(Safford, AZ) –
The Safford Library will host author David Baron on Tuesday, October 28th at 5:30pm. Baron will discuss his latest release, “The Martians: The True Story of an Alien Craze that Captured Turn-of-the-Century America”.
A mere century ago, Martians were thought to be real—not fictional—creatures. Percival Lowell, founder of The Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, discovered supposed irrigation canals on Mars. Soon, an all-out craze swept society. You could read about the Martians in The New York Times, hear of them in Sunday sermons, and see them depicted on the Broadway stage. Biologists debated whether the aliens were winged or gilled. Inventors devised schemes for communicating with Mars. Philosophers and theologians proposed questions Earth might ask its older, wiser neighbor.
Best-selling author David Baron will present a fast-paced, highly illustrated talk—filled with period photographs and depictions of the putative Martians themselves— and reveal what the episode says about the human mind: The fallibility of our senses, the power of belief, and the lure of sensationalism. It is a tale both cautionary and uplifting. Although the Martians never were real, the excitement about them was genuine and world-changing, for it sparked a new genre called science fiction and helped launch us into space—toward Mars.
David Baron, an award-winning journalist and broadcaster, is author of “The Martians: The True Story of an Alien Craze That Captured Turn-of-the-Century America”. A former science correspondent for NPR and Chair in Astrobiology at the Library of Congress, he has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and other outlets.
