Soothing Saturday: Fake News from the Moon — A Norwegian Satire from 1775 That Feels Strangely Modern

Some Saturdays invite us to slow down and wander into forgotten corners of history. Sometimes those corners contain old church books, faded letters, and family stories. Occasionally they contain something altogether stranger.

Today’s quiet historical stop takes us to Bergen in 1775, where readers could encounter a curious publication claiming to be a letter sent from the Moon itself. This strange story is a fascinating example of fake news from the moon.

There is an irony in the title of today’s piece.

Actually, there are two ironies.

The first belongs to an anonymous writer in Bergen who created a fake letter from the Moon in order to warn people about believing fake messages. The second belongs to me, because I have chosen a title that sounds suspiciously like the sort of sensational headline the author himself would probably have smiled at—or perhaps rolled his eyes at.

“Fake News from the Moon” has a dramatic ring to it. It sparks curiosity. It invites questions.

What could this possibly be?

And that, as it turns out, is exactly the lesson hidden inside this curious little work.

In 1775 an anonymous author published Måne-Brev eller Et Brev fra Maanen, Sendt til Jorden, og Fundet i Bergen — Moon Letter, or A Letter from the Moon, Sent to Earth and Found in Bergen.

The title alone must have done its work.

A letter from the Moon? Found in Bergen?

Who could resist reading further?

But the text turns out not to be about the Moon at all.

It is satire.

And remarkably sharp satire at that.

A Fake Message Warning Against Fake Messages

The author presents himself as a spokesman for civilized inhabitants of the Moon who have supposedly observed the curious habits of people on Earth.

The Moon people explain that they are humanity’s nearest neighbors and best friends. Out of concern for mankind they have decided to send advice and correction.

Naturally, this is absurd.

But the absurdity serves a purpose. By pretending to speak from another world, the author gains freedom to criticize people without attacking individuals directly.

The target is not merely Bergen.

It is human nature.

One of his chief targets is the Himmelbrev, or “Heaven Letters,” which circulated widely during the period. These letters claimed divine origins and often contained warnings, promises, prophecies, and threats of punishment.

The Moon writer clearly had little patience for them. He argues that such writings encourage ignorance and superstition rather than understanding. At one point he notes that wise people laugh at them, while sincerely religious people are troubled by them.

And here we arrive at the delightful contradiction at the center of the whole work.

In order to criticize mysterious messages descending from heaven, he invents a mysterious message descending from the sky.

He uses fiction to expose fiction.

He uses the bait in order to criticize the hook.

The Strange Appetite for New Things

The author’s criticism does not stop with superstition.

He also turns his attention toward readers themselves.

People, he suggests, become fascinated by strange titles, unusual claims, and anything carrying the scent of novelty. The packaging often matters more than the content.

To demonstrate this, he jokingly proposes absurd titles for books, including:

“New Learned Thieves’ Goods” and “New and Foreign Imported Goods.”

The joke is obvious enough.

Books, he suggests, are often old ideas disguised in fresh wrapping.

The joke becomes slightly uncomfortable at this point because perhaps I, as a blogger, occasionally find myself leaning back in my chair and wondering:

“How can I hook my reader?”

Not in some grand or dishonest way. Every writer hopes to find a title that catches the eye, sparks curiosity, and invites someone to read one paragraph more than they otherwise might have done.

The anonymous Moon writer from 1775 understood this perfectly. He knew that a title could do a great deal of work before the first sentence was ever read.

A Letter from the Moon Found in Bergen.

It has a certain pull to it.

And if I am being fair, Fake News from the Moon probably does too.

Perhaps writers have always sat with the same quiet question in front of them:

“How do I make someone stop and look?”

The tools change. Printing presses become websites, pamphlets become blog posts, and market squares become social media feeds. But the question itself may be just as old as writing.

Eighteenth-Century Clickbait

The author repeatedly returns to the same complaint: people chase whatever is newest.

Novelty itself becomes the attraction.

In other words, he is describing something that feels very much like eighteenth-century clickbait.

The printing world around him was growing larger. Books, newspapers, pamphlets, and public discussions were expanding. Readers suddenly had more choices than previous generations had known.

And where readers go, competition follows.

The author understood that attention itself had become a kind of marketplace.

Perhaps that sounds familiar.

Today the competition unfolds on screens rather than in bookshops. We scroll past headlines rather than printed pamphlets.

But the principle remains much the same.

The unusual catches our eye.

The mysterious sparks curiosity.

And we click.

A Saturday Thought

Old books sometimes remind us that human nature changes more slowly than technology.

Nearly 250 years ago, an anonymous writer sat somewhere in Bergen and smiled at humanity’s appetite for novelty, excitement, and curious stories. He saw how easily people could be drawn toward strange claims wrapped in attractive titles.

He probably believed he was describing his own age.

Yet here we are, centuries later, still pausing for unusual headlines and mysterious stories.

Perhaps that should not discourage us.

Perhaps it should simply make us smile.

History often whispers that the people of the past were not as different from us as we imagine.

And perhaps there is something comforting in knowing that even in 1775, someone was already gently shaking his head and saying:

“You really will read anything if the title is interesting enough.”

Until next Saturday.