Our April Fools Page–Revealed!

Did we fool you on April 1? Not too many of you, judging from all the appreciative email. Our site has four times the number of users it did last April 1, so we did manage to hoax a few good souls. As always, we?ve saved some of the best angry, confused and concerned emails, with our replies.

?This story about the moon deflating is scientifically impossible. If the methane leaked out, the moon would crumble, not “deflate” as you say. It is made of hard material like rock, not something soft like a tire. Also, we would not hear the hissing on earth because sound does not travel through a vacuum. Please get your science straight. These things are elementary, my friend.?

Our reply: It?s not methane but nitrogen that inflates the moon. Our mistake!

?I read the article about the Mars picture, I seen that exact picture before in Astronomy class just without the pool balls, table and billiard stick. That picture on unknowncountry.com is absolutely Photoshoped very poorly, I could kind of tell it was kind of fake the first second I looked at it. I think you probably thought that too.?

Our reply: The Mars picture is a fake? There are no pool balls on Mars? Good Lord!

?Hi, I was wondering if there was a link I could follow to Nasa’s site which has the article about the moon going flat. Thank you for having such a great website!?

This is representative of about fifty emails. Our replies to these were all the same: You need to call NASA. Ask to speak to Dr. Till Eulenspiegel about the moon going flat.

This morning there was what appeared to be a letter from NASA in our inbox. It said:

?It has come to our attention that you have been referring individuals concerned about the moon going flat to Dr. Till Eulenspiegel here at NASA. Unfortunately, Dr. Eulenspeigel has moved to the private sector. He is now at North American Veeblefetzer, a contractor for Google. To learn more about his work there, go to this link at Google.?

We were impressed with the use of the term ?North American Veeblefetzer,? which was a company often cited in Mad Magazine. What they did was never made clear by Mad, so we were delighted to learn more at last.

?I know from science class that methane is flammable. Do you think that we should warn people to avoid smoking if they detect the odor of lunar methane??

Our reply: Good point! Fire needs to be banned worldwide.

?You wrote: ?It?s going to sound like a monster truck in the sky with all four tires going flat at once.? Come on! To hear something, there has to be a medium to carry the sound! There is no way for sound to move in the space between the moon and the earth. If you could hear through space imagine how loud the sun would be!?

Our reply: You can?t hear the sun? You should seek medical attention at once.

?Yes, I get it, as I suppose most of your readers do, April Fool’s Day and all, but I would think that anyone in a field where credibility is an issue would restrain themselves from such fakery, even in fun. People often just don’t get it. I’ve been a newspaper journalist for more than 30 years and simply don’t indulge in April Fool’s stories. Neither do most responsible media. I presume you aspire to that lable. That said, I am a daily reader of your site and a subscriber. Maybe that’s why I was so disappointed by this.?

Our reply: We agree with you completely. We are a very disappointing group of people, even to ourselves. We are ashamed of ourselves for what we did, and will not do it again soon. Thanks for your principled criticism.

What do you think about our April Fool?s page? After all, Unknowncountry.com strives for credibility in an area that is very short on it. Should we take this risk every year? Express your opinion in our new poll.

Want to learn more about the spiritual meaning of the Fool and the importance of humor in spiritual search? These topics are covered beautifully in Whitley Strieber?s magnificent book, the Path.

NOTE: This news story, previously published on our old site, will have any links removed.