The Great Moon Hoax of 1835: Unicorns, Batmen, Jungles and Satire Gone Horribly Wrong
On August 21, 1835 a shocking advertisement ran in the New York Sun . It read in big bold letters at the very top of the broadsheet: GREAT ASTRONOMICAL DISCOVERIES LATELY MADE By Sir John Herschel At the Cape of Good Hope… This advertisement in one of New York City’s leading newspapers of the time told readers about an upcoming series of six feature articles that the paper would run over the course of the next week which would detail the discovery and existence of life on the moon! With the running of this advertisement in block letters on the front page of the New York Sun, the Great Moon Hoax of 1835 was on. These feature articles, which would be published over the course of the following six days, one each day which supposedly detailed a different aspect of life and civilization on the moon, were attributed to the Edinburgh Courant of Scotland. The Edinburgh Courant was Scotland’s oldest, and most well respected newspaper, dating back all the way to 1705....