The Original Alien Craze: When People Believed in Martians

The Michael Shermer Show

Michael Shermer

Natural Sciences, Science

4.3 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 20 December 2025

⏱️ 88 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

At the turn of the 20th century, millions of Americans, including elite scientists, major newspapers, and cultural icons, were convinced that Mars was home to an advanced civilization.

In this episode, Michael Shermer speaks with award-winning science journalist David Baron about one of the most astonishing episodes in scientific-cultural history. Blurry telescopes, mistranslated words, and persuasive personalities transformed speculation into accepted fact, while more cautious scientists struggled to be heard.

The discussion covers Percival Lowell's Martian canals, Nikola Tesla's claim to have detected signals from another planet, and the role of mass media and early science fiction in fueling public belief.

The episode also connects this forgotten moment to present-day debates about UFOs, alien megastructures, and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, raising broader questions about how scientific ideas spread and why some claims capture the public imagination.

David Baron is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster, and author. A former science correspondent for NPR, he has also written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, Scientific American, and other publications. David recently served as the Baruch S. Blumberg NASA/Library of Congress Chair in Astrobiology, Exploration, and Scientific Innovation. His new book is The Martians: The True Story of an Alien Craze that Captured Turn-of-the-Century America.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Science now for several centuries had been undermining traditional Christian belief.
0:04.8	I mean, from Copernicus and Galileo to Newton to Darwin, everything seemed explainable by natural forces.
0:11.1	It was hard to see where God fit in anymore.
0:13.5	And so people felt unmoored by this.
0:15.9	Well, Lowell was giving people back some essentially supernatural beings on the planet next door.
0:21.6	Who could be our guardian angels?
0:23.3	In fact, a number of the depictions at the time, the Martians are depicted with wings,
0:27.8	and they're looking down on Earth as if they're going to come save us.
0:31.6	Questions Mars might answer.
0:33.6	And it was a discussion about when we get in touch with the Martians, what should we ask them?
0:38.5	Well, you would think that we would ask them practical questions about how to build a better
0:42.7	airplane or how to build canals after all.
0:45.1	But no, it's the most remarkable thing.
0:47.6	This list of questions were probably the most famous piece of Mars fiction to come out of the era,
0:52.7	was the War of the Worlds, in which the
0:54.5	Martians were these hideous, monstrous creatures. That is not the way people pictured the
0:59.4	Martians at the time. The Martians were better than us. They were more advanced than us. They
1:03.9	were more moral, more peaceful. In fact, by 1908, you had pastors sermonizing about the Martians
1:09.9	that we should emulate them.
1:16.3	All right. Hey, everybody. It's Michael Shermer. It's time for another episode of the Michael Shermer show. My guest today is David Barron. He's an award-winning journalist, broadcaster, and author of The Beast in the Garden, the true story of
1:29.8	a predator's deadly return to suburban America.
1:33.0	That's about mountain lions, right?
	...

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