Great Moon Hoax of 1835

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In the latest episode of The Memory Palace podcast, reporter Nate DiMeo tells the captivating story of "The Great Moon Hoax" of 1835. According to a series of New York Sun articles published that year, a respected astronomer named Sir John Herschel had observed an amazing array of flora and fauna on the moon, including bipedal beavers, winged humanoids, and (yay!) blue unicorns. None of it was true. (Or so we're told now.) And Herschel wasn't even aware until much later that he was the star of this bit of science fiction presented as fact. The lithograph above accompanied one of the articles to illustrate what Herschel had "seen" through his giant telescope. "The Moon in the Sun"