Professor David Todd of Amherst College does not believe it absurd to plan for communication with other worlds and in an attempt to get signals from Mars will ascend in a balloon to a height greater than usually reached, says a Boston dispatch. He will be accompanied by Leo Stevens, he aeronaut. This plan to surmount natural difficulties will be tried not later than September, when the planet Mars is nearest the earth.
    Professor Todd, speaking of the novel test he has planned, said in part:
    “If life really exists on Mars they have been trying for years to get into conversation with us and perhaps wonder what manner of stupid things we are not to respond. Following this assumption, I have thought that we might feel their presence if we could get high enough up. away from the noises and the ether waves that surround us, up in the rarefied regions of our atmosphere with nothing to disturb the communication.
    “In mounting high up in the balloon to attempt to intercept any ether waves that may be radiating from the planets I shall be shut into a metal box made of aluminium for lightness and fitted with apparatus to drive out the carbonic acid gas and supply oxygen and with air pressure to prevent sickness. In that way I can ascend much higher than balloons have heretofore gone. We shall take along the wireless receiving instrument and try to intercept messages from Mars, Venus or any other of the planets.
    “The planet Venus defies the telescope. All we get from Venus is a reflection from the planet's atmosphere or gaseous envelope. This very atmosphere of Venus is a sign of probable life on the planet.
    “We cannot presume to send messages to Mars on this coming trip, but will only try to receive. The question has been raised of how we should get our grand connection necessary for telegraphy.
    “There are several answers. We will use what is practicable. If, in the meantime, it is established that a thousand foot wire banging from the car with surrounding atmosphere forms a ‘grounding,’ we will use that.” When asked about the practicability of recent plans for establishing communication with Mars, Professor Eric Doolittle of the Flower astronomical observatory, University of Pennsylvania, said: "The idea of signaling to Mars with the object of determining whether or not the planet is inhabited is practical and might be easily carried out by the construction of large geometrical reflectors in the plains of Siberia. The triangle, the square and the circular plane could be used. Were we now on Mars with our telescopes, such a set of figures would be distinctly discernible. If Mars is inhabited by intelligent men, and if among them there are astronomers watching this earth, those men would see these geometrical figures, and they would communicate by constructing similar devices.”
    Professor Doolittle thought that the expenditure of the proposed $10,000,000 for establishing communication with Professor Doolittle thought that the expenditure Of the proposed $10,000,000 for establishing communication with Mars would be impracticable until it was definitely determined that Mars was inhabited.

From— Corvallis Daily Gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Benton County, Oregon), 14 May 1909. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.