Are there people on Mars?

Percival Lowell, an American astronomer, thought he saw canals criss-crossing the deserts of Mars, when he observed the planet though his telescope early this century. He believed that these canals were built by a Martian civilization to bring water for irrigation from the planet’s polar caps.

However, space probes have shown that the canals were simply optical illusions, and that Mars is too hostile for any form of life.