The Great
Moon Hoax of 1835
By R. J. Brown
HistoryBuff.com
© 2000
Every History of American
journalistic hoaxing properly begins with the
celebrated moon hoax which "made" the New
York Sun of Benjamin Day. It consisted of a series of
articles, allegedly reprinted from the nonexistent
Edinburgh Journal of Science, relating to the
discovery of life on the moon by Sir John Herschel,
eminent British astronomer, who some time before had
gone to the Cape of Good Hope to try out a new type of
powerful telescope.
The first installment of the moon
hoax appeared in the August 25, 1835 edition of the
New York Sun on page two, under the heading
"Celestial Discoveries." The brief passage
read in part as follows: "We have just learnt
(sic) from an eminent publisher in this city that Sir
John Herschel at the Cape of Good Hope, has made some
astronomical discoveries of the most wonderful
description, by means of an immense telescope of an
entirely new principle."
As a mater of fact, Herschel had
gone to South Africa in January, 1834, and set up an
observatory at Cape Town. Three columns of the first
page of the Sun contained a story credited to the
Edinburgh Journal of Science. (That publication had
suspended some time before.) There was a great deal of
matter about the importance of HerschelÍs impending
announcement of his discoveries.
On August 25, the Sun ran four
columns describing what Sir John had been able to see,
looking at the moon through his telescope.
So fascinating were the descriptions
of trees and vegetation, oceans and beaches, bison and
goats, cranes and pelicans that the whole town was
talking even before the fourth installment appeared on
August 28, 1835, with the master revelation of all:
the discovery of furry, winged men resembling bats.
The narration was printed as follows:
"We counted three parties of
these creatures, of twelve, nine and fifteen in
each, walking erect towards a small wood...
Certainly they were like human beings, for their
wings had now disappeared and their attitude in
walking was both erect and dignified... About half
of the first party had passed beyond our canvas; but
of all the others we had perfectly distinct and
deliberate view. They averaged four feet in height,
were covered, except on the face, with short and
glossy copper-colored hair, and had wings composed
of a thin membrane, without hair, lying snugly upon
their backs from the top of the shoulders to the
calves of their legs.
The face, which was of a
yellowish color, was an improvement upon that of the
large orangutan... so much so that but for their
long wings they would look as well on a parade
ground as some of the old cockney militia. The hair
of the head was a darker color than that of the
body, closely curled but apparently not woolly, and
arranged in two circles over the temples of the
forehead. Their feet could only be seen as they were
alternately lifted in walking; but from what we
could see of them in so transient a view they
appeared thin and very protuberant at the heel...We
could perceive that their wings possessed great
expansion and were similar in structure of those of
the bat, being a semitransparent membrane expanded
in curvilinear divisions by means of straight radii,
united at the back by dorsal integuments. But what
astonished us most was the circumstance of this
membrane being continued from the shoulders to the
legs, united all the way down, though gradually
decreasing in width. The wings seemed completely
under the command of volition, for those of the
creatures whom we saw bathing in the water spread
them instantly to their full width, waved them as
ducks do theirs to shake off the water, and then as
instantly closed them again in a compact form.
The Sun reached a circulation of 15,000
daily on the first of the stories. When the discovery
of men on the moon appeared Day was able to announce
that the Sun possessed the largest circulation of any
newspaper in the world: 19,360.
Later stories told of the Temple of
the Moon, constructed of sapphire, with a roof of
yellow resembling gold. There were pillars seventy
feet high and six feet thick supporting the roof of
the temple. More man-bats were discovered and readers
of the Sun were awaiting more astounding details, but
the Sun told them the telescope had, unfortunately,
been left facing the east and the Sun's rays,
concentrated through the lenses, burned a hole
"15 feet in circumference" entirely through
the reflecting chamber, putting the observatory out of
commission.
Rival editors were frantic; many of
them pretended to have access to the original articles
and began reprinting the Sun's series. It was not
until the Journal of Commerce sought permission to
publish the series in pamphlet form, however, that
Richard Adams Locke, confessed authorship. Some
authorities think that a French scientist, Nicollet,
in this country at the time, wrote them.
Before Locke's confession a
committee of scientists from Yale University hastened
to New York to inspect the original articles; it was
shunted from editorial office to print shop and back
again until it tired and returned to New Haven. Edgar
Allan Poe explained that he stopped work on the second
part of The Strange Adventures of Hans Pfaall because
he had felt he had been outdone. So many writers have
perpetuated the legend that Harriet Martineau in her
Retrospect of Western Travel said a Springfield,
Massachusetts, missionary society resolved to send
missionaries to the moon to convert and civilize the
bat men.
After a number of his competitors,
humiliated because they had "lifted" the
series and passed it off as their own, upbraided Day,
the Sun of September 16, 1835, admitted the hoax. When
the hoax was exposed people were generally amused. It
did not seem to lessen interest in the Sun, which
never lost its increased circulation.
October 31, 1998
Credit: Apollo
17, NASA
Explanation: This
picture, taken as the Apollo
17 astronauts orbited the Moon in 1972, depicts the
stark lunar surface around the Eratosthenes and Copernicus
craters. Images of a Moon devoid of life are familiar
to denizens of the space age. Contrary to this
modern perception, life
on the Moon was reported in August of 1835 in a
series of sensational stories first published by the
New York Sun - apparently intended to improve the
paper's circulation. These descriptions of lunar
life received broad credence and became one of the
most spectacular hoaxes in history. Supposedly based
on telescopic observations, the stories featured full,
lavish
accounts of a Moon with oceans and beaches,
teeming with plant and animal life and climaxing with
reported sightings of winged, furry, human-like
creatures resembling
bats ! Within a month the trick had been revealed
but the newspaper continued to enjoy an increased
readership. For now ... have
a safe and happy
Halloween !
Related Links:
Discover
the cosmos! Each day a
different image or photograph of our fascinating
universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.
HistoryBuff.com
Moon
View
 TOP
|
