Why the Pentagon's UFO "revelations" feel so...meh: Mars canals already primed us for aliens
The Pentagon's "Bombshells": A Damp Squib?
So, the Pentagon investigated UFOs. Or UAPs, as they prefer to call them. Released some videos. Military officers hinted at reverse-engineered alien tech. And the world… yawned. More than half of Americans believe in alien life already, according to the article. Half! That's a massive prior. What's going on?
The article suggests a possible reason: we've been primed. Specifically, by the 19th-century "discovery" of canals on Mars. It’s a compelling theory, but I think it misses a crucial element: the nature of the priming. It wasn't just that we were introduced to the idea of aliens. It was how we were introduced.
The Mars canal saga played out in newspapers, fueled by ambitious astronomers (and even more ambitious media outlets). Percival Lowell, for example, built an entire observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, based on the idea of mapping these canals. The New York Herald turned William Pickering's observations into a sensational narrative. There's a clear through-line from these early media-driven "discoveries" to the current UAP discourse. In the late 1800s alien ‘engineers’ altered our world forever
But here's the rub: the Mars canals were wrong. Utterly, demonstrably wrong. By the 1960s, robotic exploration had shown the canals were illusions. Lowell, once a celebrity, is now often remembered as a "misguided maverick."
The Illusion of Control: Data vs. Narrative
The key takeaway here isn’t just the belief in aliens, it’s the discrediting of expert narratives. People saw what they wanted to see in the Martian surface, amplified by media eager for a story. When the truth came out, it wasn't a sudden shock, but a slow, grinding realization that the experts – the astronomers, the newspapers – had been wrong.
This is crucial. The UAP "revelations" aren't happening in a vacuum. They're happening after decades of similar pronouncements, many of which turned out to be hoaxes, misinterpretations, or outright fabrications. How many blurry photos of "Bigfoot" have we seen? How many "psychics" have claimed to contact the dead? The signal-to-noise ratio is abysmal.
Consider the economic impact. How much money has been funneled into UFO research (both official and unofficial) over the years? How many careers have been built on speculation and conjecture? (The article mentions Lowell's fortune gained in the textile trade—a significant investment to chase canals on Mars.) The incentives are clearly skewed.
And this is the part of the analysis I find genuinely puzzling. The article mentions the "collective shrug" in response to the UAP reports, but it doesn't fully quantify it. How many people actively changed their behavior as a result of the reports? Did tourism to Roswell, New Mexico, spike? Did UFO-themed merchandise sales increase significantly? Anecdotally, I haven’t seen it.
The article quotes the president of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada in 1897, fretting about Martian invasion. Where's that level of anxiety today? Instead, we get…memes. Irony. Detachment.
The data (or lack thereof) suggests a different conclusion: we're not just primed for aliens, we're primed for disappointment. We've been burned before.
So, What's Next?
The article suggests that the Martian canal saga offers lessons for astrobiology and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). I agree, but with a caveat: SETI needs a serious PR overhaul. It needs to demonstrate tangible results, or at least a credible path to results, to maintain public trust.
The "National Radio Silence" in 1924, mentioned in the article, is a perfect example of good intentions gone awry. Everyone listened for signals from Mars, and…nothing. It was a well-meaning effort, but it ultimately reinforced the idea that the universe is silent.
Been There, Shrugged That
The "collective shrug" isn't about belief or disbelief. It's about fatigue. We've seen this movie before, and we know how it ends: with blurry photos, unfulfilled promises, and a lingering sense of disappointment. The Pentagon's "revelations" needed to be truly earth-shattering to break through that cynicism. They weren't.
