"On Mars we received all your radio waves. We heard all the languages used on your earth. But try as we would, we were not able to send our radio waves to your earth. There is a strange, strong interference. Your earth has a protective shell of electrically charged gases, some sixty miles thick, clinging to it. This shell seriously disturbs the travels of our radio waves in your atmosphere. It prevented us from making communications. That is one of the reasons we captured your plane; we wished to analyze your radio transmitter and find the metal or element which would help us pierce through.
"We knew about your orders to destroy your secret mechanisms and transmitter; we would have deterred you, but you were too quick for us. Even this action does not discourage us. We shall capture another plane in the same way we have captured yours—or perhaps you will help us to obtain a transmitter, after you understand our purpose. We aim to send radio messages to your Earth people. After you gentlemen have seen the way we live, you may help us by becoming friendly ambassadors to your own people.
"We are now taking you to our planet to show you our way of life. You may stay with us as long as you like—see everything, learn everything." Then the speaker turned to me with a smile, "You were perplexed when our attendant told you to take along your pencil and notebook; he read your thoughts and anticipated your wish.
"I want to warn you, that we have a sixth sense, the faculty of reading, receiving, and transmitting thought waves, even over long distances. This faculty is very highly developed in us. You people of the Earth also possess it, but in a limited subconscious and dormant state; you may develop it in the future. We can read your thoughts, and we ask that you please try your best to control them so as not to offend us. We have long ago, through training, learned to control our thoughts and minds, the guiding spirits of our actions.
"You will be surprised to learn how great our knowledge is of Earth people. Each language is clear to us, because we read the thoughts of your inhabitants. Our television cabinets are so perfect that we can see everywhere on earth. We clearly hear all that is being said. Through constant evolution, we have developed in ourselves an acute mental receptive faculty of hypermnesis, extraordinary power of quick mental absorption, and a sharp lasting memory. It is very easy for us to learn any of your languages.
"We would certainly like to send you television pictures showing how we live, but television receives the same interference as our radio waves. You are surprised at the natural forces we command, no doubt. We'll try to explain. As a pilot you have studied astronomy. You know that our planet—
'Mars is the most interesting object in the heavens for your scientists, because it is the one and only world where they appear to have found direct evidence of life and because some astronomers have held the opinion that it provides evidence for the existence on it of intelligent beings.'[2]
'Our planet revolves in an orbit, that is outside the orbit of the earth, its mean distance from the sun being a little more than one and one-half times that of the earth.'[3]
'The distance of Mars from the sun varies by more than twenty-six million miles. It requires a period of a little short of two years for Mars to complete one revolution in its orbit.'[4]
'The diameter of Mars is about 4,215 miles, only a little more than half that of the earth. Its weight is rather more than one-tenth of the weight of the earth.'[5]