This is the curious tale of science coming full circle, with today's news of water on Mars strangely echoing a "Mars mania" that swept the world in the late 1800s. Arising from a twist of scientific discoveries, misinterpretations and exaggerations, that mania led to one of the oddest media events in history. And it started with news just like we're seeing today -- evidence for water on our neighboring planet.

Almost 300 years ago astronomers saw the first evidence indicating possible water on Mars: Melting polar caps. Mars has seasons analogous to those on Earth, and it also has white polar caps that were easily visible in early telescopes. As early as 1813 it was noted that the polar caps seem to shrink in the Martian spring and return in the winter, suggesting the seasonal melt and freeze cycles commonly seen on Earth.

Mars may be dormant, but not dead. Listen to SPACE.com's Audio Report on Mars.

The evidence of seasons lent to much speculation about the Red Planet, and by the mid 1800s many theories had been put forth on Martian weather, environment and the possibility of life. There were even speculative maps published, showing continents and oceans. But that was nothing compared with what was to come.

In 1877 Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli thought he saw features on Mars that he described with the Italian word "canali." That word in Italian means "channels," referring to the natural flow of water. But in an unfortunate error it was translated into English as "canals," which implied artificial origin.

Artificial canals implied intelligent canal builders, and like a wildfire the idea spread that there were intelligent beings on Mars. There was feverish speculation about what the Martians were like, what their appearance might be, how they lived and what they thought about Earth. H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds, a novel about an invasion of Earth by Martians, was a runaway bestseller that fired the imagination and shaped our views about "aliens" to this day -- all of it stemming from a mistranslation of what someone thought were signs of flowing water.

By the 1920s advances in telescopes allowed closer examination of our neighboring planet, and it became evident that Schiaparelli's "canali" were illusions of sight, not real features. Detailed studies also showed that Mars had very little atmosphere, and that it probably did not have much flowing water, if any. But the idea of alien beings on a nearby planet was so fascinating that it would not die, and it was the continuing popularity of "Martian stories," and the science-fiction genre that sprang from it, that have shaped much of our expectations of aliens to this day.

In 1939 it was that ready belief in Martians, fueled by the presumed evidence for water on Mars, that led to the panic surrounding Orson Welles' famous radio broadcast of War of the Worlds. Though no real evidence had even been found for inhabitants or flowing water on Mars, those early reports of seasons and water had primed the public to believe almost anything about beings from there, including reports Martians might be invading New Jersey.

We have, in a way, come full circle. In 1976 the Viking spacecraft dashed hopes of a Mars with water and life, showing it as a dry, rocky desert with not a drop of water in sight. Then in the 1990s we took a closer look and found many features that appeared to be formed by water, and now a tiny spacecraft speeding high above Mars has indicated that perhaps water does flow on Mars -- even today.

The possibility of flowing water has rekindled hopes of life on Mars, but we no longer fear three-eyed aliens in spaceships. This time we are the invaders, hastily making plans to send spaceships to Mars to meet whatever life may be there. Let's hope that there is no Martian Orson Welles, ready to rally the locals to resist our arrival.