The Moon Hoax, 1835

For this year's A-Z challenge, I'm posting juicy tidbits of researchy goodness for your interest and edification. I intend to use these as story prompts for the terrifying writing challenge Story a Day in May. You may use them however you wish.

From Practical Talks by an Astronomer by Harold Jacoby

Astronomer John Herschel set out in 1833 to the Cape of Good Hope so he could get some peace and quiet and study the jewels of the night sky, as visible in the Southern hemisphere. In 1835, the New York Sun began publishing (completely fabricated) articles about his alleged findings. According to these reports, Herschel had discovered life on the moon. The English speaking world went bonkers. 

In his 1902 book Practical Talks by an Astronomer, Harold Jacoby reproduces some of the juicier bits of those reports:

There was animal life as well; "We beheld continuous herds of brown quadrupeds, having all the external characteristics of the bison, but more diminutive than any species of the bos genus in our natural history." There was a kind of beaver, that "carries its young in its arms like a human being," and lives in huts. "From the appearance of smoke in nearly all of them, there is no doubt of its (the beaver's) being acquainted with the use of fire." Finally, as was, of course, unavoidable, human creatures were discovered. "Whilst gazing in a perspective of about half a mile, we were thrilled with astonishment to perceive four successive flocks of large-winged creatures, wholly unlike any kind of birds, descend with a slow, even motion from the cliffs on the western side, and alight upon the plain.... Certainly they were like human beings, and their attitude in walking was both erect and dignified."

A typical moon-dwelling humanoid, circa 1835.

In fact Herschel was busy observing some 1300 new star clusters and nebulae. Jacoby doesn't record Herschel's response, if there was any, to the hoax. Jacoby does have this to say about it: "The public attitude toward matters scientific is one of the mysteries of our time. It can be described best by the single word, Credulity; simple, absolute credulity."

The more things change, the more they stay the same.