
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  Speaker 1: Happened, absolutely absolutely, which just goes to show how ingenuity
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  Speaker 1: and using the materials that are given to us through
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  Speaker 1: science and through other means can be life changing in
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  Speaker 1: many different ways. I think today, even today, that can
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  Speaker 1: be something that could be life changing in many different ways.
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  Speaker 1: Your writing style in The Martians is wonderfully prosaic. Why
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  Speaker 1: did you choose to use this method of right rather
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  Speaker 1: than in a journalistic style?
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  Speaker 3: Well, so thank you for saying that. So my book
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  Speaker 3: is written, I would say kind of in the style
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  Speaker 3: of a novel. It's much called narrative nonfiction, and this
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  Speaker 3: is my third book, and that's the style I choose
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  Speaker 3: to write in part because I get bored very easily
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  Speaker 3: as a reader, and I find a typical non fiction
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  Speaker 3: book can be very hard to get through if it's
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  Speaker 3: just a collection of facts. What makes a book readable
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  Speaker 3: and compelling is a story. And so when I, even
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  Speaker 3: though I'm a science writer, I write about people, and
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  Speaker 3: I look for stories that are so compelling that even
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  Speaker 3: if you don't think you care about science, the story
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  Speaker 3: itself will make you want to read. And that's what
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  Speaker 3: I found. I mean, I you know, in picking my subjects.
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  Speaker 3: I look far and wide to find something that is
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  Speaker 3: both a topic that I find interesting and I think
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  Speaker 3: will resonate, but also a story with great characters and
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  Speaker 3: great plot in great setting. And I felt I had
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  Speaker 3: that here. I mean, just wonderful, wonderful, real characters living
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  Speaker 3: out a very very strange story. Everything in my book
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  Speaker 3: is one hundred percent true, but I think I hope
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  Speaker 3: it reads sort of like a novel.
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  Speaker 1: Absolutely, turn of the century astronomers speculated that visible lines
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  Speaker 1: on the surface of Mars were proof of civilization? How
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  Speaker 1: did they come to that idea?
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  Speaker 2: Right?
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  Speaker 3: So it's a complex story, and I'll try to make
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  Speaker 3: it relatively quick. So it all began in eighteen seventy
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  Speaker 3: seven with an astronomer in Italy named Giovanni Schiaparelli, who
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  Speaker 3: was a well renowned astronomer. He headed the observatory in Milan,
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  Speaker 3: and he decided in eighteen seventy seven that he was
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  Speaker 3: going to make a map of Mars, which is a
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  Speaker 3: relatively new thing you could do. Maps of Mars had
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  Speaker 3: been made before, but telescopes were now getting good enough
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  Speaker 3: that astronomers could make out the surface of the planet Mars,
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  Speaker 3: and he wanted to see if he could make a
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  Speaker 3: more detailed map than anyone before, And in eighteen seventy seven,
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  Speaker 3: Mars came closer to Earth than it had been I
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  Speaker 3: believe in about fifteen years. About every fifteen years Mars
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  Speaker 3: comes especially close. So he used that as an opportunity
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  Speaker 3: to study the planet in detail, and he mapped out
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  Speaker 3: It looked sort of earth like, I mean, there were
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  Speaker 3: dark areas and light areas that looked sort of like
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  Speaker 3: oceans and continents. But Schiaparelli also saw this network of
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  Speaker 3: fine straight lines crisscrossing the planet, and he didn't know
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  Speaker 3: what they were, but given that they were dark, and
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  Speaker 3: he thought that the other dark areas were probably water,
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  Speaker 3: he figured these were waterways of some sort, and he
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  Speaker 3: called them canale, which in Italian means channels like the
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  Speaker 3: English channel and narrow waterway. That was mistranslated into English
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  Speaker 3: as canals, suggesting artificial waterways. At the time, people knew
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  Speaker 3: it was a mistranslation. It was sort of a joke
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  Speaker 3: that there were canal on Mars. But fifteen years later,
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  Speaker 3: when Mars once again came very close to Earth and
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  Speaker 3: astronomers were studying it quite a bit, there was an
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  Speaker 3: astronomer who came along who came up with a theory
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  Speaker 3: that in fact, those weird straight lines that looked artificial
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  Speaker 3: really were canals, not navigation canals, but irrigation canals. And
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  Speaker 3: the astronomer who suggested this and became the greatest proponent
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  Speaker 3: of the so called canals on Mars was Perceval Lowell,
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  Speaker 3: who was a Bostonian who came from a highly regarded,
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  Speaker 3: very wealthy family, had as all the money he needed
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  Speaker 3: and decided at around age forty to become an astronomer,
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  Speaker 3: and he used his funds to buy one of the
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  Speaker 3: largest telescopes in existence, established an observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona,
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  Speaker 3: which is still there. The Lowell Observatory had it put
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  Speaker 3: on a hill outside of town, which he called Mars Hill,
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  Speaker 3: and then dedicated himself to the study of Mars. And
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  Speaker 3: he and he came up with this I can tell
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  Speaker 3: you more, but quite an elaborate theory about how it
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  Speaker 3: was that the Martians were using the irrigation canals. Okay,
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  Speaker 3: so uh it's again. I go into a lot more
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  Speaker 3: detail in the book. But Mars at the time was
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  Speaker 3: believed to be an older planet than Earth, and so
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  Speaker 3: that meant a couple of things. First, it was thought
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  Speaker 3: that planets had a sort of a cycle of birth,
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  Speaker 3: you know, then their kind of adolescents and adulthood, and
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  Speaker 3: then their death. And Mars seemed to be veering toward
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  Speaker 3: its death. It was losing its water. Lowell set it
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  Speaker 3: was mostly desert, which in fact is true, but he
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  Speaker 3: knew that there was, or there appeared to be, anyway
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  Speaker 3: water on the planet in the form of ice, because
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  Speaker 3: through a telescope you can see the polar ice caps
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  Speaker 3: on Mars. The North poles have white caps. Actually they're
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  Speaker 3: mostly carbon dioxide ice, but they're partially water ice, and
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  Speaker 3: he assumed they were water.
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  Speaker 2: They'll grow and shrink with the season.
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  Speaker 3: So Lowell thought, well, there is clearly some.
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  Speaker 2: Water on the planet.
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  Speaker 3: In order for the Martians to survive, the only way
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  Speaker 3: they could survive was by tapping the melt water from
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  Speaker 3: the poles, and so they had established this global irrigation
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  Speaker 3: network that would bring the water from the poles down
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  Speaker 3: to their desert farms and their oasis cities. And these lines, again,
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  Speaker 3: they were so straight, he said, they couldn't be natural.
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  Speaker 3: And when they tended to all intersect at places where
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  Speaker 3: many of these canals came together, and he would see
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  Speaker 3: these dots, these kind of circles there that he said
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  Speaker 3: were the Martian cities. And the lines tended to fit,
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  Speaker 3: to grow and fade with the seasons. And so what
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  Speaker 3: Lowell said was that they weren't You weren't actually seeing
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  Speaker 3: the water. After all, the canal would have to be
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  Speaker 3: many miles wide to be seen from Earth, and that
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  Speaker 3: just seemed ridiculous. He said, what we were seeing, these
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  Speaker 3: so called canals, actually represented the plant life, the vegetation
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  Speaker 3: that grew on the banks of the canals when the
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  Speaker 3: water flowed during the spring and summer, and then in
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  Speaker 3: the fall and winter, the plant life would die off,
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  Speaker 3: the leaves would fall, and sure enough the canals would vanish.
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  Speaker 3: And that's what he at least thought he saw, was
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: this seasonal appearance and disappearance of these lines. And so
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  Speaker 3: it was a coherent theory. And I should also add,
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  Speaker 3: since Mars was thought to be older than Earth, if
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: life originated on Mars, as it clearly did on Earth,
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  Speaker 3: it probably originated on Mars before Earth. It probably evolved
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  Speaker 3: into intelligence before on Earth. And therefore the Martians, according
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  Speaker 3: to this theory, were more evolved more intelligent than humans.
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  Speaker 3: In fact, they were also more moral, more peaceful. The
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: marsh that Lowell talked about were these kind of super
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  Speaker 3: beings that humans should emulate, and in fact, over the
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  Speaker 3: course of time that I write about in my book,
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  Speaker 3: when his theory went from an interesting idea to a
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  Speaker 3: widely accepted fact, it got to the point where there
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: were religious leaders sermonizing about the Martians and how humans
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  Speaker 3: should emulate them.
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  Speaker 1: Did Lowell think that the Martians were human?
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  Speaker 2: He did not think they were human.
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  Speaker 3: In fact, he would often point out he never said
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  Speaker 3: they were human, but he wouldn't go beyond that. He
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: said he would not speculate on what they might be,
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  Speaker 3: but others did so. There were I have a lot
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  Speaker 3: of illustrations in my book that are taken directly from
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: newspapers and magazines and so forth of the time, and
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  Speaker 3: there were a number of different artists renditions of the Martians.
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  Speaker 3: They you know, they tended to be not humanoid, really,
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  Speaker 3: but they tended to be to have backbones and two
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  Speaker 3: arms and two legs. So generally people weren't too creative.
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  Speaker 3: But the Martians were said to be tall and skinny
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  Speaker 3: for the most part because Mars has a lower force
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: of gravity than Earth, so therefore an animal could grow
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: especially tall without all that weight crushing the bones and
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: the muscle below. Mars is farther from the Sun than
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: the Earth is, therefore daylight is dim on Mars, so
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  Speaker 3: Martians were depicted with especially large eyes. This idea of
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: the Martians being smarter than us, more evolved than us.
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: If we evolved from apes and used to be hairy,
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: and now we have a lot less hair and we
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: have bigger heads, well, the Martians should be bald and
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: have giant heads. So the way the Martians were depicted
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  Speaker 3: back then tended to match kind of what the stereotypical
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  Speaker 3: alien depiction is today. Tall and skinny, bald head, big
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  Speaker 3: e sometimes a large chest because Mars was known to
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: have a thin atmosphere, so the Martians must have large lungs,
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  Speaker 3: but Lowell himself declined to speculate.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: You share some wonderful stories about Lowell, including his service
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: as a US Foreign secretary to Korea, which I had
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: no idea about until I read your book. How did
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: his three month journey to Korea change his life?
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  Speaker 3: So Percival Lowell was a fascinating person.
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  Speaker 2: You know.
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  Speaker 3: As I said, he came from this very respected, very
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: wealthy New England family. He like pretty much all the
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: men in his family, went to Harvard. In fact, my
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: book opens in eighteen seventy six at his graduation exercises
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: when he gave a delivered a speech that actually was
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: about science, was about the formation of the solar system.
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: But when he graduated from Harvard, he could have done
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: anything with his life, and what he did for the
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: first twenty years of his adulthood was came kind of
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: a roving anthropologist. He was particularly fascinated by Asian cultures.
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  Speaker 3: He spent quite a bit of time in Japan, and
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: early on in his early twenties or mid twenties, he
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: was in Japan when Korea, which was called the Hermit
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: Kingdom it had cut itself off from much of the world,
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: was starting to reach out diplomatically to other parts of
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: the world, and Korea sent its first diplomatic mission to
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: the United States, and on the way they needed someone
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: to act as kind of a guide to the United States,
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: and they found Lowell in Tokyo and hired him, and
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: so he was brought to the United States as part
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: of the official Korean mission and then went back to Korea.
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: He was one of the first Americans to actually have
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: a look around what had been really a kind of
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: a reclusive kingdom. And he wrote about He wrote a
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: whole book about Korea. He wrote a book about Japan
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: and other parts of Asia. And I think that's really
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: really closely connected to his fascination with Mars. Because you know,
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: we're talking the late nineteenth century, other cultures were called
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: alien cultures, and he would often and others would talk
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: about other countries, non Western countries, being almost other planets
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: when you visited them. They were so unlike what people
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: expected life was like in Europe or the United States.
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: And so he when he was approaching the age of
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: forty and suddenly latched onto Mars. It was a natural
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: progression from being fascinated by the supposed alien cultures on
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: Earth to the alien culture of Mars.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: Fascinating story, and thank you for sharing about in your book,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: my guest David Barron. His book is entitled The Martians,
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: The True Story of an Alien Craze that captured Turn
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: of the century America. David, please share with our listeners
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: where they can get your books and find out more
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: about you and your work.
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: Sure so well. My books are availed anywhere. Books are
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: sold on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, your local independent bookstore.
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: I have my own website which is davidbarnauthor dot com.
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: And my last name is spelled with one r ba
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: r N, so David barronauthor dot com.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: And this is my third book.
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: My last book actually had to do with my fascination
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: about total solar eclipses. That book's called American Eclipse and
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: it's the true story of a total solar eclipse that
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: crossed America's wild West in eighteen seventy eight and was
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: a formative event in getting the United States to become
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: a global powerhouse in science. But it's just a great
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: story of these scientists, including Thomas Edison who was in
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: Wyoming in eighteen seventy eight for the total solar eclipse,
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: and an all female expedition of scientists from Vassar College
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: that went to Denver in eighteen seventy eight. So, as
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: I say, I mean, my books are all stories that
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: I hope are well told that have happened to do
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: with science.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: And we'll be back with more of David Barron and
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: the Martians after these words on the ome Times.
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• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Back on Destination Unlimited. My guest this week is David Barron,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: his book The Martians, the true story of an alien
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: craze that captured turn of the century America. David, in
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: those days, did people think that Martians posed a threat
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: to Earth?
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: Very interesting question because probably the best known piece of
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: fiction that came out of that era I write about
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: was HG. Wells's eighteen ninety eight novel The War of
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: the World, which in nineteen thirty eight was then adapted
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: for radio by Orson Wells very famously, and that, of
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: course is the story of the Martians invading the Earth.
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: And the Martians in that fiction were these hideous monsters
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: that were set on dominating the Earth. They were preying
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: on humans. But really, the interesting thing is, so when
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: I started my research, I assumed that that's what people
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: thought the Martians were like. But no, that was such
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: an outlier, you know, that was widely believed that the
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: so called real Martians were these moral, peaceful beings that
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: we should respect and emulate. And part of that had
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: to do with Percival Lowell's theory. So getting back to
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: his theory of the canals on Mars, So if Mars
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: is a dying planet, and if the Martians the only
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: way they can survive is by pulling together globally to
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: build this enormous irrigation network that connects the polar regions
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: down to the equatorial regions, well that meant that the
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: whole planet was acting as a whole that you know,
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: the planet had evolved beyond.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: Nation states, beyond war.
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: Everyone was pulling together, and so it was thought that
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: the Martians again had evolved it. Ironically, this planet named
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: after the god of war had actually evolved into a
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: planet of peace.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, another fascinating character that you bring to us, And
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: pardon me if I mispronounce his name. French astronomer Camille.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: I believe it's Flammorion.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: Flammarion, correct, Marion.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: Okay, tell us about his understanding of Mars and his
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: relationship with Percival Lowell.
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I really enjoyed getting to know Camille Flammarion. He
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: was He was an incredibly well known person in his day.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: Particularly in Europe, but also in the United States.
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: He was, and I might be dating myself here, kind
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: of the Carl Sagan of his era.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: He was a.
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: Well respected scientist. He was an astronomer, and he was
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: a best selling author, and he wrote serious science books.
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: He also wrote science fiction, and he really imbued astronomy
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: with a sense of spirituality. He believed in reincarnation. He
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: believed that, in fact, that the Martians, and he believed
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: that there were beings on Mars, that they could be
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: the reincarnated souls of humans, that maybe when we died,
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: we then woke up on Mars, and what he wrote
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: really resonated with the public. He was he did serious science,
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: but because of his more spiritual side he was I
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: think other astronomers would sometimes look askance at him. But
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: he getting back to what I said before. So when
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: Schiaparelli in Italy first announced that there were these straight
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: lines on Mars that came to be called canals, Flammarian
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: then started to study Mars as well. He also saw
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: these straight lines, and his observatory, he had a private observatory.
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: He was quite wealthy with all the books that he
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: sold at his private observatory. He made maps of Mars
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: covered with these lines. And it was a book that
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: Flammarion wrote that came out, I believe in eighteen ninety two,
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: that talked about all this that Percival Lowell, then in Boston,
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: ended up reading. He was given to him as a
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: Christmas gift. It was in French, but Lowell, you know,
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: being an upperclass Bostonian, he was fluent in French. And
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: when he read Flammarion's book about the canals and about
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: the supposed life on Mars, that's really what turned Lowell
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: toward Mars. For the rest of his career, but I
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: might say a few more.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: I mean, I got to visit.
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: Camille Flammarian's observatory outside Paris. It's still there. It's kind
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: of a crumbling building at this point. It's owned by
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: the Astronomical Society of France, which is trying to raise
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: the funds to renovate the building. But right now it's
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: off limits to the general public. But I was given
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: access to it, and you just get a sense of
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: what a special man this was. People would send him
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: gifts of artwork or statues or all sorts of things.
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: And one story I have in my book which is
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: quite gruesome. He and it's a true story. He was
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: at home one evening and someone came to the door
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: to deliver a package, and it was this strange package,
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: wrapped in paper that was kind of soft and smelled
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: a little odd, and he opened it up to find
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: a note from a doctor explaining that a young woman
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: who was dying of tuberculosis who was his patient, was
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: a great passionate admirer of Camille Flammarion and his stories
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: of immortality and life in outer space. And she asked
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: that when she died that the skin from her shoulders
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: be sent to Flammarion with a request that he bind
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: his next book with leather mail from her skin. And
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: I know this sounds absolutely gruesome. It was not an
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: unheard of practice in Victorian times to bind special books
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: in human skin. And when I was at Flammarian's library
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: outside Paris, I saw one of several books he had
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: that was stamped on the front in fringe bound in
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: human skin.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: Wow, yeah, creepy.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: Nineteen seventy six's Viking mission brought us photos of the
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: Sedonia region and the so called face on Mars. Please
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: tell us about the Turn of the century triangle on Mars.
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: Right, So, eighteen ninety two was one of those years
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: when Mars came especially close to Earth, and so there
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: were a lot of astronomers watching the planet closely, seeing
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: if they could spot the canals on Mars, trying to
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: figure out what they might be, those strange lines. And
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: there also were these strange lights that would appear right
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: on the very edge of Mars as it would rotate
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: in or out of view. So, I mean, you know,
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: Mars turns on its axis like the Earth does, so
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: you can actually see regions on the surface that'll come
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: into view and then go out of view, and these
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: lights would appear on the rim, and there was a
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: report of this triangle of lights. Well, Camille Flammarion had
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: previously written about the possibility of life on Mars and
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: how we might establish communications with a Martian civilization, so
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: he had written previously to this, Well, one way to
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: do it would be for Mars to start flashing at
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: us various geometrical shapes. They might start by, you know,
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: we're using an enormous array of electrical lights miles and
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: miles wide. They would sketch a triangle, and then we,
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: seeing that, would would do the same and show them
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: a triangle, and then they would show us the square,
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: and we'd show them a square, and then they'd show
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: us a circle, and so forth. It wouldn't convey anything
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: except hello, you know, we are an intelligent civilization and
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: we're responding to you. Well, in eighteen ninety two, the
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: astronomers reported seeing a triangle of lights on Mars, and
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: that just took off in the press, and people were wondering,
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: was this in fact the Martians shouting hello to us
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: with a triangle. Even Flammarion didn't believe that that was
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: the case, he said, this was probably either snow capped
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: mountains or high clouds on Mars reflecting sunlight. But that
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: was really kind of the beginning of the craze I
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: write about. That then took off even more and more
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: by the beginning of the twentieth century, where newspapers and
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: the general public were getting all excited about the supposed
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: civilization on Mars.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: So, discounting astronomers and scientists, what was it about that
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: time that made the public receptive to the idea of
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: Martian life?
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: Excellent question. So although my book is called The Martians,
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: it's really as much, if not more, about humans. What
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: it was about people at that time that made them
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: so receptive to believing that there was an intelligent civilization
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: on Mars, And it was a couple of things. First
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: of all, the late eighteen hundreds, while we talk about
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: it as the Gilded Age in the United States, was
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: actually a very unsettled time, in part in the United
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: States and maybe more so in Europe. It was a
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: time of labor unrest, It was a time of terrorism.
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: Anarchists were bombing cafes in Paris. A number of heads
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: of state were assassinated by anarchists, including William McKinley in
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: the United States in nineteen oh one. So there was
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: a feeling that society was falling apart and people were
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: again looking elsewhere for for answers and perhaps the belief
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: in a more peaceful, better world. So that was part
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: of it. Another part was by the eighteen nineties, traditional
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: Christian belief was being undermined, had been now for several
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: centuries by scientists, you know, from Copernicus to Galileo to
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: Newton to Darwin. It was harder and harder to see
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: where God lay, at least a God who was involved
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: in day to day human affairs. I mean, if the
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: forces of you know, of motion that Newton talked about,
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: or the way planets orbit the Sun like Galileo and
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: Copernicus said it would all could be explained with math.
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: Where is there even room for God to intervene? And
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: then so again the idea of these superhuman martians, almost
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: like supernatural beings, was something very appealing. It got to
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: the point where and this isn't just my speculation about
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: what people believed, because by nineteen oh age nineteen oh nine,
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: when Lowell's theory was now being talked about as almost
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: proven that the Martians really were there. There was a
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: fascinating newspaper article that was published in quite a few
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: newspapers across the country at a time when there was
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: serious discussion of trying to figure out a way to
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: communicate with Mars, and the newspaper article was headlined questions
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: Mars might answer. So it was a list of questions
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: we might ask the Martians when we finally get in
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: touch with them. Well, you might think they would be
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: practical questions about how to build a canal, or maybe
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: you know, airplanes were just being developed, maybe we would
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: ask the Martians how to build a better airplane. But no,
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: this list of questions, they were all philosophical, existential questions.
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: What is the purpose of life? How can we prevent
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: human suffering? Where does the soul go when you die?
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: These were the questions the Martians were going to answer.
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: So the Martians almost became stand ins for God. They
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: were our guardian angels on the planet next door that
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: as soon as we could communicate with them, we would have,
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: you know, life's mysteries would finally be solved. So it
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: says a lot about human longing that people really wanted
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: the Martians to exist absolutely.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: Was this a phenomenon relegated to the social elites or
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: did the average person also find this attractive?
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: Well, I would say it was pretty much across the board.
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: Although you know, no one ever that I know of,
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: conducted a poll of do you believe in Martians? But
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: I found plenty of examples of of, you know, in newspapers,
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: of people speaking almost as if, well, of course, we
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: believe that the Martians are there.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: Most people believe that.
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: But I couldn't give a figure whether it was fifty
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: five percent or eighty percent, you know, and it waxed
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: and waned over time. I think, you know, in the
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: eighteen nineties there was a lot of skepticism. By nineteen
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: oh eight there was a lot of belief, but certainly
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: the well educated and upper class people. I mean that
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: describes Perceval Lowell. But Alexander Graham Bell, who invented the
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: telephone and by the early twentieth century was kind of
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: an elder statesman of American science, highly highly respected. He wrote,
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: you know, there's no question that there's this intelligence civilization
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: on Mars. There were Ivy League academics who wrote fan
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: letters to Percival Lowell about his work. So it really
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: did run the gamut.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: In the Martians. You write that many people had hoped
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: to communicate with the Martians, including some famous scientists, most
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: notably Nicola Tesla. Tell us about that, please right.
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: So, Nikola Tesla was by the eighteen nineties one of
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: the most respected inventors in the world. He famously had
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: this so called Battle of the Currents with Thomas Edison
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: over the best way to generate and distribute electrical power.
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: Thomas Edison was in favor of direct current and Nikola
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: Tesla was in favor of alternating current, and Tesla was
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: right and Tesla's Tesla's ideas won the day. He was
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: you know, he was a celebrity in fact, and he
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: hung out with celebrities like Mark Twain was a friend
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: of his. He lived at the High Life at the
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York. He was a fascinating character,
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: so people kept an eye on him. They wanted to
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: know what he was up to. After his work with
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: alternating current and the distribution of electricity by wires, he
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: got interested in the possibility of distributing electricity and sending
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: electrical signals without wires. At the time, it was called
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: wireless wireless telegraphy uh sending Morse code through the air.
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: Today we call it radio, But back then the idea
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: wasn't too to say and the human voice through the air,
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: but rather dots and dashes and so. Back in the
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: late eighteen nineties, Nikola Tesla was doing a lot of
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: experiments on wireless telegraphy, and he even talked about, well
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: if we in the same way Camille Flammarian had said, well,
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: you could communicate with the Martians by light, drawing a
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: triangle on the Earth or a square, and seeing if
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: the Martians do the same. Tesla had a similar idea
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: for the use of telegraphy, wireless telegraphy. If we could
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: send an electrical signal to Mars, and instead of a
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: triangle of lights, maybe we would send three dots and
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: then a pause, and then another three dots, like dot
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: dot dot dot dot dot over and over, and then
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: we'll see if the Martians would do the same. That
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: was his suggestion. Well, in eighteen ninety nine he came
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: out to Colorado.
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: Which is where I live.
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: He went to Colorado Springs and established an experimental laboratory
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: to study how electrical signals can be sent through the atmosphere.
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: And again this is Marconi, who also was a pioneer
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: of radio, was just starting his work in Europe. But
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: there wasn't There were no radio stations, no one was
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: sending out signals. But Tesla was listening for natural radio signals,
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: like lightning. When a lightning pulse happens, it'll send out
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: a click that you can hear on a radio receiver.
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: So he was listening to natural sounds that would come
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: over the wirelessly, and one night, alone in his laboratory,
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: hears the strangest signal and it's this click click click
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: click click click, just like that, just like the dot
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: dot dot he had said would be the way to
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: communicate with the Martians. And he wondered what it was,
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: and he thought about it for a while, and he
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: didn't tell anyone about it until the very dawn of
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: the twentieth century New Year's Eve, just as nineteen oh
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: one was about to start, when he had been asked
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: by the Red Cross as one of many celebrities for
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: part of these these This Red Cross was holding these
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: parties across the United States as fundraisers New Year's eve
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: where they would read these letters from celebrities talking about
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: what was accomplished in the nineteenth century and looking forward
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: to the twentieth. And Tesla took this as an opportunity
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: to announce that he had received a signal from another world,
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: which by then he had been he convinced himself was Mars.
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: And so as the twentieth century dawned, the Mars craze
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: just completely took off, and newspapers were filled with the
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: news that Tesla had received a signal from Mars. And
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: Martians then ended up in Broadway plays and vaudeville skits
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: and tin pan alley songs, and there were Martians. Martians
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: showed up in newspaper comic strips. His name was mister
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: Skygak from Mars. So Mars just infiltrated American culture, and
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: so between Lowell and Tesla, they just completely got the.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: Public excited, fascinating. My guest David Barron his book The Martians,
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: the true story of an alien craze that captured Turn
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: of the century America. We'll be back with more after
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: these words on the Open Times Radio Network.
• 42:23
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• 44:39
  Speaker 1: Back on Destination Unlimited. My guest this week David barn
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: his book The Martians, the true story of an alien
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: craze that captured turn of the century America. We sort
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: of alluded to this in the last segment, but that
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: at scientific inquiry that we're talking about supercharge science fiction
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: as a genre.
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, so the story.
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: One of the reasons I liked writing this book is
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: it's such a rich story, this Mars craze that occurred
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: at the turn of the last century. You can read
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: it several ways, and you know they're all accurate. You
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: can read into it a it's a cautionary tale. Percival
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: Lowell sent the world down this rabbit hole of believing
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: in a Martian civilization that did not exist. So it's
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: a cautionary tale about being skeptical of our you know,
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: if we believe something, making sure we really test ourselves.
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: You know, are we believing it because we want to
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: believe it, or are we believing it because it's true.
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: But at the same Timewell's Lowell did a lot of good.
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: He really got the public excited about outer space and
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: the possibility of alien life and the possibility of exploring
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: our solar system, and so he had some very positive
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: real effects, and one.
• 45:59
  Speaker 6: Was on.
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: You may have heard of the Hugo Awards. It's the
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: big award in science fiction that's named after a man
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: named Hugo Gernsback, who is considered the father of science fiction.
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: He was an early writer and editor of science fiction.
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: He had a number of science fiction magazines back in
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: the early part of the twentieth century. Well Hugo Gernsback
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: famously would tell the story that the reason he went
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: into science fiction was because, as a teen he read
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: one of Percival Lowell's books about Mars and just got
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: so excited thinking about these canal building martians and this
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: higher civilization on the planet next door. It changed his
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: life and changed the course of literature.
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: William Rice Burrows.
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: Who wrote the best known for the Tarzan Books, wrote
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: a series of books about Mars that were hugely, hugely
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: successful starting in the nineteen teens. Was all based on
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: Lowell's idea of Mars. Science fiction then inspired scientists as well,
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: so a whole bunch of these wonderful stories. Carl Sagan,
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: whom I've mentioned a number of times, said the reason
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: he became a scientist was because he read those Edgar
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: Rice Burroughs books when he was a kid, which told
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: the story of a human named John Carter who would
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: travel to Mars and have these adventures there, and Carl
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: Sagan so wanted to emulate John Carter's adventures on Mars
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: that when he grew up he realized, well, the way
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: to do it is to become a scientist. And even
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: even if he couldn't go there, he could help send
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: spacecraft there, which he did. But going back even further,
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: the man who invented the first liquid fuel rocket, Robert H. Goddard,
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: decided to become a rocket scientist because he read H. G.
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: Wells as The War of the World when he was
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: a kid in the eighteen nineties and thought, I wonder
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: if it's really possible to go from planet to planet,
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: and he figured out a way to do it. So
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: there were a lot of positive things that came out
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: of that excitement about Mars.
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: More than one hundred years ago.
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: We seem to be talking a lot about Mars again.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: Why is this topic so relevant today?
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: Well, so you know now, of course we have sent
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: our robots to Mars. We've got several rovers that have
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: been and are still going across the surface there's still
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: a question about whether Mars had life, or may even
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: has life.
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: I mean, I see no evidence.
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: That there was actually a civilization ever on Mars, despite
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: that supposed face on Mars. Who knows, But clearly there
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: may well have been life of some sort on Mars.
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: And by that I mean microbes maybe. Mars we now know,
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: early in its history was quite lush. It had a
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: thicker atmosphere than it does today, It had flowing water.
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: Mars seemed very earthlke early on. It's quite possible life
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: emerged on Mars. And if life did emerge on Mars,
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: it could still be there. There might be microbes hidden underground,
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: and it would be very exciting to find that out.
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: But also, of course, there are those who see Mars
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: as humanity's future. Elon Musk is the most famous proponent
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: of the idea, but he's not alone. There's a group
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: called the Mars Society that's been around for going on
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: thirty years that it is pushing the idea of humankind
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: setting up shop on Mars, and I have no doubt
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: we will eventually. I don't know how soon. But in
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: the same way that Mars a century ago was a
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: place that we projected our hopes and dreams on do
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: and we imagined a better world there. In terms of
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: the Martian civilization, I think we're doing the same thing today.
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: A lot of the discussion of Mars is that we
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: can start over, we can build a better civilization, we
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: can start from scratch and have a more egalitarian, more
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: peaceful world. It's a wonderful dream. I'd love to see
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: it happen, but I think we also have to be
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: skeptical in the same way people should have been skeptical
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: about the Martian civilization one.
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: Hundred years ago.
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: If we move to Mars, I have a feeling we're
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: going to bring our problems with us. That's not to
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: say we shouldn't do it, but let's not be all
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: starry eyed.
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: We have to be realistic.
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: When I was in junior high school in the nineteen sixties,
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: I had the opportunity to interview Mort Weisinger, who was
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: the editor of DC Superman Comics. I asked him his
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: opinion as to why these characters were so popular, especially
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: among young people. His answer to me was that there
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: was a quote hero vacuum in real life, and that
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: superheroes gave you something to aspire to. In the last
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: twenty five years, there's been an explosion of interest in UFOs,
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: UAPs and non human intelligence. Do you think this is
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: also filling some kind of vacuum?
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: A fascinating story and great question, I do think. So
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: that's not to say what's true and what isn't true,
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: but why are people so fascinated by these phenomena and
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: why do people want to believe in them, whether they
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: are true or not.
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: And I'm not an.
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: Expert and can't say. I think it does come down
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: to this human longing which I feel in myself.
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: You know, being human is tough, you know.
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: Contemplating mortality is difficult, and I think we all want
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: to believe we're part of something larger than ourselves. I
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: believe we are. That's what total solar eclipses do for me.
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: When when I stand in the Moon's shadow, when I
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: see the Sun and the Solar system in all their glory,
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: I realize that I am connected to something much larger
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: than myself that goes beyond my individual life, and it's
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: a wonderful feeling. But I think that is partly why,
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: you know, people want to believe not only in aliens,
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: but the aliens have visited US. I have no question
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: that there are aliens out there, that they're intelligent aliens
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: out there.
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: Whether they've visited the Earth yet, but I think that
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: explains the fascination.
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: Any thoughts on the recent visits by interstellar bodies such
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: as a Muamua or three I Atlas.
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: Well there too. I think I would say the same thing.
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: There is an astrophysicist at Harvard, Avi Loeb, who has
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: has this theory that these interstellar objects may be in
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: fact alien spacecraft. Interesting idea, I would say, most astronomers
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: just don't.
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: See it that way.
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: I don't see anything wrong with a theory like that
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: being investigated. It's certainly I'm not an expert. I can't
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: say if it's true or not. But why again, but
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: he gets a lot of attention. Why is that? Because
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: it's something I think many of us would like to believe.
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: I would like to believe it. I would love it
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: if in my lifetime we had proof of intelligent aliens,
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: hopefully friendly ones that we're in contact with. But is
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: that the most logical explanation?
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: If we ultimately do build a colony on Mars. Would
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: you like to be part of that mission?
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: Not at this age. It would take a good six
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: to eight months to get there. Boy, would it be
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: hard on the body to be in up there without
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: much gravity and then on a planet without much gravity.
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: Mars is a tough, tough place. I mean, it'd be very,
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: very hard to live there. Again, I think our future
• 53:45
  Speaker 3: is that we will go there at some point. But
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: you're talking about a place that wants to kill you,
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: that you know so little atmosphere that not only do
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: you need to breathe a tanked oxygen, but you need
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: a pressurized suit if you're going to be out in
• 54:01
  Speaker 3: the atmosphere. There is radiation bathing the surface that's very dangerous.
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: There are global dust storms that blow through.
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: It's not a very friendly environment. But we as humans
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: have done amazing things before in terms of exploration. We've
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: explored the deep sea, We've gone to the Moon, which
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: has no atmosphere. I have no doubt we'll go there,
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: but I'll leave it to younger people to go.
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: What would you like readers to take away from the Martians?
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: Well, again, I think it's a piece of history that
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: unfortunately largely been forgotten that I hope I've resurrected, and
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: I think we'll speak to people today in a lot
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: of ways. It says a lot about why we as
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: a culture are so fascinated with Mars. I think a
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: lot of the dynamics of the way belief interacted with
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: the tabloid media of the time speaks a lot to
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: the way social media works now in terms of spreading
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: ideas that may or may not be true, but that
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: catch on with the public and take off the way
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: the Mars craze did then. But again, my goal as
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: a writer, and the reason I write books that are
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: novelistic and not like dry history books, is I want
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: to tell a fun, compelling tale, and I hope people
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: will be will find interesting facts in there, but be
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: moved as well emotionally. I found myself moved emotionally telling
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: the story. Again, it's really about human longing ultimately and
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: what it means to be human on this earth.
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. My guest David Barron has wonderful new book, The Martians,
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: the true story of an alien craze that captured turn
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: of the century America. David, one more time, please share
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: with our listeners with it and get all of your
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: books and find out more about you.
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 55:48
  Speaker 3: So, my books are available wherever books are sold. But
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: if you want to go directly to my website, which
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: has links to where you can buy the books, it's
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: Davidbarnauthor dot com. And my last name has one R,
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: so it's B A R O N davidbarnauthor dot com.
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: But if you just google David Baron Martians, you'll you'll
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: find it.
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: David, thank you so much for joining us ensuring this
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: wonderful and amazing story.
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: Victor, it was a great conversation.
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: I appreciate your questions and thank you for joining us
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: on Destination Unlimited. I'm Victor la Voice Furman. Have a
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: wonderful week.