An1898 article in The Atlantic Monthly summing up the findings of Schiaparelli, Lowell, and others, noted that Mars might be in "an advanced stage of evolution" compared to Earth, at a later stage ...

Percival Lowell was quite convinced that an alien race occupied Mars. And he even had the evidence to prove they existed: an immense network of canals carved into the Martian surface that he spied ...

In the late 19th century, the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli inflamed the world's imagination with his claim to have seen long, straight channels (mistranslated as "canals" in English ...

Images of Mars taken from orbiting spacecraft suggest water may periodically appear on the planet’s surface. Over 100 years ago, Percival Lowell thought the “canals” on Mars were evidence of ...

In 1877, Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli observed a network of dark streaks on the surface of Mars. He called them canali (meaning “natural channels”) and transposed them onto the ...

1908: Lowell writes "Mars as the Abode of Life," presenting his full theory that canals were built by smart folks. 1921: Guglielmo Marconi, inventor of the wireless, claims to hear signals that ...

A 42 km-wide impact crater and numerous smaller craters straddle the northwestern rim of the 460 km-diameter Schiaparelli basin in this image taken by ESA’s Mars Express on 15 July 2010.

A 42 km-wide impact crater and numerous smaller craters straddle the northwestern rim of the 460 km-diameter Schiaparelli basin in this image taken by ESA’s Mars Express on 15 July 2010.

Weintraub explores the history of our Martian passion, the blunders we’ve made in our pursuit of it — think Percival Lowell’s and Giovanni Schiaparelli’s imaginary canals on the Martian ...

American businessman Percival Lowell certainly thought so. His drawings of the canals and his three books on the planet published between 1895 and 1908 spread the idea that intelligent life had ...