...but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?

 So I just took this Sporcle quiz:

http://www.sporcle.com/games/Mimbleton/fictional-races-clickable/results

and *spoilers* one of the fictional races was martians, from War of the Worlds.

Now...I know that there aren't martians. (As far as science is aware) But it seemed odd to me to put them in the same category of "made up creatures" as say, Daleks and Ewoks. Clearly, they are all fictional, in that no such thing exists. But it seemed bizarre to me to call "martians" made up, because it seems to me that if there were creatures living on Mars, we'd call them martians.

Maybe it's just a name thing. Marvin the Martian is clearly made up. And I guess that, since in War of the Worlds these creatures have some characterization that is imagined by H.G. Welles* they are also to be considered made up. I think it's just the name. "Martians." This word has existed for centuries and feels far more "real"


*Note: When I was younger, H.G. Welles and Orson Welles were interchangeable in my brain. I'd feel worse about this, but they were both obviously connected to War of the Worlds, so I feel like it's an easy mistake to make.