Another great hoax literature story is the 1835 Moon Hoax. This consisted of a series of articles in the New York Sun (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6), purporting to describe discoveries made by the great astronomer Sir John Herschel. Said discoveries are quite elaborate. The whole thing is glorious fun, nineteenth-century science fiction, imagining a selenic ecosystem:
It described a lunar topography that included vast forests, inland seas, and lilac-hued quartz pyramids. Readers learned that herds of bison wandered across the plains of the moon; that blue unicorns perched on its hilltops; and that spherical, amphibious creatures rolled across its beaches. The highpoint of the narrative came when it revealed that Herschel had found evidence of intelligent life on the moon: he had discovered both a primitive tribe of hut-dwelling, fire-wielding biped beavers, and a race of winged humans living in pastoral harmony around a mysterious, golden-roofed temple. Herschel dubbed these latter creatures the Vespertilio-homo, or "man-bat".
Naturally this was all presented as fact, and never really retracted. Herschel apparently said little about it in public. The story slid into American pop culture, like any successful hoax.
Edgar Allen Poe followed up with two moon hoax tales of his own, right away in "The Unparalleled Adventure Of One Hans Pfaall" (1835) and, later on, "The Balloon-Hoax" (1844).
File this under alternate reality game antecedents.
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