At the end of August of the 1835, the New York Sun, a serious newspaper, astonished to its readers with a series of articles, serious, on carried out findings thanks to the use of a novel telescope by John Herschel, one of the most famous astronomers of the time. The first discoveries were exciting, but the last one seemed almost incredible: the Moon was inhabited by a man-bat tribe.

The first article of the series was published the 25 of August in page two, under the title of Celestial Discoveries. A fragment of which it said: We finished knowing thanks to an eminent publisher of this city that Sir John Herschel in the Cape of Good Hope, has realised wonderful astronomical discoveries, by means of the use of an immense telescope that works thanks to a totally new principle.

According to the article, Herschel had gone to South Africa in January of 1834, and had installed an observatory in the Cape Town. Three columns of front page of the Sun contained an extracted history of the Edinburgh Journal of Science. The article was signed by supposed called doctor Andrew Grant, a supposed colleague of Herschel, and explained the technical advances that the new telescope incorporated.

The articles of 26 and 27 already described what Sir John had been able to see while watched the Moon through its telescope. The articles offered fascinating descriptions of the lunar topography that included vast forests, craters, Great Lakes, the oceans and beaches. The readers could also know that herds of bisons grazed by the plains of the Moon, that unicornios blue took a walk by their summits or that amphibious creatures of spherical form rolled by their beaches. The lunar fauna not only limited itself these creatures, also counted on pelicans, crabs, zebras, Altogether it had entered up to 9 species of mammals.

By then, all the city spoke of these discoveries, but still it was the final revelation, that would appear day 28, the discovery of a primitive tribe of hairy humanoides and with wings that lived in perfect harmonía around a temple of gilded tile roof. Herschel would call vespertilio-homo, man bat. In later numbers they went offering more details of this Lunar Temple, constructed of sapphire and whose tile roof was held by columns of 21 meters of height. Also I can be known that these batman lived in cabins, higher and better constructed than those of many wild human tribes, and who knew the fire.

At the moment that the interest of the readers had reached maximums, the Sun had to inform that unfortunately the telescope of the miracles in a negligence had been left oriented the Sun and the solar rays concentrates by the lenses had burned an average circle of seven meters and in the ground of the observatory having left it unsuitable.

The New York Sun, founded on 1833, was one of the newspapers of press to a penny, that they tried to attract more readers with a cheaper price and a more narrative journalistic style. The day of the first article of the series its distance was of 15,000 units and the day that appeared the news of the discovery of the man-bat arrived at the 19,360 units. At those moments the New York Sun could be conceited to be periodic with the greatest distance of the entire world.

The rival newspapers were desperate. Many of them pretended to have obtained a copy of original articles and also they spoke of history, although really they reprinted articles of the Sun. Others on the contrary were abiertamente skeptical on the question. In a published article of the 29 of August in the New York Commercial Advertiser, the contributor wondered itself how somebody with common sense could think that a history thus, with preparations that lasted years - a lens of more than 7 meters of diameter - a grant of 10,000 pounds done by the King, could have unnoticed past to British newspapers.

Although one would take several weeks in discovering it, the time it ended up giving the reason to the skeptics, in spite of being a sensational history, was totally false. Herschel neither had observed life on the Moon nor had carried out no of the technical advances that were attributed to him in the article. In fact, Herschel did not find out past history until a time, then, as correctly it affirmed the article, was in Cape Town, although making astronomical observations. Once one found out the news took it with humor, perhaps because it knew that their own observations never would get to be so amazing. Nevertheless, she would begin to bother itself when the people who thought that history was real began to him to make questions.

The supposed source of the information, the Edinburgh Journal of Science, in fact had disappeared years ago. And the supposed author, Andrew Grant, did not exist either. He thinks myself that most probable he is than the true inventor of history was Richard Adams Locke, a reporter of the Sun that had studied in the University of Cambridge, although he admitted never it publicly, and he always thought that there were implied others: the French astronomer Jean-Nicholas Nicollet, who was of visit in the United States, and the reporter Lewis Gaylord Clark.

Assuming that Locke was the author, most probable it is than its intention was to create a history sensationalist to increase the sales of the newspaper and of step to ridicule some of the astronomical theories more outlandish than those of the Reverendo had been published until now, especially Thomas Dick. Dick, whose writings were enormously popular in the United States, had calculated in one of his best-sellers that the Solar System contained 21.891.974.404.480 inhabitants. Number that can seem exaggerated, but is not it whether according to those same calculations the Moon or counted on a population of 4,200 million.

In any case the majority of readers was incapable to recognize the authentic intentions of the author and was captivated by history. And although still nowadays there is one is discussed if people really believed history or were only taken it like an exciting subject of social gathering, numerous testimonies of the time assure to us that credulity was generalized. It is worth as it shows the visit that a committee of scientists of the University of Yale did to the writing of the New York Sun with the intention to see original articles. And although they were been annoying by the employees of the Sun sending them of here for there, and were incapable to see the original ones, that they did not exist, the scientists returned to New Haven without realizing deceit.

In spite of the intense public debate that woke up history, the Sun never admitted publicly that everything had been a deceit. The 16 of September of the same year, the newspaper published a column in which it discussed the possibility that history was lie, but did not confess anything. Rather the opposite, according to said: some correspondents you have not been urgent so that we confess that everything was a ruse, but we cannot make such thing, until we do not have the testimony of English and Scottish newspapers to corroborate such declaration.

Some saw in this almost-confession an attempt of humiliation of the rival newspapers, that were in evidence to the salary made happen through own the information which they copied of the Sun. People generally received the news positively and the sales of the newspaper apparently were not suffered.

Years later, the 13 of April of 1844, The Sun would return to take to its pages another history invented but presented/displayed like real, The Balloon-Hoax, this time written by Edgar Allan Poe. This, hoax of the globe, narrated the history of a certain Monck Mason that had been able to cross the Atlantic on board its globe in only 3 days. History also caused great commotion. Thanks to the mixture of fictitious real personages with and a great amount of technical details that seemed credible, Poe secured a history of most credible at a time of blind faith in the technical progress.

The Sun continued working until the 1950, when it megred with the New York World-Telegram, the resulting newspaper held until 1967 when it disappeared definitively. It agrees to stress that during all their life a newspaper was considered serious, like the other two newspapers of the city, the New York Times and the New York Herald Tribune, that yes were more successful. The Sun was most preservative of the three as far as political ideas.

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