Audiobook

Moon Hoax

Richard Adams Locke

This hoax, subtitled “A Discovery that the Moon Has a Vast Population of Human Beings,” was originally serialized in 1835 in the New York Sun newspaper. It purported itself to be a true account that had been published in the Edinburgh Journal of Science. Sir John Herschel, a well-known astronomer at the time, was credited with authorship.

Herschel’s telescope, according to the story, was able to see man-bats and other animals, as well as a variety of geographical features, on the surface of the moon. The article was published at a time when newspapers were read as much for entertainment as for news. It was not uncovered as a hoax until weeks after its publication, and the paper never printed a retraction. - Summary by Verla Viera