'The Great Moon Hoax' of 1835 was one of the first examples of 'fake news' Compelling fiction about life on the moon captivated New York readers

A French print by the Thierry bothers showing the appearance of the landscape and inhabitants of the Moon. These discoveries published in the New York Sun newspaper in 1835 were allegedly reported from the Edinburgh Journal of Science. less A French print by the Thierry bothers showing the appearance of the landscape and inhabitants of the Moon. These discoveries published in the New York Sun newspaper in 1835 were allegedly reported from the ... more Photo: Science & Society Picture Library/SSPL Via Getty Images Photo: Science & Society Picture Library/SSPL Via Getty Images Image 1 of / 21 Caption Close 'The Great Moon Hoax' of 1835 was one of the first examples of 'fake news' 1 / 21 Back to Gallery

Since Neil Armstrong first stepped onto the moon 47 years ago, conspiracy theories about Apollo 11 have been commonplace. Some even say it was all the work of a crafty crew of filmmakers led by legendary director Stanley Kubrick.

However, one of the first great moon hoaxes to ever gain traction predates even the founding of Houston in 1836.

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On Aug. 25, 1835, the first in a series of six articles was published in the New York Sun newspaper purporting to include the findings of a Dr. Andrew Grant, described as a colleague of noted astronomer Sir John Herschel.

Herschel had actually taken a telescope, which was very powerful for the time, to Cape Town, South Africa, in hopes of getting a better look at the celestial world. This part is true. The rest, not so much.

According to the Sun reports penned by Grant, Herschel was able to spy a moon teeming with life, including humanoids with wings, unicorns, beavers that walked on two legs, beaches, pyramids, fantastic greenery, and mountain ranges. He did all this using a massive telescope, Grant wrote, that was larger than any other at that time.

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The extremely detailed description of the moon by Grant can be read in full at Hoaxes.org, but we warn that it gets rather convoluted. We think that director James Cameron may have given it a glance before he made 2009’s “Avatar” which included a lush moon not unlike the one Grant writes about.

Anyhow, people ate up the story from the penny press newspaper as it took them to a new, fantastical world that they couldn’t have imagined.

Sadly, it was all a clever fabrication.

The whole thing was written by a Richard Adams Locke, who was a Cambridge-educated staff reporter. He may not have realize that he was writing an early form of science fiction.

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Edgar Allan Poe had written something along those same lines that summer about a man who traveled to the moon in a hot air balloon, a short story titled “The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall.”

Locke’s story though was much grander, although slathered in satire.

The Sun saw a dramatic increase in sales as people told one another about the moon’s inhabitants. The paper, founded in 1833, was off to a running start.

The hoax was uncovered after the paper had garnered an increase in circulation. People would come to bother Herschel, unaware that he had nothing to do with the stories or that they were fiction.

The Sun would run until 1950 when it was bought and merged into the New York World-Telegram.

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Along the way it would print the famous 1897 editorial "Is There a Santa Claus?" which we all know better as "Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus.”

The paper broke ground in its time, printing community news like crime and deaths. They also were the first to have reporters scouring the city for stories. Some of the papers first decades are now online for easy reading.

The paper’s one-time city editor John B. Bogart, who worked at the Sun from 1873 until 1890, holds the distinction of summing up the act of journalism (then and now) in the most succinct way.

"When a dog bites a man that is not news, because it happens so often. But if a man bites a dog, that is news,” Bogart said. That quote has been attributed to at least two other newsmen of the day.