The Great Moon Hoax of 1835: stretch · Grade 8

The passage and its 8 questions

Directions: Read the passage carefully. Then answer the questions in full sentences.

• In late August 1835, readers of a cheap New York newspaper opened its pages to astonishing news. A famous British astronomer, Sir John Herschel, had supposedly built an enormous new telescope at the Cape of Good Hope in southern Africa, and through it he had seen living creatures on the Moon.
• Over six installments, the articles described the discoveries in loving detail: herds of brown, bison-like animals, a blue goat with a single horn, beavers that walked on two legs and lived in huts, and finally a race of winged, furry people who seemed to talk to one another with lively gestures. The writing was calm, scientific and full of technical-sounding language about lenses and light.
• Many readers believed every word. Other newspapers rushed to reprint the story, and crowds gathered to buy the next issue. The articles claimed to come from a respected
• Scottish science journal, which gave them an air of authority. Few readers knew that the journal had actually stopped publishing some years earlier.
• Herschel really was at the Cape, studying the southern skies, but he had nothing to do with the story. He reportedly found it amusing at first and grew tired of it later, when people kept asking him about the Moon's inhabitants.
• The hoax is usually credited to a reporter named Richard Adams Locke. Why did it work so well? It borrowed the name of a real scientist, it cited a source that sounded trustworthy but could not easily be checked, and it gave people a story they wanted to believe. It also arrived at a time when news from distant places took weeks to travel by ship, so nobody could quickly verify it.
• Today, rumors can circle the planet in seconds rather than weeks. The tricks, however, have barely changed: a familiar name, an official-sounding source and a thrilling claim.
• Before sharing something astonishing, a careful reader asks the questions that could have exposed the Moon hoax in 1835. Who wrote this? Where did it really come from?
• Can anyone else confirm it?
• 1. Whose name did the articles borrow, and where was he really?
• 2. Why do you think the writer used calm, technical-sounding language instead of excited language?
• 3. What does the word 'verify' mean in paragraph 5?
• 4. Copy the sentence that explains why the claimed source made the story seem trustworthy.
• 5. The author names three tricks that "have barely changed." List them and give a modern example of one.
• 6. What is the author's purpose in the final paragraph?
• 7. Find a word in the passage that was new or tricky for you. What do you think it means? Which words around it helped you?
• 8. Write a one-paragraph summary that a younger student could understand.