We live in the land of hoaxes these days. Hoaxes did not seem so highly prevalent until 2016 when a certain game show host took a political office. He had stories of his own to tell. So, everything else became a hoax.
I talked to someone the other day who uses Tik Tok as their primary source of information about the comings and goings in the world. I can only imagine. It seems that a lot of people are consumed with misinformation these days. And the fervor to perpetuate this trend continues to grow.
I read a little bit about the psychology behind starting a hoax. The reasons vary, according to the scientists. But one of the main themes that underly all of them is to “feed people’s secret prejudices and beliefs.”
From what I have seen, this motive appears to be the truest of them all. A person wishes to “hold on to” their “position” in society, so they create stories that will help their preservation.
For instance, an individual might have a fear of getting a vaccine or even a shot. So to protect themselves from having to do this, they feed the social media engine with misinformation about vaccines. Safety in numbers.
I’ve just never understood people who think lying is okay. Because that is exactly what hoaxes and misinformation are. They are lies.
Yet, we have seen hoaxes throughout history. At times, people create hoaxes as a way of making fun of or ridiculing others. Such may have been the case back on this date, August 25, 1835.
It was created by the New York Sun newspaper. They decided to run a series of six articles announcing the supposed discovery of life on the moon.
It has come to be known as “The Great Moon Hoax.”
The scheming behind the whole thing was clever. The articles were supposedly reprinted from the Edinburgh Journal of Science. The NYSun listed the byline as a “Dr. Andrew Grant.” They said this doctor was a colleague of Sir John Herschel, a famous astronomer of the day.
A little backstory. This astronomer, John Herschel, had recently made a trip down to Capetown, South Africa, in January 1834 to set up an observatory with a powerful new telescope. For real.
But, the wizardly “Dr. Grant” wrote about all the things that Herschel had found with his mighty telescope. He uncovered evidence of life forms on the moon. Not only that, they were incredible lifeforms, like unicorns and two-legged beavers walking around like crazy. There were some furry, winged humanoids resembling bats.
The article also told its readers of the moon’s geography with enormous amethyst crystals and rushing rivers. Plants were growing everywhere up there. However. I don’t think any cheese was mentioned.
Now, about The New York Sun. It was founded in 1833, was one of the new “penny press” papers. These were more of a tabloid sort of paper that appealed to a wider (maybe less educated) audience. They also came at a much cheaper price.
Once the first moon hoax article was released, the sales went through the roof. This was gripping news, and the readers couldn’t get enough.
But, as with all hoaxes, none of it was true. Grant was a fictitious person. And the Edinburgh Journals hadn’t been published in years. A NYSun reporter, Richard Adams Locke, decided to poke fun at Reverend Thomas Dick, a popular science writer. The Rev. Dick had previously suggested the possibility of extraterrestrial life and had written bestselling books that the moon alone had 4.2 billion inhabitants.
NYSun readers were completely taken in by the story but failed to recognize it as satire. Some scientists investigated, too, only to be turned away by the NYSun.
The newspaper came clean on September 16, 1835, and admitted the articles had been a hoax. For the most part, people found it all in good fun. Future sales of the paper didn’t suffer.
So, the story about life on the moon fooled people. Don’t laugh. Today, some people think I am magnetic and oozing heebie-jeebies out of my pores from getting the COVID vaccine.
I say “Boo!” to maskless people when I walk through Krogers.
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“Anything is better than lies and deceit!”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
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“I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche
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“If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.”
― Walter Langer
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The many men on the moon. Unicorns, too.
