# What was the first speculation of extraterrestrial life? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 14, 2010, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-speculation-of-extraterrestrial-life/546677 "2010-07-14T17:10:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![sweeteviljesus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/898d66/32.png) [@sweeteviljesus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweeteviljesus)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-speculation-of-extraterrestrial-life/546677/1 "2010-07-14T17:10:16Z")
What is the first published work, fiction or otherwise, which considers the possibility of extraterrestrial life? Thanks, Rob ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-speculation-of-extraterrestrial-life/546677/2 "2010-07-14T17:20:26Z")
Stories about people living on the Moon go 'way back. Lucian’s _Icaromenippus_ has such, and he’s second century AD. His is a work of fiction and satire, and his speculations don’t seem to be a direct outgrowth of Greek/Roman mythology. Others wrote similar works in later years, otably Kepler in his _Somnium_ (1625). Voltaire has extraterrestrials from other worlds and other stars visiting Earth in his _Micromegas_. I’m certain there are a great many other such works as early or earlier, but I’m not with my reference books now. The earliest case I know of that’s trying to be a coherent story and not just setting for philosophy or satire is Washington Irving’s _The Conquest of the Moon_ (1809), which anticipates Wells’s _War of the Worlds_ by many decades to make the same point about technologically advanced civilization taking over a weaker one – us. But, of course, even those books have a polemic point. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-speculation-of-extraterrestrial-life/546677/3 "2010-07-14T17:34:31Z")
The Greek philosopher [Epicurus](http://www.humanistictexts.org/epicurus.htm) (died 270 BC) speculated on the existence of infinite worlds, which might have life like that found on Earth: > [@](#): > > 53 As the universe is not comprehended by comparison with something outside, it has no boundary and no limit. And since it has no limit it is unlimited or infinite. Moreover, the universe is infinite both by reason of the multitude of atoms and the extent of space. For, if space were infinite and the number of bodies finite, the bodies would not have stayed around but would have been dispersed throughout infinite space, because they would not have met with anything that might support or keep them in place by coming into collision with them. Alternatively, if space were finite, there would not be room for an infinity of bodies. > > 54 Next, we must consider that many worlds, and every finite aggregate that bears a strong resemblance to the things we see, have arisen out of the infinity of atoms and space. For all these, whether small or great, have been separated off as special conglomerations of atoms. Furthermore, all things may disperse again—some faster, some slower, some through the action of one set of causes, others through the action of another set. And we must not suppose that all worlds have necessarily one and the same shape. For nobody could prove one way or the other that in one sort of world there would be found the beginnings out of which animals, plants and all the rest of the things we see arise, and that in another sort of world this would have been impossible. Earlier philosophers like Anaximander (died c. 546 BC) also speculated on the existence of multiple worlds, but it is somewhat unclear what kind of worlds they envisioned. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-speculation-of-extraterrestrial-life/546677/4 "2010-07-14T18:02:59Z")
Ezekiel’s “UFO” vision is [from around 592 BC](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_ezekiel#Date). ---
**Author:** ![Arkcon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Arkcon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arkcon)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-speculation-of-extraterrestrial-life/546677/5 "2010-07-14T18:17:26Z")
If instead of fictional accounts, you’re interested in belief in exterterrestrial intelligence, I’m thinking that the first might be Percival Lowell’s insistance that the “Martian canals” were evidence of superior intelligence. > **[Martian canals](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_canal#Controversy)** > > During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was erroneously believed that there were "canals" on the planet Mars. These were a network of long straight lines in the equatorial regions from 60° north to 60° south latitude on Mars, observed by astronomers using early telescopes without photography. > They were first described by the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli during the opposition of 1877, and confirmed by later observers. Schiaparelli called these canali ("channels"), which was ... I can’t recall anything earlier than that which posits a superior extraterrestrial intelligence, prior to post WWII airplanes encountering UFO’s. See, thing is, the extraterrestrials have to be only _slightly_ more advanced than contemporary humans, for the story to be understandable. ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-speculation-of-extraterrestrial-life/546677/6 "2010-07-14T18:19:02Z")
In 1690 Christiaan Huygens wrote the book **The Celestial Worlds Discovered** , subtitled Theories about **Inhabitants** , Plants, and Products of the Celestial Worlds. He also thought the four big moons of Jupiter were navigational aides to the “people” on Jupiter. ---
**Author:** ![cdsilv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9adbd/32.png) [@cdsilv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cdsilv)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-speculation-of-extraterrestrial-life/546677/7 "2010-07-14T18:21:24Z")
The bible - angels, demons and God itself are by definition ‘extra-terrestrial’. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-speculation-of-extraterrestrial-life/546677/8 "2010-07-14T18:26:15Z")
Though the Bible isn’t the oldest religious text, either, if that counts. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-speculation-of-extraterrestrial-life/546677/9 "2010-07-14T19:00:09Z")
> [@cdsilv](#): > > The bible - angels, demons and God itself are by definition ‘extra-terrestrial’. However, as spiritual creatures I wouldn’t exactly call them “life.” ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-speculation-of-extraterrestrial-life/546677/10 "2010-07-14T19:16:00Z")
> [@Arkcon](#): > > If instead of fictional accounts, you’re interested in belief in exterterrestrial intelligence, I’m thinking that the first might be Percival Lowell’s insistance that the “Martian canals” were evidence of superior intelligence. Hardly. The likes of Fontenelle and Huygens had written works on the possibility of extraterrestial life in the 17th century. Granted, all they could do was speculate, but these were scientific works of speculation, not fictions. By the 19th century, there was a whole literature on the biological implications of the “plurality of worlds” by the likes of Alfred Russell Wallace. I’d even guess that Camille Flammarion’s 1862 book _Pluralité des mondes_ on the subject sold far more copies than Lowell’s later ones. Lowell is important because he claimed he had evidence. But it was a commonplace scientific idea long before that, with some people arguing that intelligent extraterrestial life was extremely probable, even inevitable. In other words, they believed in it in much the same way that, say, Carl Sagan did. ---
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-speculation-of-extraterrestrial-life/546677/11 "2010-07-14T19:19:02Z")
How about Thales of Miletus? He died ~ 547 BCE, and was one of the first to speculate on the existence of other habitable worlds. Or so I seem to remember… A bit of research indicates I may be mistaken. All of my useful books on philosophy are at home. Yeah… that’s the ticket… they are at home. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it