The Great Moon Hoax: How One Newspaper Story Fooled The World

In 1835, newspapers were becoming one of the most powerful sources of information in the world. Not only was literacy increasing, but newspapers were also inexpensive enough to spread quickly. Millions of people were hungry for the most sensational of stories, even if they were not the truth.

The New York Sun was started in 1833 and was a “penny press,” relying on mass sales on the street for profit. The sensational paper was popular due to its publication of scandalous and outlandish stories.

British investigative reporter Richard Adams Locke, writer and editor at the Sun, thought up a story that would both ridicule popular (but unscientific) theories and sell papers. One such contemporary religious scientist was Thomas Dick, who popularized the idea that every planet in our solar system is teeming with life. Locke’s series is a satire about religious scientists of the time.

Locke’s false reports claimed that astronomer John Herschel had discovered life on the Moon. Scenic landscapes, mythical creatures, and intelligent, communicative winged humanoids (or man-bats, as the case may be) supposedly populated its surface. Herschel’s name lent credibility to the claims since he was a well known and respected astronomer. According to the articles, Herschel had built a new telescope in South Africa that had a huge magnification power that could see very fine details on the surface of the Moon.

As for The Sun’s incredible findings? Those had supposedly originated in a supplement of the Edinburgh Journal of Science, which was a real publication. It had, however, gone out of business years before this hoax was written.

Numerous people were fooled by the hoax, which was written in a formal scientific style, with complicated jargon, made-up figures and real astronomical references to disguise the truth.

The Moon Hoax was a sensation. Thousands of readers, eager to learn more about the strange new world above them, purchased copies of the New York Sun. In fact, the lie made its way into newspapers across Europe, where reprints were distributed to eager audiences. The reaction was exactly as Richard Adams Locke had planned.

The story was published over six installments in The Sun, with each telling an even more incredible discovery. Readers returned each day to hear what else had been discovered.

While some scientists quickly pointed out that much of the article’s claims were impossible, Herschel was frustrated that someone used his name to publicize an untrue story. Herschel even joked that his own real discoveries would seem dull by comparison to the hoax.

The scientific community was deeply intrigued. Popular folklore holds that scientists from Yale University made the trip to see the Edinburgh Journal of Science for themselves, though modern historians have found no contemporary documentation to confirm the visit did happen.

While famous author Edgar Allan Poe was living in Baltimore, the hoax enraged him. He claimed that it copied the premise of a recent short story, called The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall. Both it and Poe’s tale involved traveling to the Moon.

In an age before radio, television, or the internet, the Moon Hoax was spread by word of mouth and newspapers and is an early example of a story going “viral.”

The articles go on to claim that Herschel’s telescope would have a magnification of 42,000 times, and would allow astronomers to see objects on the moon only eighteen inches in diameter.

The articles describe a breathtaking landscape on the Moon. Enormous dark-red mountains, made entirely of amethyst crystals, sparkle with dazzling reflected light.

The Moon is not a lifeless expanse of rock, but instead, a lush paradise: wide rivers and dense woods of yew, the earth awash with red poppies.

The first animals to be spotted were, apparently, herds of brown quadrupeds similar to the bison, but much smaller than our buffalo, and with a strange fleshy covering over the eyes. There was also a very elegant creature like a goat, of a bluish tint, and bearing a single horn, pointing forwards, exactly answering to the descriptions of the fabulous unicorn.

Locke’s cover started to slip when he casually admitted to a reporter from a rival publication, the Journal of Commerce, that he had written the articles. Even so, he and his editor kept denying it in print for weeks, and Locke didn’t publicly own the story until the following year.

On September 16, 1835, The Sun itself finally addressed the rumors, but it declined to apologize. Rather than admit outright fabrication, the paper described the series as little more than harmless fun, a satire, even, and suggested it had done nothing worse than engage the public’s imagination.

Members of the scientific community were embarrassed by the hoax and strongly denounced The Sun’s deception. Rival newspapers savaged The Sun for its fraud and questioned its motives, claiming that it merely deceived people to make money and that its actions destroyed trust and belief in journalism.

Despite the backlash, the hoax turned The Sun into a media powerhouse, proving that sensational stories could still drive sales. The Great Moon Hoax is regarded today as an ingenious breakthrough in the history of media, as the basis for modern speculative journalism and science fiction.

This content was created with the help of AI.