How man-bats, unicorns and mini zebras were ‘discovered on the moon’

Man-bats, unicorns and beavers trotting around on two legs are just some of the things about 240,000 miles away from you right now. Exactly 189 years ago, on August 25, 1835, the New York newspaper The Sun – said to be in the same league as The New York Times – ran the first of six daily stories claiming that life had been discovered on the moon . Not lil green men, however.

Think tail-less beavers who walk on two legs, ‘spherical ‘amphibians and teeny tiny zebras. And other slightly not as fantastical critters and plant life like single-horned goats, small reindeer and lush forests. The six stories were all written by Dr Andrew Grant, described as a colleague of a top astronomer of the day who made the discoveries.

‘It is impossible to contemplate any great astronomical discovery without feelings closely allied to a sensation of awe,’ the first story began. In, well, luminous detail, the article detailed the lush vegetation that covers our closest celestial neighbour, including trees like the ‘yews in English courtyards’. Oceans, beaches, temples and ‘a lofty chain of obelisk-shaped, or very slender pyramids, standing in irregular groups’ littered the white lump of rock.

Bison, meanwhile, roamed around with shades over their eyes to protect them from the extremes of light and dark. These were all, according to the headline, ‘GREAT ASTRONOMICAL DISCOVERIES’ made by John Herschel, an English mathematician and astronomer. Herschel had ‘affirmatively se.