5. The Great Moon Hoax
We seem to think of alien hoaxes as a 20th century phenomenon, but this stunt happened way back in 1835 when an American paper called ‘The Sun’ claimed to have observed life on the moon. A story was fabricated about illustrious astronomer Sir John Herschel spotting bat-like humanoids, unicorns, beavers and even bison on the lunar surface.
Sir John was initially amused by the hoax, but later grew sick of being asked about the scam throughout his life. Circulation of The Sun skyrocketed after the moon hoax – and it never issued a retraction of the story.
