In the last years of the nineteenth century, no one believed a great danger was near. Beings with minds greater than human minds watched us closely from space. These beings were mortal (they could die) just like us. While men and women did their daily work, these beings studied us. They watched us like a man with a microscope (a tool that makes very small things look large) watches tiny creatures in a drop of water.
People felt very safe and went everywhere on the earth. They thought they were the masters of all things. No one thought about other worlds in space as a danger. Most people thought there was no life on the planet Mars. Some people thought there were men on Mars, but they thought those men were less clever than us.
But across the dark space, there were very great minds. These minds were not kind and they did not feel sorry for us. They looked at the earth because they wanted it for themselves. They slowly and carefully made their plans against us. In the early twentieth century, the big surprise came.
The planet Mars is about 140 million miles from the sun. It receives only half of the light and heat that our world receives. Mars is an old planet. Life on its surface started a long time before life started on the earth. Mars is much smaller than the earth, so it became cold more quickly. It has air and water and everything that life needs.
Humans were very proud at the end of the nineteenth century. No writer thought that intelligent life on Mars was more advanced than us. But Mars is an old world. It is far from the sun and it is near the end of its life.
The neighbor planet is now very cold. Even in the warmest parts of Mars, the temperature is like our coldest winter. The air is very thin and the oceans are small. The people on Mars have many problems because their world is dying. This difficult life made their minds very strong and their hearts very hard.
The beings on Mars have very powerful telescopes (long tubes with glass that make far things look near). They look across space and see our world. They see a warm planet that is green with plants and gray with water. They see our crowded cities and our many ships.
To the beings on Mars, we are like animals. Their world is cold and our world is full of life. They want to come to our world to save themselves. Moving toward the sun is their only way to survive. Before we judge them, we must remember our own history. Humans destroyed many animals like the dodo bird. Humans also destroyed other groups of humans in wars. We are not always kind, so we cannot complain if the Martians are the same.
The Martians are very good at math. They prepared for their trip perfectly. If our tools were better, we could see the trouble in the nineteenth century. Scientists like Giovanni Schiaparelli watched the red planet for many years. But they did not understand what they saw. All that time, the Martians were getting ready.
In the year 1894, a great light appeared on Mars. Scientists in America and France saw it. Many people in England read about it in a magazine. I think this light was a fire from a huge gun. The Martians made a very deep hole in their planet. They used the gun to fire things at the earth.
The war began six years ago. When Mars was near the earth, a scientist in Java saw a big cloud of hot gas. It happened at midnight on the twelfth day of the month. He used a spectroscope (a tool that shows what a fire is made of) to look at the light. He saw a giant flame of fire moving very fast toward the earth.
He said it was like a flame coming out of a gun. This was a very good description. But the next day, the newspapers said almost nothing about it. The world did not know about the danger. I only heard about it because I met Ogilvy. Ogilvy was a famous astronomer (a scientist who studies the stars and planets). Ogilvy was very excited and invited me to his observatory (a building with a large telescope).
I remember that night very clearly. The observatory was dark and silent. A small lamp showed a little light on the floor. I heard the steady ticking of the clock on the telescope. There was a small opening in the roof where I could see the stars. Ogilvy moved around in the dark.
I looked through the telescope and saw a circle of deep blue. The little round planet swam in the middle. It looked very small and bright and still. It was like a pin’s head of light. It seemed to move a little, but that was only because the telescope moved.
As I watched, the planet seemed to grow larger and then smaller. This happened because my eye was tired. Mars was 40 million miles away from us. There was only empty space between us and the planet. Most people do not understand how big and empty space is.
I saw three small stars near the planet. All around it was the deep darkness of space. Inside that darkness, something was flying toward me very fast. It was a missile (a large object that is fired like a bullet). It was coming across the great distance to bring death to the earth. I did not know this then. No one on earth knew about it.
That night, there was another flash of gas from Mars. I saw a small red light at the edge of the planet. It happened exactly at midnight. I told Ogilvy and Ogilvy took my place at the telescope. I was thirsty, so I walked in the dark to find a drink. Ogilvy watched the stream of gas and was very surprised.
That night, another missile started its trip to the earth. It started almost 24 hours after the first one. I sat on a table in the dark room. I did not know the meaning of the light I saw. Ogilvy watched until one o'clock in the morning. Then we lit a lamp and walked to the house of Ogilvy. Below us, the people in the towns were sleeping in peace.
Ogilvy talked a lot about Mars that night. He did not believe that the lights were signals to us. He thought that many rocks were falling on the planet. Or perhaps there was a big volcano on Mars. He said it was impossible for Martians to look like humans.
“The chances of finding anything like a man on Mars are very small,” Ogilvy said.
Hundreds of people saw the flame that night. They saw a flame every night for ten nights. We do not know why the shots stopped after ten. Maybe the smoke from the gun caused problems for the Martians. Great clouds of smoke or dust appeared in the air on Mars.
Finally, the daily papers wrote about the fires. People talked about the volcanoes on Mars. A funny magazine called Punch even made a joke about it. But the missiles were moving toward the earth very fast. Hour by hour and day by day, they came closer. It is amazing that people continued their normal lives while this happened. One man was happy because he got a new photo of Mars for his paper. I was busy learning to ride a bicycle.
One night, I went for a walk with my wife. The first missile was only 10 million miles away then. The night was warm and the sky was full of stars. I showed my wife the different stars and we looked at Mars. It was a bright dot of light in the sky.
On our way home, some people from the town passed us. They were singing and playing music. We saw lights in the windows of houses as people went to bed. In the distance, we heard the sound of trains. My wife looked at the red and green signal lights of the railway. Everything seemed very safe and quiet.