Earliest "Dead Martian" Hoax
Le Pays of June 17, 1864 put into circulation a frightful canard, of supposedly American origin, but which obviously came from a Paris pharmacy, and which had the aim of mystifying the good-natured Frenchman by a comical amplification of recent discoveries concerning aerolites and fossil man. We do not know to what extent these enterprises are allowed to strain public credulity, especially when they are perpetrated with an extent and length which denote a great bias for success. However, we do not want to take things from the dark side; we prefer, like the ancient philosopher, to laugh at the event, so as not to have to cry about it. The astonishing piece which made the rounds of the provincial newspapers, after being received in some Parisian newspapers, had the title: An Inhabitant of the Planet Mars; it claimed to be a correspondence from Richmond, and the Country published it with all reservations! ...
Here's the bottom of the story:
In the country of the Arrapahys, around Pic-James, a rich owner, whom the author of the correspondence gives the name of Sir Paxton... had begun excavations to look for a deposit of petroleum oil. One morning... after more than fifteen days of assiduous work, we exposed an enormous mass of which no sample had been, until today, encountered on our globe. This mass measures, at its largest diameter, approximately 40 meters, and 30 meters at its smallest. We noticed breaks and crevices, from which considerable fragments must have come off. Its surface is covered with a sort of black enamel, of variable thickness. The mass itself, according to Mr. Davis... contains alkaline and earthy silicates, a host of metals, among which we will be careful not to forget cesium; finally ammonia hydrochloride and graphite. However, graphite and ammonia hydrochloride are the two substances whose presence Mr. Cloëz reported in the aerolite of May 14, emphasizing the rarity of this circumstance. This is a truly happy coincidence! It is believed, however, that Mr. Davis, the distinguished geologist from Pittsburg, would not have found these two substances in the famous aerolite, if Mr. Cloëz's communication to the Academy of Sciences of Paris had not already been made known...
Wait, though; here is the bouquet:
The commission which had visited the site had the happy inspiration of having the aerolite pierced, probably to look for treasure; or rather because we had a presentiment of the great discovery which was approaching. Without this, how can we explain the obstinacy with which we began to bore holes in the stone up to twenty meters deep? At seven meters, we found the granite; twenty meters away, we encountered ophite... Ten days were spent widening the hole sufficiently so that it was possible to descend into the interior of the excavation. John Paxton, the son of the lucky owner of the fireball, and Mr. Davis, the finest geologist, ventured to the bottom of the sinister hole.
A few minutes of indecision passed before they went back up. They were both very pale. Mr. Paxton carried with him a sort of crude amphora in white metal (silver and zinc) all riddled with small holes and strange designs.
Our two heroes said that they had found this amphora buried in the rock... Two meters below, their feet had encountered a metal floor which resonated dully. After three days of work, we succeeded in moving this cover; it was made of black, oxidized metal; its width was about two meters. The two gentlemen already mentioned and a Mr. Murchison (we assume that this is not the famous London geologist) descended into the cavity, and discovered with astonishment a kind of rectangular tomb, carved in granite and filled with limestone stalagmites. In the center stood out very clearly... what? A man wrapped in a limestone shroud. It was a human preserve! The man was lying full length and barely four feet tall. His head, slightly raised, was lost in a cushion of carbonate of lime; his legs also disappeared under the limestone covering. We have some difficulty extracting these details from a very confusing description. But let's see it through to the end. We attack the rock with acid... we end up exposing a very well preserved mummy, although a little charred in a few places. The feet could not be removed without damaging them. The head came out almost intact, no hair, smooth, wrinkled skin, transformed into leather; triangular brain; knife-edge face; a sort of trunk, starting from the forehead, as a nose; a very small mouth, with only a few teeth; two orbital fossae, from which the eyes had been removed; very long arms; five fingers, the fourth of which is much shorter than the others. Generally spindly appearance. We are busy, adds the correspondent of Le Pays, with molding this singular inhabitant of interplanetary worlds, and we will soon see drawings of it.
Next to the mummy, no weapons or ornaments were found. Only, we discovered a small silver plate on which the Murchison that you know recognized the drawing of a rhinoceros, a palm tree, etc.; then a very successful representation of the Sun, as children draw it; something quite easy to achieve, it seems to us. Next to the Sun were several stars. We measured their distances, and we found sensibly those which separate the planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Neptune, etc. Only the planet Mars was much bigger than the others.
Does this distinction granted to Mars, to the detriment of the other planets, not reveal, [says] the perceptive correspondent of the Country, the self-esteem of its inhabitant?
From this sagacious consideration, the same correspondent, full of imagination, concludes, by a bold and masterful view, that the aerolite and everything that concerns it came to us from the planet Mars. So there is no longer any doubt that the planets are inhabited by thinking beings who resemble us. The ingenious restorer of the customs of extra-terrestrial worlds has even guessed how, in these eccentric regions, the dead are buried. We simply dig a pit of the desired size in the rock, and we preserve the body by fossilizing it using a bath loaded with limestone salt.
These are the amazing details that the Pays subscriber was able to read on June 17. If we had found this atrocious and infinitely over-feathered duck in the Journal Pour Laughs or in the Charivari, we would have regarded it as quite indifferent. But when it is presented to us as a serious document, in a major political newspaper, it seems to us that a few lashes from criticism are not too much to punish this real attack on the credit of the press in general.
We expected to see posters covering the walls of Paris, letting the general public know that Mr. Davis, the distinguished geologist from Pittsburgh, had just arrived with the famous interplanetary man, which he would exhibit for 50 centimes, and that with an extra 10 cents we could get it. It would have been a second edition of the famous story of King Teutobocchus, 25 feet long, which the surgeon Mazuyer, in the year 1613, showed to the public throughout the continent, and who was only a skeleton of a mastodon.
- "A high-flying scientific canard: the inhabitant of Mars," L'Annee Scientifique et Industrielle, 1865
"Two or three years ago, Sir Henry Thompson, in a communication to the British Association, expressed the opinion that the germs of all living things were carried to the earth by meteors. This theory, which certainly did the greatest honor to the imagination of its author, seemed quite difficult to accept, because the degree of heat of the aerolites, when they fell on our earth's surface is such that we would look in vain for the slightest germ of life which was not in the state of hardened egg. We were wrong... The South Pacific Times of Callao tells us that a chemist named A. Serarg found, inside a huge aerolite, an intact human body, measuring four feet six inches long. This strange visitor, having lost the use of speech since he passed from life to death, could, naturally, give no explanation to the scholar of Callao; but with a foresight that one cannot overstate, he took care to provide himself with a business card. It was a metal plate on which the chemist...deciphered hieroglyphic characters which taught him that this post-mortem traveler came from the planet Mars..."
- "Un Habitant De Mars," L'Union Medicale, 1878 [text in French, translated by Google]
A copy of the South Pacific Times of April 28th, 1878, published at 77, Calle de la Constitucion, Callao, Peru, and edited by Mr. Isaac Lawson, has been sent us... It quotes a "tough" story from "The Capital, an Argentine paper," which contains a letter, dated from Carcarana Este, October 12th, 1877, signed "A. Serarg, chemist." He says that three miles from Carcarana Este he found a large black rock, of somewhat oval shape, size about thirty by forty-five yards, which he had no doubt after examination was an aerolite of unprecedented size. He, with Mr. Charles Davis, a geologist, and a Mr. Paxton... afterwards bored into the stone... when they came upon a cavern, in which they found an amphora of white metal, silver and zinc, clumsily worked, also a large plate, which when raised disclosed another cavern. He adds
"We descended into this new cavern, and what was our surprise on discovering a rectangular tomb, cut in the granite and full of calcareous staglamites. In the centre was visible a human body, enveloped in a calcareous sudarium; it was lying in a sleeping position, and scarcely measured a yard and a half; its head, slightly raised, was hidden in a pillow of carbonate of lime, and the legs also were hidden in the lime. We agreed to remove the limey covering, and, attacking it with acids, exposed a mummy in a good state of preservation. Unfortunately, we were unable to extricate the legs without some deterioration, but the head came out almost intact. It was without hair; the skin must have been smooth, and beardless, but it is now wrinkled, and appears like tanned leather; the skull is triangular, the face flat; instead of a nose it has a trunk growing out of the forehead, a very small mouth with only fourteen teeth, two orbits from which the eyes had been extracted; the arms very long; fingers, of which the fourth is much shorter than the rest. The general construction is very weak. We found no arms or jewels by the side of the mummy, but a small silver plate considerably deteriorated, on which can be distinctly seen the figure of a rhinoceros, a palm, and a sun, such as children would draw. Around the sun were various stars; we have measured their respective distances, and found approximately those separating the planets... only that Mars was much larger than the others. Does not this distinction, accorded to Mars over the other planets, show clearly the amour propre of its inhabitants? We think yes, and in our opinion there is no doubt that the aerolite is a minute portion of that planet. The skeleton of the planetary inhabitant, the amphora, and the silver plate will be exhibited gratis during my stay in Carcarana Este, at the house of Don Francisco Ringoni, opposite the central station. The aerolite can be seen at any time, as from its great weight we have left it in the place where it has rested unknown for so many hundreds or thousands of years that is, three miles north of Carcarana Este, near the coast: to go to see it and return, is only a matter of an hour's journey from the station. We invite all persons of education, interested somewhat in science, to make the journey, and we will cheerfully give them all the details they require. Besides which, we will show them the document drawn up concerning the affair, signed by all the inhabitants of Carcarana; and to those who desire it we will give a sketch, and a small plaster cast of the inhabitant of Mars."
- The Spiritualist, An Alleged Visitant From Another World, July 10, 1878
"One of the
World's men in its issue of last Friday tells of the wonderful discoveries of a South American chemist named A. Serarg who found an immense aerolite which, with a scientist's curiosity, he proceeded to smash. In its interior he found a perfectly preserved human body, four feet and six inches long, upon whose meteorous breast reposed a plate of silver covered with hieroglyphics which, when translated, revealed the startling fact that the man had come from Mars. The philosopher of the
World, whose infantile mind had known the virtues of Desdemona Cherrytree, who solemnly believed everything she heard, swallowed Mr. Serarg, aerolite, man and story, all at one fell gulp, and boldly announced his belief in Proctor's theory of peopled lands beyond the clouds, and in some other man's notion that all living things were shot into this world of ours from other planets flying in space, pretty much after the fashion of the insect that lays its egg in the hide of an ox, where it hatches out a maggot...
We have no doubt that the aerolite came from Mars, but we think the translators of the inscription on the silver plate had better come to Pompoonik University and study cryptography with Prof. Bilfinsh [sic]." -
Kinderhook Herald, Aug 8, 1878
Earliest crashed saucer hoax
In the wake of the "mystery airship" sightings of 1896 came this obvious fabrication from 1897, accepted as authentic by many UFO enthusiasts today.
Earliest "live Martian" hoax
An article lists among other sideshow attractions,
"Two albinos, mentally subnormal, who seemed unhappy, uncomfortable and constantly blinking, advertised as 'men from Mars.'" - Pulaski Democrat, Medical Man Gets No Thrills in Sideshow, 7/21/1926
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