C. Paulon: A Message from the Planet Mars

(Paul Combes)

(1897)

 

 

One evening last summer, I was reading the latest news in Le Temps when my eyes were attracted by the following paragraph:

 

STRANGE LIGHT ON THE PLANET MARS

On Monday evening, Dr. Krueger, the director of the Central Astronomical Bureau of Kiel, telegraphed to all his correspondents: Luminous projection in the southern region of the Martian terminator observed by Javelle, 16.00—Perrotin.

The “terminator” is the penumbral zone separating day and night.57

 

This news was doubly interesting for me. For a long time, the study of astronomy had transported me imaginatively into the marvelous universe that gravitates outside our little globe. In the second place, a few years previously, I had attempted, with an old astronomer, an unforgettable experiment in interastral communication.

That extraordinary man, who lived as a recluse in his observatory, had—or believed that he had—opened a correspondence with the inhabitants of the planet Mars, but means of powerful beams of electric light, intermittently interrupted like the signals of the optical telegraph. I had often considered him to be a monomaniac, but who knows? Perhaps he was not so crazy after all.

In spite of myself, I opened my books, searching among the earlier observations for some natural explanation of the strange light.

Finding nothing, I resolved to go out to consult my friend, Professor Gazen, the well-known astronomer, who is particularly renowned for a sequence of splendid spectroscopic research regarding the composition of the sun and other celestial bodies.

The night was perfectly clear; not a single cloud veiled the dark blue immensity. The stars were resplendent in the depths of the sky, like diamonds fallen from the silvery belt of the Milky Way. The constellation of Orion was shining with a remarkable brightness in the eastern sky, and Sirius was sparkling in the south like a living gem.

I searched with my eyes for the planet Mars, and soon picked it out, to the north, like a big red star surrounded by white constellations.

 I found Professor Gazen at his observatory, plunged in calculations.

“I’m doubtless disturbing you,” I said to him, as we shook hands. “Such a beautiful night must be favorable to your astronomical work.”

“You’re not disturbing me at all,” he replied, cordially. “I’m observing a nebula, but it will remain above the horizon for a long time yet.”

“Good! What’s this mysterious light on the planet Mars? Have you seen it?”

“I’ve seen nothing!” he said. “And yet, I observed the planet for a long time last night.”

“But...do you believe that some sort of light has really been seen?”

“Oh, certainly. Nice Observatory, of which Monsieur Perrotin is the director, has one off the best telescopes in existence, and Monsieur Javelle is well-known for the care he brings to his observations.”

“And how do you explain it?”

“The light is not on the disk of the planet itself,” Gazen replied, “so I was inclined at first to attribute it to a small comet. Perhaps, also, it might be due to a Martian aurora borealis, as a contributor to La Science Illustrée has suggested, or a range of snowy mountains, or even a brilliant cloud, reflecting the rays of the rising sun.”

“And which of these various hypotheses appears to you to be the most plausible?”

“The one that attributes the light to elevated mountain peaks reflecting solar rays.”

“Could it not be the nocturnal lighting of a city, or a powerful luminous projection—in a word, a signal?”

“Oh no, my dear chap!” the astronomer exclaimed, with an incredulous smile. “The idea of communication germinated in a few minds a couple of years ago, when Mars was in opposition and close to the Earth. Perhaps you recall the plan that was made to dispose the lighting of Paris in such a way as to attract the attention of the Martians?”

“No…but I think I’ve mentioned to you the singular experiment that I made some five or six years ago, with an old astronomer who thought he had established optical communication with Mars.”

“Yes, indeed, I remember. The poor old fellow was mad. Like the astronomer in Rasselas, he had nourished his visionary idea in solitude for so long that he had ended up mistaking for a reality.”

“But might there not have been an element of truth in his imagination? Perhaps the ‘visionary’ was only ahead of his time?”

Gazen shook his head. “Mars, you see,” he went on, “is a much more ancient planet than ours. In winter, its polar ice extends to the fortieth degree of latitude, and its climate must be very cold. If human beings have ever lived on its surface, they must have disappeared a long time ago, or be living in the same conditions as Eskimos.”

“But might not the climate be ameliorated by continental and oceanic conditions unknown to us? Certainly, in spring, one can see Mars’s polar ice-cap extending as far as the fortieth degree of latitude. Nevertheless, when summer begins it starts to diminish, band by the first days of autumn only a few fragments remain. In 1894 those even disappeared entirely.”

“The Martian atmosphere is as rarefied as that of the mountains of our globe at a height of eight thousand meters, and a warm-blooded organism like a human could not live there.”

“Like a human, yes!” I replied. “But humans are adapted to their environment. We’re too inclined to relate everything we observe to those we see every day. How can we claim that the potential of life is limited to what is familiar to us on our own planet?”

“Besides,” Gazen continued, without taking any notice of my reflection, “Your old astronomer’s project, consisting of making signals by means of powerful luminous jets, was completely impracticable. No artificial light exists capable of reaching Mars. Think about the immense distance that separates the two planets, and the two absorbent atmospheres to be traversed. The man was mad!”

“I read the other day that there’s an electric searchlight in America that can be perceived a hundred and fifty miles away, through the lowest regions of our atmosphere. Such a light, appropriately directed, could be seen from the planet Mars, and there’s no reason to suppose that the Martians haven’t invented one even more powerful.”

“And if they had,” said Gazen, laughing, “the idea that they’ve had of sending us signals just at the moment that it’s possible for us to reply, is simply stupefying.”

“I don’t see anything extraordinary in the coincidence. Two minds often have the same idea at the same time. Why not those of two different planets, if the propitious moment has arrived? Certainly, there’s only one unique Mind that inspires the entire universe. Besides, the Martians might have been sending us signals from time to time for centuries, without our having perceived them. Perhaps, at this very moment, we’re losing precious time, while they’re striving to attract our attention. Would you care to look?”

“Yes, if it’ll give you pleasure. But I doubt that we’ll see the slightest luminous projection, human or otherwise.”

“At least we’ll see the surface of Mars, and that already constitutes an admirable spectacle. It seems to me that the contemplation of celestial bodies through a good telescope ought to be part of a complete liberal education, by the same entitlement as a voyage around the world. And yet, although people who wander around the Earth in search of new locations, with great difficulty and at great expense, are numerous, those who think about the sublime spectacle of the heavens that one can contemplate without leaving home are rare. Gazing at those distant worlds has the power to elevate and purify our souls, like a sacred hymn, a noble painting or the verses of great poets. It always has a good effect.”

Silently, Professor Gazen turned his large refractor telescope in the direction of Mars, and observed the planet attentively through the large tube for a few minutes.

“Is there no light?” I asked.

“None,” he replied, shaking his head. “See for yourself.”

I took his place at the ocular, and could not help shivering on seeing the copper-tinted little star that I had seen half an hour before become seemingly much closer, transformed into a vast globe. It resembled a lunar crescent, for a considerable part of its disk was illuminated by the sun.

A white patch indicated the location of one of its poles, and the rest of the visible surface was divided into alternating red-tinted and green-tinted regions. Fascinated by the spectacle of that living world, full of light and pursuing its perpetual course through the unfathomable ether, I forgot my question, and a religious emotion filled my entire being, as under the dome of a vast cathedral.

“Well? What are you doing?”

That voice recalled me to myself, and I began a minute inspection of the dark fringe of the terminator, trying to discover the slightest ray of light there—but in vain.

“I can’t see any luminous projection—but what a magnificent spectacle in the telescope!”

“It certainly is!” the professor agreed. “Although it’s not always easy to observe the planet Mars, we know it better than the other planets, and at least as well as the moon. Its topographical features have been drawn with care, like those of the moon, and have been given the names of famous astronomers.”

“Including you, I hope.”

“No, I don’t have that honor. It’s true that I know someone, an enthusiastic amateur astronomer, who has baptized a quantity of plains and mountains on the moon with the names of his friends and acquaintances, including mine: the Durand crater, the Dubois gulf, Martin bay and so on—but I regret to say that the scientific authorities have refused to sanction that nomenclature.”

“I presume that the bright patch in the southern hemisphere is one of the polar ice-caps,” I said, my eyes still fixed on the planet.

“Yes,” the professor replied, “and one can see them very distinctly advancing in winter and retreating in summer. The reddish-yellow areas are probably continents with ocher-colored soil, and not, as some have thought, vegetation of the same hue. The greenish-gray areas might be seas and lakes. If so, land and water are more equally distributed on Mars than on Earth—a circumstance that would tend to equalize climates—but another, most ingenious hypothesis has recently been formulated by the American Percival Lowell, who has devoted himself very particularly to the study of Mars, and who has recently published a most remarkable book on the planet.”58

Keenly interested by this introduction, I quit the ocular momentarily in order to listen to the professor.

“On the third of June 1894, which corresponds to May the first in the Martian calendar, Lowell measured the austral polar cap, which extended to the fifty-fifth degree of latitude or thereabouts and was in the process of melting; hundreds of square kilometers were disappearing every day. Now, wherever the loss of the bright white surface was occurring, a dark band appeared, probably produced by the initial fusion of the polar ice. That band followed the retreat of the polar ice, diminishing in breadth with the dimensions of the cap. By the following August there was no more than a scarcely-perceptible fine line around the portions of the ice cap that still remained. Finally, on the thirteenth of October, when the snow had entirely disappeared, the place that it had finally occupied with its border became unrecognizable, and took on a yellow color.

“This having been established by telescopic observation, what can that dark border be if not water? It has the color of it, it follows the melting of the ice-cap step by step, and it disappears with it. Monsieur Lowell concluded that water, very rare on the surface of Mars, only exists in a liquid state thanks to the melting of the polar ice. The American astronomer linked that hypothesis to an explanation of Schiaparelli’s famous channels, of which you have certainly heard mention.”

“Oh, certainly—the network of regular lines, some of which reach as far as 4,000 to 4,800 kilometers in length, but whose average length is about 2,400 kilometers.”

“Well, Monsieur Lowell is of the opinion that that system of lines, so straight and symmetrical, radiating from particular points, the manner in which they put certain points in communication with others toward which other lines converge in their turn, can only result from artificial endeavor. According to him, the lines correspond to the routes of canals dug with the aim of bringing fertility over long distances to areas deprived of humidity.”

“Does he have proof?”

“This is what he claims as proof. Two facts are incontestable, since they can be verified telescopically: that the channels are visible in certain seasons, and that in others—always the same ones—they vanish; which is not a consequence of increased distance, because it’s when Mars is closest to us that certain channels are not visible, while they become visible when the planet is further away. Nor can one explain the disappearance of the channels by the hypothesis of clouds or fogs that hide them from our view, because, at the same time, the terminal line of the dark regions is as clearly delineated as when the channels are perfectly visible. The channels thus become visible, augmenting or diminishing, for reasons unique to them.

“Although their appearance is temporary, however, their location never varies. Moreover, patient observation shows that, when they are invisible, they become perceptible gradually. One sees them, as it were, increase and decrease in determined seasons. That visible development follows the melting of the polar ice, and it is noticeable that no channel becomes visible until the melting of the ice has made visible progress. Those closest to the polar cap appear first; they become increasingly distinct thereafter, and take on a darker color over time.

“The explanation that presents itself most naturally to the mind is that there must be a flow of water from the pole to the equator; but that is insufficient. In fact, it is necessary to wait a few months for the channels to become visible at the equator; it should not take that much time for the water to arrive there. Besides, in order to be perceptible, it is necessary that the channels be at least a degree in width, which might seem enormous for artificial canals.

“Thus, Monsieur Lowell attributes the observed appearances to the vegetation that develops along the banks of the channels some time after the irrigation of the soil by the water they have brought, which explains the phenomenon of their progressive appearance and the changes they undergo.

“The change in the appearance of the channels consists, not in their seeming broader but in their becoming increasingly dark, and consequentially distinct. If there were high mountains on the Martian surface, they would interfere with the straightness of the channels, but observation informs us that the planet is relatively uniform. The channels are visible in reddish regions as well as well as greenish ones, because they develop or augment the vegetation there with the moisture they bring. They are, therefore, irrigation canals, which, at their meeting-points, give rise to veritable oases.

“From all of the preceding arguments, Monsieur Lowell concludes that, water having become scarce on the planet Mars, the most important problem for the inhabitants must be procuring it. What increases the probability of an intelligent cause for the channels is that double ones can be perceived—which is to say, forming two parallel lines along their entire course; no designer could trace more perfect parallel lines. Their separation varies between four and a half and six degrees, and the vegetation of each, developed along its length, appears to be about a degree in breadth.

“In this hypothesis, the vast red-tinted areas must be vast arid plains or deserts; the systematic patches formerly considered to be lakes must be regions of vegetation, true oases that form, as their changes in color and dimension demonstrate, at points where several canals intersect.”

“But in that case,” I exclaimed, “the Martians, capable of constructing such a vast irrigation system, have means of action at their disposal that are unknown to us. Their science is more advanced than ours, no doubt about it.”

“Don’t be too hasty in your conclusions,” said Gazen, smiling. “All that is only a hypothesis—very ingenious, I admit, but still, a hypothesis. The natural environment of the Martian surface differs significantly from ours, and the appearances it presents cannot all be explained according to our terrestrial views. Let’s make suppositions and try to verify them, but let’s not affirm anything.”

While he was speaking, mentally overexcited in spite of myself by Lowell’s hypothesis, I had resumed my place at the telescope.

Was it an illusion of my imagination? Was it a reality? My attention was suddenly caught by an extremely bright luminous point that appeared on the dark side of the terminator south of the equator.

“Oh!” I cried, involuntarily. “There’s the light!”

“Really?” Gazen replied, in a tone that mingled surprise and doubt. “Are you quite sure?”

“Entirely. There’s a very distinct light in one of the reddish areas.”

“Let me see!” he said, excitedly.

I surrendered my place to him.

“It’s true!” he declared, after a moment’s observation. “I assume the light has been hidden from until now by a cloud.”

Taking turns, we continued silently observing the strange light.

“That can’t be the light that Javelle perceived,” Gazen said, finally. “It’s in the region named Hellas.”

“To make signals,” I murmured, returning to my obsession, “the Martians would probably have to employ a whole system of lights. Since they have a network of canals, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t have a telegraphic network, to coordinate their attempts at different points of the planet.”

The professor took his place at the ocular again, and I waited for the result of his observations with keen interest.

“Is as stable as possible,” he said.

“That stability is cause for reflection,” I said. “If it were variable, it would be more readily interpretable as a signal.”

“But there’s no indication that the signal is necessarily destined for the inhabitants of the Earth,” Gazen said, with mocking seriousness. “It might be a floating lighthouse, or a nocturnal message for the autumnal maneuvers of the Martians, who are undoubtedly exceedingly bellicose.”

“Seriously what do you think it is?”

“I confess that it’s a mystery to me,” he replied, becoming profoundly thoughtful. Then, as if struck by a sudden thought, he added: “I’d be astonished if the spectroscope didn’t offer us some enlightenment in that regard.”

While he was setting up the instrument, I returned to the telescope and observed the enigmatic light once again, which stood out almost in the center of the disk.

Gazen fixed a magnificent spectroscope to the telescope, which he used for his research on nebulas, and recommenced his observations.

“Truly,” he exclaimed, getting up from his seat and advancing toward me “that’s the most remarkable thing I’ve ever seen in my long career as a spectroscopist!”

“What is it?” I asked, looking into the spectroscope in my turn, in which I could distinguish a few feeble streaks of colored light standing out against a black background.

“You know that we can take account of the nature of a substance in the incandescent state by decomposing the light it emits in the prism of a spectroscope. Well, those bright and variously colored lines that you perceive constitute the spectrum of a luminous gas.”

“Really! And that gives you some indication regarding the origin of the light we’ve perceived?”

“It might be electric—an aurora, for example. It might be a volcanic eruption, or a lake of fire similar to the Kilauea crater, the famous volcano in the Sandwich Islands. To tell the truth, I have no idea. Let me see if I can identify the bright lines of the spectrum.”

I surrendered the spectroscope to him, and when he had looked attentively he exclaimed: “By Heaven! That’s extraordinary! The spectrum has changed. Eureka! I recognize it now. It’s the spectrum of thallium. I’d recognize that splendid green line among a thousand.”

“Thallium!” I cried, marveling in my turn.

“Yes,” Gazen replied, excitedly. “Make a note of the observation, and also the time. You’ll find a notebook  for that express purpose on my desk.”

I did as I was asked, and awaited further observations. The silence was so profound that that I could clearly hear the ticking of my watch, set before me on the desk.

After a few minutes, the professor exclaimed: “It’s changed again—make another note.”

“What is it now?”

“Sodium. Those two yellow bands can’t be confused with any other.”

A profound silence reigned, as before.

“Another change!” cried the professor, extremely excited. “I can now see a double blue line. What can that be? I believe it’s iridium.”

Another long pause followed that indication.

“They’ve disappeared!” murmured Gazen. “A red line and a yellow line have taken their place. That’s lithium. Hold on! Everything’s gone black.”

“What’s happening?”

“Everything has disappeared.” As he spoke, he detached the spectroscope from the telescope and observed the planet anxiously.

“The light’s no longer there,” he added, after a minute or so. “Perhaps another cloud is passing above it. Well, we’ll wait. In the meantime, let’s examine the situation. It seems that we have some reason to be satisfied with tonight’s work. What do you think?” It was with a triumphant expression that he stopped in front of me.

“I believe it’s a signal!” I said, with conviction.

“Why?”

“Why else would the changes be so regular? I’ve measured the duration of each spectrum, and I’ve found that each one lasts for about five minutes before another takes its place.”

The professor remained silent and pensive. I continued: “Isn’t it from the light that reaches us from them that we’ve acquired all our knowledge relative to the constitution of celestial bodies? A ray from the most distant star brings with it a secret message for anyone who can read it” Well, the Martians will naturally have had recourse to the same means of communication, as being the simplest and the most practicable. By producing a powerful light they can hope that our attention will be attracted to their planet, and in making it produce characteristic spectra, easily recognizable and modified at regular intervals, they can distinguish their light from any other, and show us that it has an intelligent origin.”

“And in consequence?”

“And in consequence, we know that the Martians have a civilization at least as highly developed as our own. To my mind, that’s a great discovery—the greatest since the world has existed.”

“But it’s of little use, to us as well as the Martians.”

“From that point of view, a great many of our discoveries, especially in astronomy, are very little use. Suppose you find the chemical composition of the nebula you were in the process of studying…will it reduce the price of bread? No—but it will interest us and inform us. If the Martians can tell us how Mars is constituted, and we can do the same with regard to the Earth, that will certainly be a mutual service rendered to one another by the two planets.”

“But the communication can’t go any further.”

“I’m not so sure of that.”

“My dear friend! How can we, on Earth, understand what the Martians say, and how can they understand what we say? We have no common language.”

“That’s true—but chemical compounds have certain well-defined properties, don’t they?”

“Yes. Each one even possesses some particularity that distinguishes it clearly from all the others. For example, those which resemble one another in color or hardness differ in weight.”

“Precisely. Well, can’t we employ their spectra to designate precisely those particular qualities—to express an idea? In a word, can’t the Marians talk to us via spectragrams?”

“I see where you’re coming from,” said Professor Gazen. “And now that I think about it, all the spectra we’ve observed this evening belong to the group of alkaline metals and alkaline earths, which have very characteristic properties.”

“First of all, I suppose the Martians only wanted to attract our attention with a striking spectrum.”

“Lithium is the metal we’ve discovered most recently.”

“Good! We can get from that the idea of enlightenment.”

“Sodium,” the professor continued, “is a metal that has such an affinity for oxygen that it burns in water. Manganese, which belongs to the same group as iron, is so hard that its scratches glass, and like iron, it’s magnetic. Copper is red...”

“Signals relating to colors can be taken directly from spectra.”

“Mercury, or quicksilver, is liquid at ordinary temperatures, and can give us the idea of movement, animation, or even of life.”

“Having obtained certain fundamental ideas,” I continued, “by combining them, we would arrive at conceptions other than the original ones. We could establish an entire ideographic language by signs—the signs being the luminous spectra of different chemical substances. Numbers can be transmitted by simple occultations of light. Then, spectra can enable us to pass by means of an easy slope to equivalent signals: long and short flashes variously combined, similarly obtained by luminous occultations. With such a code, our communication would become indefinite, and would no longer present any difficulty.”

“If the Martians are as advanced as you would like to believe, we’d have a great deal to learn from them.”

“I hope that we could, and I’m sure that the world could, at least, obtain superior enlightenment on certain points.”

“In any case,” said the professor, darting another glance at the telescope, “we’ll pursue our observations assiduously.” Then he added: “For the moment, the Martian philosophers don’t seem to want to take their experiments any further. And as the nebula is still there, I’ll work on it for a while before finishing for the day. If tomorrow is a fine night, come to see me again. We’ll continue our observations—but believe me, it’s best not to say anything about them.”

As I went back home, I contemplated the rutilant planet gain, as I had done when I came—but very different sentiments were stirring in my heart. The distance and isolation that separated me from it seemed to have disappeared I the meantime, and is stead of a cold and alien star, I saw a familiar world, a friendly planet, a companion of the Earth in the eternal solitude of the universe.

In my dreams, I found myself transported to the very surface of Mars, where an army of scientists was maneuvering a gigantic reflector with the aid of marvelous machines, projecting fantastic beams of light toward the Earth.

When morning came, I ran to buy the interesting book by Percival Lowell that Professor Gazen had told me about, and until the evening I remained immersed in reading it. Everything confirmed my ideas regarding the Martians.

The planet Mars is older than the Earth. Life must have appeared there much sooner, and, in consequence, have been evolving for a longer period of time. If the canals of Mars are the work of animate beings, the latter must be presently endowed with an intelligence more refined than ours, and perhaps our railways, telegraphs, telephones and economic systems were surpassed there a long time ago. To have been able to establish an irrigation system that embraces the entire planet, they must have a social situation in which political parties no longer tear one another apart and different nations regulate their affairs other than by the right of the strongest.

As for the sudden and ephemeral beams of light that have been observed departing from the place where the polar ice-cap has lost its dazzling whiteness, Percival Lowell believes that it is a mistake to attribute them to signals sent by the inhabitants of Mars. According to him, they are easily explained by the eastward reflection of fragments of glaciers that remain attached to mountain slopes, produced at the moment when the planet’s rotation gives those slopes the appropriate angle—like those luminous beams that sometimes dazzle us when the window-panes of some house send the rays of the setting sun back to our eyes.

But the luminous spectra?

That is what Percival Lowell has neither seen nor explained, and what I expect to succeed in elucidating with the aid of Professor Gazen.

Unfortunately for our plans, the sky was cloudy the following day, and it has remained more or less unfavorable since then for the observation of Mars. Given these circumstances, and in the hope that some other astronomer, in a more limpid climate, might be able to continue this research. Professor Gazen and I thought it best to publish our discovery without further delay.