On August 25, 1835, the New York Sun published the first in a series of six articles claiming that life had been found on the moon. Falsely attributed to Sir John Herschel, a very well-know astronomer in the 1830’s, the articles described fantastic beasts that inhabited the moon. The story was later given the name The Great Moon Hoax.

“GREAT ASTRONOMICAL DISCOVERIES LATELY MADE BY SIR JOHN HERSCHEL, L.L.D. F.R.S. &c.” heralded the headline, and the following essay described bison, unicorns, bipedal tailless beavers, goats, and humanoids with bat-like wings. The article was a sensation and rumor has it that the Sun’s sales that day spiked sharply, reaching almost 20,000, the largest circulation of any newspaper in print at that time in the world. Though sales dropped after the six-part series, they remained forever higher than they had been before The Great Moon Hoax.

Authorship has been attributed to Richard Adams Locke, a reporter who had been educated at Cambridge. Though he never publicly admitted to authoring the misinformation, public opinion had him at the helm with another two possible suspects involved. One was Jean-Nicolas Nicollet, a French astonomer who was traveling through the United States, and Lewis Gaylord Clark, editor of the Knickerbocker Magazine. However, no evidence has arisen to firmly indict any of the men.