Fake News Before It Was Called That

Edgar Allen Poe wrote a story in 1844 that fooled many. It was a very different fake news, though.

Today’s fake news is more quickly produced, usually has a political motive, and yet values the same shock factor that older fake news thrived on. Poe’s work was written and published over time, adding to the potential credibility despite itself.

“The Balloon-Hoax" is a famous for being presented as a true news story about a successful, three-day transatlantic crossing in a new type of balloon, causing a massive public sensation and a rush on newspapers. The story, which detailed the fictional journey of a real balloonist, Monck Mason, was a hoax designed to look like a real news report, complete with a diagram, and was published in The New York Sun. It was one of the first examples of "fake news" and was possibly Poe’s attempt to get back at the newspaper for profiting from his own earlier moon-related story.

"The Unparalleled Adventures of One Hans Pfaall" (1835) was a pioneering science fiction tale where a man escapes creditors by ballooning to the Moon, though it was overshadowed by a later newspaper hoax and Poe abandoned the sequel. In it, a desperate Rotterdam bellows-mender, Hans Pfaall, builds a special balloon and travels to the Moon, bringing a letter detailing his escape and his strange experiences, intending to trade lunar secrets for a pardon. Considered an early work of science fiction, it used scientific-sounding details (like the Earth’s oblate spheroid shape) to create a believable…