I wish I could live during a time when we believed creatures and aliens and things lived on the Moon. My imagination would have had so much fun! But alas, real life is too boring for that kind of fun. Still, in 1836, people believed that astronomers had found life on the moon. They imagined a world of hairy men with wings, unicorns and naked insect ladies.
The Smithsonian Institute Image Collections explains:
This portfolio of hand-tinted lithographs purports to illustrate the "discovery of life on the moon." In 1836, Richard E. Locke, writing for the New York Sun, claimed that the noted British astronomer Sir John Herschel had discovered life on the moon. Flora and fauna included bat-men, moon maidens (with luna-moth wings), moon bison, and other extravagant life forms. Locke proposed an expedition to the moon using a ship supported by hydrogen balloons.
I always love predictions about the future from the past because it's always rooted in their present. No airplanes, only flying ships! No mercy, only taking the moon people as slaves! We gotta do better in predicting the future. [Smithsonian via BoingBoing]