A new book details the turn-of-the-century Mars craze It’s not aliens. It’s never aliens. Claims of extraterrestrial life are so common that experts now have this cheeky retort at the ready. In The ...

In the early 20th century it was widely thought that there was intelligent life on Mars, and that we actually knew something about the inhabitants. Fringe theorists and yellow journalists spread this ...

For this week’s Fault Lines column, Jon Allsop is filling in for Jay Caspian Kang. In 1877, Giovanni Schiaparelli, an Italian astronomer (and uncle of the fashion icon Elsa), started making a map of ...

As a kid in the 1960s and '70s, David Baron – like many others – was fascinated by Mars. “There was a popular sitcom back then called “My Favorite Martian,” about an alien from the Red planet who ...

Life on the red planet? “Bosh and nonsense,” said one astronomer. But according to “The Martians,” plenty of self-appointed experts argued otherwise. A 1906 New York Times account, focusing on the ...