The Library of Congress traces the tradition of April Fools' pranks back to the Roman festival of Hilaria, celebrated the day after the March equinox. This joyous occasion marked the first point in the calendar when daylight overtook darkness.
Other theories suggest the holiday originated from the idea of a court jester being crowned “king for a day.” However, even that story turned out to be a hoax—one orchestrated by Boston University professor Joseph Boskin, who tricked an Associated Press reporter into publishing it. The AP later had to issue a retraction.
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Question everything you read — especially on April 1. Especially on social media. Definitely if it involves images.
Great Moon Hoax of 1835
In 1835, The (New York) Sun published a series of six articles titled “Great Astronomical Discoveries,” claiming that not only was there life on the Moon—but an entire thriving civilization. According to the reports, the lunar surface was home to trees, oceans, and beaches where unicorns, miniature zebras, and tailless, upright-walking beavers roamed among bat-like, winged humanoids.
This spectacle, the articles claimed, had been observed using a massive, 7-ton telescope with a 24-foot-wide lens. In reality, the largest telescope of the time was the 6-foot “Great Telescope” at Birr Castle, Ireland.
Despite the outlandish nature of the claims, The Sun never issued a retraction.
Just two generations later, the same newspaper became famous for another widely believed story — the 1897 editorial response titled “Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus.” Eight-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon had written to the paper after her father told her, “If you see it in The Sun, it’s so.”
Planet X
Astronomy has long been a tool for fueling hoaxes.
One of the most persistent is the myth of Planet X, also known as Nibiru. The idea was popularized by Zecharia Sitchin, a self-taught student of Sumerian culture and mythology, who claimed in his books that extraterrestrial beings had influenced human history during their repeated visits to Earth.
According to Sitchin, Pluto was originally a moon of Saturn until it was knocked out of orbit by Nibiru — an alleged rogue planet with a 3,600-year orbit around the Sun.
The Nibiru story resurfaced in 2012, coinciding with the start of a new long cycle in the Mayan calendar. This fueled apocalyptic fears, including predictions of a catastrophic Nibiru-Earth collision.
While the Sumerians were an advanced civilization known for their achievements in agriculture and writing, their records on astronomy were minimal. As NASA astrophysicist David Morrison explains in a publication by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, the idea that planets orbit the Sun wouldn’t emerge until 2,000 years later.
“Claims that the Sumerians had a sophisticated astronomy, or even a god named Nibiru, are purely the product of Sitchin’s imagination,” Morrison added.
Mars will appear as big as the Moon
One of my favorite fake images on social media dates back to 2003, when Mars and Earth were at their closest in 60,000 years. That part was true. The claim that “Mars will appear as big as the Moon” was not.
Despite being debunked repeatedly, the hoax resurfaced in October 2020 during Mars opposition — when the Red Planet is directly opposite the Sun in our sky and at its closest approach to Earth.
This claim was — and still is — impossible. Even at its closest, Mars’ angular diameter (its apparent size from Earth) never exceeds about 25 arcseconds. In contrast, the Moon never appears smaller than about 29 arcminutes (roughly 7 thousandths of a degree).
To put it in perspective: even when Mars is at its closest and the Moon is at its farthest, the Moon will still appear 70 times larger in the sky.
However, we seem to be getting better at spotting astronomy hoaxes. I don’t recall seeing the fake image resurface during the last Mars oppositions in December 2022 or January 2025 - a hopeful sign that skepticism might be catching up with sensationalism.
Proxima Centauri, or lunch?
Even scientists can fall pranks and hoaxes. Prominent physicist and author Etienne Klein shared an image in 2022 purportedly taken by the James Webb Space Telescope of Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our Sun.
It was actually a slice of chorizo sausage.