Dreams of an astronomer

by Camille Flammarion

But is it possible that the inhabitants of Mars have already commenced and that it is we who do not understand?

According to geological computations, the minimum age of the Earth as a habitable sphere since the formation of the first dry land is 20 million years: 10 million 700 thousand for the primordial age, 2 million 300 thousand years for the secondary age, 460 thousand years for the tertiary age, and 100 thousand for the quaternary age. Man has existed on Earth since the end of the tertiary age, that is over 100 thousand years. Astronomical instruments were only invented in 1609, and Mars was not observed nor recognised in its principal geographical details until 1858. Complete observations of Martian geography only date back to 1862. The first detailed triangulation of the planet, the first map comprising the smallest objects visible in the telescope and measured by micrometer was only commenced in 1877, continued in 1879, and completed in 1882. It is therefore only a few years since Mars entered into the sphere of our practical observations. I may add that only very few of the Earth’s inhabitants have seen it in all its details, one of the foremost of these being the astronomer Schiaparelli, the Director of the Milan Observatory.

According to the most probable cosmogonic theory, Mars is older than our planet by several million years and much more advanced along its path of destiny than ours. The inhabitants of Mars may have been signalling to us for 100 thousand years. Nobody on our planet would have suspected it. It is only since the seventeenth century that astronomers may have thought, not of discovering such signals, for their instruments were not sufficiently powerful, but of the possibility of some day seeing a little more of what happens on that neighbouring world. In fact it is only a few years that we have had any hope of distinguishing these minute details, not to speak of explaining them.

* * * * *

Now, this is what happened. The map of the planet Mars was made with infinite care by the able astronomer of Milan. One sees on this chart in several regions certain points where the observer has found the presence of luminous patches shining like snow illuminated by the sun. That these luminous patches are due to snow is not likely, because some are seen near the equator in the tropics as well as at higher latitudes. Nor does it seem likely that they are the tops of mountains, for they are close to the seas and arranged symmetrically to certain straight canals. Besides, several of them seem to trace out meridians and parallels of latitude, and on seeing them one involuntarily thinks of Geodesic signals. One sees triangles, squares, and rectangles.

That these luminous points should have been established by engineers or astronomers on Mars is not my idea. That the 60 great rectilinear parallel canals which we admire on that planet and which establish communication between the Martian seas should be the work of the inhabitants of this neighbouring planet would be presumptuous to imagine. That is not the conclusion I would arrive at. Nature is so rich in procedure, so varied in its manifestations, so multiple and so complex in its effects, and often so strange and original in its play, that we have no right to limit its mode of action.

But it is none the less true that if the inhabitants of Mars wished to send us any signals, that method of procedure would be one of the simplest and it is in fact the only one which has been devised among ourselves. They could not do better than thus dispose luminous points at certain distances according to geometrical figures. For instance, one finds the intersection of the 267th meridian with the 14th degree of northern latitude a region limited by points situated at distances from each other corresponding to Amiens, Orleans, and Le Mans. If the inhabitants of Mars wished to send us signals they could not have chosen better places for their luminous stations.

I am far from saying that this is so and that there is any intention in this arrangement. Yet if it were so, it would be we who did not understand.

And there is nothing surprising in this. The inhabitants of the Earth take no interest in the Heavens. Ninety-nine per cent, of them among the 1,500 million Earth-dwellers do not know what they walk on and have no conception of the reality. They are busy with eating, drinking, and reproducing themselves, with amassing various objects, with patriotically devouring each other, and with dying. But as regards asking where they are or what is the universe, that is no concern of theirs. Their native ignorance suffices them. They live in the middle of the Heavens without knowing it and without the slightest enjoyment of intellectual happiness which some select spirits find in the recognition of truth.

The inhabitants of Mars, on the other hand, being more ancient than ourselves, can be much more advanced in the way of progress and can live an enlightened and intellectual spiritual life. We are safe in supposing that they know our world much better than we know theirs, and that our astronomical science is only child’s place beside theirs. If, therefore, the people of Mars, living perhaps for a long time already in the harmony of a peaceful and intelligent life, had thought of attempting to send signals to the Earth, with the idea that perhaps our planet is also inhabited by an intellectual race, then since they have never received any answer from us they will have concluded that we are not on their level, that we do not busy ourselves with the matters of the sky, that astronomy and optics are not very advanced among us, and that in all probability we have not yet emerged from clumsy material instincts. Is their conclusion very far from the truth?