In 1877, an American astronomer named Percival Lowell looked at Mars and saw something extraordinary: canals, which Lowell thought undoubtedly were a sign of life on the planet. Lowell proceeded to spread the news far and wide, even building an observatory in Arizona for the sole purpose of studying the engineering marvels. After all, if canals exist on Mars, that means some intelligent life forms had to have constructed them.
Of course, Lowell had misinterpreted the images from Mars. The striations he saw on Mars were an artifact, caused by poor optics technology and misinterpretations of actual features on the red planet.
