"Others may scoff at this suggestion...[of] communicat[ing] with one of our heavenly neighbors, as Mars...or treat it as a practical joke, but I have been in deep earnest about it every since I made my first observations in Colorado Springs... At the time, there existed no wireless plant other than mine that could produce a disturbance perceptible in a radius of more than a few miles. Furthermore, the conditions under which I operated were ideal, and I was well trained for the work. The character of the disturbances recorded precluded the possibility of their being of terrestrial origin, and I also eliminated the influence of the sun, moon, and Venus. As I then announced, the signals consisted in a regular repetition of numbers, and subsequent study convinced me that they must have emanated from Mars, the planet having just then been close to the earth. - Nikola Tesla"