Bygone visions of cosmic neighbors, what's blackrock in the spring of 1806, two german astronomers were independently observing venus when they noticed something odd. The hemisphere facing away from the sun did not perfectly blend with the blackness of space. Instead, it had a faint glow with a greyish red or ashen gray, appearance interesting. This ashen light resembled a phenomenon known as earth shine it's when sunlight reflected by the earth faintly illuminates the night side of the moon.

It seemed reasonable, therefore, to ascribe the ashen light to a similar cause, namely that sunlight reflected by a venusian moon was faintly illuminating. The night side of venus. Only one slight problem venus doesn't have a moon. This meant the ashen light resembled earth shine in appearance only because there was nothing in proximity of venus to reflect any sunlight in the words of famed astronomer, william herschel.

Those regions that are turned from the sun cannot possibly shine by a borrowed light. Could you buy something really really really really far away? A few decades later, another german astronomer francois cortez proposed to rather creative solution to this mystery. The ashen light was result of sweeping wildfires on the surface of venus deliberately ignited by its inhabitants as absurd. As that sounds, there were tantalizing similarities between venus and earth, but the two planets were of similar size and much like the earth.

Venus had an atmosphere, a densely cloud-laden atmosphere which give astronomers and science fiction authors alike free reign to speculate about what could lie beneath a barren desert, a planet-wide ocean, a tropical rainforest anything was possible. It was in this context that gartherson made its proposal in 1836. He believed that venus was inhabited by a humanoid species who would periodically light fires on the surface, the purpose of which was either to clear land to commemorate a religious occasion or to celebrate the coronation of the new venusian emperor. That's pretty far out thursday did perhaps get a bit carried away, but he was far from the first to suggest that venus was inhabited titans of astronomy, like christian hygrons and william herschel, envisioned all the planets, including venus, to be teeming with life, and it took a Long time for this romanticized image to fade in 1916, this illustration appeared in american newspapers with the caption, a remarkable drawing by mr windsor mckay, illustrating the conditions on venus as astronomical science now believes them to exist even well into the space age.

We still find that it's a real picture, earth-like perception in 1967, a soviet spacecraft plunged into the clouds of venus, to attempt a landing on its surface. While the probe did not survive the descent, it was actually designed to float in case of a water landing. History is ripe with stories much like this one largely forgotten stories that once upon a time promised to end our cosmic solitude, bygone visions of life asunder long since quelled by newfound wonder venusian fire festivals were not the cause of the ashen light, but observations continue to Be made by the end of the 19th century, some two dozen observations have been recorded, but some astronomers would dedicate years to the study of venus without ever catching a glimpse of its elusive glow. Instead, they would often be greeted by these vague, streaks and patches.

They covered large portions of the planet and appear to be features on the surface lurking beneath the clouds. At least that was the opinion of american astronomer percival lowell. Far from the diffused shadings reported by his peers, lowell could discern a distinctive network of branching spokes. It is as of a bright veil of some sort drawn over the whole disk.

These spokes of venus bore a striking resemblance to markings observed on both mercury and mars. The features on mars were especially distinct and remarkably linear. I'm trying to predict what it's going to be before. I actually know what it is.

Lowell had been somewhat unimpressed by the spokes on venus with linear on mars, there are celestial sights more dazzling spectacles that inspire more all, but to the thoughtful observer who is privileged to see them well, there is nothing in the sky, so profoundly impressive. As these canals of mars, perhaps owing to their striking linearity, lowell could reach. But one conclusion, the marshall canals must be the workings of an intelligence. He carefully laid out his arguments in three lengthy books filled with these intricate maps and illustrations.

The martian canals represented a vastness is like things that are floating around it and there's water and the light bounces off the water and bounce off the thing and then back to it. No irrigation network designed to carry melted ice water from the poles down to the equator, while many were understandably skeptical. The idea that mars could be inhabited was an extremely compelling one, perhaps even more so than venus. Legendary science fiction, author h.g wells famously wrote the war of the worlds, a fictional story about the martian invasion of earth first published in 1897, but a decade later, whilst published a speculative non-fiction article titled, the things that live on mars inspired by lowell's fanciful interpretations.

Wells goes on to envision the habitat society and appearance of real. What stuff, what wells and many others the existence of martial? What the is that this was not just possible. It was probable, indeed, to some. It had already attained a veneer of truth.

In 1891, the french academy of sciences was bequeathed to the sum of one hundred thousand francs by a wealthy parisian widow. Never couldn't know the money why people always assume that that things that are out there would always look a bit like us, though other like little bit like us. Why? Wouldn't they have a big globe and their entire head is a is an eye and eyes like it looks to be awarded to the first person. So i found the means when he eyes all around the face with another planet plenty of pores that are ears of mars, implying that communicating with martians would have been far too simple of a challenge.

The reality of the martian canals was difficult to ascertain as they resided at the very limits of perception. Telescopes were never quite good enough to conclusively prove nor disprove their existence. A book commissioned by nasa as late as 1965 stated that, although there's no unanimous opinion concerning the existence of the canals, most astronomers would probably agree that there are apparently linear markings on mars. Indeed, maps of the red planet published by the us military that very same year featured sprawling networks of canals.

A towering atlas. Agina rocket is the launch vehicle that hurtles the mariner into the heavens scientific apparatus. The turner will try to measure the density of the planets how's that real look at it. This is pretty it's.

A television camera will seek to make photographs of its surface, giving man his first close-up. Look at mars. The american spacecraft mariner 4 transmitted the first close-up photographs of the martian surface in the summer of 1965.. Despite the complete absence of any linear markings, scientists at nasa were unwilling to give up hope nothing positive concerning the existence or lack of canals can be concluded on the basis of the mariner 4 photographs.

Dwindling hopes aside, the martian canals had come to an end. The canals the cities, the martians, are all gone: imaginative inventions optical illusions: jesus as early as 1903 had an experiment found that groups of students seated a few meters away from an illustration like this one could discern fine straight lines were non-existent. The experiment demonstrated that non-linear markings viewed from a distance could evoke a linear appearance. This sort of visual inference is even said to be apparent in certain photographs.

I mean look at this. Not only is there a clear correlation between this sketch and this photograph of mars, but you can almost see these barely perceptible lines snaking across the planes. The spokes on venus meanwhile bear a curious resemblance to the inside of an eye. It appears that lowell constrained the aperture of his telescope to such an extreme, but the blood vessels inside his eye began to cast shadows.

Oh, my god, i might have fallen onto lowell's retina, creating the illusion, no shots that it has a bright veil of some sort were drawn over the whole disk, whether it was optical illusions, indistinct shadings, on the planets turbulence in the atmosphere. Technological limitations were an untempered willingness to believe these networks of lines were merely figments of the mind. There is something incredibly tragic about these old misconceptions. I mean there was a time not so long.

People need to always remember, though, a little bit side note that, even though, even though yet they made mistakes and because because of these mistakes right, they had this idea that, oh guys, their civilization is whatever right. This very spiked even more interesting into into a small into the cosmos and inspired more people to get to get in into it right and probably made things. Uh evolve faster at faster rates and actually ended up being very useful for everybody. So there's still hope of finding less complex forms of life on a select few planets and moons, which is very exciting, but also a far cry from a tropical venus or an ecominopolis on mars, as our knowledge of the universe continues to expand.

So too must our search for cosmic neighbors by the mid 20th century. The ash and light had been observed by not dozens but hundreds of observers, many of whom were as experienced as they were adamant of the phenomenon's existence. Despite this preponderance of eyewitness accounts, the lack of any empirical evidence attracted a fair amount of skepticism. In fact, the doubts have plagued this phenomenon since the very beginning italian who, who person, who discovered the ashen light in early 1643, ritually witnessed a band of colors enveloping the disc of venus.

The night sign was tinted. Greenish blue, enclosed by a semi-circle of light, ritually ascribed the vivid colours to light being refracted inside his telescope, an effect known as chromatic aberration, in other words, ritually thought that the lenses was an optical illusion. That's a german priest and scholar named athanasius wrote in 1660 that he too had observed a ban of colors and venus. No date was good holy sorry.

I i i muted that summer that man so watching a video and somebody is there's a story. Vanessa's kircher wrote in 1660 that he too had observed a band of colors and venus. No date was given, but kercher did provide a location. Palermo, sicily, based on historical records, kerger paid his last and only visit to palermo in the spring of 1638.

So kircher observed the ashen light 5 years before ritually and should thus be credited with its discovery. Ok back to the video rituals doubts about the ashen light echo through the centuries and by the 1900s. It was not uncommon for sightings to be dismissed as a mere trick of the eye. Not only were observations infrequent and unpredictable, but they were often inconsistent, brightness, color and the extent to which the night side was illuminated could vary drastically between accounts without hard proof of its existence and a lack of concordance between those guys if it was their eye and Their veins in their eyes in their eyes, wouldn't it be different for everybody doing the experiment whatever so everybody that's looking is getting a different result and they could have hashed it out as uh the eye or human error, because everybody's different, because this makes sense everybody Looks and it's always different and always not the same, then that means the ash and light appeared destiny and misconception.

Oh that's a different thing, but in 1975 the soviet spacecraft, vignette 9 became the first to successfully orbit venus diving into the shadow of this faded twin. He detected faint flashes of light emanating from the clouds below the clouds. Venus and mars have historically been the two prime candidates for cosmic neighbors, but the other planets have not gone completely ignored. Scottish astronomer james ferguson had few reservations about life in the solar system when it came to mercury, for instance, ferguson thought that mercurians simply possessed greater resilience to heat.

It is very likely that the people in mercury have the same opinion of us as we have of the inhabitants of jupiter and saturn, namely that we must be intolerably cold and a very little light at so great a distance from the sun. Inspired by ferguson's optimism. William herschel took it a step further in 1795, herschel confidently announced that the oh, my god he lived how many years 80, 80 80 84. night of the sun, was home to an alien civilization.

This might seem incredibly bizarre, but at the time it was not uncommon to view the sun as an enormous planet encased by a luminous atmosphere. Herschel expanded upon that idea by regarding sunspots, as openings in this flaming shell, that momentarily exposed the true surface. Underneath this concealed surface was richly stored with inhabitants who were shielded against immense heat by intermediate layers of clouds. We have great reason to look upon the sun as the most magnificent habitable globe.

Apart from the planets and the sun. Another bygone candidate for intelligent life is the moon using stunning contraptions of tubes wires and lenses. Pioneering solenographer johannes velius produced some of the earliest detailed maps of the lunar surface, whereas you and i see a barren landscape devoid of life, ivalius, the spined upon the moon, a near perfect copy of earth, mountains and valleys rivers and lakes, swamplands and woodlands, islands and Capes, this vivid interpretation can be traced to an ancient belief that bright and dark patches delineate continents from oceans. In fact, this fallacy is still reflected in the nomenclature we use today.

Dark plains on the moon. All have aquatic names such as the ocean of storms, the lake of dreams and the sea of tranquility base. Here the eagle has landed, the water, never filled these gloomy basins. It's not entirely inaccurate to call them ancient seabeds, for they are the volcanic scars left behind by vast oceans of molten rock making the lake of death, and especially okay, while heavenly has never observed any creatures on the moon.

Its objective resemblance to the earth convinced him that lunarians must exist, a conviction still being upheld more than a century later by who else, if not william herschel, i hope and am convinced that, sometime or other very evident signs of life will be discovered on the moon. It didn't take long for these very evident signs to make themselves apparent. I am almost convinced that those numberless small circuses we see on the moon are the works of the lunarians and may be called their towns. Herschel.

Nearly convinced himself that the created landscape of the moon had been engineered by its inhabitants. Craters or circuses were not the remnants of violent impact events, but skillfully constructed towns and cities, while herschel obsessed over circular dwellings, astronomers like france, von gratesen, despite habitats of all shapes and sizes, this star-like structure appears to be a kind of temple and because of its Star shape, perhaps it is dedicated in service to the stars. The circle in the south, the two highest mountains at the north and the two hills in the southwest are natural objects. But it is highly probable that these embankments serve as the dwellings of sentient beings on the moon.

Ah, yes, in reality, gratas and mistook some oddly shaped terrain for intelligent design, unlucky. The increasingly speculative nature of these extraordinary claims culminated in a truly incredible sighting by john herschel, the son of william herschel, whilst gazing upon a rock formation on the moon. We were thrilled with astonishment to perceive four successive flocks of large winged creatures. They were like human beings, their wings, possessed great expansion and were similar in structure to those of the bats.

The moon was evidently home to a species of walking and flying man bats. This was a truly profound, if not bemusing discovery not just for the world, but also for john herschel, because upon being inquired about this remarkable find jon responded with confusion. He had no knowledge of any man, bats on the moon. It turns out the story had been fabricated by an american journalist named richard.

Oh sought to lampoon the often frivolous debate about life in other worlds, perpetuated by the likes of william herschel and franz von graterson. Instead, the great moon hoax of 1835 convinced thousands around the world that the moon was inhabited by bat-like humanoids, unicorn, bison, bipedal beavers, as well as well storks and goats. There's also, this image of a man, bat beside the flat upon the back of a fellow man battle evact by a pack as to why this guy is copying. A whiff history has declined to answer what, as time went on telescopes improved.

It became increasingly difficult to argue in favor of the moon's habitability with no apparent atmosphere. This dry and barren wasteland seemed an improbable abode for life, as we know it, but by the mid 19th century the life debate had been resurrected by a new hypothesis about the shape of the moon. The argument was that gravitational forces had stretched the moon into the shape of an egg. This uneven distribution of mass meant that any atmosphere or fluids would have coalesced on whichever side was closer to the center of gravity.

If that happened to be the far side of the moon, an argument could be made for its habitability. As one author put it, though, the near hemisphere is a lifeless desert. Having neither water nor air to sustain life, the hidden hemisphere may have a teeming population. Among the proponents of this radical hypothesis was none other than john herschel.

An egg shape would fully account for the total absence both of air and of water on the side of the moon turned towards us or would be quite compatible with the abundant existence of both and of a habitable hemisphere. On the opposite side, had history played out differently, perhaps we'd be dealing with egg mooners instead of flat earthers at this point, no, but that's lunacy. Okay, while skeptics made quick work of the egg-shaped moon hypothesis, far side inhabitants could not be so easily dismissed. After all, the far side of the moon is unseeable from earth and thus ripe for speculation.

So then i subjected them to a spectrographic analysis. It's dust, a great amount of radioactive dust, mary. What you're saying is that somehow, for some reason, the moon has been encircled by a ring of highly radioactive dust, something's, going on on the other side of the moon, the invisible side, something that we ought to know about by placing aliens on the far side of The moon, early science fiction authors were able to skirt a line of plausibility if aliens wanted to conceal their presence and perhaps observe humanity from a distance. This cosmic blind spot was the perfect hiding place.

At least that was the opinion of famed american astronomer carl sagan. It is not out of the question that artifacts or even some kind of base is maintained within the solar system because of weathering and the possibility of detection, it might have appeared preferable not to erect such a base on earth. The moon seems one reasonable alternative site for a base. Humanity got its first glimpse of the far side of the moon in late 1959 when the soviet spacecraft luna 3 related.

These images back to mission control subsequent missions improved upon the quality but, alas, reveal nothing but more moon, but this idea of concealment lingers to this day. Many are still holding out hope that somewhere in the solar system, the ruins or technology of some unknown intelligence lie waiting to be found. In 1988, the soviet union launched a probe known as phobos 2., as the name implies. Part of its mission was to investigate the martian moon phobos.

The probe arrived at phobos without any major complications and in late march of 1989 began preparations to plant two instruments onto its surface. But then contact with phobos 2 was lost in the weeks and months that followed rumors began to circulate puzzling features and shadows were said to be visible on some of the final images transmitted by phobos 2, the nature and origin of which supposedly defied explanation. Through various articles, conferences and television programs, these images were gradually unveiled to the public. They appear to depict an unidentified croft in orbit around mars.

It was said to be an alien spaceship that had attacked and disabled phobos 2.. Not only that, but it cast an enormous elliptical shadow upon the surface of marshall, foreign foreign, the mystery persisted for about a decade or two. Until the raw data from the phobos 2 mission became readily accessible, the unidentified craft looked an awful lot like an overexposed transmission. Artifact, in fact, all the infrared images featured the same white streak.

Meanwhile, the elliptical shadow belonged to phobos. Its elongated shape was due to multiple scans or photographs being taken. It seems like every cool finding we've got since the beginning of this. The people that started investigating this is either human error glitches bugs before assembling.

The final image stories like the phobos incident, have become rather par for the course some initial event or discovery leaves an information vacuum which is immediately filled by fantastical speculation. A printing artifact becomes a tower on the moon. The happenstance of light and shadow begets a human face on mars, okay dude and these prominent boulders on both mars and phobos conjure images of a certain stanley kubrick film. More recently, a chinese rover on the moon captured this image of what some described as a hut upon closer inspection, everyone was absolutely gobsmacked when the hut was exposed as a rock, whether you're, an amateur or professional, have no experience or decades worth you're, never quite immune To this kind of self-deception, when you want something to be true, it can be deceptively easy to convince yourself that it is remember that prize money, the 100 000 francs offered to anyone who discovered a means of communicating with another planet excluding mars.

Well, in 1937, there was a claim on that price. The claimant was none other than world-renowned inventor nicola tesla. No 1999 tesla had been experimenting with wireless radio communication. During some of those experiments he picked up some rather odd transmissions.

Oh no, i could not decipher okay. Okay, well i'm sure this is is this: when the radio comes out bounces and then they receive it backwards to their meaning, the feeling is constantly growing in me. Should i have been the first to hear the greeting of one planet to another. A purpose was behind these electrical signals.

Tesla described the signals as a repeating sequence of either three or four pulses decades later tesla was still convinced that he'd received an interplanetary message and it even deduced its origin. The signals consisted in a regular repetition of numbers and subsequent study convinced me that they must have emanated from mars. I believe the martians use numbers for communication, because numbers are universal. What then, in 1937 tesla announced his plans to unveil a new technology capable of not just interplanetary but interstellar communication with such impressive technology at hand, tesla felt confident that he'd soon be awarded the 100 000 francs.

I intend to claim the pierre gusman price. I am just too sure the price will be awarded to me as if i already had it in my pocket, they have got to do it, they didn't do it. The price was instead awarded to the crew of apollo 11 in 1969.. As for the alleged message from mars, well, we don't really know while earth was much quieter back in 1899, it was still far from radio, silent foreign, damn cool, that's my jammer dude, who knows perhaps it was nothing but the rumbling noise of a distant thunderstorm um Upon sailing into the shadow of venus in 1975, vinana 9 detected faint flashes of light.

The emissions were broadly consistent with lightning, but it's a matter of interpretation data gathered by subsequent missions are likewise consistent with venusian thunderstorms, yet fall short of any conclusive evidence. Presuming that lightning does occur in venus. Could it explain the ashen light? Well, it's been estimated that the night side of venus would need to maintain a rate of some 1 000 lightning strikes per second to yield. The glow that's visible from earth.

That's more than 20 times the mean rate on earth and would likely been observed a long time ago. In the blunt words of another paper, explanation for the ashen light, but in certain parts of the world there is another striking phenomenon: illuminating the night sky. These vibrant curtains of light are the result of charged particles ejected by the sun colliding with the earth's magnetic field. Could something akin to the northern lights, be responsible for the ashen light? Aurorae have indeed been observed on planets like jupiter and saturn, so it might seem like an obvious solution.

What makes it not so obvious is that the magnetic field around venus is virtually non-existent. It is extremely weak and transient and is generated by a completely different process than here on earth. In spite of this, when caught in the path of a solar storm, venus has, in recent years been observed to glow. The underlying mechanism of this glow is still poorly understood, but there is an apparent link between solar activity and diffused emissions of light on the night side of venus.

Not only that, but there is a weak correlation between solar activity and ashen light observations. According to author, john barentine has written the definitive book on the subject. The data are inconclusive, but there are hints in this figure that something is indeed up. The apparent spike in a number of ashen light sightings in the 1950s, correlates with one of the strongest solar maxima of the past 250 years.

While all of this sounds quite promising, it's a bit too early to celebrate nothing conclusive has been found, and, despite many attempts to do so, the ashen light has never been recorded on camera. Until that happens, this nearly 400 year old mystery remains in limbo. Should it be ascribed to the atmosphere of venus or the mind of the observer? Perhaps we should have listened to giovanni literally from the very beginning, it's cool. It is nothing more than a convincing illusion because i feel like if you look at the search for cosmetics and only us right right.

The existence and what the sun does is insane bursts, continue right, that it emits so much heat and light over such insane spans. What are what our means that we have in our limitations on on earth? It's like it's like giovanni literally from the very beginning. Perhaps it is nothing more than a convincing illusion. It is cool, though the search for cosmic neighbors continues.

Many scientists now believe that both venus and mars used to resemble earth in the distant past. Perhaps a relic biosphere or the remnants of a once teeming population can still be found in venusian clouds or martian soil. There's mounting evidence that the jovian moon's europa ganymede and callisto, along with enceladus and titan of saturn, all host a vast subcommercial ocean could resilient microbes or even larger organisms, have found a way to thrive beneath the frozen crusts. Who knows an apparent hut on the moon or a monolith on mars? Might one day match your most outlandish expectations? What do they live under? Even if earth should prove the sole harbor of life within the solar system, every dot in the night sky has the potential to host another and with the launch of the james webb telescope.

There's no telling what secrets are about to be unveiled always remember that if at first you don't understand, it's definitely aliens interesting so world owner. Okay, hmm tonight.