WEBVTT - What Was the Great Moon Hoax of 1835?

0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:06.920
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeart Radio, Hey Brainstuff

0:00:07.000 --> 0:00:12.400
<v Speaker 1>Lauren bog obam here. On August five, the newspaper The

0:00:12.440 --> 0:00:15.640
<v Speaker 1>Sun ran the first in a series of articles describing

0:00:15.720 --> 0:00:19.680
<v Speaker 1>scientific findings from the Moon, reprinted from the Edinburgh Journal

0:00:19.720 --> 0:00:23.040
<v Speaker 1>of Science and recounted by one doctor Andrew Grant, a

0:00:23.160 --> 0:00:27.640
<v Speaker 1>colleague of the famous astronomer Sir John Herschel. This series

0:00:27.680 --> 0:00:29.920
<v Speaker 1>featured some of the most popular articles in the New

0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:33.479
<v Speaker 1>York newspaper ever printed and had people clamoring for the

0:00:33.720 --> 0:00:37.839
<v Speaker 1>breaking scientific information of the day. The one problem with

0:00:37.880 --> 0:00:42.720
<v Speaker 1>this the articles were completely fake. Grant didn't exist, and

0:00:42.760 --> 0:00:46.280
<v Speaker 1>the findings printed had no basis in scientific fact. The

0:00:46.400 --> 0:00:49.760
<v Speaker 1>articles purported to describe the flora and fauna of the Moon,

0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:52.239
<v Speaker 1>as well as the beings that lived there and the

0:00:52.240 --> 0:00:55.600
<v Speaker 1>temples that they resided in. Here's a quick and fanciful

0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:59.040
<v Speaker 1>excerpt about those beings. The average four feet in height,

0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:02.000
<v Speaker 1>were covered except on the face, was short and glossy

0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:04.840
<v Speaker 1>copper colored hair, and had wings composed of a thin

0:01:04.920 --> 0:01:10.040
<v Speaker 1>membrane without hair, lying snugly on their backs. The articles

0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:12.360
<v Speaker 1>reported on the moon being's way of life, how their

0:01:12.360 --> 0:01:15.640
<v Speaker 1>societies worked, and what they looked like the telescope that

0:01:15.680 --> 0:01:19.040
<v Speaker 1>allegedly saw these wondrous things was located at an observatory

0:01:19.160 --> 0:01:22.679
<v Speaker 1>at the Cape of Good Hope. These stories on the

0:01:22.720 --> 0:01:25.679
<v Speaker 1>life of the moon captured the imagination of people from

0:01:25.720 --> 0:01:28.240
<v Speaker 1>one end of the u S to the other. Newspapers

0:01:28.240 --> 0:01:31.480
<v Speaker 1>couldn't print them fast enough. Artists set out to recreate

0:01:31.480 --> 0:01:35.119
<v Speaker 1>the images spoken of in the articles. People believed this,

0:01:35.520 --> 0:01:39.400
<v Speaker 1>and why wouldn't they? Would you expect to encounter unlabeled

0:01:39.440 --> 0:01:44.200
<v Speaker 1>satire in your newspaper of choice? Furthermore, who would perpetrate

0:01:44.280 --> 0:01:49.279
<v Speaker 1>such a thing? And why well? Follow the money? Richard

0:01:49.320 --> 0:01:52.320
<v Speaker 1>Adam's Lock was the name of the man behind the hoax,

0:01:52.560 --> 0:01:55.680
<v Speaker 1>and he was an editor at the Sun. Lock meticulously

0:01:55.720 --> 0:01:57.960
<v Speaker 1>went about his work of trying to make people believe

0:01:57.960 --> 0:02:01.080
<v Speaker 1>the stories, dropping items in the pay for beforehand at

0:02:01.160 --> 0:02:05.280
<v Speaker 1>establishing the unquestionable scientific reputation of the names involved Sir

0:02:05.400 --> 0:02:09.119
<v Speaker 1>John Herschel, for example. Then he released the articles, where

0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:12.960
<v Speaker 1>they only grew an absurdity. The Sun's papers flew off

0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:15.840
<v Speaker 1>the shelf, getting reprinted all over the country and the world,

0:02:16.080 --> 0:02:20.120
<v Speaker 1>with people believing Locke's fanciful satire. He claimed for a

0:02:20.120 --> 0:02:23.400
<v Speaker 1>while that he hadn't intended for anyone to believe the tales,

0:02:23.720 --> 0:02:25.919
<v Speaker 1>and that when he wanted to go public, the owner

0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:28.799
<v Speaker 1>of the paper refused to allow him. It would be

0:02:28.840 --> 0:02:32.200
<v Speaker 1>many years before these ridiculous moon findings were able to

0:02:32.240 --> 0:02:35.840
<v Speaker 1>be debunked in the press. Edgar Allan Poe claimed that

0:02:35.880 --> 0:02:38.560
<v Speaker 1>the Great Moon Hoax plagiarized a satire he had written

0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:40.720
<v Speaker 1>just a few weeks earlier about a man who had

0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:42.640
<v Speaker 1>made its way to the Moon via hot air balloon.

0:02:44.080 --> 0:02:47.679
<v Speaker 1>Today the world sees this phenomenon continue on the internet.

0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:50.400
<v Speaker 1>How many times do you see in April fools Day

0:02:50.440 --> 0:02:53.639
<v Speaker 1>article get repackaged by an outlet that didn't do its

0:02:53.680 --> 0:02:56.480
<v Speaker 1>due diligence, and then you find that secondary source on

0:02:56.520 --> 0:02:59.720
<v Speaker 1>your Facebook feed shared a million times with everyone believing

0:02:59.720 --> 0:03:03.679
<v Speaker 1>it as fact. For the article that this episode is

0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:06.920
<v Speaker 1>based on how Stuff Works. Spoken by email with Tracy Duncan,

0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:10.200
<v Speaker 1>editor of Club Jade, the popular pop culture news site

0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:13.680
<v Speaker 1>dedicated to Star Wars, she said, there's no way your

0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:16.880
<v Speaker 1>standard news outlet is going to knowingly report a hoax

0:03:16.960 --> 0:03:19.840
<v Speaker 1>is fact. These days, people are far too willing to

0:03:19.960 --> 0:03:23.680
<v Speaker 1>disbelieve and discredit outlets for far less than that. And

0:03:23.919 --> 0:03:25.960
<v Speaker 1>on the other side of the scale, There are still

0:03:25.960 --> 0:03:28.680
<v Speaker 1>people out there who will fall for stories from the Onion.

0:03:30.440 --> 0:03:33.000
<v Speaker 1>So whether you find that there are temples on the

0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:36.080
<v Speaker 1>Moon or some long canceled show has been revived for

0:03:36.120 --> 0:03:39.360
<v Speaker 1>another season, be sure to double check the original source.

0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:42.520
<v Speaker 1>People are liable to believe anything as long as it

0:03:42.560 --> 0:03:50.400
<v Speaker 1>looks official enough. Today's episode is based on the article

0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:53.600
<v Speaker 1>Ridiculous History the Great Moon Hoax of thirty five on

0:03:53.640 --> 0:03:56.880
<v Speaker 1>how stuff works dot Com, written by Brian Young. Brain

0:03:56.920 --> 0:03:59.120
<v Speaker 1>Stuff is production of I Heart Radio in partnership with

0:03:59.160 --> 0:04:01.000
<v Speaker 1>how stuff Works dot com um and is produced by

0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:04.160
<v Speaker 1>Tyler Clay. For more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the

0:04:04.200 --> 0:04:06.800
<v Speaker 1>I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

0:04:06.880 --> 0:04:18.960
<v Speaker 1>to your favorite shows. H