It’s been 50 years since humans first landed on the Moon. But for how long have we rehearsed those first steps in our imaginations? This we do know: We’ve been telling each other tales about our Moon-landing dreams for nearly 2,000 years.
The earliest known written story about people traveling to the Moon was by Lucian of Samosata, a Syrian-Greek writer born around 125 AD. His travels throughout the Mediterranean world were the basis for the fictional tales in his True Stories, an often bawdy satire of Homer’s revered epic the Odyssey.
One such story tells of the journey Lucian and 50 companions take on a boat carried to the Moon by a giant waterspout. When they arrive on the lunar surface, they’re greeted by a race of three-headed vultures and soon find themselves in the middle of a war with another species. Eventually they make their way back to Earth and experience more fantastic adventures. Lucian’s lunar tale is the earliest known piece of fiction that depicts space travel, a Moon landing, aliens, and interplanetary war.
