MYSTERIOUS SIGNALS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 2776, 26 August 1924, Page 4

MYSTERIOUS SIGNALS.

ARE THEY MESSAGES FROM MARS?

New York, August 23. A telegraph from Newark, New Jersey, says signals of mysterious origin were reeeived with peculiar i're<|nency by radio operators at a station keeping watcli in an endeavour to listen in on Mars. The signals were distinctly heard on a wave length of twenty-live thousand metres. EXISTENCE OF CANALE ON THE PLANET DENIED. London August 22. The ‘‘Daily .vfailV' .Inngfran cnrrespondenl says that after months of concent rated attention upon Mars Professor Scliacr is only able to tell a tale of confused shifting shadows mil ball ling points and palettes of ‘iglit. The most powerful telescope, magnifying 1,500 diameters, reveals that the clean-cut canals in which , nthusinslic astronomers once believed, melt into dim, dark patches, whose nature can only he guessed. Professor Schaer has seen the white polar cap contract visibly within I Inins I few weeks. The theory that the ‘‘canals’' or lines which have been seen by many astronomers on the surface of Mars have no objective reality is one of the most hotl.v discussed i|uestions regarding tin- planet. Tt seems almost unbelievable that such an appearance as has been pictured by observers, and even endorsed by photographers, shnuld.be merely an illusion, but some experimental tests have indicated the possibility. It is related for instance, that a “Map” of Mars, on which the prominent markings, but none of the canals, wore shown was displayed in a large class room for the class to copy. The students who were l'urtherest away drew, it is said, “canals” like those of the astronomical maps. It is an easily tested fact that features which have no real existence may be seen under special circumstances and the other will miss observation. Many people, for example, will find stars arranged in the sky in definite lines and curves, some of which appear to be almost mathematically accurate (whereas the arrangement is purely haphazard and the regularity of the “pattern” is an illusion. The undependability of sight was most clearly demonstrated by the tricks of camouflage used during the war.