(Disclaimer: this is a work of fiction. Learn to take a joke; you’ll live longer.)

Just a day after the world saw the very first image of an actual black hole captured at a whopping distance of 53.5 million light-years from Earth Mufti Muneeb-ur-Rehman, head of the Ruet-e-Hilal Committee has claimed that he spotted both the Sagittarius A* and M87’s black hole way back in 2015. Defining the events surrounding his discovery Muneeb said, “I just stumbled upon these images accidentally while looking for the Eid-ul-Fitr moon. Now that was a real discovery! As you may recall 2015 was a particularly tricky year, moon-wise”.

Speaking with the dependent while polishing his telescope for the upcoming season with one hand and typing in the Google search ‘lunar cycle 2019’ with the other, Mufti Muneeb explained that because there was only one shahadat (testimony) at the time – his own- he could not make the sighting public. “With half a testimony coming from the woman who made the discovery (again) I could now finally disclose the information. “I’m not in it for the glory like these Western ‘scientists’. I simply perform my duty of determining the entire country’s breakfast plans on a particular day every year. I am satisfied with that much!” he added.

When informed that it took two years to process the hundreds of terabytes caught by the telescope at a cost of $60 million Mufti Muneeb simply pointed one finger to his telescope and another to the sky.