Word: planets
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...idea that there might be life-human life, animal life-on Mars, based on the existence of geometrical lines on the surface of the planet, led naturally to attempts to receive communications. Several radio stations, at the instance of Professor David Todd, of Amherst, were tempted to listen. Positive results were of course few. ¶In Vancouver, a radio station heard a regular series of dashes or zipps every day at certain hours; these, however, were explained as signals from "radio beacons" set up by the U. S. to assist vessels...
...Jungfrau, a Swiss scientist claimed to have seen flashes of yellow and green light from the planet, which might have been flashes of sunlight on mountain peaks...
...main the results were decidedly negative. Some study of the planet was made from certain observatories. The Lowell Observatory at Flagstaff, Ariz., which "specializes in Mars," made observations in an effort to advance the tenets of the late Professor Percival Lowell that there is life on the planet, as evidenced by the existence of vegetation colors and the alleged canals. In general, astronomers displayed more interest in studying the satellites or moons, Phobos and Deimos (Fear and Dread), named after the mythological steeds of Mars' chariot. No new satellite was discovered, although at the Yerkes Observatory at Lake Geneva...
...chances are that, taking any planet at random, it is unlikely that we should find on it anything akin to human life. That there is life of some sort on Mars is probable enough. Prof. Lowell's opinion about the canals may be doubted, but the evidence he adduces for vegetation is fairly acceptable...
...changes in the darkness and color of the canals indicating the coming and going of the water and its effect on vegetation. The whole supposition that there is animal life on Mars rests on the fact that the alleged canals are absolutely straight, running along great arcs of the planet's surface. "How," it is asked, "could these canals have been made unless by intelligent beings...