Moon Men, Giants, and Burning Bodies: Inside the New York Sun’s 19th-Century Hoaxes

0:00 Speaker 1: Dear listeners, there was a time when ink was authority

0:03 Speaker 1: and imagination wore a lab coat. In the eighteen hundreds,

0:08 Speaker 1: newspapers didn't just report the world, they expanded it. Giants

0:12 Speaker 1: were unearthed, mermaids were spotted, people burst into flames, and

0:17 Speaker 1: entire cities were said to lie frozen beneath the ice.

0:21 Speaker 1: Tonight were stepping back into an age when belief traveled

0:25 Speaker 1: faster than proof, and wonder was printed as fact. Welcome

0:31 Speaker 1: to the Strange History Podcast. Today we dive into the

0:35 Speaker 1: New York Sun and how its fantastical stories created a

0:38 Speaker 1: newspaper empire. In August of eighteen thirty five, readers of

0:43 Speaker 1: The New York Sun were treated to what appeared to

0:45 Speaker 1: be the scientific breakthrough of the century. Across six serialized articles,

0:51 Speaker 1: the paper announced that life had been discovered on the Moon,

0:54 Speaker 1: not microbial hints or vague shadows, but complex ecosystems, intelligent beings,

1:01 Speaker 1: and architecture. The tone was calm, academic, and devastatingly convincing.

1:08 Speaker 1: The series claimed to be a reprint from the Edinburgh

1:11 Speaker 1: Journal of Science and was attributed to a respected astronomer

1:15 Speaker 1: working with a revolutionary telescope that used an advanced lens

1:18 Speaker 1: system and hydro oxygen microscopy. This device, readers were told

1:25 Speaker 1: could magnify lunar features to the point where individual animals

1:29 Speaker 1: could be observed moving across the surface. The telescope itself

1:33 Speaker 1: was described in loving technical detail, huge lenses, precise measurements,

1:39 Speaker 1: and optical terminology just obscure enough to feel authentic. The

1:44 Speaker 1: first article set the stage. It described sweeping lunar landscapes,

1:49 Speaker 1: rolling planes, deep valleys, rivers, and forests of red and

1:54 Speaker 1: purple vegetation. According to the report, the moon was not

1:58 Speaker 1: a dead rock, but a thriving world with a climate

2:02 Speaker 1: suitable for life. One passage described a luxuriant growth of

2:07 Speaker 1: vegetation along the edges of lunar seas, carefully noting their

2:12 Speaker 1: dimensions and geological features as if lifted from a real

2:16 Speaker 1: field study. The second and third articles escalated quickly. Observers

2:21 Speaker 1: allegedly spotted animals resembling bison, goats, and unicorn like creatures

2:26 Speaker 1: with a single horn. These weren't presented as fantastical monsters,

2:31 Speaker 1: but as logical evolutionary responses to lunar gravity and atmosphere.

2:36 Speaker 1: One account calmly noted herds grazing peacefully, as if the

2:40 Speaker 1: Moon were just another unexplored continent waiting to be mapped.

2:44 Speaker 1: Then came the part everyone remembers. In the fourth article,

2:48 Speaker 1: the authors introduced the moon's most astonishing inhabitants, humanoid beings

2:53 Speaker 1: roughly four feet tall, covered in copper colored hair, with

2:57 Speaker 1: large bat like wings. They were described as intelligent, social,

3:02 Speaker 1: and capable of flight. The article referred to them as

3:06 Speaker 1: vespertilio homo, a Latinized name that instantly lent authority. These

3:13 Speaker 1: beings lived in groups, communicated with gestures, and built simple

3:17 Speaker 1: shelters near rivers and forests. One passage described them gathering

3:22 Speaker 1: in what appeared to be communal spaces, possibly for conversation

3:26 Speaker 1: or worship. The fifth article went even further, claiming the

3:30 Speaker 1: discovery of elaborate lunar temples made of sapphire like stone.

3:34 Speaker 1: These structures were said to gleam in the sunlight, arranged

3:38 Speaker 1: symmetrically and suggesting not just intelligence, but culture, esthetics, and religion.

3:45 Speaker 1: The implication was staggering. Humanity was no longer alone and

3:49 Speaker 1: might not even be the most spiritually advanced species in

3:53 Speaker 1: the cosmos. The final article abruptly ended the observations. According

3:58 Speaker 1: to the report, the powerful telescope had been destroyed when

4:02 Speaker 1: sunlight overheated the lens, rendering further study impossible. This detail

4:08 Speaker 1: was crucial. It neatly explained why no one else could

4:11 Speaker 1: verify the claims. The moon had revealed its secrets and

4:15 Speaker 1: then slammed the door shut. Public reaction was immediate and intense.

4:20 Speaker 1: Other newspapers reprinted the articles in full. Coffee houses buzzed

4:25 Speaker 1: with debate. Clergy openly discussed whether lunar beings had souls

4:30 Speaker 1: and whether salvation applied beyond earth. Some religious leaders saw

4:34 Speaker 1: the discovery as proof of divine creativity, while others quietly

4:38 Speaker 1: panicked if intelligent beings existed elsewhere, what did that mean

4:43 Speaker 1: for humanity's place in creation. A few astronomers raised concerns

4:48 Speaker 1: the descriptions didn't quite align with known lunar conditions. The

4:52 Speaker 1: supposed telescope violated basic principles of optics. The Edinburgh Journal

4:58 Speaker 1: of Science never published such a report, but skepticism struggled

5:02 Speaker 1: to compete with awe. The writing was too confident, too detailed,

5:07 Speaker 1: too reasonable. This wasn't wild fantasy, it was science flavored wonder. Eventually,

5:15 Speaker 1: the truth became unavoidable. The journal didn't exist, the telescope

5:20 Speaker 1: was impossible. The story was a fabrication, likely written by

5:24 Speaker 1: journalist Richard Adams Locke as satire, exaggeration, or possibly a

5:29 Speaker 1: calculated circulation stunt. The Sun never issued a formal apology.

5:34 Speaker 1: It didn't need to. Its readership had skyrocketed, the paper

5:39 Speaker 1: had won. What makes the Great Moon Hoax endure isn't

5:43 Speaker 1: just that people believed it. It's why they believed it.

5:46 Speaker 1: The hoax succeeded because it exploited a perfect moment in history,

5:51 Speaker 1: a public hungry for discovery, dazzled by scientific progress, and

5:55 Speaker 1: unaccustomed to questioning authoritative print. The articles didn't demand belief,

6:01 Speaker 1: they earned it, line by line, with plausible detail and

6:05 Speaker 1: scholarly restraint. For a brief moment in eighteen thirty five,

6:10 Speaker 1: the moon wasn't a distant symbol or poetic backdrop. It

6:14 Speaker 1: was alive, and humanity wanted that to be true, just

6:17 Speaker 1: badly enough to forget to ask harder questions concern.

6:21 Speaker 2: You may forget entire civilizations beneath the ice. Then you

6:25 Speaker 2: need Professor Thatchwick's Arctic Memory Salts, the only tonic scientifically

6:30 Speaker 2: inspired by things we swear explorers definitely saw just one spoonful,

6:35 Speaker 2: sharpens the mind, restores lost recollections, and may help you

6:39 Speaker 2: remember cities that history inconveniently forgot. Side effects include vivid hallucinations,

6:45 Speaker 2: unearned confidence, and loudly correcting historians at dinner parties available

6:50 Speaker 2: at apothecaries, ship chandlers, and any newspaper willing to print

6:53 Speaker 2: the word confirmed.

6:56 Speaker 1: Let's move on to the eighteen forties, when the New

6:58 Speaker 1: York Sun began telling readers something extraordinary. The land beneath

7:03 Speaker 1: their feet once belonged to giants, not metaphorical giants, literal ones,

7:09 Speaker 1: towering humans eight to twelve feet tall, whose enormous bones

7:14 Speaker 1: were allegedly being unearthed during canal construction, railroad expansion, and

7:19 Speaker 1: the excavation of ancient earthen mounds. And at the center

7:24 Speaker 1: of this growing fascination was the ever enthusiastic New York Sun,

7:29 Speaker 1: which treated these discoveries not as folklore but as serious

7:33 Speaker 1: archaeological revelations. The articles followed a familiar and effective formula.

7:39 Speaker 1: A labor crew would be digging, often along a canal

7:42 Speaker 1: or railroad cut, when their shovels struck something unnatural bones

7:47 Speaker 1: too large, skulls too wide, femurs that dwarfed those of

7:52 Speaker 1: any known human. The Sun reported these fines with scholarly restraint,

7:57 Speaker 1: citing local doctors, professors, or gentlemen of science who had

8:03 Speaker 1: examined the remains and confirmed their astonishing size. Measurements were

8:08 Speaker 1: always included a jawbone capable of swallowing two fists, teeth

8:13 Speaker 1: twice the size of a modern man's vertebrae, described as

8:17 Speaker 1: massive beyond comparison. One widely circulated account described a skeleton

8:23 Speaker 1: uncovered in the Midwest measuring over ten feet in length,

8:27 Speaker 1: found buried alongside oversized stone tools and weapons. The implication

8:32 Speaker 1: was unavoidable. Whoever these people were, they were not only enormous,

8:37 Speaker 1: but technologically capable. Another article placed giant remains within ancient

8:42 Speaker 1: Native American burial mounds, suggesting a lost civilization that predated

8:47 Speaker 1: known indigenous cultures. This framing was deliberate and dangerous. It

8:53 Speaker 1: aligned neatly with a popular nineteenth century belief that America's

8:57 Speaker 1: ancient earthworks must have been built by a vanished race,

9:01 Speaker 1: not by native peoples still living on the land. As

9:04 Speaker 1: the stories multiplied, so did the claims some giants were

9:08 Speaker 1: said to have double rows of teeth. Others had elongated

9:12 Speaker 1: skulls or unusual bone density. A few reports suggested entire

9:17 Speaker 1: cemeteries of giants, implying a once widespread race wiped out

9:22 Speaker 1: by catastrophe or conflict. The Sun rarely claimed certainty, but

9:27 Speaker 1: it didn't need to. Each article ended with a familiar refrain,

9:32 Speaker 1: the remains had been sent east for further examination. Experts

9:36 Speaker 1: would report soon science would decide it never did. The

9:41 Speaker 1: bones always disappeared, lost in transit, misplaced, quietly, reburied. Museums

9:48 Speaker 1: never displayed them, Universities never cataloged them. No verified specimen

9:53 Speaker 1: ever survived scrutiny. Yet this absence only fueled speculation. If

9:58 Speaker 1: giants had existed, why wasn't history talking about them? What

10:02 Speaker 1: else had been erased? The timing of these stories mattered.

10:06 Speaker 1: The United States was expanding rapidly westward, uncovering ancient sites

10:11 Speaker 1: faster than scholars could properly study them. Archaeology was still

10:15 Speaker 1: in its infancy. Newspapers filled the gap with imagination, authority

10:20 Speaker 1: and urgency. Readers trusted print. If a paper set a

10:25 Speaker 1: skeleton was twelve feet tall, who was the average reader

10:28 Speaker 1: to argue? Religious interpretations followed quickly. Some saw the giants

10:34 Speaker 1: as confirmation of Biblical passages, describing the Nephelim, ancient beings

10:38 Speaker 1: of great stature who lived before a divine reckoning. Others

10:42 Speaker 1: framed them as evidence that humanity itself had degenerated over time,

10:46 Speaker 1: shrinking physically and spiritually from a more powerful past. The

10:51 Speaker 1: giants became a mirror, reflecting whatever fear or hope the

10:54 Speaker 1: reader already carried. Skeptics existed, but their voices were quiet.

11:00 Speaker 1: It was far more exciting to believe that America sat

11:03 Speaker 1: atop the bones of Titans than to accept that many

11:06 Speaker 1: of these discoveries were misidentified animal remains, exaggerated measurements, or

11:12 Speaker 1: outright fabrications. In some cases, mastodon or mammoth bones were

11:18 Speaker 1: mistaken for human in others. The stories appeared to have

11:22 Speaker 1: been invented wholesale, never meant to last, only to captivate,

11:27 Speaker 1: and captivate they did. By the late nineteenth century, the

11:32 Speaker 1: idea of ancient giants was woven firmly into American folklore.

11:37 Speaker 1: It appeared in sermons, schoolhouse debates, and later fringe archaeology.

11:43 Speaker 1: The sun didn't invent the myth, but it industrialized it,

11:46 Speaker 1: giving giants headlines, measurements, and just enough scientific polish to

11:50 Speaker 1: make them feel real. Like the Great Moon Hoax, the

11:54 Speaker 1: Giant discoveries revealed something deeper than their subject matter. They

11:58 Speaker 1: exposed a public hungry for lost worlds and hidden truths,

12:03 Speaker 1: and willing to trust confident storytelling over careful verification. The

12:08 Speaker 1: giants never needed to exist physically. They lived just fine

12:12 Speaker 1: in ink, and for a generation of readers, America was

12:16 Speaker 1: no longer just young and expanding. It was ancient, mysterious,

12:21 Speaker 1: and once ruled by beings far larger than life.

12:25 Speaker 2: Tired of boring facts getting in the way of a

12:27 Speaker 2: good story, subscribe to The Sun, the paper that bravely

12:31 Speaker 2: asks what if it's true?

12:33 Speaker 3: Though?

12:34 Speaker 2: From lunar Batman to giants in your backyard, we bring

12:37 Speaker 2: you tomorrow's myth today, with expert quotes, Latin names, and

12:42 Speaker 2: absolutely no follow up. The Sun. If it's in print,

12:47 Speaker 2: it must be real.

12:49 Speaker 1: In the nineteenth century, few deaths inspired as much dread

12:54 Speaker 1: and morbid fascination as spontaneous human combustion. According to newspapers,

13:00 Speaker 1: medical pamphlets, and repeated reports in the New York Sun,

13:04 Speaker 1: ordinary people were allegedly bursting into flames without warning, reduced

13:08 Speaker 1: to ash, while their surroundings remained inexplicably untouched and the

13:13 Speaker 1: most chilling part. These incidents weren't treated as rumor. They

13:17 Speaker 1: were treated as settled fact. The typical article followed a

13:21 Speaker 1: now familiar structure. A body, often elderly, frequently living alone,

13:27 Speaker 1: was discovered in a room that showed almost no signs

13:30 Speaker 1: of fire damage. A chair might be singed, a table

13:33 Speaker 1: slightly scorched, but the victim themselves was described as nearly obliterated,

13:38 Speaker 1: torso reduced to cinders, limbs partially intact, skull cracked by heat.

13:44 Speaker 1: One report noted that the feet were often left behind,

13:47 Speaker 1: still wearing slippers, as if the fire had politely avoided

13:51 Speaker 1: the floor. The sun in similar papers emphasized these details relentlessly.

13:57 Speaker 1: Windows were unbroken, candles were unlit, fireplaces were cold. There

14:02 Speaker 1: was no external source of ignition. Doctors were quoted as

14:06 Speaker 1: being baffled. Coroners admitted confusion. The conclusion, sometimes stated outright,

14:12 Speaker 1: sometimes allowed to hang in the air, was unavoidable. The

14:16 Speaker 1: fire had come from within. Alcohol quickly became the favored explanation.

14:22 Speaker 1: Many victims were described as habitual drinkers, and newspapers confidently

14:27 Speaker 1: suggested that years of spirits had rendered the human body flammable.

14:32 Speaker 1: One article explained that alcohol saturated the tissues, turning a

14:37 Speaker 1: person into a kind of walking tinderbox. The implication was

14:41 Speaker 1: moral as much as medical. Spontaneous combustion wasn't just a mystery,

14:46 Speaker 1: it was a warning. Other explanations followed. Some physicians speculated

14:51 Speaker 1: about internal chemical reactions, electrical forces, or unknown gases building

14:56 Speaker 1: up inside the body. A few leaned toward divine punishment,

15:01 Speaker 1: carefully avoiding outright sermons while still letting readers connect the dots.

15:06 Speaker 1: The language was cautious, but theatrical. The sun didn't say

15:10 Speaker 1: this will happen to you, It said this has already

15:13 Speaker 1: happened to others. The repetition mattered. These were not presented

15:17 Speaker 1: as isolated anomalies. Articles appeared again and again from England

15:23 Speaker 1: to France to America, creating the sense of a widespread,

15:26 Speaker 1: ongoing phenomenon. Each new case reinforced the last. If so

15:32 Speaker 1: many people had burned without cause, how could the explanation

15:35 Speaker 1: be anything but spontaneous. Even literature joined in. Charles Dickens

15:41 Speaker 1: famously included spontaneous combustion and bleak house, defending it vigorously

15:46 Speaker 1: when critics accused him of sensationalism, Dickens cited real newspaper accounts,

15:52 Speaker 1: many drawn from the same pool of stories circulated by

15:55 Speaker 1: the Sun and its contemporaries, as proof that the phenomenon

15:59 Speaker 1: was genus u in. Fiction and journalism fed each other

16:03 Speaker 1: until combustion felt not just possible but inevitable. Skeptics did exist.

16:10 Speaker 1: Some doctors quietly argued that slow burning fires ignited by candles, pipes,

16:15 Speaker 1: or embers could smolder for hours, consuming a body while

16:20 Speaker 1: leaving a room largely intact. The Wick effect, where human

16:24 Speaker 1: fat fuels a localized fire like a candle, was occasionally suggested,

16:29 Speaker 1: though not fully understood at the time, but these explanations

16:33 Speaker 1: lacked drama and drama in the eighteen hundreds sold papers.

16:39 Speaker 1: What readers absorbed instead was fear. If the human body

16:43 Speaker 1: could betray itself so violently, safety was an illusion. Death

16:47 Speaker 1: wasn't just lurking outside, It was already inside you, waiting

16:52 Speaker 1: for the wrong chemical moment. Spontaneous combustion turned the body

16:57 Speaker 1: into an unstable object, something no longer fully under human control.

17:03 Speaker 1: By the late nineteenth century, medical science began to catch up.

17:07 Speaker 1: Improved forensic methods and a better understanding of fire behavior

17:12 Speaker 1: quietly dismantled the mystery. Spontaneous combustion faded from serious discussion,

17:18 Speaker 1: reclassified as misinterpreted accidents rather than supernatural events. But the

17:24 Speaker 1: damage or the enchantment was done. Like the Great Moon

17:30 Speaker 1: Hoax and the giants of Ancient America, spontaneous human combustion

17:35 Speaker 1: thrived because it arrived dressed as authority. It was repeated, sighted, measured,

17:42 Speaker 1: and soberly discussed. It didn't ask readers to believe in magic.

17:47 Speaker 1: It asked them to trust the paper, and for decades

17:50 Speaker 1: they did. Because nothing is quite as terrifying or irresistible

17:56 Speaker 1: as the idea that the greatest danger you face might

17:59 Speaker 1: be yourself, quietly waiting to ignite.

18:03 Speaker 2: Do you own an ancient civilization accidentally buried under ice?

18:08 Speaker 2: Call polar Realty the leading firm and forgotten empires and

18:12 Speaker 2: inaccessible ruins. We specialize in cities that briefly appeared, vanished mysteriously,

18:18 Speaker 2: and left no physical evidence whatsoever. No streets, no problem,

18:23 Speaker 2: no artifacts. Even better, Polar Realty, if you can imagine it,

18:28 Speaker 2: we can almost find it.

18:31 Speaker 1: In the eighteen fifties, at the height of maritime exploration

18:34 Speaker 1: and scientific bravado, newspapers began suggesting that one of humanity's

18:39 Speaker 1: oldest myths had finally crossed the line into verified reality.

18:44 Speaker 1: According to reports circulated and amplified by the New York Sun,

18:48 Speaker 1: sailors in the South Pacific had encountered, and in some accounts,

18:52 Speaker 1: temporarily captured, a living mermaid, not a stitched carnival oddity,

18:57 Speaker 1: not a grotesque fake, a real, wreathing, intelligent being observed

19:01 Speaker 1: by credible men at sea. The articles were careful to

19:05 Speaker 1: distance themselves from earlier frauds. Readers were reminded subtly that

19:09 Speaker 1: this was not one of P. T. Barnum's infamous taxidermy curiosities.

19:14 Speaker 1: This creature was described as anatomically coherent, alive, and capable

19:19 Speaker 1: of movement and expression. From the waist up, she appeared

19:23 Speaker 1: unmistakably human, feminine facial features, long dark hair, expressive eyes.

19:29 Speaker 1: Below the waist, a powerful fish tail, scaled and muscular,

19:33 Speaker 1: adapted perfectly for ocean travel. The Sun leaned heavily on

19:38 Speaker 1: eyewitness testimony. Naval officers, ship surgeons, and seasoned sailors were

19:43 Speaker 1: quoted as calm observers, not excitable storytellers. One report claimed

19:48 Speaker 1: the mermaid had been seen resting on rocks near a

19:50 Speaker 1: remote island, watching ships pass with what was described as

19:54 Speaker 1: curiosity rather than fear. Another alleged she was briefly restrained

19:59 Speaker 1: in shallow water, during which time observers noted her breathing patterns,

20:03 Speaker 1: vocal sounds, and resistance. Details meant to reassure readers that

20:08 Speaker 1: this was biological observation, not fantasy. Scientific framing did most

20:14 Speaker 1: of the work. The articles suggested the mermaid might represent

20:18 Speaker 1: a missing evolutionary link, a branch of humanity adapted fully

20:22 Speaker 1: to marine life. Comparisons were drawn to seals, dew goongs,

20:27 Speaker 1: and newly cataloged species that blurred the lines between known categories.

20:32 Speaker 1: If strange mammals could exist in the ocean, why not

20:36 Speaker 1: aquatic humans. The question was posed gently, never aggressively, inviting

20:42 Speaker 1: wonder rather than demanding belief. Crucially, the mermaid was not

20:46 Speaker 1: portrayed as monstrous. She was intelligent, alert, and even dignified.

20:52 Speaker 1: Some accounts hinted at communication, nonverbal but deliberate gestures eye

20:59 Speaker 1: contact recognition. One passage speculated that mermaids might actively avoid

21:05 Speaker 1: human contact, explaining their rarity despite centuries of sightings. The

21:10 Speaker 1: implication was chilling and elegant. They weren't undiscovered, they were

21:15 Speaker 1: choosing not to be found. As with other such stories,

21:19 Speaker 1: the conclusion was always just out of reach. The mermaid escaped,

21:23 Speaker 1: she dove too deep. She vanished when seas grew rough.

21:27 Speaker 1: Specimens were never secured, but explanations were always ready. The

21:31 Speaker 1: ocean was vast, expeditions were being organized. Naturalists were eager.

21:37 Speaker 1: Confirmation felt inevitable, just not yet. Public reaction was a

21:42 Speaker 1: mix of awe and relief. Unlike stories of giants or combustion,

21:47 Speaker 1: the Mermaid inspired fascination more than fear. She suggested companionship

21:54 Speaker 1: rather than threat. The world was larger, richer, and kinder

21:58 Speaker 1: than previously assumed. Myths, it seemed, were not childish lies,

22:04 Speaker 1: but memories of truths misunderstood by time. Skeptics again raised objections.

22:10 Speaker 1: Many sightings could be explained by manatees, dew goongs, or

22:13 Speaker 1: seals glimpsed under poor conditions. Human pattern recognition did the rest,

22:20 Speaker 1: but these explanations lacked romance, and romance mattered. The sun

22:24 Speaker 1: never insisted. Skeptics were wrong. It simply gave them less space.

22:29 Speaker 1: By the late nineteenth century, as marine biology advanced and

22:33 Speaker 1: exploration increased, mermaids quietly retreated back into folklore. No living

22:39 Speaker 1: specimens ever emerged, no credible evidence survived scrutiny, yet the

22:45 Speaker 1: idea lingered, buoyed by those authoritative articles that once claimed

22:49 Speaker 1: the impossible had already been seen. Like the Moon civilizations

22:54 Speaker 1: and the ancient giants, the living mermaid thrived in a

22:58 Speaker 1: narrow historical moment when the world was still vast, science

23:02 Speaker 1: was still new, and newspapers could transform longing into fact.

23:07 Speaker 1: The ocean kept its secrets, but for a while, readers

23:10 Speaker 1: were allowed to believe that humanity was not alone in

23:13 Speaker 1: the deep, and that perhaps somewhere beyond the horizon, myth

23:18 Speaker 1: was still swimming, just out of reach. In the eighteen sixties,

23:23 Speaker 1: as Arctic exploration captured the Victorian imagination, newspapers began hinting

23:28 Speaker 1: at a revelation so staggering it threatened to rewrite human

23:32 Speaker 1: history itself. A city beneath the ice, According to reports

23:37 Speaker 1: circulated and eagerly amplified by the New York Sun, explorers

23:42 Speaker 1: venturing into the frozen polar regions had uncovered evidence not

23:45 Speaker 1: merely of survival, but of civilization buried under centuries of

23:50 Speaker 1: snow and ice. The stories emerged alongside real expeditions. The

23:55 Speaker 1: Arctic was still largely unmapped, its interior unknown even to science.

24:01 Speaker 1: Ships vanished, crewise, froze, survivors returned with fragmented, half believed tails.

24:07 Speaker 1: Into this uncertainty stepped the articles, written with the same

24:11 Speaker 1: confident calm that had once populated the Moon and filled

24:14 Speaker 1: America with giants. The reports described explorers encountering stone structures

24:20 Speaker 1: protruding from the ice walls, too straight to be natural blocks,

24:24 Speaker 1: too deliberately shaped to be geological accidents. Some accounts mentioned

24:29 Speaker 1: stair like formations descending into frozen ground. Others described tools

24:34 Speaker 1: recovered from beneath the ice worked stone, carved implements, objects

24:39 Speaker 1: suggesting prolonged human habitation in a place now utterly inhospitable. Crucially,

24:45 Speaker 1: the city was never presented as fantastical. There were no

24:49 Speaker 1: gold domes or supernatural inhabitants. Instead, it was framed as ancient, practical,

24:56 Speaker 1: and tragically lost. The implication was that Earth's clas climate

25:00 Speaker 1: had once been radically different, that the poles were not

25:03 Speaker 1: always frozen wastelands, but once temperate regions capable of sustaining life.

25:08 Speaker 1: The city beneath the ice became evidence not of myth,

25:12 Speaker 1: but of forgotten epochs. Some articles leaned into broader speculation.

25:17 Speaker 1: Could this be proof of a pre Ice Age civilization,

25:21 Speaker 1: a northern counterpart to Atlantis, a culture erased not by

25:25 Speaker 1: war but by climate itself. The Sun quoted unnamed scholars

25:30 Speaker 1: who suggested humanity's timeline was far longer than textbooks admitted. Civilization,

25:37 Speaker 1: they hinted, may have risen and fallen multiple times before

25:41 Speaker 1: history ever bothered to record it. As always, verification hovered

25:46 Speaker 1: just out of reach. The structures were glimpsed briefly before

25:49 Speaker 1: storms forced retreat. Artifacts were allegedly lost when ships were

25:54 Speaker 1: damaged or abandoned. Further expeditions were promised, Funding was discussed.

25:59 Speaker 1: The ice, readers were reminded was constantly shifting, revealing and

26:04 Speaker 1: concealing its secrets at random. The public was captivated. The

26:09 Speaker 1: idea of a buried city appealed to a growing Victorian

26:12 Speaker 1: anxiety that progress was fragile. If an entire civilization could

26:17 Speaker 1: be swallowed by ice, what did that say about modern society?

26:22 Speaker 1: Industrialization felt unstoppable, but these stories whispered that nature had

26:27 Speaker 1: erased greatness before and would do so again. Skeptics countered

26:33 Speaker 1: that ice pressure could fracture rock into geometric shapes, that

26:37 Speaker 1: explorers under stress might misinterpret natural formations, and that no

26:42 Speaker 1: confirmed artifacts ever reached museums. But skepticism struggled against imagination.

26:50 Speaker 1: The Arctic was distant, harsh, inaccessible. If a city were

26:55 Speaker 1: hidden there, who could easily prove otherwise. By the late

26:59 Speaker 1: nineteen century, as polar science advanced and mapping improved, the

27:04 Speaker 1: buried city quietly vanished from serious discussion. No ruins were found,

27:10 Speaker 1: no streets emerged from the ice. The story dissolved into

27:14 Speaker 1: the broader category of lost civilizations, joining Atlantis, Lemuria, and

27:20 Speaker 1: other places that existed most convincingly on paper. Yet for

27:25 Speaker 1: a brief moment, the frozen North was more than an

27:28 Speaker 1: empty frontier. It was a tomb for humanities forgotten past,

27:32 Speaker 1: a reminder that history might not be a straight line forward,

27:36 Speaker 1: but a cycle of rise, collapse, and burial. Like the giants,

27:42 Speaker 1: the Mermaid, and the Moon's imagined inhabitants, the city beneath

27:46 Speaker 1: the ice succeeded because it didn't shout, it suggested. It

27:52 Speaker 1: wrapped speculation in exploration and fear in scholarship. It allowed

27:57 Speaker 1: readers to believe that the greatest discoveries were not ahead

28:00 Speaker 1: of them, but already lost, frozen in silence, waiting just

28:05 Speaker 1: beneath the ice. And that's where we'll leave it, standing

28:09 Speaker 1: at the edge of the ice, staring down into a

28:12 Speaker 1: past that may never have existed, but once felt entirely possible.

28:18 Speaker 1: The city beneath the ice, like the giants in the earth,

28:22 Speaker 1: the mermaid in the sea, and the civilizations on the moon,

28:26 Speaker 1: reminds us that the nineteenth century wasn't just an age

28:29 Speaker 1: of discovery. It was an age of belief, a moment

28:33 Speaker 1: when science was powerful enough to inspire awe, but not

28:37 Speaker 1: yet powerful enough to demand proof. Newspapers didn't just report

28:42 Speaker 1: the world as it was. They shaped the world people

28:45 Speaker 1: wanted to live in, one filled with lost cities, hidden histories,

28:49 Speaker 1: and truths just out of reach. These stories endured not

28:54 Speaker 1: because they were true, but because they were comforting, thrilling,

28:58 Speaker 1: and unsettling in exactly the right proportions. They suggested that

29:03 Speaker 1: the world was bigger than we understood, older than we'd

29:06 Speaker 1: been told, and still holding secrets beneath its surface, and

29:11 Speaker 1: maybe that's why they linger not as facts, but as

29:15 Speaker 1: echoes of a time when wonder traveled faster than verification. Now,

29:20 Speaker 1: Dear listeners, I am not saying there isn't mer people

29:24 Speaker 1: or lost cities under ice, or our lands were not

29:28 Speaker 1: once roamed by giants. I'd like to think there is

29:31 Speaker 1: some fact there, and I am excited as technology improves

29:34 Speaker 1: we will find more answers. I believe civilizations have risen

29:38 Speaker 1: and fallen over and over for millions of years, wiped

29:42 Speaker 1: out by cataclysms we don't know about. It's likely to

29:45 Speaker 1: happen again. For now, we live in the wonder and curiosity.

29:49 Speaker 1: These things conjure in our imaginations.

29:51 Speaker 2: This episode is brought to you by Speaker, the podcast

29:55 Speaker 2: hosting platform that understands one simple truth. If it sounds

29:59 Speaker 2: confident enough, people will believe it. Got a show about

30:02 Speaker 2: lost cities under ice, moon batmen, a mermaid, your cousin's

30:07 Speaker 2: uncle definitely saw once. Spreaker gives you unlimited hosting, detailed analytics,

30:13 Speaker 2: and distribution to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, and more so,

30:19 Speaker 2: your beautifully researched chaos reaches the widest audience possible, spreaker,

30:24 Speaker 2: because unlike nineteenth century newspapers, you should probably know how

30:28 Speaker 2: many people are listening. Start your podcast today. No hydro

30:33 Speaker 2: oxygen telescope required.

30:35 Speaker 1: So, dear listeners, what happened to The New York Sun.

30:39 Speaker 1: It didn't vanish in a blaze of scandal or get

30:41 Speaker 1: shut down for inventing moon Batman. Ironically, it survived quite

30:46 Speaker 1: a long time after its most famous hoaxes. Here's what

30:50 Speaker 1: actually happened. The New York Sun was founded in eighteen

30:54 Speaker 1: thirty three and became wildly popular by doing something radical

30:57 Speaker 1: for its time. It was cheap, sensational, and written for

31:02 Speaker 1: ordinary people, not elites. Crime stories, human interest oddities, shocking discoveries,

31:08 Speaker 1: and yes, the occasional reality adjacent fantasy were its bread

31:13 Speaker 1: and butter. The Great Moon Hoax didn't hurt it at all.

31:17 Speaker 1: In fact, it cemented The Sun's reputation and boosted circulation enormously.

31:23 Speaker 1: For decades, the paper thrived, but by the late eighteen

31:26 Speaker 1: hundreds the media world changed. Larger papers like Joseph Pulitzer's

31:31 Speaker 1: New York World and William Randolph Hurst's New York Journal

31:34 Speaker 1: entered the scene with deeper pockets, bigger staffs, and even

31:38 Speaker 1: louder sensationalism. Yellow journalism escalated. Competition intensified The Sun once

31:46 Speaker 1: the bold upstart started to look old fashioned. In eighteen

31:51 Speaker 1: ninety eight, the original New York Sun shut down, unable

31:56 Speaker 1: to compete financially in an increasingly brutal newspaper market. Then,

32:01 Speaker 1: because history love sequels, it came back. A revived New

32:06 Speaker 1: York Sun appeared in nineteen sixteen, positioning itself as more serious, conservative,

32:12 Speaker 1: and politically influential. This version became famous for publishing the

32:16 Speaker 1: now legendary eighteen ninety seven editorial, Yes, Virginia, there is

32:21 Speaker 1: a Santa Claus, often mistakenly associated with the earlier Sun.

32:26 Speaker 1: It ran for several more decades, but circulation steadily declined.

32:31 Speaker 1: In nineteen fifty, the New York Sun printed its final issue,

32:35 Speaker 1: no dramatic farewell, no apology tour for lunar civilizations, just

32:41 Speaker 1: to quiet end. Today, the Sun is remembered less as

32:45 Speaker 1: a newspaper and more as a case study in belief

32:48 Speaker 1: how authority, timing, and confidence storytelling can turn speculation into

32:53 Speaker 1: accepted reality. It didn't collapse because it lied, It collapsed

32:59 Speaker 1: because the media ecosystem outgrew it, and perhaps that's the

33:03 Speaker 1: most ironic ending of all. The paper that once convinced

33:07 Speaker 1: the world there were cities on the Moon was ultimately undone,

33:11 Speaker 1: not by fiction, but by competition. Next time, we'll dig

33:15 Speaker 1: into another moment when ink outran evidence and reality struggled

33:19 Speaker 1: to catch up. Until then, keep questioning the footnotes, and

33:24 Speaker 1: remember just because a story was printed doesn't mean it

33:27 Speaker 1: ever thawed into truth.

34:00 Speaker 3: Bound the.

34:14 Speaker 4: Cop budbod.

34:32 Speaker 3: Do bud

34:52 Speaker 4: Comput