August 25, 2018 • 24 mins
We're revisiting a silly two-parter from 2015. In August 1835, the New York Sun ran a series about some utterly mind-blowing discoveries made by Sir John Herschel about the lunar surface. The serial had everything: moon poppies, goat-like unicorns, lunar beavers and even bat people.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hi, Happy Saturday, everybody. I hope you're having a great
weekend if these are in fact your days off. Today
is the one hundred and eighty third anniversary of the
beginning of one of my favorite topics from the show,
The Great Moon Hoax, which is also a favorite episode
from the past archive. Other people like it because it's hilarious.
This is a two part episode which originally came out
in twenty fifteen. We're going to be sharing this one,
(00:24):
part one today this week, and next week you will
get part two. If you're an extra eager for part two, though,
you can find it on our website at missinhistory dot com,
and if you're subscribed to our show, you'll probably be
able to find it by searching your library on most
podcast apps, although all the various apps handle archival material
a little differently from one another regardless, though, enjoy Welcome
(00:50):
to Stuff You Missed in History Class from HowStuffWorks dot com. Hello,
Welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly cry and I'm Tracy B.
Wilson and who doesn't love a good hope story? So
that there's actually a news series that we're going to
talk about today, and we have to kind of air
(01:11):
quote the word news, but it's an important landmark in
journalism history as well as cultural history. It also involves
the history of mass media and even sort of a
lesson in gullibility and kind of crowd mentality. This is
a topic that The Memory Palace actually did a short
episode on back in twenty ten, and that episode is
called The Moon in the Sun, and it's worth a listen.
(01:34):
It is a brief but very enjoyable so conspiracy theories
and cartoons like tech Avery's The Cat that Hated People aside.
Do you remember that cartoon, Tracy, I do not. It
was about a cat who hated people. He lived in
New York City and so he got himself on a
rocket to the Moon so he could be alone and
enjoy it. But of course the moon was full of
crazy things that made him just as annoyed as Earth
(01:55):
and even more so, so much so that he figured
out a way to get back to Earth, and even
though New York did not treat him while he was
very happy. But we know that in fact that is
fallacious information, and that the moon is basically pretty empty.
There are some things there, but not crazy horn people
as shown in that cartoon walking around. But in eighteen
(02:16):
thirty five, a New York newspaper printed a series of
stories about amazing discoveries on the lunar landscape. And we
are first going to talk at length about the incredible
descriptions of the amazing things that were allegedly seen on
the lunar surface through a telescope. One thing I noticed
during my research about this news series is that the articles,
(02:39):
and again there are six of them, and they're very lengthy,
kind of get summarized to this point where it's like
two to five sentences about each one maybe and some
don't even cover that, and you lose a lot of
the amazing and sometimes crazy descriptions of these discoveries. So
Tracy and I are actually going to walk through the
text a lot more description. We're going to break down
(03:01):
a lot more of it. And that makes this a
two parter because there is a lot to talk about.
Even though we're not covering everything in that quote historical account,
because that would take hours, it's still going to take
quite a bit of time. And so this first part
we're going to talk a lot about those entries in
(03:22):
the New York Sun. The second part of this two
parter will wrap up the account as it was published
in serial form, and then we'll talk about kind of
the reception these claims got in sort of the atmosphere
of the culture at the time, and how that sort
of enabled and provided a fertile ground for this hoax
to happen. So before the series began, the small teaser
(03:43):
appeared in the New York Sun, and that was on
Friday August twenty first, eighteen thirty five. And this little
teaser read quote, we have just learnt from an eminent
publisher in this city that Sir John Herschel, at the
Cape of Good Hope has made some anomical discoveries of
the most wonderful description by means of an immense telescope
(04:05):
of an entirely new principle. And the city that was
being referenced in that sentence was Edinburgh. Yeah, that was
it was placed. Again, It was a tiny little teaser,
and it was placed as though it was put there
by the Edinburgh Current. Now, the first entry in this
series appeared in the paper on Tuesday, August twenty fifth,
still eighteen thirty five, so a few days later, so
(04:28):
that little teaser had been allowed to sit for a bit,
and it was titled quote great astronomical discoveries lately made
by Sir John Herschel, ld FRS at the Cape of
Good Hope, from the supplement to the Edinburgh Journal of Science.
Sir John Herschel is not an entirely new name on
the podcast. We mentioned him as the nephew of Caroline
(04:50):
Herschel in our episode on Astronomy's Cinderella. Yeah Well referenced
Caroline very briefly towards the end of the second episode.
But this article, this first entry, ran on the front
page of the New York Sun, and it took up
about seventy five percent of the front page, and it
opened with this, in this unusual addition to our journal,
(05:12):
we have the happiness of making known to the British public,
and thence to the whole civilized world, recent discoveries in
astronomy which will build an imperishable monument to the age
in which we live, and confer upon the present generation
of the human race a proud distinction through all future time.
And again they're placing this as though it had been
(05:33):
These were notes to the Edinburgh Journal of Science that
were then being reprinted in New York. It goes on
to build up the announcement before making it, and it
describes the awe of such a discovery and how it
makes us earth bound creatures feel almost like we suddenly
have supernatural powers. Herschel is described as setting up his
stupendous apparatus, which was this new telescope, which was quote
(05:57):
of vast dimensions and entirely new principle, and then he
is described as pausing for several hours before looking through it,
so that he could collect himself and prepare for the
discoveries that he was about to make. Yeah, the article
assured the reader at this point that Herschel was right
to do so because the things that he saw in
(06:18):
his first hour of observation are incomparable in the way
in which they're going to advance human knowledge. His telescope,
the article said, rendered his view of objects on the
lunar surface quote fully equal to that which the naked
eye commands of terrestrial objects at the distance of one
hundred yards. An important thing to note at this point
(06:39):
is that the article title makes it sort of sound
like it was written by Sir John Herschel, but the
actual entry is written as introduced from the point of
view of the newspaper reported to them through doctor Andrew Grant,
and that's who The New York Sun described as an
assistant to the astronomer. The son assured readers that the
(07:01):
notes that Grant had shared with the publication were almost
as thorough as thorough as those of Herschel himself. After
the intro, the articles then are framed as being written
by Andrew Grant himself. So the rest of the August
twenty fifth entry went on to describe in great detail
Herschel's telescope. And the reason for this lengthy description, and
(07:24):
I mean it is in great detail according to this article,
is that quote, a knowledge of the one is essential
to the credibility of the other. So they're kind of
setting it up that once readers understand how amazing this
telescope is, then they won't for a second doubt its
ability to see these things that no one else had
previously seen. It claimed that this apparatus was twenty four
(07:48):
feet in diameter or seven point three meters, and this
would have made it six times the size of the scalpe,
the telescope that his father, William Herschel had built. To
make some modern comparisons, the Hubble telescope is fourteen feet
or four point three meters in diameter. The Grand Telescopio
Canarius and the Canary Islands, which is currently the biggest
(08:11):
optic telescope on Earth, is thirty four feet or ten
point four meters in diameter. So it was basically claiming
that this telescope was huge, huge, even comparison to other
telescopes of today. Oh yeah, And at this point, remember
they're sort of building on this idea. You know, they're
(08:32):
referencing William Herschel, who at that point was a very
well known astronomer. The discovery of Uranus had happened in
the recent past, and so they're kind of building scientific
credibility by referencing him and talking about how his son
is advancing telescopic technology so much more. And apparently this
new telescope that they were describing, which was reported as
(08:56):
weighing nearly seven tons, also possessed a hydro oxygen my microscope,
so it combined telescopic technology with microscopic technology, and this
projected the telescopic image onto a screen of canvas and
allowed for clear magnification of far distant objects. How big
and clear did this article claim it made things. It
(09:16):
was reported that this telescope they're describing would have a
magnification of forty two thousand times. So this was the
first of the six entries and the series, and you
will notice it has said almost nothing about the moon yet. Yeah,
this is all set up at this point. And before
we get to the juicy stuff. Do you want to
pause for a word from a sponsor. Let's do, because
(09:38):
then we can have lots of juicy stuff close together.
So back to the New York Sun's account as relayed
to them by doctor Andrew Grant, of the work of
Sir John Herschel. The second entry that the newspaper published,
(10:00):
which was the next day, is where things really get cooking.
So in terms of descriptions, it really sort of blew
things wide open. It first established the timeline of Herschel
having left London on September fourth of eighteen thirty four,
transporting when he did this, his assistance and his new
lenses by ship to the Cape of Good Hope. And
(10:23):
it also described the installation of the telescope in great detail,
talking about like how it was laid out, how they
built a foundation for it, et cetera. Further establishing the
credibility of the discoveries they were about to share. The
New York Sun reported that the fateful day on which
Herschel turned his telescope to the moon was January tenth,
(10:44):
eighteen thirty five, at about nine thirty in the evening.
The lunar landscape, as seen through this telescope was, apparently,
to Herschel a greenish brown basaltic rock, and he also
saw that it was covered with dark red flats very
similar to poppies. This, the article claimed, was quote the
(11:04):
first organic production of nature in a foreign world ever
revealed to the eyes of men. He also recorded a
lunar forest which was said to resemble really large yew trees,
and the astronomer observed that as the moon shifted positions,
this was followed by a green plane and then a
(11:24):
forest of fir trees, and after adjusting the telescope's magnification,
Herschel and his assistant realized that they had also found
a body of water with beautiful beaches that were full
of white sand bordered by these green marble rocks. The
water appeared to be blue, just like it does on Earth,
and also seemed to experience tides. Yeah talks at length
(11:45):
about where they could see that the tides had hit
the rocks on the edge of one side of this
body of water. So, according to the information that doctor
Grant shared with the New York Sun, the landscape observations
that doctor Herschel and his team were doing went on
for almost two hours, and then after adjusting the lenses
(12:06):
of the telescope once more. There are often references throughout
all of these these articles of how they adjusted lenses
and switched things out. Then they observed various crystalline structures
in the landscape, and then a herd of quadrupeds was spotted.
So this herd of creatures was reported to be in
(12:28):
the shade of the forest, and the animals appeared to
be a lot like small bison, although very much smaller
than any bison on Earth. These creatures had a lot
of characteristics that were similar to terrestrial bison. There were
quote semicircular horns, the hump on its shoulders, and the
depth of its dew lap, and the length of its
(12:49):
shaggy hair. He also described the species as having quote
a remarkable fleshy appendage over the eyes which spanned across
the head from ear to ear so. According to this account,
Herschel is said to have guessed that this flap covering
the eyes would shield the animal from the extreme variations
in light and darkness that the moon would experience. Next
(13:13):
in his Moon's wildlife discoveries were creatures that the article
suspects would be classified as monsters on Earth. These were
small goat sized species that were the color of quote
bluish lead. Males had single horns and beards, and female
had neither horns nor beards, but did have longer tails
than the males did. They frolicked around like antelopes, and
(13:36):
they were very social creatures, and their antics, according to
this report, were quite delightful. Yeah. It goes on at
length about how they were jumping around and playing with
each other, and how all of the astronomers observing this
just were charmed to pieces. They were charmed by the
delightful monsters, by the delightful goat unicorn creatures that were blue.
(14:00):
There were also waterbirds a spied through this telescope, including
pelicans and cranes being the most common. These birds were
discovered along a branching river, and the astronomers watched this
river for some time hoping to get their eyes on
what they suspected might be lunar fish, but they were
not rewarded. But they did deduce that the fish must
(14:22):
have been there because the birds were seen dunking their
heads in the water, seemingly as a food gathering activity.
At this point in the observations, the lunar atmosphere, not
Earth's atmosphere, became too cloudy for them to be able
to see any further, and so the observers decided to
take a break. They were also pretty tired by that point,
so that ended the second installment of the New York
(14:44):
Suns series with kind of a cliffhanger. Yeah, at this
point they've introduced crazy animal species that have been seen
on the Moon, but there is so much more to come.
So on Thursday, August twenty seventh of eighteen thirty five,
the third installment of the Moon Discovery series was published.
The cloudy conditions that had halted their viewings for a
(15:07):
couple of nights cleared up on January thirteenth, and at
that point both the Moon's atmosphere and the Earth's were
clear quote one of pearly purity and loveliness, and as
the position of the Moon relative to the telescope's location
was getting ready to shift. Doctor Grant wrote that doctor
Herschel wanted to focus the entirety of the evening on
(15:28):
January thirteenth to just a few specific spots before that
shift happened. There is at this point in the narrative
additional topographical descriptions of the Moon's landscape, and these go
on and on for quite some lengths to detail there
are mountains, There are mountains made of crystal. There are
active and inactive volcanoes. There are incredibly fertile areas. At
(15:53):
one point, this third installment describes it as quote fertile
to excess in one passage. So it goes on a
lot about the landscape. Additional animals were identified as being
different from the ones that had been sighted on earlier viewings,
including larger versions of those bison creatures, as well as
(16:13):
numerous flocks of red and white birds. Herschel and his team,
according to this article, classified thirty eight different species of
lunar forest trees that night, and twice that number of
plants in the relatively small area where they were concentrating
their observations. They also cataloged nine mammal species and five
(16:35):
oviparous species. The mammals included beasts that look like little reindeer,
as well as elk and moose and horned bears, and
one that looked like a biped beaver, although apparently the
moon beavers had no tails, So the moon beaver gets
talked about a lot. It was very exciting, and it also,
again being biped, carried its young cradled in its arms
(16:59):
the same way that a human wood as it was
toodling around on its hind legs. And these lunar beavers
also constructed huts rather than dams, so they're a little
more archaeological or architecturally advanced. And this construction was described
as quote better and higher than those of many tribes
of human savages. And from the appearance of smoke in
(17:20):
nearly all of them, there is no doubt of its
being acquainted with the use of fire. So if you
do have the opportunity, which I encourage you to take,
to listen to the Memory Palace episode about this. One
of my favorite parts is about these beavers. When you're
reading the articles, the beaver part is just hilarious to me. Yeah,
(17:41):
because there's such excitement over these biped beavers that know
how to use fire. So south of where these beaver
type animals were seen was a dense forest where the
only animal scene was this large storklike bird. Not far
from the thickly wooded area was the largest lake that
was built, which was estimated to be one hundred and
(18:02):
ninety eight by two hundred and sixty six miles or
three hundred and nineteen by four hundred and twenty eight kilometers.
The lake reportedly contained volcanic islands. And before we talk
about a little bit of amazing flora seen on some
of these islands in this lake, do you want to
have a word from a sponsor. Sure, back to these
(18:30):
amazing volcanic islands discovered on the Moon. One of the
really fabulous and exciting discoveries there was that there were
moon palm trees. These were visually almost identical to Earth
palm trees, except that they blossomed with bright red flowers,
and they did not appear to bear fruits like date
(18:52):
or coconuts. However, in terms of fruit bearing trees, there
was a melon tree, and there were herds of many
zebras and birds that the team thought were pheasants. The
shores of this massive body of water were also filled
with shellfish, and as this third entry in the series
winds down, there is an attempt to describe the crystal
(19:15):
line vista that's surrounding these waters, although the curvature of
the moon and the Earth's rotation allows for no visibility
that they can identify the end of this particular segment
of landscape. So you may be thinking that the wonders
described up until this point were really pretty amazing, But
(19:35):
the fourth installment that was printed in the New York
Sun is even more incredible. This one appeared on Friday,
August twenty eighth, eighteen thirty five, and a lot of
people regard it as the most sensational of the six
parts of this cereal. So again, it starts, as previous entries,
with a lengthy description of the latest landscape that they're observing,
(19:58):
which featured bright red, perpendicular mi mountains and long veins
of what the team concluded were virgin gold. They also
describe another quadruped species, and these ones were observed to
be white, sheeplike beasts, but with long necks, and the
body is described almost deer like in shape. But with
longer front legs. So as I was trying to visualize this,
(20:21):
I was like, it's a sheep, deer, giraffe. But then
another group of animals is described that apparently looked exactly
like sheep, exactly like sheep, no visible variation at all,
and they were so obviously sheep, according to doctor Grant's account,
that it made all of the astronomers laugh. And then
(20:41):
doctor Grant's account drops the real bomb. A holy new
creature appeared in the telescope's view, and several groups of
winged creatures descended from a cliff face to land on
an open plane. Sir John Herschel is quoted in the
article as saying, quote, now, gentlemen, my theory is against
your proofs, which you have often found a pretty even bet.
(21:03):
We have here something worth looking at. I was confident
that if we ever found beings in human shape, it
would be in this longitude, and that they would be
provided by their creator with some extraordinary powers of locomotion.
First exchange for my number D. And so when he
asked for that exchange for number D. That refers to
(21:25):
a lens that Herschel wanted to use to more carefully
examine the scene before him. So adjustments were quickly made
to the telescope and everything was refocused, and the team
then viewed three groups of these beings walking erect and
these new creatures were indeed similar to humans. After more
focusing and more adjustments, these creatures were brought into clear
(21:47):
focus and they appeared to be about four feet or
one point two meters tall. They had copper colored fur
all over their bodies except for on their faces, and
their wings were like bat wings. Their faces were described
as quote a slight improvement upon that of the large orangutan.
It's actually spelled in this as orangutang, which delights me.
(22:14):
And they're described as seeming more intelligent than the earth primate,
the orangutan. Yeah. These bat people also had beards and
darker hair on their heads than on the rest of
their bodies. One of Herschel's assistants is quoted in Grant's
account as saying, quote, they would look as well on
a parade ground as some of the old Cockney militia.
(22:36):
Herschel and his team observed these beings in what appeared
to be impassioned conversation, gesturing to one another, just like
human beings would. This species was named by Herschel as
Vespertilio Homo man bat, and the valley where they lived
was named the Ruby Coliseum. The New York's Sun omitted
(22:59):
some of the passages from the notes at the behest
of doctor Grant, who apparently felt like those elements were
best shared by Sir Herschel himself. The Sun indicated that
the omitted material does quote contain facts which would be
wholly incredible to readers who do not carefully examine the
principles and capacity of the instrument with which these marvelous
(23:20):
discoveries have been made. The newspaper also indicates that sort
of their editorial opinion that when the entirety of this
work is published by Herschel, it is going to be
quote at once the most sublime in science and the
most intense in general interest that ever issued from the press.
(23:41):
And that is where we now, will cliffhang you. The
second episode of this two parter is going to finish
off doctor Grant's accounts of what Herschel observed on the Moon,
and then we'll talk about how all of this was
received by the public and by other newspapers, and even
by Sir John Herschel himself. Yeah, there's plenty more, although
(24:02):
we've given you probably the juiciest of the actual fauna discoveries.
Thank you so much for joining us for this Saturday classic.
Since this is out of the archive, if you heard
an email address or a Facebook URL or something similar
(24:23):
during the course of the show, that may be obsolete now,
so here is our current contact information. We are at
History Podcasts at HowStuffWorks dot com, and then we're at
Missed in History. All over social media. That is our
name on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Instagram. Thanks again
for listening. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
(24:46):
visit HowStuffWorks dot com.
Hi, Happy Saturday, everybody. I hope you're having a great
weekend if these are in fact your days off. Today
is the one hundred and eighty third anniversary of the
beginning of one of my favorite topics from the show,
The Great Moon Hoax, which is also a favorite episode
from the past archive. Other people like it because it's hilarious.
This is a two part episode which originally came out
in twenty fifteen. We're going to be sharing this one,
(00:24):
part one today this week, and next week you will
get part two. If you're an extra eager for part two, though,
you can find it on our website at missinhistory dot com,
and if you're subscribed to our show, you'll probably be
able to find it by searching your library on most
podcast apps, although all the various apps handle archival material
a little differently from one another regardless, though, enjoy Welcome
(00:50):
to Stuff You Missed in History Class from HowStuffWorks dot com. Hello,
Welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly cry and I'm Tracy B.
Wilson and who doesn't love a good hope story? So
that there's actually a news series that we're going to
talk about today, and we have to kind of air
(01:11):
quote the word news, but it's an important landmark in
journalism history as well as cultural history. It also involves
the history of mass media and even sort of a
lesson in gullibility and kind of crowd mentality. This is
a topic that The Memory Palace actually did a short
episode on back in twenty ten, and that episode is
called The Moon in the Sun, and it's worth a listen.
(01:34):
It is a brief but very enjoyable so conspiracy theories
and cartoons like tech Avery's The Cat that Hated People aside.
Do you remember that cartoon, Tracy, I do not. It
was about a cat who hated people. He lived in
New York City and so he got himself on a
rocket to the Moon so he could be alone and
enjoy it. But of course the moon was full of
crazy things that made him just as annoyed as Earth
(01:55):
and even more so, so much so that he figured
out a way to get back to Earth, and even
though New York did not treat him while he was
very happy. But we know that in fact that is
fallacious information, and that the moon is basically pretty empty.
There are some things there, but not crazy horn people
as shown in that cartoon walking around. But in eighteen
(02:16):
thirty five, a New York newspaper printed a series of
stories about amazing discoveries on the lunar landscape. And we
are first going to talk at length about the incredible
descriptions of the amazing things that were allegedly seen on
the lunar surface through a telescope. One thing I noticed
during my research about this news series is that the articles,
(02:39):
and again there are six of them, and they're very lengthy,
kind of get summarized to this point where it's like
two to five sentences about each one maybe and some
don't even cover that, and you lose a lot of
the amazing and sometimes crazy descriptions of these discoveries. So
Tracy and I are actually going to walk through the
text a lot more description. We're going to break down
(03:01):
a lot more of it. And that makes this a
two parter because there is a lot to talk about.
Even though we're not covering everything in that quote historical account,
because that would take hours, it's still going to take
quite a bit of time. And so this first part
we're going to talk a lot about those entries in
(03:22):
the New York Sun. The second part of this two
parter will wrap up the account as it was published
in serial form, and then we'll talk about kind of
the reception these claims got in sort of the atmosphere
of the culture at the time, and how that sort
of enabled and provided a fertile ground for this hoax
to happen. So before the series began, the small teaser
(03:43):
appeared in the New York Sun, and that was on
Friday August twenty first, eighteen thirty five. And this little
teaser read quote, we have just learnt from an eminent
publisher in this city that Sir John Herschel, at the
Cape of Good Hope has made some anomical discoveries of
the most wonderful description by means of an immense telescope
(04:05):
of an entirely new principle. And the city that was
being referenced in that sentence was Edinburgh. Yeah, that was
it was placed. Again, It was a tiny little teaser,
and it was placed as though it was put there
by the Edinburgh Current. Now, the first entry in this
series appeared in the paper on Tuesday, August twenty fifth,
still eighteen thirty five, so a few days later, so
(04:28):
that little teaser had been allowed to sit for a bit,
and it was titled quote great astronomical discoveries lately made
by Sir John Herschel, ld FRS at the Cape of
Good Hope, from the supplement to the Edinburgh Journal of Science.
Sir John Herschel is not an entirely new name on
the podcast. We mentioned him as the nephew of Caroline
(04:50):
Herschel in our episode on Astronomy's Cinderella. Yeah Well referenced
Caroline very briefly towards the end of the second episode.
But this article, this first entry, ran on the front
page of the New York Sun, and it took up
about seventy five percent of the front page, and it
opened with this, in this unusual addition to our journal,
(05:12):
we have the happiness of making known to the British public,
and thence to the whole civilized world, recent discoveries in
astronomy which will build an imperishable monument to the age
in which we live, and confer upon the present generation
of the human race a proud distinction through all future time.
And again they're placing this as though it had been
(05:33):
These were notes to the Edinburgh Journal of Science that
were then being reprinted in New York. It goes on
to build up the announcement before making it, and it
describes the awe of such a discovery and how it
makes us earth bound creatures feel almost like we suddenly
have supernatural powers. Herschel is described as setting up his
stupendous apparatus, which was this new telescope, which was quote
(05:57):
of vast dimensions and entirely new principle, and then he
is described as pausing for several hours before looking through it,
so that he could collect himself and prepare for the
discoveries that he was about to make. Yeah, the article
assured the reader at this point that Herschel was right
to do so because the things that he saw in
(06:18):
his first hour of observation are incomparable in the way
in which they're going to advance human knowledge. His telescope,
the article said, rendered his view of objects on the
lunar surface quote fully equal to that which the naked
eye commands of terrestrial objects at the distance of one
hundred yards. An important thing to note at this point
(06:39):
is that the article title makes it sort of sound
like it was written by Sir John Herschel, but the
actual entry is written as introduced from the point of
view of the newspaper reported to them through doctor Andrew Grant,
and that's who The New York Sun described as an
assistant to the astronomer. The son assured readers that the
(07:01):
notes that Grant had shared with the publication were almost
as thorough as thorough as those of Herschel himself. After
the intro, the articles then are framed as being written
by Andrew Grant himself. So the rest of the August
twenty fifth entry went on to describe in great detail
Herschel's telescope. And the reason for this lengthy description, and
(07:24):
I mean it is in great detail according to this article,
is that quote, a knowledge of the one is essential
to the credibility of the other. So they're kind of
setting it up that once readers understand how amazing this
telescope is, then they won't for a second doubt its
ability to see these things that no one else had
previously seen. It claimed that this apparatus was twenty four
(07:48):
feet in diameter or seven point three meters, and this
would have made it six times the size of the scalpe,
the telescope that his father, William Herschel had built. To
make some modern comparisons, the Hubble telescope is fourteen feet
or four point three meters in diameter. The Grand Telescopio
Canarius and the Canary Islands, which is currently the biggest
(08:11):
optic telescope on Earth, is thirty four feet or ten
point four meters in diameter. So it was basically claiming
that this telescope was huge, huge, even comparison to other
telescopes of today. Oh yeah, And at this point, remember
they're sort of building on this idea. You know, they're
(08:32):
referencing William Herschel, who at that point was a very
well known astronomer. The discovery of Uranus had happened in
the recent past, and so they're kind of building scientific
credibility by referencing him and talking about how his son
is advancing telescopic technology so much more. And apparently this
new telescope that they were describing, which was reported as
(08:56):
weighing nearly seven tons, also possessed a hydro oxygen my microscope,
so it combined telescopic technology with microscopic technology, and this
projected the telescopic image onto a screen of canvas and
allowed for clear magnification of far distant objects. How big
and clear did this article claim it made things. It
(09:16):
was reported that this telescope they're describing would have a
magnification of forty two thousand times. So this was the
first of the six entries and the series, and you
will notice it has said almost nothing about the moon yet. Yeah,
this is all set up at this point. And before
we get to the juicy stuff. Do you want to
pause for a word from a sponsor. Let's do, because
(09:38):
then we can have lots of juicy stuff close together.
So back to the New York Sun's account as relayed
to them by doctor Andrew Grant, of the work of
Sir John Herschel. The second entry that the newspaper published,
(10:00):
which was the next day, is where things really get cooking.
So in terms of descriptions, it really sort of blew
things wide open. It first established the timeline of Herschel
having left London on September fourth of eighteen thirty four,
transporting when he did this, his assistance and his new
lenses by ship to the Cape of Good Hope. And
(10:23):
it also described the installation of the telescope in great detail,
talking about like how it was laid out, how they
built a foundation for it, et cetera. Further establishing the
credibility of the discoveries they were about to share. The
New York Sun reported that the fateful day on which
Herschel turned his telescope to the moon was January tenth,
(10:44):
eighteen thirty five, at about nine thirty in the evening.
The lunar landscape, as seen through this telescope was, apparently,
to Herschel a greenish brown basaltic rock, and he also
saw that it was covered with dark red flats very
similar to poppies. This, the article claimed, was quote the
(11:04):
first organic production of nature in a foreign world ever
revealed to the eyes of men. He also recorded a
lunar forest which was said to resemble really large yew trees,
and the astronomer observed that as the moon shifted positions,
this was followed by a green plane and then a
(11:24):
forest of fir trees, and after adjusting the telescope's magnification,
Herschel and his assistant realized that they had also found
a body of water with beautiful beaches that were full
of white sand bordered by these green marble rocks. The
water appeared to be blue, just like it does on Earth,
and also seemed to experience tides. Yeah talks at length
(11:45):
about where they could see that the tides had hit
the rocks on the edge of one side of this
body of water. So, according to the information that doctor
Grant shared with the New York Sun, the landscape observations
that doctor Herschel and his team were doing went on
for almost two hours, and then after adjusting the lenses
(12:06):
of the telescope once more. There are often references throughout
all of these these articles of how they adjusted lenses
and switched things out. Then they observed various crystalline structures
in the landscape, and then a herd of quadrupeds was spotted.
So this herd of creatures was reported to be in
(12:28):
the shade of the forest, and the animals appeared to
be a lot like small bison, although very much smaller
than any bison on Earth. These creatures had a lot
of characteristics that were similar to terrestrial bison. There were
quote semicircular horns, the hump on its shoulders, and the
depth of its dew lap, and the length of its
(12:49):
shaggy hair. He also described the species as having quote
a remarkable fleshy appendage over the eyes which spanned across
the head from ear to ear so. According to this account,
Herschel is said to have guessed that this flap covering
the eyes would shield the animal from the extreme variations
in light and darkness that the moon would experience. Next
(13:13):
in his Moon's wildlife discoveries were creatures that the article
suspects would be classified as monsters on Earth. These were
small goat sized species that were the color of quote
bluish lead. Males had single horns and beards, and female
had neither horns nor beards, but did have longer tails
than the males did. They frolicked around like antelopes, and
(13:36):
they were very social creatures, and their antics, according to
this report, were quite delightful. Yeah. It goes on at
length about how they were jumping around and playing with
each other, and how all of the astronomers observing this
just were charmed to pieces. They were charmed by the
delightful monsters, by the delightful goat unicorn creatures that were blue.
(14:00):
There were also waterbirds a spied through this telescope, including
pelicans and cranes being the most common. These birds were
discovered along a branching river, and the astronomers watched this
river for some time hoping to get their eyes on
what they suspected might be lunar fish, but they were
not rewarded. But they did deduce that the fish must
(14:22):
have been there because the birds were seen dunking their
heads in the water, seemingly as a food gathering activity.
At this point in the observations, the lunar atmosphere, not
Earth's atmosphere, became too cloudy for them to be able
to see any further, and so the observers decided to
take a break. They were also pretty tired by that point,
so that ended the second installment of the New York
(14:44):
Suns series with kind of a cliffhanger. Yeah, at this
point they've introduced crazy animal species that have been seen
on the Moon, but there is so much more to come.
So on Thursday, August twenty seventh of eighteen thirty five,
the third installment of the Moon Discovery series was published.
The cloudy conditions that had halted their viewings for a
(15:07):
couple of nights cleared up on January thirteenth, and at
that point both the Moon's atmosphere and the Earth's were
clear quote one of pearly purity and loveliness, and as
the position of the Moon relative to the telescope's location
was getting ready to shift. Doctor Grant wrote that doctor
Herschel wanted to focus the entirety of the evening on
(15:28):
January thirteenth to just a few specific spots before that
shift happened. There is at this point in the narrative
additional topographical descriptions of the Moon's landscape, and these go
on and on for quite some lengths to detail there
are mountains, There are mountains made of crystal. There are
active and inactive volcanoes. There are incredibly fertile areas. At
(15:53):
one point, this third installment describes it as quote fertile
to excess in one passage. So it goes on a
lot about the landscape. Additional animals were identified as being
different from the ones that had been sighted on earlier viewings,
including larger versions of those bison creatures, as well as
(16:13):
numerous flocks of red and white birds. Herschel and his team,
according to this article, classified thirty eight different species of
lunar forest trees that night, and twice that number of
plants in the relatively small area where they were concentrating
their observations. They also cataloged nine mammal species and five
(16:35):
oviparous species. The mammals included beasts that look like little reindeer,
as well as elk and moose and horned bears, and
one that looked like a biped beaver, although apparently the
moon beavers had no tails, So the moon beaver gets
talked about a lot. It was very exciting, and it also,
again being biped, carried its young cradled in its arms
(16:59):
the same way that a human wood as it was
toodling around on its hind legs. And these lunar beavers
also constructed huts rather than dams, so they're a little
more archaeological or architecturally advanced. And this construction was described
as quote better and higher than those of many tribes
of human savages. And from the appearance of smoke in
(17:20):
nearly all of them, there is no doubt of its
being acquainted with the use of fire. So if you
do have the opportunity, which I encourage you to take,
to listen to the Memory Palace episode about this. One
of my favorite parts is about these beavers. When you're
reading the articles, the beaver part is just hilarious to me. Yeah,
(17:41):
because there's such excitement over these biped beavers that know
how to use fire. So south of where these beaver
type animals were seen was a dense forest where the
only animal scene was this large storklike bird. Not far
from the thickly wooded area was the largest lake that
was built, which was estimated to be one hundred and
(18:02):
ninety eight by two hundred and sixty six miles or
three hundred and nineteen by four hundred and twenty eight kilometers.
The lake reportedly contained volcanic islands. And before we talk
about a little bit of amazing flora seen on some
of these islands in this lake, do you want to
have a word from a sponsor. Sure, back to these
(18:30):
amazing volcanic islands discovered on the Moon. One of the
really fabulous and exciting discoveries there was that there were
moon palm trees. These were visually almost identical to Earth
palm trees, except that they blossomed with bright red flowers,
and they did not appear to bear fruits like date
(18:52):
or coconuts. However, in terms of fruit bearing trees, there
was a melon tree, and there were herds of many
zebras and birds that the team thought were pheasants. The
shores of this massive body of water were also filled
with shellfish, and as this third entry in the series
winds down, there is an attempt to describe the crystal
(19:15):
line vista that's surrounding these waters, although the curvature of
the moon and the Earth's rotation allows for no visibility
that they can identify the end of this particular segment
of landscape. So you may be thinking that the wonders
described up until this point were really pretty amazing, But
(19:35):
the fourth installment that was printed in the New York
Sun is even more incredible. This one appeared on Friday,
August twenty eighth, eighteen thirty five, and a lot of
people regard it as the most sensational of the six
parts of this cereal. So again, it starts, as previous entries,
with a lengthy description of the latest landscape that they're observing,
(19:58):
which featured bright red, perpendicular mi mountains and long veins
of what the team concluded were virgin gold. They also
describe another quadruped species, and these ones were observed to
be white, sheeplike beasts, but with long necks, and the
body is described almost deer like in shape. But with
longer front legs. So as I was trying to visualize this,
(20:21):
I was like, it's a sheep, deer, giraffe. But then
another group of animals is described that apparently looked exactly
like sheep, exactly like sheep, no visible variation at all,
and they were so obviously sheep, according to doctor Grant's account,
that it made all of the astronomers laugh. And then
(20:41):
doctor Grant's account drops the real bomb. A holy new
creature appeared in the telescope's view, and several groups of
winged creatures descended from a cliff face to land on
an open plane. Sir John Herschel is quoted in the
article as saying, quote, now, gentlemen, my theory is against
your proofs, which you have often found a pretty even bet.
(21:03):
We have here something worth looking at. I was confident
that if we ever found beings in human shape, it
would be in this longitude, and that they would be
provided by their creator with some extraordinary powers of locomotion.
First exchange for my number D. And so when he
asked for that exchange for number D. That refers to
(21:25):
a lens that Herschel wanted to use to more carefully
examine the scene before him. So adjustments were quickly made
to the telescope and everything was refocused, and the team
then viewed three groups of these beings walking erect and
these new creatures were indeed similar to humans. After more
focusing and more adjustments, these creatures were brought into clear
(21:47):
focus and they appeared to be about four feet or
one point two meters tall. They had copper colored fur
all over their bodies except for on their faces, and
their wings were like bat wings. Their faces were described
as quote a slight improvement upon that of the large orangutan.
It's actually spelled in this as orangutang, which delights me.
(22:14):
And they're described as seeming more intelligent than the earth primate,
the orangutan. Yeah. These bat people also had beards and
darker hair on their heads than on the rest of
their bodies. One of Herschel's assistants is quoted in Grant's
account as saying, quote, they would look as well on
a parade ground as some of the old Cockney militia.
(22:36):
Herschel and his team observed these beings in what appeared
to be impassioned conversation, gesturing to one another, just like
human beings would. This species was named by Herschel as
Vespertilio Homo man bat, and the valley where they lived
was named the Ruby Coliseum. The New York's Sun omitted
(22:59):
some of the passages from the notes at the behest
of doctor Grant, who apparently felt like those elements were
best shared by Sir Herschel himself. The Sun indicated that
the omitted material does quote contain facts which would be
wholly incredible to readers who do not carefully examine the
principles and capacity of the instrument with which these marvelous
(23:20):
discoveries have been made. The newspaper also indicates that sort
of their editorial opinion that when the entirety of this
work is published by Herschel, it is going to be
quote at once the most sublime in science and the
most intense in general interest that ever issued from the press.
(23:41):
And that is where we now, will cliffhang you. The
second episode of this two parter is going to finish
off doctor Grant's accounts of what Herschel observed on the Moon,
and then we'll talk about how all of this was
received by the public and by other newspapers, and even
by Sir John Herschel himself. Yeah, there's plenty more, although
(24:02):
we've given you probably the juiciest of the actual fauna discoveries.
Thank you so much for joining us for this Saturday classic.
Since this is out of the archive, if you heard
an email address or a Facebook URL or something similar
(24:23):
during the course of the show, that may be obsolete now,
so here is our current contact information. We are at
History Podcasts at HowStuffWorks dot com, and then we're at
Missed in History. All over social media. That is our
name on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Instagram. Thanks again
for listening. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
(24:46):
visit HowStuffWorks dot com.
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