On this day in 1835, a New York City tabloid newspaper, The Sun, began publishing a series of articles that claimed a civilization of aliens lived on the moon. Famed British astronomer Sir John Herschel, the anonymously penned articles said, had gone to South Africa and seen a whole ecosystem on the moon through a highly advanced telescope. There were beavers who walked on two legs, sapphire cliffsides, and unicorns. There were also winged humanoids walking around. Today, we call it the Great Moon Hoax—but to many readers at the time, the content seemed like a credible scientific study.
Some of the articles had been based on fact—Herschel had studied the moon in South Africa—but he saw no moon men. The series was quickly assailed in the pages of other newspapers for being, at best, fanciful. Edgar Allen Poe also made a feasible argument that much of the narrative had been plagiarized from one of his stories. But more important than anything to The Sun, the articles sold papers—lots of them.
You can read more about the Great Moon Hoax at the Library of Congress.
