More than 180 years ago, a serious American newspaper - the New York Sun - published a series of articles that kept its readers on edge. The series, composed of six journalistic notes, dealt with "recent findings on the Moon, made through a novel telescope by John Herschel". Involving one of the most famous astronomers of the time provided an extra patina of seriousness to the articles, but the last one was almost unbelievable: the Moon was inhabited by a tribe of flying men. We tell you the details of this story, from which the newspaper never backed down.
One might think that fantastic stories, often called "hoaxes", are an exclusive heritage of the Internet age. Nothing could be further from the truth. Although with the Internet we suffer daily bombardment of fake news and all kinds of hoaxes, from bonzai kittens to onions capable of recharging the batteries of our gadgets, the fact is that more than 180 years ago people were already trying to deceive others with the most incredible stories. The most impressive of all may be "The Great Moon Hoax" of the 19th century. The New York Sun, one of the most serious and credible newspapers of the time, was the one that published the story.
The Hoax
Everything began when the first article of the series was published on August 25, on the second page of the newspaper, under the title "Celestial Discoveries" ("Great Astronomical Discoveries"). Through it, readers learned the latest astronomical news. One could read: "We have just learned that Sir John Herschel has made wonderful astronomical discoveries at the Cape of Good Hope, thanks to an immense telescope equipped with a lens 7 meters in diameter and operating on an entirely new principle."
Reading the text, one learned that Herschel - a famous English mathematician and astronomer, who among other things popularized the use of the Julian date in astronomy, invented cyanotype and coined the terms "photography", "negative" and "positive" - had organized an expedition to South Africa in January, and had installed an astronomical observatory at the Cape of Good Hope. The Sun's news cited the Edinburgh Journal of Science as a source, and the article was signed by a - supposed - "doctor Andrew Grant". Grant was - theoretically - a colleague of Herschel, and was responsible for explaining the technical advances incorporated by the new telescope.
The second and third articles, published on the 26th and 27th, began to describe the wonders that Sir John had been able to see while observing the Moon. Interesting details of the lunar topography were offered, including forests, craters, lakes, oceans and beaches. The Sun's readers learned that our satellite was full of herds of bison grazing peacefully on the plains of the Moon. As if forests or bison were not enough as a practical joke, Grant related how blue unicorns walked on the lunar peaks and how spherical amphibious creatures rolled on its beaches. A series of crabs, pelicans and zebras, very similar to terrestrial ones, completed the lunar fauna. Naturally, at this point in the events the entire city talked of nothing else, and the Sun sold like hotcakes.
But nothing would compare to what was published in the sixth and final article: the discovery of a primitive tribe of hairy, winged humanoid beings, which Herschel called "vespertilio-homo" (man-bat). These beings were near a golden temple, which the note referred to as "the Lunar Temple". It was a building made of sapphire whose roof was supported by columns 21 meters high. Furthermore, the vespertilio-homo knew fire. At this moment the readers' interest had reached the highest point in the newspaper's history, but everything ended because - supposedly - the miraculous telescope, due to an oversight on the part of the astronomer, had been pointed at the Sun and the solar rays concentrated by the lenses had burned the observatory, leaving it unusable. That was, obviously, the excuse to end the great Moon hoax.
The Aftermath
Rival newspapers, trying to take advantage of the fever unleashed by the Sun to sell more copies, went so far as to pretend that they had obtained copies of the original articles from the Edinburgh Journal of Science and published their version of the story, although - of course - they simply copied what appeared in the Sun's pages. Only a few questioned the story, such as the New York Commercial Advertiser, which wondered how one could believe that such a story, about an expedition that should have been prepared for years and that would have gone completely unnoticed by the British newspapers. Those skeptics were the only ones to come out well in this story. When several weeks later it was discovered that the sensational series of articles was completely false, more than one journalist must have felt like killing themselves.
Herschel himself, who obviously had neither observed life on the Moon nor carried out any of the technical advances attributed to him, learned of the matter months later, since he was indeed in Cape Town making astronomical observations. The source cited by the Sun, the Edinburgh Journal of Science, had ceased publication several years before, and the author of the six notes, Andrew Grant, had never existed. It is believed that the newspaper published the story to increase its sales and, incidentally, ridicule some of the astronomical theories that had been published at that time.
The Reverend Thomas Dick, for example, had calculated and published in a book (which sold in industrial quantities) that the Solar System contained - exactly - 21,891,974,404,480 inhabitants. Of these, 4,200 million lived on the Moon. However, readers never learned the newspaper's true intentions, and despite the intense public debate that the story aroused, the Sun never publicly admitted that everything had been a hoax. In fact, in September of the same year, it published a column analyzing the possibility that the story was false, but without reaching any conclusion.
The most harmed were the rival newspapers, since it became evident that they copied the Sun shamelessly. Over time, people took everything as a joke and the newspaper's sales never suffered. As you can see, it is perfectly possible to create a credible hoax even without using the Internet. What do you think?
