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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Great Moon Hoax | 2/2 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Moon_Hoax | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T09:30:08.852773+00:00 | kb-cron |
== Context == Locke's sensational reports were not out of place in the context of the mass proliferation of penny press newspapers such as the New York Sun which received much of their income from advertisements, a business practice made sustainable by large numbers of readers. The Sun was a pioneer when it came to producing shocking and often sensationalist journalism, being the first New York newspaper to report on murders, suicides, personal events, and divorces, and it was because of stories such as these that the Sun thrived in attracting readers to their articles, and thus to their advertisements. The success of such sensational stories as the "Great Moon Hoax" can be partly attributed to the influence of contemporary speculative science. Figures like the Reverend Thomas Dick, who claimed that the Moon was inhabited by billions of beings, had captured the public's imagination in the early 19th century. Locke's hoax played on similar popular beliefs, presenting them as the latest scientific findings from the well-respected astronomer Sir John Herschel, which lent the story credibility.
== Legacy ==
The hoax is featured in Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for History. Nate DiMeo's historical podcast The Memory Palace dedicated a 2010 episode to the Great Moon Hoax entitled "The Moon in the Sun". The hoax inspired a five-part musical by composer Matt Dahan as part of his musical radio series Pulp Musicals. Richard Adams Locke and the Great Moon Hoax are fictionalized in chapter 14 of Félix J. Palma's 2012 novel The Map of the Sky. The hoax reflected a time when readers were looking for entertainment as much as information from penny press newspapers, which would later change with the development of ethical reporting.
== See also == The Balloon Hoax, by Edgar Allan Poe, 1844 Bat Boy (character) Lunarcy! The Man in the Moone Martian canals Moon landing conspiracy theories A Trip to the Moon, a 1902 French science fiction film in which the Moon is inhabited by insect-like aliens A True Story, novel written by Lucian of Samosata featuring bizarre encounters on the Moon The Lunar Trilogy The War of the Worlds (1938 radio drama)
== References ==
== Further reading == Evans, David S., "The Great Moon Hoax", Sky & Telescope, 196 (September 1981) and 308 (October 1981). Goodman, Matthew, The Sun and the Moon: The Remarkable True Account of Hoaxers, Showmen, Dueling Journalists, and Lunar Man-Bats in Nineteenth-Century New York (New York: Basic Books, 2008) ISBN 978-0-465-00257-3 Green, Roger Lancelyn (1975) [1958]. "The Great Lunar Hoax". Into Other Worlds: Space-Flight in Fiction, from Lucian to Lewis. Arno Press. pp. 83–92. ISBN 978-0-405-06329-9.
== External links ==
The Moon Hoax (1859 reprint) at Internet Archive The Moon Hoax eBook at Project Gutenberg The Moon Hoax public domain audiobook at LibriVox "The Great Moon Hoax of 1835" by R. J. Brown at HistoryReference.org (archived 2016-02-24) "Episode 24: The Moon in the Sun" Archived 2013-03-09 at the Wayback Machine (2010 podcast) at The Memory Palace "The Great Moon Hoax of 1835" (after 2011) at The Museum of Hoaxes – with linked transcripts of the 6 newspaper articles "The Great Moon Hoax of 1835" (2011) at Victorian Gothic (archived 2017-06-30) "Richard Adams Locke" by Edgar Allan Poe – biographical essay from 1846 series The Literati of New York City "Belief, Legend, and the Great Moon Hoax" (2014) at Library of Congress Richard Adams Locke at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database Richard Adams Locke at the Library of Congress, with 11 library catalogue records "The 'Great Moon Hoax' that fooled the world" (2022 podcast) at BBC Global News Ltd