Great Moon Hoax (August 25, 1835)

Everybody in the news and entertainment industry knows that late August is the ‘silly season’. Usually nothing of note is happening; everyone’s on holiday and most governments are closed for the summer.

That was probably the mindset of the authors of the six part story line that captured the imagination of the reading public in 1835: they wanted to boost circulation, and give their audience something to think about. If it had been published on April 1st, people would have realized what was happening. Instead, the story caught the attention of New Yorkers, in much the same way that H.G. Wells’ “The War of the Worlds” did when Orson Welles narrated a radio play about Martians landing on October 30, 1938.

I knew that Neptune would figure strongly in this chart for the day the first story appeared. The fact that it is inconjunct to the Sun is proof of the newspaper’s hidden agenda. This is the energy of a confidence trickster.

GREAT ASTRONOMICAL DISCOVERIES

LATELY MADE

BY SIR JOHN HERSCHEL, L.L.D. F.R.S. &c.

At the Cape of Good Hope

[From Supplement to the Edinburgh Journal of Science]

Headline (Wikipedia)

You would be wise to remember: just because it’s in print (or on the internet), doesn’t mean that it’s real.