The Original Alien Craze: When People Believed in Martians

Science now for several centuries had been undermining traditional Christian belief. I mean, from Copernicus and Galileo to Newton to Darwin, everything seemed explainable by natural forces. It was hard to see where God fit in anymore. And so people felt unmoored by this. Well, Lowell was giving people back some essentially supernatural beings on the planet next door who could be our guardian angels.

In fact, in a number of The depictions at the time, the Martians are depicted with wings, and they're looking down on Earth as if they're going to come save us. Questions Mars might answer. And it was a discussion about when we get in touch with the Martians, what should we ask them? Well, you would think that we would ask them practical questions about how to build a better airplane or how to build canals, after all.

But no, it's the most remarkable thing. This list of questions were probably the most fascinating. famous piece of Mars fiction to come out of the era was the War of the Worlds, in which the Martians were these hideous monstrous creatures. That is not the way people pictured the Martians at the time. The Martians were better than us.

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