The Great Moon Hoax

The Great Moon Hoax
	FALSE
	"The astronomer Sir John Herschel, using a powerful new telescope at the Cape of Good Hope, discovered life on the Moon, including forests, lakes, unicorn-like animals, bison and winged humanoid creatures."
Domain	Technology & Media
Tactic	Fabrication; Imposture;
Era	Historical
First seen	1835
Origin	A series of six articles published in The Sun newspaper of New York beginning on August 25, 1835
Last reviewed	2026-10-26
	Further reading: books on Technology & Media

The Great Moon Hoax was a series of six articles published by The Sun, a New York penny newspaper, in late August 1835. The articles claimed that the famous British astronomer Sir John Herschel had discovered an elaborate lunar civilization using a giant new telescope. None of it was true. Herschel was a real astronomer and he was in South Africa at the time, but he had made no such discoveries and had no connection to the story. The hoax is often described as one of the first great fake news stories of the mass-media age. It shows how a new kind of cheap, high-circulation newspaper could spread a fabrication by borrowing the authority of a real scientist and a respectable-sounding journal.

The claim

The articles were presented as reprints from a "Supplement to the Edinburgh Journal of Science," attributed to a Dr. Andrew Grant, described as Herschel's assistant. They explained that Herschel had built a telescope of unprecedented power at the Cape of Good Hope and had used it to examine the Moon's surface in astonishing detail.

Over successive installments, readers were told of lunar forests and seas, beaches of white sand, pyramids of quartz, herds of brown bison-like animals, blue goat-like creatures with single horns, and finally beings the articles called "Vespertilio-homo," or man-bats: winged humanoids about four feet tall who appeared to live in communities and to build temples. The writing was detailed and technical in tone, mixing plausible astronomical language with increasingly fantastic description.

Origin

The author was Richard Adams Locke, a reporter at The Sun. The paper, founded in 1833 by Benjamin Day, sold for a penny, far less than established papers, and depended on high street sales. Sensational stories sold copies.

The details were chosen to make the story hard to check. The Edinburgh Journal of Science had ceased publication, so readers could not easily consult it. Herschel was thousands of miles away at the Cape, and news traveled by sailing ship, so it would be weeks or months before he could respond. Dr. Andrew Grant did not exist.

Scholars have suggested several motives. Locke may have intended the series partly as satire of contemporary writers who speculated about life on other worlds, such as the Scottish minister and author Thomas Dick, who had estimated the Moon's population in the billions. But the articles were not labeled as satire, and most readers took them as news.

What the evidence shows

The story was false in every particular. Herschel was conducting real astronomical surveys of the southern skies at the Cape, but no telescope of that era, or of any era since, could show animals on the Moon's surface, and the Moon has no atmosphere, liquid water or life. The supposed source journal was defunct and the supposed author was invented.

The hoax was very successful commercially. The Sun claimed that its circulation rose to more than 19,000 copies, which it said was the largest of any daily newspaper in the world at the time. Other newspapers reprinted the articles, and a pamphlet version sold widely. Some rival papers repeated the story as fact, while others expressed skepticism.

Doubts grew within weeks. Rival papers, notably the Journal of Commerce, reportedly concluded that the story was invented. The Sun never issued a full retraction. In mid-September 1835 it published a piece acknowledging the possibility that the story was a hoax, while suggesting it had been entertaining and had diverted attention from less pleasant topics.

Edgar Allan Poe, who had recently published a story about a balloon voyage to the Moon, believed Locke had borrowed from his work and later wrote about the hoax, describing why he thought readers had been taken in. Herschel, according to accounts from the period, was initially amused but later grew tired of being asked about the lunar creatures.

Why it persists

The Great Moon Hoax is remembered because it illustrates several patterns that recur in later misinformation:

Borrowed authority. Attaching a famous name, in this case Herschel's, gave the story credibility that it could not have earned on its own.
An unverifiable source. Citing a defunct journal and a nonexistent author made checking difficult.
Distance and delay. The slow speed of communication across oceans meant the people best placed to deny the story could not do so quickly.
Commercial incentives. A new business model, the penny press, rewarded sensational content, much as advertising-driven online platforms reward engagement today.
Escalation. The articles began with plausible astronomy and built gradually to the fantastic, drawing readers along step by step.

The hoax is also a reminder that ridiculous stories are not always obviously ridiculous to people at the time. In 1835 popular understanding of astronomy was limited, respectable writers were speculating about life on other planets, and new telescopes really were revealing previously unseen detail.

Lessons for readers

Check whether a cited source actually exists and says what is claimed.
Ask whether a named expert has confirmed a story attributed to them.
Be wary of stories that cannot be checked quickly and that arrive through outlets with a commercial incentive to attract attention.
Notice escalation: a story that moves step by step from the plausible to the extraordinary.
Remember that satire stripped of its label can function as misinformation.

Sources

Richard Adams Locke, "Great Astronomical Discoveries Lately Made by Sir John Herschel," The Sun (New York), August 25–31, 1835.
Matthew Goodman, The Sun and the Moon: The Remarkable True Account of Hoaxers, Showmen, Dueling Journalists, and Lunar Man-Bats in Nineteenth-Century New York (Basic Books, 2008).
Edgar Allan Poe, "Richard Adams Locke," in The Literati of New York City (1846).
Museum of Hoaxes, "The Great Moon Hoax."