History of The Concept
Historically, life on Mars has often been hypothesized. The idea of intelligent Martians was popularized by Percival Lowell and in fiction, especially by Edgar Rice Burroughs's John Carter (Barsoom) series, H.G. Wells's The War of the Worlds and Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles. Despite the observation by Alfred Wallace that Mars's atmosphere was too thin to support an Earth-like ecology, various depictions of a Martian civilization were popular throughout the 20th century. The first pictures of Mars returned by space probes dashed hopes of contacting Martians, although claims of past Martian civilizations have continued into the 21st century (see Cydonia for one such claim).
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