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During the last week of August 1835, the New York Sun, an American newspaper, serialised an article on its front page, which it claimed had first been published in the Edinburgh Journal of Science. The article started as follows:

[W]e have the happiness of making known to the British public, and hence to the whole civilized world, recent discoveries in Astronomy which will build an imperishable monument to the age in which we live, and confer upon the present generation of the human race a proud distinction through all future time.

These recent discoveries were nothing as mundane as a new planet or star. Rather, the article began by describing the how Sir John Herschel, the eminent English mathematician and astronomer, had developed a new telescope by means of which he was able to see things as clearly in space as it is possible to see them on Earth. Lots of technical detail followed about its construction and deployment, and then came the bombshell: The Moon is teaming with life.

Not just vegetation, though there is plenty of that, including forests, dark red flowers, lichen, and the like. But also many species of animals and birds: bison; mountain-top unicorns; pelicans; white stags; miniature zebra; hut-dwelling, bipedal beavers; and the most spectacular discovery of all, a race of furry, winged men:

We counted three parties of these creatures, of twelve, nine, and fifteen in each, walking erect towards a small wood…They were like human beings, for their wings had now disappeared, and their attitude in walking was both erect and dignified…They averaged four feet in height, were covered, except on the face, with short and glossy copper-colored hair, and had wings composed of a thin membrane, without hair, lying snugly upon their backs, from the top of their shoulders to the calves of their legs.

The New York Sun went on to reveal that Vespertilio-homo, as Herschel had named these creatures, were rational, good tempered, able to engage in conversation, and were capable of producing works of art. Unfortunately, further revelations about the moon and its inhabitants were ruled out after Herschel’s telescope suffered a sudden and terminal breakdown (after it was pointed towards the Sun).

All this was of course an elaborate hoax. It is generally accepted that it was the work of Richard Adams Locke, a reporter working for the Sun at the time, who had been educated at Cambridge University. However, perhaps not surprisingly, it seems that many people were taken in by the story. The Sun’s circulation increased rapidly from about 15,000 people on the morning of the first article to 19,000 on the day that the winged-men were announced (though it should be said that there is some dispute about this).

A journalist later reported that

Yale College was alive with staunch supporters. The literati…looked daily for the arrival of the New York mail with unexampled avidity and implicit faith. It was the absorbing topic of the day. Nobody expressed or entertained a doubt as to the truth of the story. (Cited at the Museum of Hoaxes)

Edgar Allen Poe, it is said, stopped working on a follow-up to his The Unparalleled Adventure Of One Hans Pfaall because he felt he could not match Herschel’s moon discoveries. And a missionary society from Springfield, Massachusetts decided to send a group of missionaries to the moon in order to bring Christianity and civilisation to the Vespertilio.

However, not everybody was so credulous. The New York Commercial Advertiser, for example, said of the hoax that it was ‘well done’, but that it was simply unbelievable that such a telescope could have been constructed, especially without anybody noticing or passing comment on it. And the New York Herald openly accused Locke as being the author of the hoax. The New York Sun, for its part, never publicly admitted that the story was false, saying only that it would have to check with English and Scottish newspapers before coming to that conclusion. Nevertheless, the whole event has gone down in history as the first, and perhaps greatest, American journalistic hoax.

Sir John Herschel, when he first heard of the story, was amused, declaring that his own observations were never that exciting. However, he eventually became irritated by the whole affair. It seems that people who continued to take the story seriously never stopped asking him about it.

How Mr Smith came to have a ticking bomb inside his stomach remains a mystery to this day. Ask his neighbours, and you’ll find that they are divided on the matter. Mrs Anderson will mutter darkly about Loki, malevolent spirits and witchcraft. Mr Lush prefers a more prosaic “drunken bet” line of explanation. And as for Mrs Oakley, she’ll talk at length about Feng Shui, personal Chi and Argos catalogues. But on one thing they are all agreed, and that is that the whole affair was A Bad Thing.

Its beginnings were innocuous enough. Four words in fact.

“Stop that infernal ticking.”

At first, Mr Smith wondered whether his wife was talking to him. But as no one else had joined them in bed, it seemed likely.

“Ticking, dear?”

“Yes, that ticking noise,” she said, gesturing at him impatiently. “It’s disturbing my prayers.”

After thirty-five years of marriage, Mr Smith knew better than to disturb her prayers, so he held his breath in the somewhat optimistic hope that this would deter the ticking. Unfortunately, the ticking noise, now audible to him, and clearly oblivious to the niceties of religious devotion, continued unabated.

His wife, Bible primed, glowered.

“It’s not me, dear,” he protested, suspecting immediately that it was. “It’s probably the plumbing.”

“What nonsense, it’s that liver-sausage. You know liver-sausage doesn’t agree with you.”

It didn’t occur to Mr Smith to question Mrs Smith on the link between liver-sausage and ticking tummies, to ask her how the hell she supposed liver-sausage could cause ticking. Rather, as he always did on these occasions, he immersed himself in his favourite copy of Wisden, finding comfort in memories of the sight and sound of leather on willow. Mrs Smith, for her part, settled down to her preferred bedtime reading, The Book of Job. She enjoyed nothing better before sleep than to dream up new and ingenious misfortunes to test the faith of that so righteous man.

In the morning, the ticking was worse. Mrs Smith was compelled to reconsider her liver-sausage theory and opined that forces more sinister were at work. Mr Smith was more concerned with breakfast than sinister forces, but even he began to imagine himself a giant alarm clock. Little was said while they ate, until Mr Smith hit upon the notion that an impromptu alarm clock impression might do something to lighten the atmosphere. Unfortunately, Mrs Smith was not in the mood to be lightened, or perhaps her comic sensibilities were offended, either way, breakfast ended on a sour note.

Happily, there was no time to dwell on the unpleasantness. It was Sunday morning and church beckoned. In fact, for Mrs Smith, it would be more accurate to say that it summoned or subpoenaed. Mr Smith experienced the pull less strongly, but he found his wife strangely motivating, and in any case the five minute walk to Golspie Evangelical Free Church was agreeable enough.

The events that unfolded in the church that morning have been the subject of endless debate and commentary. In the immediate aftermath, everybody spoke with a single voice. It had been a terrible, but inexplicable tragedy. However, disagreements soon emerged, with claim and counter-claim flowing fast. High Church Christians thought the explosion a warning that people really shouldn’t enjoy themselves too much in church. Low Church Christians blamed the Pope. The Psychic Times ran an article titled “Spontaneous Combustion: Explosive New Evidence”. The Skeptic Magazine countered with “Spontaneous Combustion: The Myth Exploded”. Politicians blamed each other, asylum seekers and the credit crunch. Strangest of all, a group calling themselves Rage Against Campanology were keen to claim responsibility. However, the RAC, as they called themselves – much to the consternation of many road users – were later forced to retract their claim when it was pointed out that the Evangelical Free Church had had neither bell ringers nor bells. But, of course, what got lost in all the hullabaloo is that there is no simple truth about what happened that Sunday morning. Truth and fiction, as many first year philosophy students will tell you, have been the same thing for at least thirty years.

The church that morning was filled with a high octane, spiritual bonhomie. Mrs Smith was in her element. She had sung uproariously, arms flung to the heavens, the opening hymn, a disco version of Onward Christian Soldiers. She had listened rapt, as Dave – If my Christian name is okay for God, it’s okay for you – the microphone toting preacher, had explained to them that the Toronto Experience, all roaring and meowing, was part of the chaos of End-Times. And she had joined in the rapturous applause, after Maureen had testified that God had granted her a personal miracle and banished her bunions. And so it was, in the visceral exuberance of the occasion, that she found herself on her feet shouting, “Yes, yes, my husband, my husband,” after Dave had enquired, all basso profondo compassion, whether anyone in the congregation was fighting a personal battle with the Devil.

Mr Smith, it must be said, was a little taken aback by this turn of events. He felt the eyes of the congregation upon him, and imagined himself a lion, tables turned, at a Billy Graham revivalist meeting. Preacher Dave, in contrast, looked overjoyed at the prospect of doing battle with the Devil.

“Mr Smith, will you please approach the stage.”

He meant to refuse, to stay steadfastly where he was. But as the church fell silent in expectation, he experienced first-hand the irresistible power of the crowd. Suddenly, Nuremberg rallies, all serried ranks, seemed explicable. He was aware that in the silence, the ticking of his stomach was audible. He moved towards the stage, on the way passing Maureen, of bunion fame, and reached Dave, preacher and Smiter of  Demons.

“Hello,” said Mr Smith.

Dave peered at Mr Smith suspiciously, as if “Hello” was not the kind of greeting he expected from the Devil.

“Mr Smith, your wife has testified before this church, that you are presently doing battle with the Devil. In the name of the Lord, I command you to disclose the nature of this battle.”

“Well, Dave,” said Mr Smith, “I can only imagine that my wife is referring to the strange ticking noise that seems to be emanating from my stomach. But I hardly imagine…”.

“Don’t!” screeched Dave. “Don’t for one moment underestimate the cunning of Satan. He takes many forms. Just remember the Serpent!”

Mr Smith was about to protest that Serpents were one thing, alarm clocks quite another, when he was bashed in the stomach by Smiter Dave’s microphone. The sound of ticking immediately filled the church. There was a collective congregational gasp, and assorted Hallelujahs, Amens and Praise the Lords. Even Mr Smith was momentarily disconcerted.

“That,” cried Dave, “is the sound of the Devil!” With his free hand, he grabbed the top of Mr Smith’s head and pulled down hard. Mr Smith was bent almost double.

“I say, steady on,” he gasped.

“Devil, I command you in the name of the Lord, be gone from this man’s body. I cast you back into The Pit!”

The congregation was on its feet, many people with arms stretched out towards the sky. They were calling to Dave, to the Lord, to anybody listening, to rid Mr Smith of his tick-tocking Devil. Mr Smith was hauled up again, and the congregation were commanded to silence. The hubbub died down. The Smiter of Demons placed his free hand on Mr Smith’s forehead, and with eyes half closed began, softly at first and then more loudly, to speak in tongues.

“Deshil holles eamus. Deshil holles eamus. Hoopsa boyaboy hoopsa! Hoopsa boyaboy hoopsa!”

The congregation, as one, followed his example. The noise levels swelled again, and the drunken, ecstatic mass of the fervent faithful swayed in a visceral union. Mr Smith began to shake and, unable to bear the intensity of the sound any longer, he screamed. As he did so, an alarm went off inside his stomach. The congregation were stunned into a gaping silence. The ringing skewered the air, and then, as abruptly as it had started, it stopped and with it the ticking noise.

There was absolute silence, save for the breathing of the assembled masses. And then, turning to his congregation, Dave proclaimed, with all the fervour he could muster, “We have heard the music of angels.”

It sounded like a bloody alarm clock to me, thought Mr Smith, a split second before the explosion.

 I live in Toronto, Canada. It’s winter, which means it’s cold. Not UK cold, but minus 30 degrees cold – the kind of cold that polar bears complain about.

Anyway, I figured that there would a limit to how often I’d want to run the city streets looking like some kind of demented iceman, so I decided to try out a local gym. No problem, I did a vigorous workout messing around on a mat with a large red ball, and then decided that in fairness to Toronto perhaps I ought to take a shower. I headed towards what I thought were communal showers, but I was a bit distracted calculating how long I’d have to diet before I’d have a body like Robert Downey Jr’s (for about 27 years, I worked out).

Now I did think it was a bit odd that the showers were curtained off, but I was in a state of undress, carrying a small bar of soap, so I wasn’t hanging around. I marched straight through the first gap in the curtain… and found myself in a shower cubicle that must have measured 2ft by 2ft, face-to-face with a similarly naked, and frankly rather startled, man. I squawked, he threw his sponge at me, and well… the whole thing was terribly undignified…

Okay, so this is a true story, and unfortunately not my finest ever moment. A little while ago I travelled to Paris with my partner – we’ll call her Ann – for a marathon race I ended up not doing (due to being incapacitated by general decrepitude).

The hotel room was bijou (i.e., tiny), but somewhat surprisingly it did have a bathroom, though with a sliding door and a catch thing you pressed down to open it. Right next to it there was a small wardrobe set into the wall – and it too had a sliding door and a catch thing.

Anyway, it was the middle of the night, and pitch black, and I was awake, and I needed to go to the lavatory. Because I’m a considerate type, I thought I’d do my best not to wake Ann. So I slid out of my bed, tiptoed around her bed towards the bathroom. Very impressively, I managed all this without being able to see a thing. I got to the wall with the bathroom, and felt my away along it until I came to the bathroom door. I thought well I won’t turn on the bathroom light, I’ll open the door, close it, then turn the light on, so it doesn’t wake Ann. So very carefully I slid the door open, took a step inside, and closed the door. I was spectacularly silent. Mice were envious. I heard the click of the latch, and thought “Success! Now I can turn on the light”. So I began to feel around near the door for the light switch, but I couldn’t find it. So I was cursing, and thinking it was ridiculous, it ought to be easy to find. Anyway, eventually I decided to give up, and just feel my way to the lavatory. So I took a step forward – as one would. And smack! – I walked into a wall! I let out a strangled cry, but, you know, I didn’t want to wake Ann, so I controlled myself. And in my head I was cursing the bathroom designer:

“Bloody ridiculous people, they build a bathroom, they don’t put the light switch near the door, and then they build a wall two feet from the door. Completely absurd! I wouldn’t build a bathroom like that!” – that kind of thing. Well you can imagine.

Anyway, so I thought, if I take a step to the right then I’m going to get to the open bit, because I could remember that the lavatory was on the right of the bathroom. So I take a step to the right, and…

Crash! I walk into another wall, but also at the same time almost strangle myself on what turned out to be a load of coat hangers! I was in the bloody wardrobe! In the middle of the night. And it was pitch black. And worst of all, I’d managed to lock myself in there (or so I thought).

So I had to call to Ann for help:

Me: “Help!”

Ann: “What!? What do you want? Go to sleep.”

Me: “Help, I’m stuck!”

Ann: “What do you mean? It’s dark. What do you mean you’re stuck? How can you be stuck!? Where are you?”

Me: “I’m in the wardrobe!”

Ann: “What are you doing in the wardrobe!!?”

Me: “I was going to the lavatory!”

Ann: “In the wardrobe!!!!?”

I’ve been a hypochondriac for nearly the whole of my embarrassingly healthy life. Its start was my grandmother’s fault. She owned a medical encyclopaedia. Admittedly, it had been published in 1903, but I figured that as long as I didn’t read the dropsy entry, or have an illness requiring antibiotics, then I was probably on pretty safe ground relying upon it for pertinent medical information. So aged seven I confidently diagnosed myself with Bright’s disease. I can’t quite remember why –  something to do with my kidneys, I think. Anyhow, I can happily report that I survived this early setback.

In fact, my hypochondria went into remission for most of my teenage years. I did have multiple sclerosis briefly one morning, but it turned out to be no more than pins and needles caused by spending the night lying fast asleep on one arm. And then there was glandular fever, but since I really did have that, it doesn’t quite count. Mind you, my self-diagnosis of leukaemia proved to be somewhat wide of the mark.

Unfortunately, this period of relative calm came to an end with a dieting fiasco in my early twenties. I had been getting a bit podgy – too many cakes, rather than liver disease – so I thought a diet was in order. It went well. I lost four pounds in ten days. Very encouraging, except I promptly convinced myself that weight loss meant stomach cancer, and contrived to stuff myself silly over the next week just to prove that I could put the weight back on again. I could. In spades.

This kind of madness has continued off and on for the last twenty years. But recently it has taken a disturbing new turn. For I have discovered that the internet is the hypochondriac’s best nightmare. It all started with a game of squash, heat exhaustion and a doctor’s visit.

“You’ve overheated,” said the doc, obviously noting my fevered brow.

“Why’s that then?” said I, forgetting that I had just played squash in one hundred degree heat.

“It’s a hot day,” somebody said, rather contemptuously I felt.

And if only things had been left there. But, oh no, the doctor just had to pipe up with, “Well, almost certainly that’s it, though there are some very rare conditions which can cause overheating. But there’s no need to worry about them, and I’m not going to tell you about them anyway, because it’ll only frighten you.”

Well what the hell did he mean by that!? I just had to find out. And that’s when it occurred to me, use Google! So I typed in “hot flushes”. Menopause, it replied. I contemplated this possibility for perhaps somewhat longer than a man in his early forties ought to, but even I couldn’t quite believe that I was going through the change. So what else might it be? Tamoxifen? Nope. A tumour on the thyroid gland? Ah, that was more like it, but they’re usually benign, so not too scary. And then I saw the words guaranteed to precipitate a hot flush in any self-respecting hypochondriac. Pancreatic cancer.

Pancreatic cancer is not an illness which tends to have a happy outcome. So, needless to say, I immediately became convinced that I was suffering from it. But what to do? I was much too scared to do further research on the net. And anyway what was the point in finding out how much time I didn’t have left? And then I hit upon a harebrained scheme. People with fast acting terminal illnesses must notice physical decline pretty quickly. So why not set myself a daily physical test – like 2000 metres on a rowing machine – to see whether I got any worse at it? If in a month I hadn’t, then I was probably home clear.

This wasn’t a very clever plan. Its major flaw became apparent some seven minutes after I had embarked on it. Lying panting on the floor in a pool of sweat next to the rowing machine, I realised with horror that I was going to have to repeat the whole process again, just as quickly, the next day. And then the one after that, and so on for a month. At that rate, more than likely I’d expire with a coronary long before my pancreas shuffled off its mortal coil. But did I let this thought stop me? Not a bit of it. The next morning found me astride the rowing machine, eyes bulging with effort, or possibly hyperthyroidism, desperately chasing the clock. Could I match yesterday’s effort? I’m sorry to report that I could not. The clock worsted me by a clear two seconds. Not a huge amount, admittedly, but an obvious indication that my physical decline had begun.

It occurred to me that maybe I ought to call the doctor’s surgery immediately to inform them of my imminent demise. I wasn’t sure they’d be particularly interested, but I figured at the very least that I ought to cancel my flu jab appointment. I could also update them on a new, rather irritating, symptom that had appeared over the preceding few days.

Twitching. Nope, not some strange desire to sit in a field hoping to catch a glimpse of a stray pigeon, though that would have been bad enough, but rather muscles that twitched. A lot. In fact, rather as if a family of hyperactive moles had taken up residence in my limbs. This was not good for my already frazzled state of mind, since it was turning out to be rather difficult to sleep with Moley and his pals skipping the light fantastick in my calves every night.

In normal circumstances, new symptoms are the lifeblood of a hypochondriac’s obsession. There are, after all, few pleasures in life to match the sweet terror of flicking through Gray’s Anatomy to determine whether the pain you’ve just noticed in your knee is a sign that a vital organ is about to give up the ghost. However, on this occasion, I was not overly worried. It was just muscle twitching, which compared to pancreatic cancer surely could not be too serious. So why not Google it? At least that way I could present my doctor with the bundle of research that he always so appreciates when I want him to confirm a particular diagnosis.

Google unfortunately did not share my optimism about muscle twitching. Admittedly, there was mention of anxiety, caffeine and too much exercise – none of which I took to be particularly life-threatening; and I was fairly certain that something called benign fasciculation syndrome was going to be…well, benign. But none of this compensated for the horror of seeing page after page pop up on motor neuron disease, or ALS as I soon learnt it is called in North America. This really was not the best news. It was unfortunate enough to be suffering from one terminal illness, but to be suffering from two, especially when the second one involves a relentless decline into total paralysis, seemed really to be taking the biscuit.

I’d like to say that I contemplated my fate with equanimity – that I cut a rather noble figure as I calmly reminded loved ones of Epicurus’s maxim that ‘Death is nothing to us’. But the truth is my reaction to this new development was more Woody Allen than Epicurus. I became morbidly obsessed with the twitching of my muscles. I would think nothing of spending whole afternoons staring in horrified fascination at the subcutaneous bubbling my calf muscles in particular seemed determined to torment me with; and the merest suspicion that a previously twitch-free zone had decided to join in with the fun would be enough to provoke copious wailing and desperate entreaties for medical intervention.

I am pleased to report, though, that I retained a semblance of the scientific spirit in the series of strength tests I devised to determine just how quickly I was growing weaker. These included: standing on one leg (personal record – 5 minutes 32 seconds); standing on tiptoes on one leg (1 min 15 seconds); standing on tiptoes on one leg in the dark holding a cup of tea (4 seconds); hopping upstairs carrying a large cat (23 stairs). It is true that these tests did not show any dramatic decline in my physical prowess – in fact, if anything I got better at them as time went on – but I was not reassured. No doubt I had a variant of motor neuron disease that would taunt me with the possibility of remission, or even a cure, only to accelerate wildly the moment I began to think that just perhaps I’d be okay.

Obviously, suffering from two terminal illnesses – though, oddly enough, by this stage I wasn’t spending much time thinking about the pancreatic cancer – it was necessary to inform family and friends that I wasn’t going to be around for much longer. It was with a heavy heart, then, that I broke the news to my parents that their beloved son was unlikely to see out the year. It has to be said that their reaction to this bombshell was somewhat underwhelming. My father barely glanced up from the Daily Telegraph, and my mother muttered something about remembering to cancel the television license. Clearly they hadn’t understood what I was telling them. So I explained about my pancreas, and about the twitching, and how all this was terribly bad.

“Oh yes, that twitching, your father has that, and he’s still alive, more or less,” said my mother.

This was unexpected news.

“Show him your calf muscles, dear!”

My father knows better than to ignore a direct command from my mother, so he obliged by rolling up his trousers. It took a little while for me to pluck up the courage to look at his unadorned lower legs, but when I did, I was stunned to see that his calf muscles twitched every bit as wildly as my own.

This was a staggering revelation. It just seemed impossible – such a coincidence! I gave him what I hoped was a look of immense compassion, and then broke the news that he too was suffering from motor neuron disease.

“Oh well,” said my mother,“could be worse, he could have pancreatic cancer as well.”