• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Dipping Into Light

Abraham Menashe

  • Home
    • About D. I. L.
    • About A. Menashe
    • Search
    • Contact
    • Site Map
    • Report a Problem
  • Photography
    • Interview
    • Books
    • Client List
    • MEDICAL Tear-Sheets
    • GENERAL Tear-Sheets
    • GENERAL Stock Categories
    • MEDICAL Stock Categories
    • Calendar
    • E-Commerce
  • Words
    • Poems, Intro
    • Menashe Poems
    • Quotes & Wisdom
    • The Healing Image, lecture
    • Yom Kippur, sermon
  • We
    • Love vs. Fear
    • Just Joy
    • Arts
      • Architecture
      • Beauty & Fashion
      • Dance
      • Photography
      • Stage, Film, TV
      • Visual arts
    • Language
      • Literature
      • Poetry
      • Prayers
      • Quotations
    • Music
      • Classical
      • Devotion & Praise
      • World Music
    • More
      • Astronomy & Flight
      • Children’s Corner
      • Explorers
      • Environmental
      • Events
      • Innovators
      • Psychology & Philosophy
      • Religion & Spirituality
      • Remarkable People
      • Science & Medicine
      • Sports & Fitness
  • Beyond
    • BODY
      • Aging
      • Beauty
      • Birth
      • Death
      • Yoga
    • MIND
      • Attitude
      • Be Here Now
      • Creativity
      • Meditation
      • Mindfulness
      • Solutions
      • You Are Light
    • HEART
      • Attit. Healing
      • Compassion
      • Friendship
      • Forgiveness
      • Imago
      • Keep Wishing
      • Love
      • N.V.C.
    • SPIRIT
      • Angels
      • Anger
      • Breath
      • Dance
      • Faith
      • Fear
      • God
      • Gratitude
      • Kindness

The Great Moon Hoax

po_Great-Moon-Hoax“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 his time.

The story was advertised on August 21, 1835, as an upcoming feature allegedly reprinted from The Edinburgh Courant. The first in a series of six was published four days later on August 25.

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.”

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.

po_Great-Moon-Hoax2

 

 

 

Previous
Next

Filed Under: Events

Primary Sidebar

  • More Moon
    • Astronomy & Flight
      • Asaph Hall
      • Christiaan Huygens
      • Galilean moons
      • Nix & Hydra
      • Ranger 7, Moon Photographs
      • Voyager I, photographs
  • © 2021 · Dipping Into Light