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Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeart Radio, Hey Brainstuff

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Speaker 1: Lauren bog obam here. On August five, the newspaper The

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Speaker 1: Sun ran the first in a series of articles describing

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Speaker 1: scientific findings from the Moon, reprinted from the Edinburgh Journal

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Speaker 1: of Science and recounted by one doctor Andrew Grant, a

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Speaker 1: colleague of the famous astronomer Sir John Herschel. This series

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Speaker 1: featured some of the most popular articles in the New

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Speaker 1: York newspaper ever printed and had people clamoring for the

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Speaker 1: breaking scientific information of the day. The one problem with

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Speaker 1: this the articles were completely fake. Grant didn't exist, and

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Speaker 1: the findings printed had no basis in scientific fact. The

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Speaker 1: articles purported to describe the flora and fauna of the Moon,

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Speaker 1: as well as the beings that lived there and the

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Speaker 1: temples that they resided in. Here's a quick and fanciful

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Speaker 1: excerpt about those beings. The average four feet in height,

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Speaker 1: were covered except on the face, was short and glossy

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Speaker 1: copper colored hair, and had wings composed of a thin

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Speaker 1: membrane without hair, lying snugly on their backs. The articles

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Speaker 1: reported on the moon being's way of life, how their

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Speaker 1: societies worked, and what they looked like the telescope that

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Speaker 1: allegedly saw these wondrous things was located at an observatory

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Speaker 1: at the Cape of Good Hope. These stories on the

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Speaker 1: life of the moon captured the imagination of people from

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Speaker 1: one end of the u S to the other. Newspapers

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Speaker 1: couldn't print them fast enough. Artists set out to recreate

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Speaker 1: the images spoken of in the articles. People believed this,

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Speaker 1: and why wouldn't they? Would you expect to encounter unlabeled

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Speaker 1: satire in your newspaper of choice? Furthermore, who would perpetrate

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Speaker 1: such a thing? And why well? Follow the money? Richard

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Speaker 1: Adam's Lock was the name of the man behind the hoax,

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Speaker 1: and he was an editor at the Sun. Lock meticulously

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Speaker 1: went about his work of trying to make people believe

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Speaker 1: the stories, dropping items in the pay for beforehand at

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Speaker 1: establishing the unquestionable scientific reputation of the names involved Sir

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Speaker 1: John Herschel, for example. Then he released the articles, where

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Speaker 1: they only grew an absurdity. The Sun's papers flew off

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Speaker 1: the shelf, getting reprinted all over the country and the world,

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Speaker 1: with people believing Locke's fanciful satire. He claimed for a

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Speaker 1: while that he hadn't intended for anyone to believe the tales,

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Speaker 1: and that when he wanted to go public, the owner

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Speaker 1: of the paper refused to allow him. It would be

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Speaker 1: many years before these ridiculous moon findings were able to

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Speaker 1: be debunked in the press. Edgar Allan Poe claimed that

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Speaker 1: the Great Moon Hoax plagiarized a satire he had written

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Speaker 1: just a few weeks earlier about a man who had

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Speaker 1: made its way to the Moon via hot air balloon.

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Speaker 1: Today the world sees this phenomenon continue on the internet.

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Speaker 1: How many times do you see in April fools Day

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Speaker 1: article get repackaged by an outlet that didn't do its

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Speaker 1: due diligence, and then you find that secondary source on

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Speaker 1: your Facebook feed shared a million times with everyone believing

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Speaker 1: it as fact. For the article that this episode is

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Speaker 1: based on how Stuff Works. Spoken by email with Tracy Duncan,

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Speaker 1: editor of Club Jade, the popular pop culture news site

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Speaker 1: dedicated to Star Wars, she said, there's no way your

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Speaker 1: standard news outlet is going to knowingly report a hoax

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Speaker 1: is fact. These days, people are far too willing to

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Speaker 1: disbelieve and discredit outlets for far less than that. And

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Speaker 1: on the other side of the scale, There are still

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Speaker 1: people out there who will fall for stories from the Onion.

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Speaker 1: So whether you find that there are temples on the

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Speaker 1: Moon or some long canceled show has been revived for

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Speaker 1: another season, be sure to double check the original source.

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Speaker 1: People are liable to believe anything as long as it

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Speaker 1: looks official enough. Today's episode is based on the article

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History the Great Moon Hoax of thirty five on

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Speaker 1: how stuff works dot Com, written by Brian Young. Brain

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Speaker 1: Stuff is production of I Heart Radio in partnership with

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Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com um and is produced by

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Speaker 1: Tyler Clay. For more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the

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