In 1835, a New York pamphlet made the biggest trick ever, making the world believe that life had been found on the Moon.
The story begins in the early summer when Benjamin Day, the founder of the New York Sun, meets Adams Locke , a self-proclaimed great journalist who attended Cambridge University. Locke was working for a tabloid that covered sensational events at the time. Day approached Locke and offered to write articles for the newspaper. Locke agreed to work for the New York Sun, but on the condition that his name did not appear because he was still working elsewhere.
On August 25, 1835, the New York Sun newspaper published the first in a series of six articles about finding life on the Moon. This series is titled: “Sir John Herschel’s Greatest Astronomical Discovery at the Cape of Good Hope” – from the supplement to the Edinburg Scientific Review. Herschel is a famous British astronomer and the paper begins with his findings through a super telescope.
Andrew Grant is the author of articles dubbed “The Biggest Prank About the Moon” , published in the New York Sun. Grant claims to be a colleague of Sir John Herschel. The astronomer Herschel traveled to Cape Town, South Africa in January 1834, Grant writes, to set up an observatory with a new super-powerful telescope capable of studying insects on the Moon.
According to Grant, astronomer Herschel has found evidence of life forms on the Moon, including such amazing animals as unicorns, two-legged beavers and hairy, winged, human-like creatures. bat. The New York Sun article also offers vivid descriptions of features on the Moon, including large craters, giant amethyst crystals and luxuriant rivers and trees.
The creature Herschel called a batman.
The description of the intelligent, bipedal beavers on the Moon is as follows: ” The great beaver holds her in his arms like a human, and the huts it erects look taller and more beautiful than the tents. of our tribes”. About humans, the New York Sun article quotes astronomer Herschel’s description as follows: “It is a creature 1m2, with copper-colored hair and webbed wings”. The New York Sun said that through Herschel’s unique telescope, creatures on the Moon are of course very intelligent and can talk to each other. This creature was called by Herschel the batman.
Next, the New York Sun articles also mention many imaginative information such as detecting trees, oceans and beaches. Grant also said that he was traveling with astronomer John Herschel, and a series of posts on the New York Sun were linked to information that Herschel submitted to the Royal Society – the world’s oldest independent academy of science.
The story posted on the New York Sun spread quickly, even some other prestigious newspapers and magazines also got it back. After a series of articles about the discovery of life on the Moon, newspaper sales skyrocketed.
In fact, no life exists on the Moon, it’s all a prank.
Despite many doubts, the majority of the public believes that life really exists on the Moon. The information New York Sun gives readers amuse, but it is not true. The Edinburgh Science Weekly had ceased publication many years earlier and Grant was a fictional character. In fact, it was Locke who wrote the articles above.
On September 16, 1835, the New York Sun admitted the article was a hoax. According to the New York Sun, the article is intended to satirize, mocking previous judgments about extraterrestrial life. The New York Sun newspaper continued to operate until 1950.