Moon Rescues The Sun: Tales That Captivated a City

Moon Rescues the Sun: Tales that Captivated a City

By Mr Ghaz, May 15, 2010

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Moon Rescues the Sun: Tales that Captivated a City

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In August 1835 citizens in New York City received extraordinary news. According to the New York Sun, the British astronomer Sir John Herschel had found proof of life on the moon.

Using an enormously powerful telescope able to magnify objects 42,000 times, Sir John had distinguished a wide range of flora and fauna with astonishing clarity. In just one area of the moon, the newspaper disclosed, he had observed 38 species of forest trees, twice that number of other plants, and different creatures, including small reindeer like animals, elks, moose, bears with horns, and beavers with no tails and only two feet.

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Each issue of the newspaper brought new revelations, reported by journalist Richard Adam Locke and based on Sir John’s accounts in the highly respected Edinburgh Journal of Science. Day after day Locke told astonished readers of lunar amethysts more than 60 feet high, immense fields of poppies, a great temple made of sapphire, and herds of buffalo with fleshy appendages over their eyes that protected them from the damaging extremes of light and darkness.

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Even more intriguing was the discovery of lunar inhabitants that were semi human in form: they stood four feet tall, were covered with glossy, copper-colored hair and, from the expression on their yellowish faces, were clearly intelligent. They also had wings on their backs. They talked in an animated fashion, bathed in lakes, and flew.

Over the Moon

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The articles created a sensation. The circulation of the Sun-which hitherto had been suffering a dwindling readership-soared, giving it the largest sales of any New York daily of the time. The reports were reprinted in other newspapers throughout the United States and Europe. Printed in pamphlet form, an edition of 60,000 copies quickly sold out.

But what was so extraordinary about this journalistic coup was that few of the words in Locke’s articles were true.

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In a bid to boost the declining circulation of the Sun, Locke had fabricated the entire story. It was true that Herschel’s newly constructed Cape Town observatory contained a remarkably powerful telescope. Locke, however, had made it 10 times larger and thousands of times more powerful than it actually was. And although there had in fact been an Edinburgh Journal of Science, it had ceased publication two years earlier. Everything else was pure invention-but well written and with just the right amount of scientific detail to make it convincing.

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Not everyone was taken in, however, and American astronomers were highly skeptical. One day a delegation of scientists from Yale University appeared unannounced in the newspaper offices and demanded to see the original reports.

With all the charm he could muster, Locke explained that the reports, unfortunately, were at the printer’s. The suspicious scientists persisted until Locke was forced to give them the printer’s name and address. The group started off at once.

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But Locke managed to arrive before they did. He persuaded the printer to tell the scientists when they arrived, that the material had been sent elsewhere. It was the start of a wild-goose chase as Locke sent the scientists from one printer to another, while he took shortcuts through lanes and alleys to tell his printer friends where they should direct the scientists next.

The Final Truth

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It may seem amazing today that such a hoax could ever succeed. But in a world without mass communications, without airplanes or telephones or television, it took many weeks for the truth to emerge. It was some two or three months before Sir John Herschel even learned of his “remarkable discoveries” and was able to deny them. Once exposed, Richard Locke was forced to resign from the Sun in disgrace.

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Although New Yorkers were soon reading different stories in their newspapers, probably few easily forgot that fabulous world in the sky.

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