IS IT MARS?

Taranaki Daily News, 30 January 1920, Page 5

IS IT MARS?

A FASCINATING THEORY.

POSSIBILITIES DISCUSSED. By Telegraph.—Press Man - Copyright. London, Jan. 28. Public interest in increasing iu Mr. Marconi's speculations. Scientists and other experts are freely discussing and speculating. .Major MacCallum superintending engineer at Marconi House, states that he believes the interruptions are coming too frequently to be accidental, but if emanating from the moon or Mars, why are, they coming in the Morse code?

Major MacCallum suggests the interesting theory that the Martians are probably in. a more advanced stage of civilisation than the earth, and perhaps have been experimenting with wireless for hundreds of years. An extra sensitive Martian record may have picked up our code messages and worked them out, as we did German messages during the war, and is now trying to get into touch with the earth at regular intervals. Major MacCallum advises careful investigation and exact records in order to make certain. He adds that Mara could certainly overcome the distance with a sufficiently powerful transmitter, as the electric waves used in wireless travel, like light, at the rate of lSfi,ooo miles a second and would reach us from Mars in 13 minutes. , Sir Norman Lockyer, author of works on astronomy, declares that planetary signals are not impossible. Professor Soddy, of Aberdeen, an authority on Tadio-activity, says that Mr. Marconi's communication is obviously of the greatest interest. Mr- Knobel, formerly president of the Royal Astronomical Society, points out that we have no ground for believing that Hertzian waves travel through celestial space. Mr. Maunder, superintendent of Greenwich Observatory, disbelieves in the possibility of planetary communication and favors the theory of magnetic disturbances in the sun.

Professor H. H. Turner, of Oxford University, considers that the signals are probably from somewhere in the solar system,' though not necessarily from intelligent life, though he thinks it highly probable that life exists in other bodies of the solar system.

Commander Slee, of the Naval Wireless Department, does not deny the possibility of n gTeat advance in' wireless, which will open up a vast field fer research. M. Flammarion, the French astronomer, interviewed in Paris for the Daily Mail, while agreeing that the Marconi interruptions are possibly due to disturbances in the sun, adds that perhaps Mars has been sending out signals for centuries, we not knowing how to reply.