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The World’s Most Impressive Fakes, Forgeries, and Finds that Made History

Khalid Elhassan December 23, 2022 33 min

The Discovery of Life on the Moon

Sir John Herschel, to whom discovery of life on the Moon was attributed. Wikimedia

Excitement gripped America in the summer of 1835, as a New York newspaper, The Sun, announced the recent discovery of life on the Moon. In six articles, beginning on August 25^th, the newspaper described how Sir John Herschel, the era’s greatest astronomer, had used powerful telescopes to glimpse the Moon’s surface. What he saw astonished him. “By means of a telescope of immense dimensions and an entirely new principle“, Herschel had discovered planets in other solar systems, and established new and revolutionary theories. He had also “solved or corrected nearly every problem of mathematical astronomy“.

Fake - Life on the Moon — Life on the Moon. Cropper Watch

That was just a tip of the iceberg: Herschel had discovered life on the Moon. As per The Sun, Herschel’s telescope revealed that the Moon teemed with life. From his observatory in the Cape of Good Hope, the astronomer saw oceans, rivers, and trees. Various animals roamed the lunar surface, such as goats, buffalos, walking beavers, and unicorns. In the air above them, flew human-like creatures with bat wings who built houses and temples. All of that was fake, of course, but what a fake it was, and what a stir it made.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.