ABRUPTO

11:50 (JPP)

POEIRA DE 25 DE AGOSTO

Hoje, há cento e sessenta e três anos, o respeitável New York Sun anunciava numa série de artigos que o grande astrónomo Sir John Herschel, usando um novo telescópio, tinha descoberto vida na Lua. Num dos artigos descrevia-se assim as maravilhas da fauna lunar:

"At length we carefully explored the Endymion. We found each of the three ovals volcanic and sterile within; but, without, most rich, throughout the level regions around them, in every imaginable production of a bounteous soil. Dr. Herschel has classified not less than thirty-eight species of forest trees, and nearly twice this number of plants, found in this tract alone, which are widely different to those found in more equatorial latitudes. Of animals, he classified nine species of mammalia, and five of ovipara. Among the former is a small kind of rein-deer, the elk, the moose, the horned bear, and the biped beaver. The last resembles the beaver of the earth in every other respect than in its destitution of a tail, and its invariable habit of walking upon only two feet. It carries its young in its arms like a human being, and moves with an easy gliding motion. Its huts are constructed better and higher than those of many tribes of human savages, and from the appearance of smoke in nearly all of them, there is no doubt of its being acquainted with the use of fire. Still its head and body differ only in the points stated from that of the beaver, and it was never seen except on the borders of lakes and rivers, in which is has been seen to immerse for a period of several seconds."

Primeiro, Herschel achou graça, depois não achou graça nenhuma. O jornal subiu a tiragem, e durante vários dias a Lua permaneceu habitada por unicórnios e outros fabulosos animais, coisa considerada normalíssima pelos seus leitores. De facto, os terrestres não gostam de estar sós no universo.