A New York Newspaper Convinced Its Readers That Creatures Lived on the Moon and Nobody Caught On for Weeks

 In August of 1835 the New York Sun began publishing a series of articles about a remarkable scientific discovery.

A famous astronomer, they claimed, had developed a telescope of unprecedented power. Using this telescope he had observed the surface of the moon in extraordinary detail. What he found there was extraordinary.

Animals. Plants. Oceans and beaches. And most remarkable of all, intelligent creatures. Described as a species of bat-like humans with membranous wings who walked upright, lived in social groups, built structures, and appeared to have some form of civilization.

The articles ran over several days. They were detailed, written in the style of scientific reporting, attributed to a real astronomer named Sir John Herschel, and they convinced thousands of readers that life had been discovered on the moon.

None of it was true. Not a word of it.

How It Was Done

The articles were written by a journalist named Richard Adams Locke. He wrote them in the dry careful language of scientific reporting which made them sound credible. He used the name of a real and well-known astronomer, Sir John Herschel, who was actually in South Africa at the time conducting legitimate astronomical observations and had no idea his name was being used.

The Sun's circulation exploded. It became the most widely read newspaper in the world during the run of the articles. Other papers reprinted parts of them. Readers debated what the discovery meant for religion and science.

When the hoax was eventually exposed the Sun did not immediately retract the articles. The editor effectively shrugged and pointed out that the articles had been entertaining and had not technically claimed to be true. Readers who had believed them were embarrassed but many continued to buy the paper.

Sir John Herschel reportedly found the whole thing amusing when he eventually heard about it.

Why This Story Holds Up

The Great Moon Hoax of 1835 is one of the earliest documented examples of what we now call viral fake news. The mechanisms are identical to what happens today with misinformation on the internet.

A compelling story written in the style of legitimate reporting. A real name borrowed to add credibility. A topic that was exciting enough that people wanted to believe it. Rapid spread through the information networks of the time. And an audience that was not well equipped to verify extraordinary claims before accepting them.

The technology of 1835 was different. The psychology was identical.

People have always been susceptible to stories that are exciting and told with apparent authority. That is not a flaw unique to any era or any group of people. It is a feature of human cognition that anyone who wants to spread false information has always been able to exploit.

The people who read the Moon Hoax articles in 1835 were not uniquely gullible. They were human. And so are we.

Robert Lee Beers III is a writer and digital preservation advocate based in North Charleston South Carolina.

In 1908 Something Exploded Over Siberia With the Force of a Nuclear Bomb and We Still Are Not Completely Sure What It Was

 On the morning of June 30, 1908, something exploded over the Siberian wilderness near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River.

The explosion was heard hundreds of miles away. People were knocked off their feet by the shockwave more than 40 miles from the center. Windows shattered in towns even further away. A pressure wave circled the earth twice before dissipating. Scientists in Europe detected seismic activity from it.

The blast flattened approximately 800 square miles of forest. Eighty million trees fell. The pattern of the destruction, with trees knocked flat pointing away from the center in a radial pattern, indicated an airborne explosion rather than a ground impact.

By modern estimates the energy released was roughly equivalent to 1000 Hiroshima atomic bombs.

And there was no crater.

Why That Matters

When something hits the earth hard enough to flatten 800 square miles of forest it normally leaves a hole. The lack of a crater at Tunguska has been one of the most discussed aspects of the event for over a century.

The current scientific consensus is that the Tunguska event was caused by the airburst of a large asteroid or comet fragment, a space rock estimated at somewhere between 50 and 80 meters across that exploded in the atmosphere before it hit the ground. An airburst releases enormous energy over a wide area without creating an impact crater because there is no solid object that actually strikes the surface.

This explanation is widely accepted by scientists. But it took decades of research and debate to reach it.

When the first scientific expedition finally reached the Tunguska site in 1927 they found the devastated forest and the radial pattern of fallen trees but no crater and no large fragments of whatever had caused the explosion. The remoteness of the region in 1908 meant that no systematic investigation happened for nearly twenty years after the event.

The lack of clear physical evidence combined with the scale of the destruction fueled extraordinary speculation for generations. Theories included a comet made of ice that vaporized completely on impact. A microscopic black hole passing through the earth. An antimatter collision. And yes, an exploding alien spacecraft.

None of those theories have scientific support. The asteroid airburst explanation fits the physical evidence. But the Tunguska event remains the largest impact event in recorded human history and the absence of obvious physical evidence will keep it fascinating forever.

Why This Matters Beyond the Mystery

The Tunguska event matters for a reason that has nothing to do with mystery or speculation.

It happened. A rock from space exploded over Siberia with the force of a thousand nuclear weapons. If it had been traveling on a slightly different trajectory it could have exploded over a major city.

Scientists who study planetary defense, the effort to identify and potentially deflect asteroids that might threaten earth, use Tunguska as one of their baseline references. The 1908 event demonstrates that impacts capable of destroying a city or larger area are not just theoretical. They have happened within recorded human history.

The next Tunguska could happen anywhere. That is not alarmist speculation. It is what the historical record shows.

Robert Lee Beers III is a writer and digital preservation advocate based in North Charleston South Carolina.

In 1788 an Army Fought Itself in the Dark and Hundreds of Its Own Soldiers Died

 On the night of September 21 and 22 in 1788 the Austrian army suffered one of its worst defeats of the Austro-Turkish War.

The Turks were not involved.

The Austrian army defeated itself.

What Happened

The Austrian army of around 100,000 men had set up camp near the town of Karansebes in what is now Romania. A group of cavalry scouts crossed a river to look for Turkish forces. Instead of enemy soldiers they found a group of Romani traders who were selling schnapps.

The scouts bought the schnapps and started drinking.

When the infantry arrived to cross the river the cavalry did not want to share. They set up an improvised barrier to keep the infantry out. An argument broke out.

Someone fired a shot. Nobody is entirely sure who.

In the dark and confusion that followed soldiers started shouting that the Turks were coming. The cry spread through the camp. Soldiers who had been asleep woke up in a panic and grabbed their weapons. In the darkness and noise the different ethnic groups that made up the Austrian army, Germans, Czechs, Croatians, Italians, and others, could not communicate clearly with each other. When soldiers shouted warnings in one language soldiers who did not understand that language assumed they were enemy soldiers.

The entire army started fighting itself.

Artillery opened fire on its own troops. Infantry charged into infantry. Cavalry rode over their own men.

By the time dawn came the army had scattered across miles of countryside. Somewhere between 1,000 and 10,000 men were dead or wounded depending on which historical account you read. The precise number was never confirmed because the records of the chaos are themselves chaotic.

When the actual Turkish army arrived two days later they found the site of a massive battle with no enemy. They advanced almost unopposed.

What This Tells Us

The Battle of Karansebes is funny in the way that only things that happened to other people are funny. For the people involved it was a catastrophe.

It happened because of a chain of small failures that combined into a disaster. Alcohol. Communication breakdown between soldiers who spoke different languages. Panic spreading faster than clear information. Command structures that collapsed when the confusion started.

None of those things are unique to the 18th century Austrian army. They are failures that happen in any large complex organization operating under stress.

The specific details of drunk cavalry and schnapps traders are colorful. The underlying story of how chaos compounds and spreads through systems is relevant to understanding almost any organizational disaster in history.

It also makes for one of the most extraordinary military stories ever told. An army of 100,000 men. Not one Turkish soldier. And somehow thousands dead.

Robert Lee Beers III is a writer and digital preservation advocate based in North Charleston South Carolina.