The dawn of the 20th century brought exciting advancements, including the automobile, mechanical flight and wireless messaging that could cross oceans.

That led to an optimism about the future best summed up by Thomas Edison, who believed in the next 100 years, “Everything, anything is possible.”

Balloonist Leo Stevens and astronomer David Todd thought so, with the two aiming in 1909 to fly a hot-air inflatable 10 miles above the Earth so Todd could communicate with Martians.

The men weren’t just confident about the success of their mission; they were cocksure.

“We will be talking to the people of Mars before the 15th of next September,” Stevens said, as David Baron recounts in “The Martians: The True Story of an Alien Craze that Captured Turn-of-the-Century America” (Liveright, Aug. 2

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