Pre-Space Age: Mythological and Fictional
  Mythological

In olden times, our ancestors peopled the heavens with gods, goddesses, and other mythological characters.

We still use their names for the planets and moons.

History of Ancient Philosophy
-- University of Washington

Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy
-- University of Tennessee at Martin
 
Our ancestors conceived that the heavens were the abode of the gods and goddesses and other supernatural beings - indeed, the planets themselves were thought to be these living, immortal creatures.

At the dawn of the scientific age, when astronomers first turned telescopes on these objects and realized that they were planets like the Earth, thoughts of extraterrestrial life turned from the supernatural to the natural - it was natural to populate these distant worlds with plants and animals and even thinking creatures perhaps not unlike ourselves.

  • Classical Myth: The Ancient Sources
    This site is designed to draw together the ancient texts and images available on the Web concerning the major figures of Greek and Roman mythology. We were most interested in bringing together the ancient sources and illustrations, but have included some Renaissance images that were just too good to leave out.
    -- Department of Greek and Roman Studies, University of Victoria
  • Inventing the Solar System
    Early Greek Scientists Struggle to Explain How the Heavens Move
    -- Classics Department, Tufts University
Fictional: Martians & Venusians

Early science fiction writers peopled the nearby planetary objects - Luna, Mars, and Venus - with human-like inhabitants and other, more exotic creations. As late as the 1890's, there was conjecture in the scientific community about the origin of the Martian canals: were these age-old structures, the engineering marvels of a dying race on a planet slowly turning to desert?
 
Even as science increasingly debunked our naive ideas about the natural universe, these notions of extraterrestrial life persisted. Venus was seen to be shrouded with clouds and this and its greater proximity to the sun gave rise to the idea that it was a hot, jungle world, a primitive Earth if you will.
Mars, on the other hand, was seen to be a desert world with distinct polar ice-caps, crisscrossed (so it was thought) with thin lines along which there would seasonal darkenings of the landscape dimly seen through our telescopes: perhaps, it was thought, the lines were canals or channels bringing water from the polar regions and the darkenings the ebb and flow of vegetation, spreading during the spring and dying back in the martian winter. These notions persisted through the turn of the century and claimed the allegiance of dedicated scientists into the 1920's.

Exploring Mars: Image Center

Percival Lowell and Mars

The Planet Mars: A History of Observation and Discovery
-- William Sheehan, University of Arizona Press

 The Warlord of Mars
-- E. R.Burroughs

MARS by Percival Lowell, 1895

From the Earth to the Moon and Round the Moon, or A Trip Around It
-- Jules Verne

The War of the Worlds
-- H. G. Wells