1
00:00:01,080 --> 00:00:11,280
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from dot Com. Hello,

2
00:00:11,360 --> 00:00:14,120
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Polly Fry and I'm

3
00:00:14,160 --> 00:00:17,599
Speaker 1: Tracy Vie Wilson. And today is the second part of

4
00:00:17,600 --> 00:00:20,880
Speaker 1: our two part episode on a series that ran in

5
00:00:20,960 --> 00:00:27,480
Speaker 1: the New York Sun in August of detailing some incredible

6
00:00:27,480 --> 00:00:31,160
Speaker 1: and amazing discoveries that have been made by viewing the

7
00:00:31,240 --> 00:00:34,360
Speaker 1: lunar surface through a brand new type of telescope created

8
00:00:34,400 --> 00:00:39,440
Speaker 1: by Sir John Herschel. It had discussed at some length

9
00:00:40,520 --> 00:00:46,000
Speaker 1: bison that had been seen, Flora goat like unicorns, and

10
00:00:46,280 --> 00:00:49,320
Speaker 1: in the last chunk that we talked about before we

11
00:00:49,360 --> 00:00:53,840
Speaker 1: cliff fung the first episode bat people right, and also

12
00:00:53,920 --> 00:00:57,280
Speaker 1: the bipedal beavers with no tales that carried their babies

13
00:00:57,320 --> 00:01:02,400
Speaker 1: around like human babies. Yeah. I was telling our producer

14
00:01:02,480 --> 00:01:04,880
Speaker 1: Nol that I want to start a band called Lunar

15
00:01:04,880 --> 00:01:09,240
Speaker 1: Beavers because that's funny to me. I don't have any

16
00:01:09,319 --> 00:01:11,479
Speaker 1: musical talent, but I'm going to do it just the same.

17
00:01:12,080 --> 00:01:14,120
Speaker 1: I figure I can at least make band t shirts. Right,

18
00:01:15,280 --> 00:01:17,800
Speaker 1: It's a great idea. So now we're going to pick

19
00:01:17,880 --> 00:01:21,520
Speaker 1: up with the fifth entry in this sixth part series.

20
00:01:22,360 --> 00:01:25,080
Speaker 1: Uh and we will go on to describe it and

21
00:01:25,160 --> 00:01:28,479
Speaker 1: the sixth part UH and what they contain, and then

22
00:01:28,520 --> 00:01:31,400
Speaker 1: we will talk about sort of the cultural context of

23
00:01:31,440 --> 00:01:35,720
Speaker 1: all of this and how it affected people. The fifth

24
00:01:35,880 --> 00:01:39,600
Speaker 1: entry in this series appeared in UH in the newspaper

25
00:01:39,640 --> 00:01:43,720
Speaker 1: on Saturday, August twenty nine, and this one started with

26
00:01:43,760 --> 00:01:46,760
Speaker 1: the description of three oceans on the surface of the Moon,

27
00:01:46,800 --> 00:01:50,480
Speaker 1: which were visible even with the puniest of telescopes. That

28
00:01:50,640 --> 00:01:56,320
Speaker 1: also described seven seas and innumerable smaller bodies of water. Additionally,

29
00:01:56,360 --> 00:01:59,480
Speaker 1: there were all matter of outcroppings that the astronomers really

30
00:01:59,520 --> 00:02:02,800
Speaker 1: started to struggle to name because there's not really a

31
00:02:03,840 --> 00:02:10,160
Speaker 1: comparable geography on Earth. And while they were surveying all

32
00:02:10,200 --> 00:02:12,840
Speaker 1: of these lunar attributes, and again this is after they

33
00:02:12,840 --> 00:02:15,920
Speaker 1: had just this is the the following session, after they

34
00:02:15,919 --> 00:02:20,960
Speaker 1: had discovered these bat people, UH, the astronomers identified an

35
00:02:21,040 --> 00:02:25,000
Speaker 1: unusual architectural figure in the landscape. So they paused for

36
00:02:25,000 --> 00:02:28,640
Speaker 1: a moment and they adjusted their instruments lenses in its

37
00:02:28,639 --> 00:02:30,880
Speaker 1: setting so that they could take a closer look at it.

38
00:02:31,919 --> 00:02:35,320
Speaker 1: What they discovered was a triangle shaped temple that was

39
00:02:35,360 --> 00:02:39,320
Speaker 1: made entirely of sapphire or some other bluestone that closely

40
00:02:39,360 --> 00:02:44,000
Speaker 1: resembled Sapphire. The temple had numerous massive columns around its

41
00:02:44,040 --> 00:02:46,760
Speaker 1: outside edges that were estimated to be six feet or

42
00:02:46,840 --> 00:02:51,040
Speaker 1: one point eight meters wide and seventy ft twenty one tall.

43
00:02:51,639 --> 00:02:55,000
Speaker 1: These columns were spaced at about twelve feet or three

44
00:02:55,000 --> 00:02:59,919
Speaker 1: point seven ms apart. Yeah, and when we say triangle shaped,

45
00:03:00,000 --> 00:03:02,200
Speaker 1: what we mean is the footprint of it was triangle shaped.

46
00:03:02,240 --> 00:03:04,160
Speaker 1: It wasn't a pyramid. It was kind of like if

47
00:03:04,200 --> 00:03:06,000
Speaker 1: you were looking at it from above, it was a triangle,

48
00:03:06,040 --> 00:03:08,919
Speaker 1: but it rose like a column UH in the sum

49
00:03:08,960 --> 00:03:12,480
Speaker 1: of its parts. And it was according to Dr Andrew Grant,

50
00:03:12,480 --> 00:03:14,880
Speaker 1: who you will recall if you listen to the first

51
00:03:14,880 --> 00:03:18,600
Speaker 1: part was the assistant to UH, Sir John Herschel, who

52
00:03:18,800 --> 00:03:23,160
Speaker 1: was relaying this information to UH in Edinburgh Scientific Journal

53
00:03:23,560 --> 00:03:26,920
Speaker 1: and sharing these notes with the press. And he said

54
00:03:26,919 --> 00:03:30,040
Speaker 1: that this was quite a beautiful structure. The roof was

55
00:03:30,080 --> 00:03:32,960
Speaker 1: a golden metal, and it appeared to mimic the look

56
00:03:33,000 --> 00:03:36,360
Speaker 1: of flames, and within the flames, as though it was

57
00:03:36,400 --> 00:03:40,560
Speaker 1: being consumed by them, was a sphere that the astronomers

58
00:03:40,600 --> 00:03:42,800
Speaker 1: have observed that looked as though it were made of

59
00:03:42,840 --> 00:03:46,080
Speaker 1: a clouded copper. And on each of the temple's three

60
00:03:46,120 --> 00:03:48,560
Speaker 1: corners was a smaller sphere of what appeared to be

61
00:03:48,600 --> 00:03:53,120
Speaker 1: the same copper material. A scroll made from the same

62
00:03:53,120 --> 00:03:55,760
Speaker 1: metal as the flames unfurled from the roof over the

63
00:03:55,800 --> 00:03:58,800
Speaker 1: upper walls of the building, and the temple was open

64
00:03:58,880 --> 00:04:02,040
Speaker 1: and airy. There weren't really any additional walls. Are are

65
00:04:02,160 --> 00:04:05,760
Speaker 1: altars um that existed in addition to all these columns.

66
00:04:06,360 --> 00:04:09,160
Speaker 1: With the inclusion of the flame ornamentation on the top,

67
00:04:09,240 --> 00:04:12,040
Speaker 1: they estimated that it was almost a hundred feet or

68
00:04:12,080 --> 00:04:16,720
Speaker 1: thirty meters high. There were no man, bats, or other

69
00:04:16,839 --> 00:04:22,640
Speaker 1: humanoid moon beings at the temple, only birds. And this

70
00:04:22,760 --> 00:04:26,039
Speaker 1: fifth entry pretty much just describes this temple uh. And

71
00:04:26,080 --> 00:04:29,760
Speaker 1: then it concludes with speculation about the meaning of the

72
00:04:29,760 --> 00:04:33,320
Speaker 1: temple and its flame symbolism. It asked the question quote,

73
00:04:33,400 --> 00:04:36,839
Speaker 1: did they, by this record any past calamity of their

74
00:04:36,880 --> 00:04:42,120
Speaker 1: world or predict any future one of ours. The sixth

75
00:04:42,160 --> 00:04:45,240
Speaker 1: and final entry in the New York Sun's Lunar series

76
00:04:45,320 --> 00:04:50,800
Speaker 1: was printed on Monday, August one. Yes, so that at

77
00:04:50,800 --> 00:04:54,359
Speaker 1: this point they've run basically for a week uh, not

78
00:04:54,560 --> 00:04:57,560
Speaker 1: far from the temple discussed in the fifth entry, which

79
00:04:57,560 --> 00:05:00,520
Speaker 1: they referred to as the veil of the triad. The

80
00:05:00,560 --> 00:05:04,760
Speaker 1: astronomers saw similar beings to their man bats that they

81
00:05:04,760 --> 00:05:06,880
Speaker 1: had talked about in the fourth entry, which they had

82
00:05:06,960 --> 00:05:12,480
Speaker 1: named Vespertilio homo. These creatures, however, were a lot larger

83
00:05:12,520 --> 00:05:14,880
Speaker 1: and they were lighter colored than the ones that they

84
00:05:14,880 --> 00:05:18,880
Speaker 1: had seen in the Ruby Colosseum. Doctor Grant claimed that

85
00:05:18,920 --> 00:05:23,080
Speaker 1: these man bats were quote an improved variety of the race.

86
00:05:24,960 --> 00:05:28,000
Speaker 1: The team observed these larger man bats eating yellow gourd

87
00:05:28,080 --> 00:05:31,040
Speaker 1: like fruits and then sucking the juice from a red

88
00:05:31,080 --> 00:05:33,760
Speaker 1: fruit that was sort of shaped like a cucumber. Uh.

89
00:05:33,800 --> 00:05:37,080
Speaker 1: The astronomers observed these creatures and their group dynamics, and

90
00:05:37,120 --> 00:05:40,200
Speaker 1: they noted how polite they seemed to be in terms

91
00:05:40,200 --> 00:05:45,559
Speaker 1: of their society and their seeming serenity overall. They also

92
00:05:45,640 --> 00:05:50,599
Speaker 1: observed eight or nine previously unseen quadruped species, including a

93
00:05:50,640 --> 00:05:53,400
Speaker 1: really elegant stag like beast that had a white coat

94
00:05:53,440 --> 00:05:57,120
Speaker 1: and black antlers. Grant commented on the way that all

95
00:05:57,160 --> 00:05:59,799
Speaker 1: of the beings of the moon seemed to cohabitate peacefully

96
00:05:59,839 --> 00:06:03,240
Speaker 1: with out any sort of predator prey kind of relationship,

97
00:06:03,320 --> 00:06:08,240
Speaker 1: which kind of contradicts the earlier accounts where they decided

98
00:06:08,279 --> 00:06:10,080
Speaker 1: that there must be fish in the water because the

99
00:06:10,120 --> 00:06:14,640
Speaker 1: birds were diving for them. Yeah, that's not brought up

100
00:06:14,640 --> 00:06:19,680
Speaker 1: again at all, um And at this point, uh, they

101
00:06:19,720 --> 00:06:23,400
Speaker 1: sort of it's a shorter observational period. They kind of

102
00:06:23,800 --> 00:06:27,680
Speaker 1: conclude the day's observation. However, this is not the end

103
00:06:27,720 --> 00:06:32,040
Speaker 1: of this sixth entry in the newspaper series. After gawking

104
00:06:32,080 --> 00:06:35,320
Speaker 1: at all of this amazing stuff and the more advanced

105
00:06:35,360 --> 00:06:38,000
Speaker 1: man bats of the moon, the astronomers wrapped up for

106
00:06:38,000 --> 00:06:41,640
Speaker 1: the night by accidentally failing to correctly lower the lens

107
00:06:41,760 --> 00:06:45,400
Speaker 1: and place it horizontally. They lowered it, but they left

108
00:06:45,440 --> 00:06:51,480
Speaker 1: it in a perpendicular position, and consequently, Uh, the observatory

109
00:06:51,520 --> 00:06:54,760
Speaker 1: that Herschel and his team had constructed caught fire because

110
00:06:54,800 --> 00:06:58,120
Speaker 1: of the light that continued to reflect in the telescope

111
00:06:58,160 --> 00:07:01,440
Speaker 1: because it hadn't been laid down flat. So while the

112
00:07:01,520 --> 00:07:04,440
Speaker 1: structure and its contents were safe, there was a massive

113
00:07:04,560 --> 00:07:06,760
Speaker 1: hole that had been burned in the reflecting chamber of

114
00:07:06,800 --> 00:07:10,480
Speaker 1: the observatory, and that's why everything was abruptly cut short.

115
00:07:11,760 --> 00:07:15,560
Speaker 1: Of course, workmen were hired for a rush repair job,

116
00:07:15,600 --> 00:07:18,520
Speaker 1: according to this account by Grant, and within a week

117
00:07:18,640 --> 00:07:21,480
Speaker 1: the telescope and its supporting elements were once again fit

118
00:07:21,560 --> 00:07:24,920
Speaker 1: to do their work. But unfortunately, at that point the

119
00:07:24,960 --> 00:07:27,880
Speaker 1: moon had moved out of observable position and it wouldn't

120
00:07:27,880 --> 00:07:30,400
Speaker 1: come back again for a bit. What follows is a

121
00:07:30,440 --> 00:07:33,800
Speaker 1: whole section where the telescope was then turned to Saturn

122
00:07:33,920 --> 00:07:37,520
Speaker 1: and its rings, and the account detailed various things about

123
00:07:37,600 --> 00:07:41,960
Speaker 1: that celestial body rather than the moon, which is all

124
00:07:42,000 --> 00:07:44,080
Speaker 1: a very fascinating read, but we're going to keep focused

125
00:07:44,120 --> 00:07:47,480
Speaker 1: to the moon stuff for UH for this UH. And

126
00:07:47,680 --> 00:07:50,040
Speaker 1: by the time the moon had moved back into an

127
00:07:50,040 --> 00:07:55,440
Speaker 1: observable position UH, Grants notes indicated that Herschel was still

128
00:07:55,680 --> 00:07:58,400
Speaker 1: really deep in his Saturn studies, so that he couldn't

129
00:07:58,680 --> 00:08:01,119
Speaker 1: quite refocus back to the moon. And yet but doctor

130
00:08:01,200 --> 00:08:03,360
Speaker 1: Grant and the other two assistants that were there did

131
00:08:03,400 --> 00:08:06,280
Speaker 1: decide to take another peak at the moon, and at

132
00:08:06,320 --> 00:08:09,200
Speaker 1: this point the three found an even more beautiful group

133
00:08:09,240 --> 00:08:13,160
Speaker 1: of Vespertilio homo, which seemed to have a ceremonial social

134
00:08:13,200 --> 00:08:16,600
Speaker 1: structure which was similar to what they had seen among

135
00:08:16,840 --> 00:08:20,840
Speaker 1: the bat people near the Sapphire Temple, and an even

136
00:08:20,920 --> 00:08:26,480
Speaker 1: more advanced proclivity for producing art. But that's where the

137
00:08:26,480 --> 00:08:29,400
Speaker 1: account of doctor Grant ends he said he wished to

138
00:08:29,520 --> 00:08:32,600
Speaker 1: quote let the first detailed account of them appear in

139
00:08:32,720 --> 00:08:38,440
Speaker 1: Dr Herschel's authenticated Natural History of this planet, which is

140
00:08:38,800 --> 00:08:44,240
Speaker 1: so kind of him. Did not want to steal the spotlight. So, uh,

141
00:08:44,360 --> 00:08:46,920
Speaker 1: we are going to talk next about how the world

142
00:08:47,000 --> 00:08:51,120
Speaker 1: of felt about all of this Moon talk and these

143
00:08:51,200 --> 00:08:54,920
Speaker 1: amazing and fantastical discoveries. But before we do, we're going

144
00:08:54,960 --> 00:08:59,320
Speaker 1: to pause for a word from a sponsor. Okay, So

145
00:09:00,559 --> 00:09:05,400
Speaker 1: back to uh the New York Sun's published accounts based

146
00:09:05,440 --> 00:09:07,600
Speaker 1: on the notes of doctor Grants of the things they

147
00:09:07,600 --> 00:09:09,840
Speaker 1: had seen on the Moon as part of Sir John

148
00:09:09,840 --> 00:09:16,200
Speaker 1: Herschel's expedition. Uh So, this newspaper series featured a Moon

149
00:09:16,520 --> 00:09:21,120
Speaker 1: filled with lush landscapes of crystals and poppies, fauna similar

150
00:09:21,120 --> 00:09:26,000
Speaker 1: to bison, unicorn, and sheep, and a relatively advanced race

151
00:09:26,200 --> 00:09:30,920
Speaker 1: of bat people. Uh So, you are probably wondering what

152
00:09:30,960 --> 00:09:33,680
Speaker 1: on Earth did the public make of all this? And

153
00:09:33,760 --> 00:09:37,480
Speaker 1: the short answer was people were really excited. They debated

154
00:09:37,520 --> 00:09:40,480
Speaker 1: over the veracity of these reports from the lunar surface.

155
00:09:41,040 --> 00:09:44,080
Speaker 1: There were lectures given and open panels to discuss the

156
00:09:44,120 --> 00:09:46,680
Speaker 1: implications of this new finding of life on the Moon

157
00:09:47,920 --> 00:09:51,319
Speaker 1: and other news outlets started picking up the story even

158
00:09:51,400 --> 00:09:53,800
Speaker 1: before all of the installments had been published, so like

159
00:09:53,840 --> 00:09:56,840
Speaker 1: by the second one, they began to reprint this and

160
00:09:56,920 --> 00:10:00,439
Speaker 1: within weeks the tale of Lunar civilization had really kind

161
00:10:00,440 --> 00:10:04,200
Speaker 1: of traveled around the world. Uh as one outlet picked

162
00:10:04,200 --> 00:10:07,080
Speaker 1: it up and shared it with another, etcetera, etcetera. The

163
00:10:07,160 --> 00:10:09,400
Speaker 1: Sun made a nice chunk of cash from this hoax.

164
00:10:09,920 --> 00:10:12,280
Speaker 1: The readership numbers might have bumped up a little, but

165
00:10:12,320 --> 00:10:15,959
Speaker 1: the paper also sold really popular pamphlets about the discoveries,

166
00:10:16,559 --> 00:10:19,480
Speaker 1: prints of artist renderings of the various elements that have

167
00:10:19,520 --> 00:10:22,040
Speaker 1: been described in the series, and that included the solar

168
00:10:22,040 --> 00:10:25,959
Speaker 1: temple and the back people. Yeah, those images are fantastic.

169
00:10:26,000 --> 00:10:28,760
Speaker 1: I love them um And in terms of context in

170
00:10:28,800 --> 00:10:33,400
Speaker 1: the greater cultural landscape. A decade before the Great Moon Hoax,

171
00:10:33,880 --> 00:10:36,880
Speaker 1: German professor at Munich University had published a paper that

172
00:10:36,920 --> 00:10:41,440
Speaker 1: translates to discovery of many distinct traces of lunar inhabitants,

173
00:10:41,679 --> 00:10:45,640
Speaker 1: especially of one of their colossal buildings. And this one

174
00:10:45,800 --> 00:10:50,559
Speaker 1: was not intended as a hoax. That discusses the multicolored

175
00:10:50,720 --> 00:10:54,839
Speaker 1: patches of the moon and how they might relate to gradations. Uh.

176
00:10:54,920 --> 00:10:58,800
Speaker 1: How those gradations might relate to possible different climate zones,

177
00:10:58,960 --> 00:11:03,440
Speaker 1: different crops, and perhaps even different cities and man made structures.

178
00:11:04,200 --> 00:11:06,439
Speaker 1: Just a few months before The New York Sun ran

179
00:11:06,520 --> 00:11:09,640
Speaker 1: this story, there was also an Edgar Allen Post short

180
00:11:09,720 --> 00:11:13,560
Speaker 1: story that came out called The Unparalleled Adventure of One

181
00:11:13,800 --> 00:11:17,200
Speaker 1: Hans Fall And that had been published in the Southern

182
00:11:17,200 --> 00:11:20,520
Speaker 1: Literary Messenger. This was the story of a man's return

183
00:11:20,559 --> 00:11:23,200
Speaker 1: to Holland that when he was filled with stories of

184
00:11:23,200 --> 00:11:25,720
Speaker 1: a balloon adventure that had taken him to the moon.

185
00:11:26,600 --> 00:11:29,360
Speaker 1: This had been intended, as was the case for satire

186
00:11:29,400 --> 00:11:31,920
Speaker 1: at the time, to fool at least some of its readers,

187
00:11:31,960 --> 00:11:36,040
Speaker 1: but Post story was quickly recognized as fiction by typical

188
00:11:36,160 --> 00:11:40,400
Speaker 1: readers most of the time. Further, the Southern Literary Messenger

189
00:11:40,480 --> 00:11:43,080
Speaker 1: had a really small circulation, whereas The New York Sun

190
00:11:43,160 --> 00:11:47,560
Speaker 1: had a much larger readership. Yeah, some of the numbers

191
00:11:47,600 --> 00:11:51,440
Speaker 1: that you'll see, uh word like in the nineteen thousands

192
00:11:51,480 --> 00:11:54,720
Speaker 1: for distribution. There is some debate about what the true

193
00:11:54,800 --> 00:11:57,120
Speaker 1: numbers were and how much of that was a bump

194
00:11:57,200 --> 00:12:01,400
Speaker 1: from this story, but thousand versus a much smaller group

195
00:12:01,640 --> 00:12:05,600
Speaker 1: that we're reading uh the Southern Literary Messenger, and whether

196
00:12:05,640 --> 00:12:10,360
Speaker 1: the Hans Fall Taiale inspired this lengthy fae scientific series

197
00:12:10,360 --> 00:12:12,400
Speaker 1: of notes that The Sun published. We don't know for

198
00:12:12,480 --> 00:12:17,079
Speaker 1: certain uh it's certainly entirely possible that both were developed independently,

199
00:12:17,920 --> 00:12:20,840
Speaker 1: But this was a time when an expedition like Herschel's

200
00:12:20,880 --> 00:12:24,080
Speaker 1: trip to South Africa, which was a real thing to observe.

201
00:12:24,520 --> 00:12:28,800
Speaker 1: Haley's comment, was big news and astronomy and the possibility

202
00:12:28,840 --> 00:12:32,440
Speaker 1: of life on other worlds were really sparking the imaginations

203
00:12:32,520 --> 00:12:36,000
Speaker 1: of the general public. And in fact, forty years earlier,

204
00:12:36,360 --> 00:12:39,440
Speaker 1: Sir John Herschel's father, William Herschel, had published a paper

205
00:12:39,600 --> 00:12:42,560
Speaker 1: speculating about life on other planets. So this was a

206
00:12:42,600 --> 00:12:47,200
Speaker 1: topic that was kind of rumbling through culture already. The

207
00:12:47,320 --> 00:12:51,280
Speaker 1: Sun's series had been really carefully designed to capitalize on

208
00:12:51,360 --> 00:12:54,559
Speaker 1: all that interest in space and life on other worlds,

209
00:12:54,600 --> 00:12:57,720
Speaker 1: and all of that It was grounded in true thanks

210
00:12:57,720 --> 00:12:59,960
Speaker 1: to the use of Herschel's name and his very well

211
00:13:00,160 --> 00:13:04,119
Speaker 1: reported trip research trip to Cape Town. It developed slowly,

212
00:13:04,280 --> 00:13:07,640
Speaker 1: first establishing all of the scientific instruments that were being

213
00:13:07,800 --> 00:13:11,439
Speaker 1: used in the research, and then it unwound the details

214
00:13:11,520 --> 00:13:16,280
Speaker 1: of these lunar wonders bit by bit, and while you

215
00:13:16,320 --> 00:13:19,240
Speaker 1: will hear and read. If you look at many historians

216
00:13:19,280 --> 00:13:23,760
Speaker 1: treatment of this, different accounts of really how this kind

217
00:13:23,800 --> 00:13:26,720
Speaker 1: of uh came out in terms of numbers of like

218
00:13:26,800 --> 00:13:29,400
Speaker 1: what proportion of the population believed it versus what didn't.

219
00:13:29,760 --> 00:13:32,240
Speaker 1: At least for the first several installments, it seemed that

220
00:13:32,280 --> 00:13:35,800
Speaker 1: a lot of people did believe these claims, or were

221
00:13:35,800 --> 00:13:38,400
Speaker 1: at least sort of wanted to believe them enough to

222
00:13:38,440 --> 00:13:41,439
Speaker 1: think about them of flora and fauna that were being

223
00:13:41,440 --> 00:13:46,320
Speaker 1: observed with this amazing fictional telescope. But the fourth installment,

224
00:13:46,440 --> 00:13:50,920
Speaker 1: so that's where they introduced these bat people, uh, went

225
00:13:51,000 --> 00:13:54,319
Speaker 1: a little too far past believability for a lot of readers.

226
00:13:54,320 --> 00:13:57,199
Speaker 1: That kind of tipped the scale of like, uh, you've

227
00:13:57,240 --> 00:14:00,480
Speaker 1: gone too far now. By the time the fifth entry

228
00:14:00,640 --> 00:14:03,840
Speaker 1: was published, most of the other papers had started denouncing

229
00:14:03,880 --> 00:14:07,720
Speaker 1: the entirety of this series as a hoax. Richard Adams Lock,

230
00:14:07,800 --> 00:14:10,439
Speaker 1: a British journalist who had moved to America, was accused

231
00:14:10,480 --> 00:14:14,280
Speaker 1: of penning the faux discovery narrative. Block had been hired

232
00:14:14,320 --> 00:14:16,680
Speaker 1: as an editor of the Sun just two months before

233
00:14:16,679 --> 00:14:21,680
Speaker 1: this hoax began, and Locke actually addressed these accusations with

234
00:14:21,720 --> 00:14:24,440
Speaker 1: a nebulous denial letter that he wrote to the New

235
00:14:24,520 --> 00:14:27,360
Speaker 1: York Herald on August thirty one, so that was the

236
00:14:27,400 --> 00:14:30,960
Speaker 1: same day that the last installment of the tale was

237
00:14:31,000 --> 00:14:34,040
Speaker 1: published in the New York Sun. And in this letter

238
00:14:34,120 --> 00:14:37,840
Speaker 1: Locke wrote, quote, I beg to state, as unequivocally as

239
00:14:37,880 --> 00:14:40,160
Speaker 1: the words can express it, that I did not make

240
00:14:40,200 --> 00:14:43,600
Speaker 1: those discoveries. And it is my sincere conviction, founded on

241
00:14:43,640 --> 00:14:46,440
Speaker 1: a careful examination of the internal evidence of the work

242
00:14:46,480 --> 00:14:48,720
Speaker 1: in which they first appeared, that if made at all,

243
00:14:49,120 --> 00:14:51,800
Speaker 1: they were made by the great astronomer, to whom all Europe,

244
00:14:51,960 --> 00:14:56,400
Speaker 1: if not an incredulous America, will undoubtedly ascribe them. A

245
00:14:56,520 --> 00:15:01,040
Speaker 1: Philadelphia paper reprinted Locke's letter along with an advertisement for

246
00:15:01,120 --> 00:15:04,760
Speaker 1: real estate auction to sell off newly discovered property identified

247
00:15:04,760 --> 00:15:08,400
Speaker 1: by Sir John Herschel, the sale of which could include

248
00:15:08,680 --> 00:15:11,720
Speaker 1: the native one horn sheep with the fleshy lid flaps

249
00:15:11,760 --> 00:15:15,360
Speaker 1: if the buyer so desired. Yeah. So, some people were

250
00:15:15,400 --> 00:15:17,520
Speaker 1: definitely kind of picking up the joke and running with

251
00:15:17,560 --> 00:15:20,600
Speaker 1: it in their own ways. Uh. And even though at

252
00:15:20,600 --> 00:15:23,040
Speaker 1: this point it clearly seemed to all be one big

253
00:15:23,120 --> 00:15:25,880
Speaker 1: lark and most people had accepted it as such, there

254
00:15:25,920 --> 00:15:30,120
Speaker 1: were still people who believed the accounts. Plus there was

255
00:15:30,160 --> 00:15:33,960
Speaker 1: this added complication, remember we're talking about a hundred and

256
00:15:34,000 --> 00:15:37,480
Speaker 1: eighty years ago, that in some places the news of

257
00:15:37,480 --> 00:15:42,000
Speaker 1: the discovery had spread, but the follow up hoax discussions

258
00:15:42,240 --> 00:15:46,480
Speaker 1: had not, So they were only getting the accounts as

259
00:15:46,480 --> 00:15:48,360
Speaker 1: though they were real. They had not had any of

260
00:15:48,360 --> 00:15:50,880
Speaker 1: the follow up talk that was going on in other papers.

261
00:15:52,080 --> 00:15:55,560
Speaker 1: Of course, there was no doctor Andrew Grant who had

262
00:15:55,600 --> 00:15:58,000
Speaker 1: been traveling and working with Sir John Herschel. He was

263
00:15:58,040 --> 00:16:01,360
Speaker 1: completely made up, but hers did exist, and he had

264
00:16:01,480 --> 00:16:04,680
Speaker 1: been working on a new telescope, and he did travel

265
00:16:04,720 --> 00:16:06,720
Speaker 1: to the Cape of Good Hope in eighteen thirty four.

266
00:16:07,160 --> 00:16:09,280
Speaker 1: It was on that trip that he made some important

267
00:16:09,320 --> 00:16:12,760
Speaker 1: observations of how he's comments, So that little tiny kernel

268
00:16:12,840 --> 00:16:16,160
Speaker 1: of truth fueled the fires of belief as this whole

269
00:16:16,200 --> 00:16:21,000
Speaker 1: hoax played out, and Edgar Allen Poe believed that Locke

270
00:16:21,040 --> 00:16:23,480
Speaker 1: was the author of the Great Moon Hoax as the

271
00:16:23,480 --> 00:16:25,920
Speaker 1: serial came to be known. It certainly wasn't published that way,

272
00:16:25,920 --> 00:16:29,000
Speaker 1: but later on people started calling it that, and he

273
00:16:29,320 --> 00:16:32,520
Speaker 1: suggested that Locke had actually stolen the Hans Fall idea

274
00:16:32,600 --> 00:16:35,720
Speaker 1: and reworked it, and after almost ten years of complaining

275
00:16:35,720 --> 00:16:38,600
Speaker 1: about this, as though it had been a slight to him.

276
00:16:38,720 --> 00:16:41,640
Speaker 1: Poe wrote another story which was entitled The Balloon Hoax.

277
00:16:42,200 --> 00:16:45,000
Speaker 1: And this is about an intensely speedy balloon trip across

278
00:16:45,000 --> 00:16:47,280
Speaker 1: the Atlantic Ocean. If I'm remembering correctly, it like took

279
00:16:47,320 --> 00:16:50,600
Speaker 1: seventy five hours. And this too was a hoax, apparently

280
00:16:50,640 --> 00:16:53,120
Speaker 1: inspired by the Great Moon Hoax, and it ended up

281
00:16:53,160 --> 00:16:56,920
Speaker 1: being published in The New York Sun. The Balloon Hoax

282
00:16:57,600 --> 00:16:59,920
Speaker 1: fooled a lot more people than the story of Hans Fall,

283
00:17:01,240 --> 00:17:03,960
Speaker 1: so The New York Sun never retracted this story. It

284
00:17:04,040 --> 00:17:07,000
Speaker 1: also never named the true author, although most historians do

285
00:17:07,080 --> 00:17:09,199
Speaker 1: believe that it was Locke, and we'll talk about that

286
00:17:09,240 --> 00:17:12,320
Speaker 1: more in a moment. While most people and other news

287
00:17:12,320 --> 00:17:16,919
Speaker 1: publications seemed unbothered by this, the Sun's primary competitor, The

288
00:17:16,960 --> 00:17:19,919
Speaker 1: New York Herald, declared The Sun's printing of the series

289
00:17:19,960 --> 00:17:23,080
Speaker 1: to be quote highly improper, wicked, and in fact a

290
00:17:23,160 --> 00:17:27,679
Speaker 1: species of impudence swindling. But most people saw it as

291
00:17:27,920 --> 00:17:31,600
Speaker 1: basically a clever joke. The reason that most people were

292
00:17:31,640 --> 00:17:34,200
Speaker 1: willing to let this hoax go without protests about the

293
00:17:34,240 --> 00:17:37,879
Speaker 1: Sun's journalistic integrity and the ethics that they should have

294
00:17:37,960 --> 00:17:40,360
Speaker 1: upheld sort of stem from the fact that The New

295
00:17:40,400 --> 00:17:43,680
Speaker 1: York Sun was a penny paper. Uh at the time,

296
00:17:43,720 --> 00:17:46,440
Speaker 1: there were penny papers, and there were six cent papers,

297
00:17:46,480 --> 00:17:49,119
Speaker 1: and six cent papers at the time were aimed at

298
00:17:49,160 --> 00:17:52,440
Speaker 1: more discerning readers, usually a little more educated, a little

299
00:17:52,440 --> 00:17:56,919
Speaker 1: more high brow, whereas penny papers, uh printed more lurid news.

300
00:17:56,960 --> 00:17:59,600
Speaker 1: They would print gossip, they would print crime reports and

301
00:17:59,680 --> 00:18:02,240
Speaker 1: murder sheets, and they were aimed at sort of a

302
00:18:02,280 --> 00:18:05,080
Speaker 1: wider audience. They just weren't considered on the same level

303
00:18:05,720 --> 00:18:08,560
Speaker 1: as the six cent papers. I think this is similar

304
00:18:08,600 --> 00:18:12,840
Speaker 1: to the divide between the tabloid format papers and broadsheet

305
00:18:12,880 --> 00:18:18,200
Speaker 1: papers today. It is, although penny papers would report real

306
00:18:18,240 --> 00:18:21,399
Speaker 1: news as well, but it sort of that leverage to

307
00:18:21,440 --> 00:18:24,280
Speaker 1: have a little bit of wits and yeah, yeah, and

308
00:18:24,320 --> 00:18:30,680
Speaker 1: tabloids have basically have definitely broken some legitimate stories before uh,

309
00:18:30,800 --> 00:18:35,399
Speaker 1: you know you are the classic bat boy cover of

310
00:18:35,480 --> 00:18:37,960
Speaker 1: a you know, a tabloid papers is what this whole

311
00:18:38,000 --> 00:18:41,440
Speaker 1: story kind of reminds me of. And who doesn't love

312
00:18:41,480 --> 00:18:45,520
Speaker 1: that boy. We're gonna talk a little bit more about

313
00:18:45,680 --> 00:18:48,200
Speaker 1: Locke and about Sir John Herschel in just a moment,

314
00:18:48,200 --> 00:18:50,920
Speaker 1: but before that, we are going to have a quick

315
00:18:50,960 --> 00:18:55,040
Speaker 1: word from a sponsor, if that's cool with Racy. Sure so.

316
00:18:55,520 --> 00:18:58,520
Speaker 1: Almost five years after The Great Moon Hoax was published,

317
00:18:58,640 --> 00:19:01,680
Speaker 1: and after Locke, who as Uh noted to be kind

318
00:19:01,680 --> 00:19:04,359
Speaker 1: of a heavy drinker, was said to have confessed his

319
00:19:04,400 --> 00:19:08,479
Speaker 1: authorship to various colleagues in the newspaper industry in various

320
00:19:08,520 --> 00:19:12,240
Speaker 1: states of intoxication, Locke actually wrote a letter to the

321
00:19:12,280 --> 00:19:15,359
Speaker 1: paper New World, and at this point he had returned

322
00:19:15,359 --> 00:19:18,160
Speaker 1: to life as a freelance writer. After he left The Son,

323
00:19:18,280 --> 00:19:20,119
Speaker 1: he went to another job at the New Era, but

324
00:19:20,160 --> 00:19:22,359
Speaker 1: then when he resigned from that, he went back to freelance.

325
00:19:23,640 --> 00:19:26,320
Speaker 1: Locke's letter appeared on the front page of The New

326
00:19:26,400 --> 00:19:29,280
Speaker 1: World on May sixteenth of eighteen forty, and in it

327
00:19:29,480 --> 00:19:31,720
Speaker 1: he said that he had written the Great Moon Hoax,

328
00:19:32,119 --> 00:19:34,800
Speaker 1: but that it had not been intended as a hoax.

329
00:19:35,440 --> 00:19:38,840
Speaker 1: He claimed that it had been written as satire, intended

330
00:19:38,880 --> 00:19:41,880
Speaker 1: to skewer the effect that religion was having on science,

331
00:19:41,960 --> 00:19:45,719
Speaker 1: which he believed led to the acceptance of fanciful thinking

332
00:19:45,880 --> 00:19:50,000
Speaker 1: over solid truth. And so that would seem to clear

333
00:19:50,240 --> 00:19:53,479
Speaker 1: the um the case on whether or not Alack had

334
00:19:53,480 --> 00:19:56,760
Speaker 1: written it. However, there is still some debate over whether

335
00:19:56,840 --> 00:19:59,920
Speaker 1: he could have even written this series, given the inform

336
00:20:00,040 --> 00:20:03,439
Speaker 1: nation about astronomy that can that it contained, and that

337
00:20:03,760 --> 00:20:06,560
Speaker 1: some people say he just would not have known. Uh.

338
00:20:06,640 --> 00:20:09,480
Speaker 1: It is of course entirely possible that Locke could have

339
00:20:09,480 --> 00:20:13,080
Speaker 1: consulted with experts, or that multiple writers worked on these

340
00:20:13,119 --> 00:20:15,520
Speaker 1: accounts that they put forward as the work of this

341
00:20:15,640 --> 00:20:20,439
Speaker 1: fictional uh Dr Andrew Grant. And it's also entirely conceivable

342
00:20:20,640 --> 00:20:23,560
Speaker 1: that Locke may have learned enough about astronomy through his

343
00:20:23,600 --> 00:20:26,400
Speaker 1: own reading. He was apparently a very well read man

344
00:20:26,520 --> 00:20:29,639
Speaker 1: and sort of a lifelong learner that he could have

345
00:20:29,720 --> 00:20:33,160
Speaker 1: written this piece without assistance. So it's not an open

346
00:20:33,160 --> 00:20:35,399
Speaker 1: and shut but most people still think Locke did do

347
00:20:35,520 --> 00:20:38,800
Speaker 1: the writing. You may be wondering, I know, I was

348
00:20:39,000 --> 00:20:41,640
Speaker 1: exactly what Sir John Herschel thought of all of this.

349
00:20:41,920 --> 00:20:44,119
Speaker 1: And while all of this work was going down in

350
00:20:44,160 --> 00:20:48,280
Speaker 1: the States, Sir John Herschel was still in South Africa

351
00:20:48,400 --> 00:20:53,520
Speaker 1: doing actual, legitimate astronomy work. In late eighteen thirty five,

352
00:20:53,640 --> 00:20:55,560
Speaker 1: he was given a copy of the narrative that The

353
00:20:55,600 --> 00:20:59,119
Speaker 1: Sun had published, which had cited his work, and his

354
00:20:59,200 --> 00:21:01,920
Speaker 1: initial react and seemed to be one of amusement. He

355
00:21:02,040 --> 00:21:04,440
Speaker 1: said to have remarked that his own actual work would

356
00:21:04,440 --> 00:21:08,040
Speaker 1: probably seem quite dull by comparison once it was published.

357
00:21:09,320 --> 00:21:11,679
Speaker 1: So even though the initial reception on his part was

358
00:21:11,680 --> 00:21:16,720
Speaker 1: pretty jolly, over time that amusement wore right off. Uh.

359
00:21:16,760 --> 00:21:19,040
Speaker 1: Several years down the road, he wrote a letter to

360
00:21:19,080 --> 00:21:22,760
Speaker 1: his aunt, Caroline Herschel, who was also an astronomer of

361
00:21:22,880 --> 00:21:26,399
Speaker 1: some renown. I have been pestered from all quarters with

362
00:21:26,440 --> 00:21:30,760
Speaker 1: that ridiculous hoax about the moon in English, French, Italian,

363
00:21:30,960 --> 00:21:35,399
Speaker 1: and German. As for the Sun, it continued its circulation

364
00:21:35,520 --> 00:21:38,560
Speaker 1: until it merged with the New York World Telegram in

365
00:21:38,680 --> 00:21:42,240
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty, and that company eventually went under in nineteen

366
00:21:42,320 --> 00:21:47,600
Speaker 1: sixty seven. And that's the great Moon hoax, which I

367
00:21:48,080 --> 00:21:50,800
Speaker 1: think I did not credit earlier. But our listener Brian

368
00:21:50,840 --> 00:21:53,320
Speaker 1: wrote to us and mentioned this a while back, and

369
00:21:53,400 --> 00:21:55,760
Speaker 1: it kind of went on my list, and I've been

370
00:21:55,800 --> 00:21:58,159
Speaker 1: eyeballing it ever since. So I'm glad that this was

371
00:21:58,240 --> 00:22:00,720
Speaker 1: the week that I carved out time to do it. Yeah.

372
00:22:00,880 --> 00:22:03,119
Speaker 1: I um, I was actually out of the office while

373
00:22:03,240 --> 00:22:05,520
Speaker 1: you were working on this, and you had emailed me

374
00:22:05,520 --> 00:22:06,680
Speaker 1: and said that we were going to talk about the

375
00:22:06,680 --> 00:22:09,720
Speaker 1: moon hooks. And I was immediately really excited because I

376
00:22:09,760 --> 00:22:13,000
Speaker 1: loved that episode of The Memory Palace that you mentioned

377
00:22:13,320 --> 00:22:16,240
Speaker 1: at the top of the episode. If you don't listen

378
00:22:16,320 --> 00:22:18,800
Speaker 1: to the Memory Palace, it is quite different from what

379
00:22:18,840 --> 00:22:22,679
Speaker 1: we do. They are very short episodes. They usually have

380
00:22:22,800 --> 00:22:25,080
Speaker 1: some music that goes along with them in the background,

381
00:22:25,240 --> 00:22:28,520
Speaker 1: and it's more like a brief story about something that

382
00:22:28,560 --> 00:22:31,920
Speaker 1: happened in history. Um. I find them to be very

383
00:22:32,000 --> 00:22:34,560
Speaker 1: lovely and charming, and the one on this is particularly

384
00:22:34,880 --> 00:22:37,480
Speaker 1: lovely and charming. Yeah. I like to think of it

385
00:22:37,520 --> 00:22:42,960
Speaker 1: as it, uh like history as art podcast. Yeah, there there,

386
00:22:43,080 --> 00:22:47,400
Speaker 1: it's really really delightfully done. I like it heaps. Uh.

387
00:22:47,440 --> 00:22:50,840
Speaker 1: And now we are going to shift gears to listener mail. Uh.

388
00:22:50,880 --> 00:22:53,480
Speaker 1: This email comes from our listener Angie. I'm not going

389
00:22:53,520 --> 00:22:56,520
Speaker 1: to read her entire thing, and it actually harkens bent

390
00:22:56,640 --> 00:22:59,040
Speaker 1: quite a bit to our Halloween Candy episode, and we've

391
00:22:59,520 --> 00:23:02,320
Speaker 1: read a few different emails about it, but this one

392
00:23:02,400 --> 00:23:04,399
Speaker 1: just made me laugh so hard that I wanted to

393
00:23:04,400 --> 00:23:07,080
Speaker 1: share it. So I'm picking up kind of in the

394
00:23:07,080 --> 00:23:10,280
Speaker 1: middle of hers. But she says, I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri,

395
00:23:10,359 --> 00:23:13,679
Speaker 1: and in that city, it is tradition read required for

396
00:23:13,800 --> 00:23:16,159
Speaker 1: kids to tell a joke when trick or treating, or

397
00:23:16,200 --> 00:23:18,520
Speaker 1: else they will not be given any candy at all.

398
00:23:19,240 --> 00:23:21,359
Speaker 1: When I was growing up, all the kids have planned

399
00:23:21,359 --> 00:23:23,800
Speaker 1: for weeks ahead of time what jokes they would tell

400
00:23:23,800 --> 00:23:26,879
Speaker 1: on Halloween night. The jokes are The jokes are usually

401
00:23:26,920 --> 00:23:30,160
Speaker 1: really very simple and corny, but it is very important

402
00:23:30,200 --> 00:23:32,159
Speaker 1: to have a good one. Here are a couple of

403
00:23:32,160 --> 00:23:36,520
Speaker 1: simple examples. Question what kind of music do mummies listen to?

404
00:23:37,320 --> 00:23:41,160
Speaker 1: The answer is rap music? The w R A p uh.

405
00:23:41,200 --> 00:23:43,320
Speaker 1: The other one is what did the skeletons say to

406
00:23:43,400 --> 00:23:48,080
Speaker 1: his friend at dinner? The punchline is bone appetite and

407
00:23:48,119 --> 00:23:50,280
Speaker 1: Ay says. For as long as I can remember, on

408
00:23:50,359 --> 00:23:52,480
Speaker 1: Halloween night, my mother has stood at the front door

409
00:23:52,520 --> 00:23:54,680
Speaker 1: holding her bowl of candy, just out of reach of

410
00:23:54,720 --> 00:23:57,800
Speaker 1: the kids, while she pointedly asks each one for their

411
00:23:57,880 --> 00:24:01,400
Speaker 1: joke before handing over their candy reward. I even remember

412
00:24:01,400 --> 00:24:03,720
Speaker 1: one of our little neighbors, who was probably only three

413
00:24:03,800 --> 00:24:05,879
Speaker 1: years old at the time, doing a somersault in the

414
00:24:05,880 --> 00:24:07,840
Speaker 1: front yard as a trick because she was too young

415
00:24:07,880 --> 00:24:10,639
Speaker 1: to tell a joke. Normally, we do not hold babies

416
00:24:10,680 --> 00:24:13,240
Speaker 1: to the same high joke standards as older kids. That

417
00:24:13,320 --> 00:24:16,879
Speaker 1: summersault was completely voluntary. Uh. It was not until I

418
00:24:16,880 --> 00:24:18,760
Speaker 1: went away to college in New Jersey that I found

419
00:24:18,800 --> 00:24:21,119
Speaker 1: out that this was not how Halloween happened throughout the

420
00:24:21,119 --> 00:24:23,919
Speaker 1: rest of the country. Before then, I literally had no

421
00:24:24,000 --> 00:24:26,480
Speaker 1: clue that St. Louis was an anomaly in this way.

422
00:24:26,760 --> 00:24:29,760
Speaker 1: I still remember jokingly asking my freshman your roommates what

423
00:24:29,840 --> 00:24:32,440
Speaker 1: their Halloween jokes were going to be that year, only

424
00:24:32,440 --> 00:24:34,720
Speaker 1: to be met with blank stairs, followed by laughter and

425
00:24:34,840 --> 00:24:38,119
Speaker 1: endless teasing. I love that you can hear me laughing

426
00:24:38,119 --> 00:24:40,600
Speaker 1: while I read this. Uh. At Thanksgiving that year, when

427
00:24:40,640 --> 00:24:43,440
Speaker 1: I returned home for the holiday break, I compared notes

428
00:24:43,480 --> 00:24:45,679
Speaker 1: with my friends who had also left town for college,

429
00:24:45,680 --> 00:24:48,720
Speaker 1: and found that many of them had had similar experiences.

430
00:24:49,160 --> 00:24:52,119
Speaker 1: I began asking around my family, and none of my

431
00:24:52,200 --> 00:24:54,639
Speaker 1: parents or grandparents, all of whom were also born and

432
00:24:54,720 --> 00:24:57,320
Speaker 1: raised in the St. Louis area, could remember a time

433
00:24:57,359 --> 00:24:59,520
Speaker 1: when jokes were not part of trick or treating, and

434
00:24:59,520 --> 00:25:01,919
Speaker 1: they simil literally did not know this tradition was just

435
00:25:02,000 --> 00:25:05,680
Speaker 1: the St. Louis thing. I met my husband in college,

436
00:25:05,680 --> 00:25:08,479
Speaker 1: and therefore I now permanently live in New Jersey. Now,

437
00:25:08,480 --> 00:25:10,480
Speaker 1: when we get tricker treaters at our house each year,

438
00:25:10,520 --> 00:25:12,960
Speaker 1: I'm always so tempted to ask them to tell jokes

439
00:25:12,960 --> 00:25:15,800
Speaker 1: for the candy, but my husband patiently reminds me that

440
00:25:15,840 --> 00:25:17,760
Speaker 1: the kids are coming to that the kids coming to

441
00:25:17,800 --> 00:25:19,920
Speaker 1: our door will have no idea what I'm talking about,

442
00:25:19,920 --> 00:25:21,600
Speaker 1: so it would be better not to freak them out

443
00:25:21,600 --> 00:25:27,400
Speaker 1: by asking. Uh. She found a similar tradition in Des Moines, Iowa. Uh,

444
00:25:27,680 --> 00:25:30,000
Speaker 1: but she didn't find anywhere else that it occurs. And

445
00:25:30,119 --> 00:25:33,400
Speaker 1: I sort of love this idea. This is my aside

446
00:25:33,920 --> 00:25:36,639
Speaker 1: uh of treating a joke for candy. To me, that

447
00:25:36,680 --> 00:25:38,760
Speaker 1: seems like a great way. She thinks that it might

448
00:25:38,760 --> 00:25:41,280
Speaker 1: be a way that people thought up to deter kids

449
00:25:41,320 --> 00:25:45,800
Speaker 1: from causing mischief on Halloween night, which I think is

450
00:25:45,840 --> 00:25:49,080
Speaker 1: a perfectly valid theory. Uh, but I love it. I

451
00:25:49,119 --> 00:25:51,200
Speaker 1: think kids should all be telling jokes for their candy

452
00:25:51,200 --> 00:25:53,520
Speaker 1: on Halloween. Yeah. Well, and I sort of like how

453
00:25:53,560 --> 00:25:57,960
Speaker 1: it's a departure from showing up and essentially being like candy.

454
00:25:59,240 --> 00:26:03,000
Speaker 1: Like that's why that's what trick or trek means effectively.

455
00:26:03,160 --> 00:26:05,480
Speaker 1: I mean, it used to mean trick or treat there

456
00:26:05,480 --> 00:26:07,520
Speaker 1: could be a trick involved, but now it basically means

457
00:26:08,280 --> 00:26:11,159
Speaker 1: give me candy. Yeah. I think you know, one of

458
00:26:11,160 --> 00:26:13,840
Speaker 1: the reasons I wanted to read this now, in the springtime,

459
00:26:14,080 --> 00:26:16,760
Speaker 1: far away from Halloween. We could get the ground swell

460
00:26:16,840 --> 00:26:19,640
Speaker 1: going on this if we let people know the expectation Now,

461
00:26:20,320 --> 00:26:23,679
Speaker 1: kids have months and months to plan their jokes, and

462
00:26:23,760 --> 00:26:26,280
Speaker 1: I know at our house my husband gets really furious

463
00:26:26,320 --> 00:26:28,680
Speaker 1: when kids show up without a costume, or like older

464
00:26:28,760 --> 00:26:30,360
Speaker 1: kids that are just kind of not into it. They're

465
00:26:30,359 --> 00:26:32,280
Speaker 1: just there for free candy. But I think if we

466
00:26:32,320 --> 00:26:34,439
Speaker 1: got him to tell us jokes, he might go for it.

467
00:26:38,080 --> 00:26:39,760
Speaker 1: I don't know why that delights me so much, but

468
00:26:39,840 --> 00:26:41,720
Speaker 1: it does. So Thank you so much, Angie, because that

469
00:26:41,800 --> 00:26:44,800
Speaker 1: was just a big smile maker. Uh. If you would

470
00:26:44,800 --> 00:26:47,560
Speaker 1: like to write to us and share your bizarre candy rituals,

471
00:26:47,800 --> 00:26:51,399
Speaker 1: or your thoughts on hooaxes, or your thoughts about the possibility,

472
00:26:51,640 --> 00:26:54,880
Speaker 1: then maybe there are poppies and bad people and goat

473
00:26:54,960 --> 00:26:57,119
Speaker 1: unicorns on the moon. You can do that at History

474
00:26:57,160 --> 00:26:59,960
Speaker 1: Podcast at how Stuffworks dot com. You can also can

475
00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:02,520
Speaker 1: act us a Facebook dot com slash missed in History,

476
00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:05,639
Speaker 1: at missed in History on Twitter, missed in History dot

477
00:27:05,720 --> 00:27:08,280
Speaker 1: tumbler dot com, and at pinterest dot com slash missed

478
00:27:08,280 --> 00:27:10,960
Speaker 1: in History. If you visit missed in history dot spreadshirt

479
00:27:10,960 --> 00:27:12,840
Speaker 1: dot com you can buy all kinds of stuff you

480
00:27:12,840 --> 00:27:15,199
Speaker 1: missed in history class goodies, and if you would like

481
00:27:15,240 --> 00:27:17,399
Speaker 1: to research something related to what we talked about today,

482
00:27:17,400 --> 00:27:19,320
Speaker 1: you can go to our parents site, how stuff Works.

483
00:27:19,720 --> 00:27:22,080
Speaker 1: Type the phrase moon hoax into the search bar and

484
00:27:22,119 --> 00:27:24,800
Speaker 1: you will get the article why do some people believe

485
00:27:24,840 --> 00:27:27,280
Speaker 1: the mood Landings were a hoax? That's a whole other

486
00:27:27,280 --> 00:27:29,960
Speaker 1: moon hoax to talk about. Uh, really more of the

487
00:27:30,000 --> 00:27:33,159
Speaker 1: province of Matt and Ben from stuff they don't want

488
00:27:33,160 --> 00:27:36,280
Speaker 1: you to know. Uh. But you can also visit us

489
00:27:36,600 --> 00:27:38,719
Speaker 1: at Misston history dot com if you would like an

490
00:27:38,840 --> 00:27:42,040
Speaker 1: archive all of our episode show notes for the podcast

491
00:27:42,040 --> 00:27:43,800
Speaker 1: ever since Tracy and I came on his host a

492
00:27:43,840 --> 00:27:47,520
Speaker 1: couple of years ago, and the occasional other goody. We

493
00:27:47,600 --> 00:27:49,840
Speaker 1: encourage you to visit us there at Misston history dot

494
00:27:49,840 --> 00:27:57,320
Speaker 1: com and at how stuff works dot com for more

495
00:27:57,359 --> 00:27:59,639
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how

496
00:27:59,680 --> 00:28:12,680
Speaker 1: stuff Works? Are Eat Eat Em