"The Balloon-Hoax" is the title now used for a newspaper article written by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1844. Originally presented as a true story, it detailed European Monck Mason's trip across the Atlantic Ocean in only three days in a hot air balloon. It was later revealed as a hoax and the story was retracted two days later.
The story now known as "The Balloon-Hoax" was first printed in The Sun newspaper in New York. It ran with the headline:
The article went on to provide a detailed and highly plausible account of a lighter-than-air balloon trip by famous European balloonist Monck Mason across the Atlantic Ocean taking 75 hours, along with a diagram and specifications of the craft.
Poe may have been inspired, at least in part, by a prior journalistic hoax known as the "Great Moon Hoax," published in the same newspaper in 1835. One of the suspected writers of that hoax, Richard Adams Locke, was Poe's editor at the time "The Balloon-Hoax" was published.
The story was...
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