"The Balloon-Hoax" is the title used in collections and anthologies of a newspaper article by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1844 in The Sun newspaper in New York. Originally presented as a true story, it detailed European Monck Mason's trip across the Atlantic Ocean in only three days in a gas balloon. It was later revealed as a hoax and the story was retracted two days later. Overview The story now known as "The Balloon-Hoax" was first printed in The Sun newspaper in New York. The article provided a detailed and highly plausible account of a lighter-than-air balloon trip by 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. Poe had complained for a decade that the paper's Great Moon Hoax had plagiarized (by way of Locke) the basic idea from "The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall", one of Poe's less successful stories which also involved similar inhabitants on the Moon. Poe felt The Sun had made tremendous profits from his story without giving him a cent. (Poe's anger at The Sun is chronicled in the 2008 book The Sun and the Moon by Matthew Goodman.) Publication history The story was first published on April 13, 1844 in the New York Sun. It ran with the headline: ASTOUNDING NEWS! BY EXPRESS VIA NORFOLK: THE ATLANTIC CROSSED IN THREE DAYS! SIGNAL TRIUMPH OF MR. MONCK MASON'S FLYING MACHINE!!! Arrival at Sullivan's Island, near Charlestown, S. C., of Mr. Mason, Mr. Robert Hol- land, Mr. Henson, Mr. Har- rison Ainsworth, and four others, in the STEERING BALLOON "VICTORIA," AFTER A PASSAGE OF SEVENTY-FIVE HOURS FROM LAND TO LAND. FULL PARTICULARS OF THE VOYAGE!!! A retraction concerning the article was printed in The Sun on April 15, 1844: Critical reception and significance Poe himself describes the enthusiasm his story had aroused: he writes that the Sun building was "besieged" by people wanting copies of the newspaper. "I never witnessed more intense excitement to get possession of a newspaper", he wrote. The story's impact reflects on the period's infatuation with progress.