HG Wells (1866 - 1946) was a man beyond his time.
War of the Worlds (1898) :
"No one would have believed, in the last years of the nineteenth century, that human affairs were watched closely by intelligence greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their affairs they were scrutinized and studied, perhaps as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older world of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most, terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise."
P.S It's fascinating Wells wrote about cylinder flying objects in 1898, way before WW1
HG Wells (1866 - 1946) was a man beyond his time.
War of the Worlds (1898) :
"No one would have believed, in the last years of the nineteenth century, that human affairs were watched closely by intelligence greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their affairs they were scrutinized and studied, perhaps as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older world of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most, terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise."