Via Zapato Productions intradimensional, a century ago, at least one major newspaper reported on a flavor-of-the-moment theory, attributed to scientists at California’s Lick Observatory, that Mars contained a giant, sentient eye:
An artist’s rendition of the eye of Mars. It’s not a metaphorical depiction. What you see is exactly what the theory claimed: “A vast eye, upon a flexible, transparent neck raises itself high above the surface of Mars and can watch the growth of its vegetable body upon any part of the surface.” Its “vegetable body” is a Mars-hugging super-organism of intelligent vegetable life that creeps along the cracks left in the drying Martian surface.
The Martian Eye theory was put forward as an explanation for the shifting white patches just perceptible to telescopes, which less paranoid minds ascribed to mere seasonal snow. The illustration comes from an article about this startling new theory printed in the Oct. 13, 1912, Sunday magazine section of the Salt Lake Tribune.
