Newspaper Hoaxes: The Great Moon Hoax of 1835 Didn't Need the Internet to Spread

Newspaper readers of 1835 didn't have the Internet to relay hoaxes to them, but they did have the New York Sun (no relation to the current NY Sun) to pass along the Great Moon Hoax.
I'm indebted to answers.com for alerting me to the fact that on this date in 1835, the New York Sun published the first of six articles reporting the discovery of life on the moon. Like all good in-print hoaxes, the report referenced an authoritative source (Edinburgh Journal of Science), and "quoted" a known authority (astronomer Sir John Herschel). Unlike Internet hoaxes, however, the articles did not end with "FORWARD THIS TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW."
For details of the hoax, including an illustration of temple-building bat-like winged humanoids, click here.
The reported findings are so bizarre, it's hard to believe anyone, even in 1835, would be convinced. But then when I think about some of the bizarre emails forwarded to me from otherwise intelligent, educated individuals, I realize how powerful the gullibility gene is. The gullibility gene, by the way, was discovered by researchers at the UCLA Medical Center in 2003. They were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2005.