Tag Archives: Martian landforms

A Watery Mars; Canals, a duped radio audience, and geological excursions

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Map of Martian canals by Schiaparelli in 1888

Title page to H.G.Wells iconic book, 1927Deceptive news is the art of pulling wool over the eyes of the populace, a tool (recently resurrected by certain politicians) for persuasion or dissuasion.  Orson Welles got more than he bargained for when, on October 30, 1938, he orchestrated a radio adaptation of H.G. Wells The War of The Worlds, a 1898 sci-fi that pits intelligent Martians against Victorian Britain.  Welles broadcast created a mix of amusement in some commentators, and in others panic and anger; panic in the unwitting, anger in the duped (especially other broadcasters), and amusement in all the above.

Well’s novel, apart from being the product of an agile mind, was influenced by some of the popular astronomical ideas of his time.  Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli produced, in 1888 a wonderfully detailed map of Mars showing (above image), among features such as seas, islands, and other landmasses, a network of ‘canali’, or channels.  Canali was misinterpreted in English as canals, and along with all its connotations of intelligent life, the idea of Martian canals entered popular belief. Continue reading

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