The Great Moon Hoax (1835)

[ramonmercado]

"D'ya hear about the moon-bison?"
How Twain and other writers pulled off elegant pranks against 19th century life science

... From 1835-1880, famous writers including Mark Twain and Edgar Allan Poe published dozens of hoaxes in American newspapers, many of them about discoveries in zoology, paleontology, and medicine.

The trend started with Richard Adams Locke's Great Moon Hoax, which was both astronomical (in every sense of the word) and biological. Locke reported that astronomer J.F.W. Herschel had successfully imaged the surface of the moon with his new telescope at Cape Town, South Africa. All of this was true, but Locke embellished Herschel's findings, reporting there were man-bats and moon-bison cavorting around lush oases sprinkled with poppies. New York was in an uproar for weeks as citizens debated the truth of the reports -- one persistent rumor from this time is that a group of Baptists started collecting money to send missionaries to the moon to save the poor, unwashed man-bats. Herschel took the whole thing in good-humored stride, saying it was a reminder how little progress science had really made toward explaining the wonders of nature. ...F

the-scientist.com/news/home/52922/
Link is dead. The MIA webpage can be accessed via the Wayback Machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/20070304091743/http://www.the-scientist.com/news/home/52922/

For more about science hoaxes in general see:

Science Hoaxes (General; Miscellaneous)
https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/science-hoaxes-general-miscellaneous.29251/

 

[maximus otter]

It's (almost) the anniversary of the Great Moon Hoax of 1835:

"The "Great Moon Hoax" refers to a series of six articles that were published in The Sun, a New York newspaper, beginning on August 25, 1835, about the supposed discovery of life and even civilization on the Moon. The discoveries were falsely attributed to Sir John Herschel, one of the best-known astronomers of that time.

The articles described fantastic animals on the Moon, including bison, goats, unicorns, bipedal tail-less beavers and bat-like winged humanoids ("Vespertilio-homo") who built temples. There were trees, oceans and beaches. These discoveries were supposedly made with "an immense telescope of an entirely new principle."

Vespertilio-homo

The author of the narrative was ostensibly Dr. Andrew Grant, the travelling companion and amanuensis of Sir John Herschel, but Grant was fictitious.

Eventually, the authors announced that the observations had been terminated by the destruction of the telescope, by means of the Sun causing the lens to act as a "burning glass," setting fire to the observatory.

maximus otter

 

[EnolaGaia]

This new article provides an interesting overview of the Great Moon Hoax and its relationship with Victorian battles of science versus religion (etc.) as well as its connection to the origins of science fiction writing.

Batmen and Unicorns: Inside the Original Moon Hoax

... The Great Moon Hoax refers to six articles in the New York Sun headlined “Great Astronomical Discoveries” and allegedly reprinted from The Edinburgh Journal of Science. Beginning on August 25 1835, they revealed a lunar ecology and civilisation. The hoax tested the parameters of media credibility and “fake news” in the pre-telegraphic age. The stories circulated to other papers around the world.

The newspaper published these supposed reports from observations by astronomer royal, John Herschel, using the most powerful telescope yet invented. According to the reports, this telescope was connected to an “oxy-hydrogen” projector which enabled it to screen moving pictures. They visualised forests, seas and vast deposits of precious minerals, teeming with life forms, including unicorns, intelligent beavers and “man-bats” (Vespertilio-homo). These flew around naked and worshipped in triangular temples.

The wonders of the moon were revealed ever more sensationally, until the telescope apparently caught fire – its enormous lens exposed to South African sunlight acting as a “burning glass”.

New York Sun reporter Richard Adams Locke (1800–1871) later admitted writing the articles, satirising speculations by the Rev Thomas Dick (1774-1857), the most widely read popular astronomer on both sides of the Atlantic at the time, who kept to what he saw as a literal interpretation of the Bible’s account of creation. This despite geological finds dating back into “deep time” and Charles Darwin’s observations about evolution offering evidence to the contrary. So Locke’s descriptions of the planets – and even the Sun – included details about populations of “unfallen” beings that God had put there – as the Bible told the story, it was only Earth that had been corrupted by “original sin”. It was Locke’s way of satirising what he called Dick’s naïve “science fiction”. ...

Locke’s lunar paradise hoodwinked a global readership because of expectations raised in the popular imagination by Dick’s “outrage upon science”, which prepared them “to swallow any thing however absurd … recommended by this peculiar stamp”. ...

Though not destroying Dick’s reputation, the hoax challenged his prioritisation of belief over evidence, foreshadowing the fundamental intellectual crises of the mid-Victorian age. Nevertheless, Dick continued to popularise science and democratise access to astronomy. ...

Whether or not Dick’s speculations constituted science fiction, they inadvertently midwifed the modern genre through Locke’s parodies. The editor and owner of the New York Herald, James Gordon Bennett, credited Locke with inventing what he called “A New Species of Writing” – “the scientific novel”. ...

FULL ARTICLE:
https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/11/18/batmen-and-unicorns-inside-the-original-moon-hoax/

Republished From:
https://theconversation.com/batmen-and-unicorns-inside-the-original-moon-hoax-149216