Great Moon Hoax - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

"The Great Moon Hoax" refers to a series of six articles that were published in the New York Sun beginning on August 25, 1835, about the supposed discovery of life and even civilization on the Moon

Moon

The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...

. The discoveries were falsely attributed to Sir John Herschel

John Herschel

Sir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Baronet KH, FRS ,was an English mathematician, astronomer, chemist, and experimental photographer/inventor, who in some years also did valuable botanical work...

, perhaps the best-known astronomer

Astronomer

An astronomer is a scientist who studies celestial bodies such as planets, stars and galaxies.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using...

of his time.

Article

The headline read:
The articles described fantastic animals on the Moon, including bison

Bison

Members of the genus Bison are large, even-toed ungulates within the subfamily Bovinae. Two extant and four extinct species are recognized...

, goats, unicorns, bipedal tail-less beavers and bat

Bat

Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera "hand" and pteron "wing") whose forelimbs form webbed wings, making them the only mammals naturally capable of true and sustained flight. By contrast, other mammals said to fly, such as flying squirrels, gliding possums, and colugos, glide rather than fly,...

-like winged humanoids ("Vespertilio-homo") who built temples. There were trees and oceans and beaches. These discoveries were supposedly made with "an immense telescope

Telescope

A telescope is an instrument that aids in the observation of remote objects by collecting electromagnetic radiation . The first known practical telescopes were invented in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 1600s , using glass lenses...

of an entirely new principle".

The author of the narrative was supposedly Dr. Andrew Grant, who described himself as the travelling companion and amanuensis

Amanuensis

Amanuensis is a Latin word adopted in various languages, including English, for certain persons performing a function by hand, either writing down the words of another or performing manual labour...

of Sir John Herschel, but Dr Grant was fictitious.

Termination

Eventually, the authors announced that the observations had been terminated by the destruction of the telescope, by means of the sun causing the lens to act as a 'burning glass', setting fire to the observatory.

Authorship

Authorship of the article has been attributed to Richard A. Locke, a Cambridge

University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...

-educated reporter who, in August 1835, was working for the New York Sun. Locke never publicly admitted to being the author, while rumours persisted that others were involved. Two other men have been noted in connection with the hoax

Hoax

A hoax is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth. It is distinguishable from errors in observation or judgment, or rumors, urban legends, pseudosciences or April Fools' Day events that are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes.-Definition:The British...

: Jean-Nicolas Nicollet

Joseph Nicollet

Joseph Nicolas Nicollet , also known as Jean-Nicolas Nicollet, was a French geographer and mathematician known for mapping the Upper Mississippi River basin during the 1830s....

, a French astronomer travelling in America at the time (though he was in Mississippi, not New York, when the moon-hoax issues appeared), and Lewis Gaylord Clark

Lewis Gaylord Clark

Lewis Gaylord Clark was an American editor and the brother of Willis Gaylord Clark.-Biography:Clark was born in Otisco, New York in 1808. He succeeded Charles Fenno Hoffman as editor of the Knickerbocker Magazine, a role he held for over 25 years...

, editor of the Knickerbocker Magazine

The Knickerbocker

The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, was a literary magazine of New York City, founded by Charles Fenno Hoffman in 1833, and published until 1865 under various titles, including:...

. However, there is no good evidence to indicate that anyone but Locke was the author of the hoax.

Assuming that Richard A. Locke was the author, his intentions were probably, first, to create a sensational story which would increase sales of the New York Sun, and, second, to ridicule some of the more extravagant astronomical theories that had recently been published. For instance, in 1824, Franz von Paula Gruithuisen

Franz von Gruithuisen

Baron Franz von Paula Gruithuisen was a Bavarian physician and astronomer. He taught medical students before becoming a professor of astronomy at the University of Munich in 1826....

, professor of Astronomy at Munich University, had published a paper titled "Discovery of Many Distinct Traces of Lunar Inhabitants, Especially of One of Their Colossal Buildings". Gruithuisen claimed to have observed various shades of color on the lunar surface, which he correlated with climate and vegetation zones. He also observed lines and geometrical shapes, which he felt indicated the existence of walls, roads, fortifications, and cities.

However, a more direct object of Locke's satire was certainly Rev. Thomas Dick

Thomas Dick

Reverend Thomas Dick , was a Scottish church minister, science teacher and writer, known for his works on astronomy and practical philosophy, combining science and Christianity, and defusing the tension between the two.-Early life:Thomas was brought up in the strict tenets of the presbyterian...

, who was known as "The Christian Philosopher" after the title of his first book. Dick had computed that the Solar System

Solar System

The Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun...

contained 21,891,974,404,480 (21+ trillion) inhabitants. In fact, the Moon alone, by his count, would contain 4,200,000,000 inhabitants.
His writings were enormously popular in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, his fans including intellectual luminaries such as Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century...

Publication history

The story was advertised on August 21, 1835, as an upcoming feature allegedly reprinted from The Edinburgh Courant. The first in a series of six was published four days later on August 25.

Reaction and effect

According to legend, the New York Suns circulation increased dramatically because of the hoax and remained permanently greater than before, thereby establishing the New York Sun as a successful paper. However, the degree to which the hoax increased the paper's circulation has certainly been exaggerated in popular accounts of the event. It was not discovered to be a hoax for several weeks after its publication and, even then, the newspaper did not issue a retraction.

Herschel was initially amused by the hoax, noting that his own real observations could never be as exciting. He became annoyed later when he had to answer questions from people who believed the hoax was serious.

The story may also have inspired Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...

to write and publish "The Balloon-Hoax

The Balloon-Hoax

"The Balloon-Hoax" is the title used in collections and anthologies of a newspaper article written by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1844. Originally presented as a true story, it detailed European Monck Mason's trip across the Atlantic Ocean in only three days in a gas balloon...

" in the same newspaper on April 13, 1844.

Poe had published his own Moon hoax in late June 1835, two months before the similar Locke Moon hoax, in the Southern Literary Messenger

Southern Literary Messenger

The Southern Literary Messenger was a periodical published in Richmond, Virginia, from 1834 until June 1864. Each issue carried a subtitle of "Devoted to Every Department of Literature and the Fine Arts" or some variation and included poetry, fiction, non-fiction, reviews, and historical notes...

entitled "Hans Phaall--A Tale", later republished as "The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall

The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall

"The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe published in the June 1835 issue of the monthly magazine Southern Literary Messenger, and intended by Poe to be a hoax....

". The story was reprinted in the New York Transcript on September 2–5, 1835 under the headline "Lunar Discoveries, Extraordinary Aerial Voyage by Baron Hans Pfaall." The story is regarded as one of the first science fiction stories. Poe described a voyage to the moon in a hot-air balloon using a factually plausible scenario. Pfaall lived for five years on the Moon with lunarians and sent back a lunarian to earth. The Poe Moon hoax was less successful because of the satiric and comical tone of the account. Locke was able to upstage Poe and to steal his thunder. In 1846, Poe would write a biographical sketch of Locke as part of his series "The Literati of New York City" which appeared in Godey's Lady's Book

Godey's Lady's Book

Godey's Lady's Book, alternatively known as Godey's Magazine and Lady's Book, was a United States magazine which was published in Philadelphia. It was the most widely circulated magazine in the period before the Civil War. Its circulation rose from 70,000 in the 1840s to 150,000 in 1860...

External links

The Great Moon Hoax of 1835, History Buff
Episode of The Memory Palace on the Hoax
The Great Moon Hoax, Museum of Hoaxes
- 1st article (August 25, 1835)
- 2nd article (August 26, 1835)
- 3rd article (August 27, 1835)
- 4th article (August 28, 1835)
- 5th article (August 29, 1835)
- 6th article (August 31, 1835)
Victorian Gothic, The Great Moon Hoax of 1835