Canals on Mars? (Martian Life, Alien Life, Extraterrestrials, Exobiology)

**Dom Bettinelli** (0:00)
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**SPEAKER_2** (0:28)
We know now that in the early years of the 20th century, this world was being watched closely by intelligences greater than man's, and yet as mortal as his own.
We know now that as human beings busy themselves about their various concerns, they were scrutinized and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. Yet across an immense, ethereal gulf, minds that are to our minds as ours are to the beasts in the jungle, intellects vast, cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes and slowly and surely drew their plans against us.

**Dom Bettinelli** (1:32)
You're listening to episode 179 of Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World, where we look at mysteries from the twin perspectives of faith and reason. In this episode, we're talking about the reported canals on Mars and the possibility that life exists on that planet. I'm Dom Bettinelli, and joining me today is Jimmy Akin. Hi, Jimmy. Howdy, Dom.
Before we get started, folks, be sure to stick around for the end of the episode, as we'll have your feedback on our recent episode on Paul Amadeus Denoch. But first, the planet Mars has always been mysterious. The ancient Mesopotamians thought of it as the god of war and plague. The Greeks and Romans also thought of it as the god of war. But as science developed, it was discovered to be a planet like Earth. In fact, its climate is the most like Earth's of any planet in our solar system. As a result, people have long wondered if there is life on Mars.
This idea got a big boost in the 19th century when astronomers announced they discovered a huge planet-spanning network of canals on Mars. That implied not just life, but a civilization on the planet.
Is there life on Mars? How did it get there? And what is it like? That's what we'll be talking about on this episode of Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World. So Jimmy, what do we need to say to begin?

**Jimmy Akin** (2:56)
This is going to be a two-part mystery. I want to begin by talking about how we got to where we are now in our knowledge of Mars.
Today, we'll be looking at the history of what people thought about there being life on Mars down to the 1970s when we got our first test results from the planet's surface. Then next week, we'll look at the resulting controversy and all the evidence we've gotten since then, and the evidence is going to show that there is quite a good likelihood that there is life on Mars. So, you'll definitely want to listen. Also, I want to let the listeners know that yes, I have had David Bowie's song, Life on Mars, running through my head while preparing the script for this episode.

**Dom Bettinelli** (3:40)
Excellent. Now we all do.

**Jimmy Akin** (3:42)
Look at those cavemen go.

**Dom Bettinelli** (3:45)
So, a lot of people think that there's evidence of not just life on Mars, but intelligent life or at least the ruins of an ancient civilization.

**Jimmy Akin** (3:54)
That's true. There have been a lot of claims that of that nature, both within the UFO community and in the remote viewing community.
We'll be talking about those in future episodes. And that's why I wanted to do this one first. It's a way of establishing a kind of scientific baseline for those future episodes by looking at what has already been established by Mars, what we're likely to learn in the near future, and what current science has to say about the issue. So this is one of our periodic foundational stories or mysteries that serves to introduce topics we'll be talking about in more depth in the future.

**Dom Bettinelli** (4:30)
Then let's begin. When was Mars discovered and what did the ancients know about it?

**Jimmy Akin** (4:36)
Mars was discovered in the prehistoric period before the development of writing. People have been staring up at the night sky ever since there have been people. And the natural human tendency to see patterns in things led them to identify the patterns of stars that we now refer to as constellations.
In previous episodes, we've discussed how there is evidence that people were already talking about the constellation of Ursa Major, the Great Bear, at least 15,000 years ago. Because we have similar legends about the Great Bear in both East Asia and North America, suggesting that the legends began before people crossed the Bering Land Bridge and started populating North America. Similarly, there have been legends about the Pleiades star cluster, known as the Seven Sisters, that may go back tens of thousands of years. But as people noticed these patterns in the night sky, they noticed something else. In addition to the constellations, the stable star patterns, there were also certain stars that wandered through the constellations, and their motions could be really strange. Sometimes these wandering stars would move forward, then they would pause, and they would move backwards, and then they'd stop again and start moving forwards once more.