Astronomer Who Has Plan to Talk to Martians

Professor William H. Pickering, the Harvard astronomer, believes he has discovered a way to communicate with the planet Mars. The only trouble is that it will cost about $10,000,000, and no one has so far signified a willingness to put up the money. Professor Pickering has long believed that the planet is inhabited by a highly civilized people. His plan is to flash signals to the planet by means of a gigantic arrangement of mirrors fixed so as to revolve upon a great axis in exact time with the movement of the earth.

--The Mansfield News, Mansfield, Ohio, April 21, 1909, page 5.