Why the New York Times Claimed Life Had Been Found on Mars
If you follow news about the media industry or space exploration again in 2021, you may remember when New York Times I mistakenly published a story that the watermelon has been found on Mars.
“The authorities say that the rise of foreign fruits is responsible for the abundance of outer space watermelon,” she read the story, which deleted the newspaper after less than an hour, but is still available in a shot. “The FBI refused to comment on reports of watermelon, but he confirmed that kiwi had been intercepted.”
It is not surprising, the official spokesman for the paper explained that the article was a fake draft that was unintentionally published as part of the test system.
As it turned out, this was not the first time that the registrar paper was mistakenly claiming that life was discovered on the red planet. This distinction goes to an extraordinary feature published in December 1906, which New York Times He ran under the title “Al -Sarash in full” for “There is a life on Mars.”
In the story, journalist Lillian Whiteng – a prominent correspondent and poet at the time to the extent that she still has a Wikipedia page after 78 years of her full death – she wrote brightly from Perseval Lowl, a controversial astronomer that established Luel Observatory in Arizona, which later later to discover Pluto.
Luel was convinced that, using the large telescope that built it in his observatory in Flagstav, he took a look at “hordes of channels on Mars, and it constitutes a huge system and a planned system with the wisdom designed to irrigate the vast deserts ponds that form the surface of this planet.”
“The astronomer finds a network of wonderfully designed channels that go beyond deserts, meeting at some points, unified lines, thousands of miles in length, and three to seventeen channels that are sometimes converging at one point,” Witling wrote. “Therefore, the only logical result that can be accessed … is that the oases are large centers for the population; that the channels are built by directing intelligence to the purposes as mentioned above, and that their presence is a sign that cannot be answered and proven on the existence of a conscious and smart life, on Mars.”
The entire article is worth reading. In addition to a wonderful series of stylistic options and cheerful old wires, it is a charming snapshot of the moment when science seemed to feel vast and unknown, when an eccentric professor can make a terrible extrapolation about something that is believed to be embodied in his entire telescope in one of the news in the world.
In order to be clear, I attracted claims for a lot of controversy at that time from his peers; After seeing the Astronomical Drawings of Will at a meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society, one of the critics wrote that “I do not know whether Mr. Lille looks at Mars until he gets Mars on the brain, and because of some of the transfer of signs to Venus.”
The entire episode returned in the general view due to a new book by journalist David Baron, entitled “Mars”. In it, Baron explores the explosion of attention-false science with wild eyes-around Mars during the sect. Scientific stars, including Nicolas Tesla and Alexander Graham Bell, jumped in this direction, before the scientific reaction has tore everything.
In a complete circle, the Baron book obtained a glowing review this week-published in The New York Times.
Mars fever “is a polite community in America, with vital images of foreigners in soap ads and alcoholic beverages, in Broadway and at dinner parties,” on writing the paper for the book. In the development of dead, “strong yellow press, and in the end more realistic outlets like New York Times and Wall Street JournalI have published all kinds of speculation about the red planet as a reality. “
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2025-08-30 10:00:00
