Mars - Mars In Science Fiction

Around the turn of the nineteenth century Mars became a popular topic of science fiction. Before that time there is little mention of the Red Planet. One notable exception is a fanciful story published in 1726 by Jonathan Swift (1667–1745). Gulliver's Travels mentions the discovery of two Martian moons by astronomers living on the fictional island of Laputa. Oddly enough, Mars does have two moons, but they were not discovered until 151 years after the book was written.

After Schiaparelli and Lowell popularized the idea of intelligent life on Mars, science fiction writers gleefully embraced the notion. In 1898 H.G. Wells (1866–1946) portrayed Martians as lethal invaders in War of the Worlds. The insect-like creatures come to Earth looking for water and leave destruction in their path. They are finally wiped out by a common Earth germ to which they do not have immunity.

Beginning in 1910 Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875–1950) wrote a series of adventure books in which an Earth man battles and romances his way around Mars. In his books the planet is called Barsoom by its exotic inhabitants. They come in various shapes, sizes, and colors. Some of them are green.

In 1924 the motion picture Aelita: Queen of Mars debuted in the Soviet Union. It features an engineer who takes a spaceship to Mars and falls in love with the planet's beautiful queen. At the end of the film he wakes up and discovers the journey was just a dream.

Three decades later Martians became popular characters in American media. Ray Bradbury published a series of stories called The Martian Chronicles in which well-intentioned humans travel to Mars and accidentally spread deadly Earth germs among the Martian population. It was an interesting twist on the theme introduced by H.G. Wells a half century before.

Evil invaders from Mars were common villains in low-budget horror movies of the 1950s. Historians now believe that these sinister creatures symbolized the threat that Americans felt from the Soviet Union during the Cold War. During the early 1960s the television show My Favorite Martian featured a friendly and wise Martian who crash lands on Earth and befriends a newspaper reporter.