A Popular History of Unpopular Things

The Great Moon Hoax

• Kelli Beard • Season 1 • Episode 80

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Join Kelli for another weird episode where she looks at the Great Moon Hoax of 1835.

For six days straight in 1835, the New York Sun (not the same publication as the one that exists today) published a fantastical story about life on the moon. The scientific series of articles talked about witnessing lumbering bipedal moon-bison, crystal spires, temples, men with wings, and more. It was captivating... and although it was complete fiction, many believed it to be fact.

In today's episode we go over the story, how it was received, and how this whole affair fits into the historical context of penny press newspapers in the early- to mid-nineteenth century.


Sources:

 

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The Great Moon Hoax
Intro
Welcome to A Popular History of Unpopular Things, a podcast that covers the… unpopular stories from history - tales about disease, death, and destruction. I like learning about all things bloody, gross, mysterious, and weird.

In August 1835, British astronomer Sir John Herschel shocked the world with a discovery that could change the way we understand life as we know it. He had proof that there was life on the moon.

I don’t think you need me to tell you that, of course, this is categorically false. There isn’t life on the moon the way the Herschel apparently described it – they said they saw fantastical beings and mammals living in huge forests, on beaches, in oceans, and flying around in the skies. Building houses and temples, engaging in social life within their own civilization.

But at the time, the story was an absolute sensation for the Sun, a New York-based newspaper that ran from 1833 until 1950, and later merged with the New York World-Telegram. 

So in today’s episode, we’re going to take a look at that story. We’ll begin with a summary of the original series of articles, and then try to understand where this came from. Why did a famed astronomer make these claims? Why did this come out in 1835? How did the population take it at the time, and when did they start to realize it was just fiction? And what does the Great Moon Hoax tell us now about life in the early to mid 19th century, that’s the 1800s?

Because at the end of the day, we know it’s just a story. But why was it published in a newspaper as if it were fact? What was the point of it?

So let’s dive into this weird world of fantastical nonsense and hoaxes, and place it into its historical context. What can the Great Moon Hoax of 1835 tell us about the history of the 19th century, science, and print culture?

Let’s get started.
The Original Story
Unlike most episodes where we start with the historical context, I want to start today’s episode with the story itself. Let’s get introduced to this the way people did back in 1835 - by reading, or in your case listening, to the tale.

I’ll present it as a narrative blending some of the original source material with my own writing to help it flow… remember, it was a six-day serial account, and it’s quite long. I’ve attached a link to the original content in the description of my podcast, so check it out if interested in reading it in its entirety. I’ve omitted entire sections that are essentially exposition not necessary to the overall story of today’s episode. They just serve to make this newspaper serial seem more scholarly and therefore real, like the construction of the telescope itself or its location.

Let’s begin. *Clear throat*



There have been recent discoveries in astronomy which will make the human race proud. By means of a telescope of vast dimensions, Sir John Herschel, at his observatory in the Southern Hemisphere, has made the most extraordinary discovery; he has obtained a distinct view of objects on the moon and has settled the question of whether the moon is inhabited.

It was about half past nine when Herschel and his colleague Dr. Grant turned his telescope to the eastern side of the moon. He could see a beautifully distinct, and even vivid representation of basaltic rock. Its color was a greenish brown, with columns that appeared to be hexagonal. However, they were covered with a dark red flower, similar to the rose-poppy. It was the first organic production of nature, in a foreign world, ever revealed to the eyes of men.

The specimen of lunar vegetation had raised another question. It had demonstrated that the moon has an atmosphere similar to our own, and capable of sustaining organized, and therefore, most probably animal life.

Past the basalt rocks, they saw a forest. "The trees," says Dr. Grant, "for a period of ten minutes, were of one unvaried kind, and unlike any I have seen, except the largest kind of yews in the English churchyards, which they in some respects resemble. These were followed by a level green plain, which, as measured by the painted circle on our canvass of forty-nine feet, must have been more than half a mile in breadth; and then appeared as fine a forest of firs, unequivocal firs, as I have ever seen cherished in the bosom of my native mountains.”

Beyond the forest was a lake, or inland sea. The shoreline had a beach of white sand, punctuated with wild castellated rocks, apparently of green marble, varied at chasms, occurring every two or three hundred feet, with grotesque blocks of chalk or gypsum, and feathered and festooned at the summit with the clustering foliage of unknown trees.

The water, we obtained a view of it, was nearly as blue as that of the deep ocean, and broke in large white billows upon the strand. The action of very high tides was quite manifest upon the face of the cliffs for more than a hundred miles; yet diversified as the scenery was during this and a much greater distance, we perceived no trace of animal existence. 

We turned our telescopes to the valleys, where we saw quartz spires varying in height from sixty to ninety feet. But other than the crystals, the valleys were barren. We scanned over to a wild mountainous region with more extensive forests of larger trees than we had seen before, which resembled our forest oak, but with more superb foliage with tresses of yellow flowers hung from the branches to the ground. And beyond this forest we finally saw continuous herds of brown quadrupeds, having all the external characteristics of the bison, but more diminutive than any of our species. Its tail is like that of our domestic yak, but in its semi-circular horns, the hump on its shoulders, the length of its shaggy hair, and the depth of its dewlap – the flesh that hangs beneath the lower jaw – it closely resembled the bison.

It had, however, one widely distinctive feature, which we afterwards found common to nearly every lunar quadruped we have discovered; namely, a remarkable fleshy appendage over the eyes, crossing the whole breadth of the forehead and united to the ears. We could most distinctly perceive this hairy veil lifted and lowered by means of the ears, possibly to protect the eyes of the animal from the extremes of light and darkness to which all the inhabitants of our side of the moon are periodically subjected.

The next animal we saw would be classed on earth as a monster. It was of a bluish lead color, about the size of a goat, with a head and beard like him, and a single horn, slightly inclined forward from the perpendicular. The female was destitute of horn and beard, but had a much longer tail. In elegance of symmetry it rivalled the antelope, and like him it seemed an agile sprightly creature, running with great speed, and springing from the green turf with all the unaccountable antics of a young lamb or kitten.

On examining the centre of this delightful valley, we found a large branching river, abounding with lovely islands, and water-birds of numerous kinds. A species of grey pelican was the most numerous; but a black and white crane, with unreasonably long legs and bill, were also quite common. We also saw a strange amphibious creature, of a spherical form, which rolled with great velocity across the pebbly beach.

We named this valley the Valley of the Unicorn.

A few nights later, when conditions were better for viewing the moon, we focused on a chain of mountains with a volcano. The surrounding land is fertile to excess; we counted no less than 12 luxuriant forests, divided by open plains, similar to the prairies of North America. In three of these we discovered numerous herds of quadrupeds similar to our friends the bisons in the Valley of the Unicorn, but of much larger size; and everywhere we looked we saw flocks of white or red birds in the air.

Dr. Herschel has classified not less than thirty-eight species of forest trees, and nearly twice this number of plants. Of animals, he classified nine species of mammalia, and five of ovipara – animals that reproduce by laying eggs. Among the former is a small kind of reindeer, the elk, the moose, the horned bear, and the biped beaver. The last resembles the beaver of the earth in every other respect than in its destitution of a tail, and its invariable habit of walking upon only two feet. It carries its young in its arms like a human being, and moves with an easy gliding motion. Its huts are constructed better and higher than those of many tribes of ancient humans, and from the appearance of smoke in nearly all of them, there is no doubt it can use fire.

Thirty degrees farther south, we noticed a lunar palm tree, which differs from ours only because of its very large crimson flowers. But we saw no fruit on it. On a curious kind of tree-melon we nevertheless saw fruit in great abundance, and in every stage of inception and maturity. 

Of animals we saw only an elegant striped quadruped about three feet high, like a miniature zebra; which was always in small herds on the green sward of the hills; and two or three kinds of long-tailed birds, which we judged to be golden and blue pheasants.

Elsewhere, in other red mountains similar to those of the Valley of the Unicorn, we saw a quadruped with an amazingly long neck, head like a sheep, bearing two long spiral horns, white as polished ivory. Its body was like that of a deer, but its fore-legs were most disproportionally long, and its tail, which was very busy and of a snowy whiteness, curled high over its rump, and hung two or three feet by its side. A few minutes later, we saw three specimens of another animal so well known to us all that we fairly laughed at the recognition of so familiar an acquaintance in so distant a land. They were neither more nor less than three good large sheep – we could find no mark of distinction between these and those of our native soil; they had not even the appendage over the eyes, which I have described as common to lunar quadrupeds. Presently they appeared in great numbers, and on reducing the lenses, we found them in flocks over a great part of the valley. There was no shepard; they fed in peace, lords of their own pastures, without either protector or destroyer in human shape.

Beyond this field, where the valley narrowed to a mile in width, we saw creatures walking on two legs towards a small wood. Certainly, they were like human beings. 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, similar to our bat, but without hair, lying snugly upon their backs, from the top of their shoulders to the calves of their legs. The face, which was of a yellowish flesh color, was a slight improvement upon that of the large orang outang. The mouth, however, was very prominent, with a thick beard upon the lower jaw, and very human-looking lips. The hair on the head was a darker color than that of the body, closely curled, arranged in two curious semicircles over the temples.

We saw these creatures engaged in conversation; their gesticulation, more particularly the varied action of their hands and arms, appeared impassioned and emphatic. They appeared capable of producing works of art. We scientifically denominated them as Vespertilio-homo, or man-bat.

In another valley, with flaming mountains and marble or crystal hills, we saw a magnificent work of art - it was a temple! It was built of polished sapphire, or some other resplendent blue stone, which displayed a myriad points of golden light twinkling and scintillating in the sunbeams. The roof was composed of some yellow metal. The building had no side walls but six columns on each side, and seemed to contain neither seats, altars, nor offerings; but it was a light and airy structure, nearly a hundred feet high from its white glistening floor to its glowing roof.

We afterwards discovered two others, which were in every respect facsimiles of this one; but in neither did we perceive any visitors besides flocks of wild doves. Had the devotees of these temples gone the way of all living, or were the latter merely historical monuments? We named this area the Vale of the Triads.

Immediately on the outer border of the wood which surrounded, at a distance of half a mile, the eminence on which the first of these temples stood, we saw several detached assemblies of beings whom we instantly recognized to be of the same species as our winged friends. We found that nearly all the individuals in these groups were of larger stature than the former specimens. 

They seemed eminently happy, and even polite, for we saw them share fruit. While thus engaged in their rural banquets, or in social converse, they were always seated with their knees flat upon the turf, and their feet brought evenly together in the form of a triangle; we found that every group or social circle arranged itself in this shape before it dispersed, which was generally done at the signal of an individual who stepped into the centre and brought his hands over his head in an acute angle. But this was not the only proof we had that they were creatures of order and subordination.

We had no opportunity of seeing them actually engaged in any work of industry or art; and so far as we could judge, they spent their happy hours in collecting various fruits in the woods, in eating, flying, bathing, and loitering about on the summits of precipices.

But although evidently the highest order of animals in this rich valley, they were not its only occupants. Most of the other animals which we had discovered elsewhere, in very distant regions, were collected here; and also at least eight or nine new species of quadrupeds. The most attractive of these was a tall white stag with lofty spreading antlers, black as ebony. We several times saw this elegant creature trot up to the seated parties of the semi-human beings I have described, and browse the herbage close beside them, without the least manifestation of fear. The universal state of amity among all classes of lunar creatures, and the apparent absence of every carnivorous or ferocious creatures, doubly endeared to us this lovely nocturnal companion of our larger, but less favored world.



And I’ll end the recreation there.

There is… a lot to unpack there. But what strikes me is how detailed this whole thing was. The original source goes into so much depth to make it seem scientific, and I can see why it might have caused an uproar, perhaps in the same way as the 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast fooled some people into thinking we were really being invaded by Martians, because of how it started as breaking news reports and eyewitness accounts. But at least the opening of War of the Worlds had a disclaimer that it was just fiction. Didn’t help those who missed the disclaimer, but still.

This six day newspaper saga was presented as fact. And there were some cool illustrations made of all those creatures, too. You should check them out.

So now that we know more or less what was presented to the public, let’s dive deeper into the history – and first, I want to know how the public reacted to it.
The Penny Press Newspapers
So first, I wanted to know if this was the kind of thing that was completely out of left field. Were there stories like this, about astronomy and science and all that, available to the public?

According to Kirsten van der Veen of the Smithsonian’s Dibner Library, science was this accessible to the common folk, and stories about scientific discoveries and expeditions often made the local newspapers. Ok, so that answers that question. It was not out of the realm of possibility that a story about a discovery of life on the moon would make a local New York newspaper like the Sun. Got it.

But it’s initial publication was so captivating and interesting, and assumed by many as fact, that it quickly spread to other newspapers. 

And it wasn’t just casual readers who were taken in by this fictionalized story; apparently, even a group of Yale scientists tried to find the original articles and do their own research on the discoveries.

Part of the reason this story in particular took off was because it coincided with the rise of penny press newspapers – mass-produced, cheap reads that were sold for a penny. The Sun was the first of these penny press publications, and was significantly cheaper than the normal newspapers, which cost about 6 cents.

For reference, an unskilled laborer in the US in 1833 – when the Sun was first founded – was making anywhere from 50 cents to a dollar a day. And I get it, you’re probably thinking that 6 cents for a newspaper isn’t that expensive, but who would pay anywhere from 6 to 12% of your daily income for a newspaper? And besides, that’s not even the issue – many newspapers required upfront yearly subscriptions, so you’re really paying $10 to $12 dollars a year. Which you could imagine was harder to justify for many workers.

But the penny press newspapers made reading, the news, and stories more accessible by dropping that price to one penny.

And if we broaden this history even further, we can look at the impact of technology on this whole process. Because the penny press newspapers were mass-printed by steam-powered printing presses, invented in 1814 by Friedrich Koenig and Andreas Bauer.

Like with the OG printing press – Chinese block printing, which became movable type, which was later co-opted by the Europeans and Johan Gutenberg into the Printing Press – the steam-powered version made this whole process even faster. Now, printing could be done cheaper and faster, churning out significantly more content.

For example, the Times of London became the first newspapers to use steam-powered printing presses in 1814, and by automating the process, they managed to print over one thousand single-sided leaflets per hour. Which was four times more than what they were making with a manually-operated printing press.

So if we look at all of this together – interesting information about new discoveries and adventures, made cheap, mass-produced… no wonder the penny press newspapers and stories like Herschel’s moon discovery took off. And according to one article I read, quote,

“From the day the first moon hoax article was released, sales of the paper shot up considerably.”

I bet they did.

In 1856, so 21 years later, a book came out called “The Moon Hoax; or, the discovery that the moon has a vast population of human beings.” It was a reprint of the six stories into one volume, but with an introduction. And in that introduction, the publisher wrote the following. Quote:

It appears to be as natural for the human mind to be craving after the wonderful, the mysterious, the marvellous, and the new discoveries, as it is for the physical appetite to desire food, drink, and sleep, and thereby as it were constantly attempting to lift up the veil that hides incomprehensibilities from our vision.

…The key to the popularity of these charming stories which fascinate [us],… is by letting us into the supposed mysteries of an enchanting fairy land, with a grace of narrative that quite takes us captive, while our curiosity and wonder is raised to the highest pitch in watching the developments unfolded in the narratives of these authors, and quite impatient till we learn the result of the plot, or discovery.

Among this class of extraordinary fictitious narratives and supposed discovery, may be placed the renowned Moon Hoax. When it first made its appearance, the interest in the discovery was intense, so much so that the circulation of the paper [grew] five fold… Nor did this multiplied circulation of the paper satisfy the public appetite… 60,000 [copies were] published in pamphlet form, which were sold off in less than one month…

End quote.

So suffice it to say, the story was immensely popular and did the penny press newspapers a favor. I also have no doubt that these penny press newspapers later led to the yellow journalism of the 1890s – they share the concept of sensational stories sold to a mass audience.

But the lingering question I have is when did the public find out it was just a hoax?
The Hoax Revealed
As it turns out, not that much longer after it was published. The first article of the six dropped on August 25th, 1835, and not even a month later, on September 16th, the Sun admitted that the series of articles were not real – just fictionalized. The author was not John Herschel, nor his partner Dr. Grant, but a Cambridge-educated reporter named Richard Adams Locke.

So why did Locke write this very convincing series of articles? What was the point? And why that moment in time?

Well, according to Locke, it was satire. And it was done as a direct result of a man named Thomas Dick – the Reverend Thomas Dick.

As it turns out, Locke’s Moon story wasn’t the first popular claim that there was life on the moon.

Reverend Thomas Dick was a Scottish astronomer and minister who combined his love of science and his faith together. For those of you who may be skeptical, he certainly wasn’t the first; the idea of combining faith and science goes back a long way in history. St. Augustine, for example, argued back in the 4th century that faith and reason must work together. St. Thomas Aquinas did the same thing, combining Christian theology with philosophy, trying to use the latter to prove the former.

And many of our scientific revolution heroes were very religious; Francis Bacon, best known for creating the Scientific Method, viewed science as an extension of God’s will over nature.

But anyways, back to our Scottish Reverend.

The reverend believed in the plurality of worlds theory – the idea that since there is an infinite number of atoms, and the universe itself is infinite, it’s highly likely that there are other worlds out there like ours. It’s also called pluralism. And it makes sense, right? Many people look up into the sky at night, into the vast, endless expanse of the universe, and wonder if we’re alone. It just seems so improbable that we are the only planet with intelligent life in this whole, infinite universe. Reverend Dick thought so, too. 

The Reverend wrote several works with his ideas on the moon and extraterrestrial life out there in the universe. He theorized about how the moon has an atmosphere, volcanoes, and tropical plant life. He once calculated the population of the solar system to be at around 21 trillion people.

So if stories like that were making the headlines, I could see why Locke wanted to both capitalize on the popularity of the farfetched while also poking fun at the nonsense of it all. Many of these stories, Reverend Dick’s included, were based on no real science or observational data. So, doing the same, he published what later became the Moon Hoax in 1835 as a commentary on that. But the problem was that at the time, few actually saw it for the commentary that it was, and just believed it was another fantastical discovery!

But here’s another question – how did Dr. John Herschel feel about all of this? I mean, Locke wrote this whole hoax from the man’s perspective, without him knowing. In today’s world, Locke would probably be sued to death.

A few months after the Sun announced the story was a hoax, Dr. Herschel’s wife Margaret wrote in a letter to an aunt that, quote,

Have you seen a very clever piece of imagination in an American Newspaper, giving an account of Herschel’s voyage to the Cape… & of his wonderful lunar discoveries. Birds, beasts & fishes of strange shape, landscapes of every colouring, extraordinary scenes of lunar vegetation, & groupes of the reasonable inhabitants of the Moon with wings at the backs, all pass in review before his & his companion’s astonished gaze — The whole description is so well clenched with minute details of workmanship & names of individuals boldly referred to, that the New Yorkists were not to be blamed for actually believing it — It is only a great pity that it is not true.

End quote.

She seemed to find the whole thing interesting! Herschel himself was less pleased with it all. He wrote, in a letter to the same aunt, quote,

I have been pestered from all quarters with that ridiculous hoax about the moon — in English French Italian and German!

End quote.

So while the story itself was clearly just a fictionalized adventure tale, it’s an interesting look back into our history of popularized media. It shows us the power of technology in mass-producing literature; tech make things cheaper and more broadly accessible to your average reader, but as a result, it also changes the type of content available. The more interesting and money-making content will take center stage, regardless of its truth. It’s a lesson we can perhaps apply to today’s world, as well. When something sounds too fantastical to be true… perhaps it is. 

Locke at the Sun was just poking fun at the nonsense of the times, using satire and what probably thought was clearly nonsense to make fun of those like Reverend Dick who, without any data or evidence to back it up, claimed there was life on the moon. But instead of just poking fun at what he considered to be obvious nonsense, it instead fueled more speculation and uproar about life on the moon, so much so that he had to come out and say it wasn’t real.

And this was 191 years ago. We still fall for nonsense like this today!

I guess, like always, make sure you employ healthy skepticism to the nonsense you read online and try to corroborate any claims with actual evidence and research. We don’t want to fall for yet another Great Moon Hoax.

Outro
Thanks for joining me for this episode of A Popular History of Unpopular Things! My name is Kelli Beard, and I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode on the Great Moon Hoax. Thank you for tuning into my podcast, and check out some of the other episodes if you want more!

If you want to support the show, I’ve got a link in the description for Buy Me A Coffee, a site where fans can fund small creators like me, but without having to sign up for an account. I would of course appreciate any help you can give me, but honestly, I just appreciate that you listened to me talk about cool history stuff. 

Be sure to like and follow my podcast, available wherever you listen, so you know when new episodes are dropped. And stay tuned to get a popular history of unpopular things.

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