Finger Lakes history · regional story
Rug samples, daylight and a failed signal from Mars
The Case laboratory’s museum record follows two 1920 experiments: measuring daylight for industry and listening without success for a message from Mars.
A rug company gave the Case laboratory a practical question in 1920: could its equipment measure daylight falling on fabric? Cayuga Museum’s exhibit follows the inquiry from Kleerflax Linen Rug Company into discussions between Earl Sponable and instrument maker Leeds & Northrup. Cayuga Museum’s Case laboratory exhibit.
The next step was not simply to start selling. According to the exhibit, the company’s engineers wanted a month of daily readings first. Sponable, Ted Case and Gertrude Case all helped monitor results. The account leaves a small but useful glimpse of who did the observing. Cayuga Museum’s Case laboratory exhibit.
Another experiment that year had a less practical destination. An April 24 entry reproduced by the museum describes Case and Sponable listening for possible communication from Mars. It records no positive result. The twinkling they detected also appeared with other stars and was not treated as a message. Cayuga Museum’s Case laboratory exhibit.
The museum’s exhibit is the source here; original letters and notebooks have not yet been collated. A failed signal search is not evidence of contact. Cayuga Museum’s Case laboratory exhibit.
Sources & research notes
Review status: Developing history. Human editorial review is pending.
Written and source-checked with AI assistance under an owner-authorized editorial process. This is not a personal review by Riley or an independent historian. Sources and unresolved questions are listed below; corrections are welcome.
- What the records establish
- The museum exhibit describes the industrial daylight inquiry, names participants in monitoring and reproduces an explicitly unsuccessful 1920 Mars-listening account.
- What remains uncertain
- Exact original notebook/letter locators and complete exchange are not yet collated. No commercial outcome, unique scientific priority, unrecorded voice, extraterrestrial contact or location of either experiment at Casowasco is established.
- What we are researching next
- Locate the 1920 Kleerflax/Leeds & Northrup correspondence and April 24 experiment entry within the museum’s Case/Sponable holdings. Compare the exhibit with originals before expanding details or quoting them.
Sources
- Developing the Tech, Part I — Cayuga Museum of History and Art; Undated digital exhibit; no publication date inferred. Locator: Inventing the 20 s, Measuring Daylight; Inventing the 20 s, Talking to Mars. Exact sub-passages registered separately; dates, attribution, methods and units checked against the retained source. Accessed October 22, 2026.