Show Notes
Freak Family Favorites: Bat People, Moon Hoaxes, and Museums That Shouldn't Exist
This Freak Family Favorites episode comes straight from the recommendations of the Freak Family, and it's packed with the kind of stories that remind us why history is often stranger than fiction.
First, Kat unpacks one of the greatest media hoaxes ever printed: The Great Moon Hoax of 1835. Newspapers convinced thousands of readers that a giant telescope had discovered life on the Moon—including winged bat people, intelligent beavers that built villages, strange temples, and an entire lunar civilization. It spread across America and Europe before anyone stopped to ask whether any of it was actually true.
Then Jethro takes a tour through some of the world's most bizarre museum exhibits. From Galileo's preserved middle finger and Thomas Edison's supposed last breath to necropants, human-skin books, serial killer relics, and anatomical displays that blur the line between science and the macabre, these are museums unlike any you've ever visited.
If you've ever wondered how easily people can be fooled—or why museums sometimes keep the strangest souvenirs imaginable—this Freak Family favorite belongs at the top of your playlist.
In this episode:
The Great Moon Hoax of 1835
Bat people, lunar beavers, and the newspaper story that fooled the world
Sir John Herschel's unwitting role in history's most famous astronomy hoax
Edgar Allan Poe's unexpected connection to the scandal
The world's strangest museum exhibits
Galileo's middle finger, Thomas Edison's last breath, necropants, human-skin books, and more
Weird history, oddities, curiosities, and unbelievable true stories
Perfect for fans of: Weird history, historical hoaxes, Edgar Allan Poe, astronomy, museums, macabre history, curiosities, folklore, and the strange true stories that make the world wonderfully weird. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
More from The Box of Oddities
In this Halloween-season episode of Box of Oddities, Kat and Jethro explore a grisly chapter of New England folklore: the 1817 exhumation of Dartmouth student Frederick Ransom. As tuberculosis—then called consumption—devastated his Vermont family, his father followed a desperate “vampire” remedy: Frederick’s heart was removed from his grave and burned in a blacksmith’s forge.
Edgar Allan Poe’s Rattling Skull & The Honeymoon Murder at Acadia National Park
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