Richard Adams Locke

Richard Adams Locke (1800–1871) was a British-born reporter for the New York Sun who, in August 1835, published the ‘Great Moon Hoax’, a series of articles describing an elaborate lunar civilisation of bat-winged people supposedly glimpsed through a giant telescope. Intended as satire (and to boost circulation), it fooled a nation and stands as a famous early episode in the prehistory of science fiction. A direct influence on, and rival of, Poe.