Hey, true weirdos, at the end of this episode, stick around if you want for a little bonus content and conversation.

Tell somebody today that you think Mars is or was inhabited, that you believe in Martians who built canals and pyramids and maybe even colonized Earth when their own planet was facing environmental

collapse and you will get the side eye.

You'll be labeled a kook and a weirdo.

But what if I told you that believing in all of that is a proud American tradition?

Because it is.

Hey, Martian cousins.

Come out, come out, wherever you are.

And they got a small beam of light against the mirror.

Real, wild.

No, no, no, no.

No. No. People are. Real weird. Human weird stuff.

Humans have been fascinated with the planet Mars since, well, forever.

The ancient Babylonians called Mars Nurgal, the god of war, with side hustles that include it being both the blistering noonday sun and the god of pestilence, plagues, and catastrophes.

Hindu mythology, god of war. Ancient Greece and ancient Rome, God of war. The ancient Chinese associated Mars with, you guessed it, war, but also

grief and murder. How about the ancient Egyptians? As ever, our mysterious pyramid builders rise to the top

of the class, being the first humans to figure out that the stars were stationary in the night sky.

The Egyptians theorized that it was the sun that moved, not the stars, and the ancient Egyptians

were also the first to grasp that those

five very bright points of light in the night sky seemed to move in a very similar way. Those five

glowing dots are what we call Mercury, Mars, Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn.

The Egyptians dubbed Mars the Red One, a nickname that stuck to this very day.

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