Talk about fake news: In 1907 a New York Times banner headline declared, “There Is Life On the Planet Mars.” Upping the ante the next year, the stodgy Wall Street Journal claimed “proof” of “conscious ...

In his deeply researched book, David Baron examines the true alien believers at the turn of the 20th century. (Liverlight) In the early 20th century it was widely thought that there was intelligent ...

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 ...

Percival Lowell, a 19th-century American businessman and astronomer, had a pet theory: that a careful look through a telescope revealed that intelligent life exists on Mars. Skeptics cried not enough ...

In 1906, the New York Times ran the headline, “There is life on the planet Mars.” It was based on the work of Percival Lowell, a professor who was convinced Mars contained a series of irrigation ...

Upping the ante the next year, the stodgy Wall Street Journal claimed "proof" of "conscious, intelligent human life" on our red neighbor. A decades-long cultural phenomenon is revisited in the "The ...