On this episode of Our American Stories, decades before Orson Welles’s War of the Worlds shocked the nation, a New York newspaper convinced thousands of Americans that the Moon was teeming with life. Beginning on August 25, 1835, The Sun published a sensational series claiming that famed English astronomer Sir John Herschel had discovered a lunar civilization populated by bat-like humanoids, strange beaver creatures, miniature zebras, and other bizarre lifeforms. For a time, America believed it. However, it was all a hoax.

Our regular contributor, Ashley Hlebinsky, shares the story of the Great Moon Hoax of 1835: a tale of fake news before the internet, the explosive rise of the penny press, and one of the strangest media frenzies in American history.

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