Fake News: The Moon Will NOT Turn Green For 90 Minutes On April 20, 2018

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk
Fake News: The Moon Will NOT Turn Green For 90 Minutes On April 20, 2018

Will the Moon turn green for 90 minutes on April 20, 2018? Of course not, despite claims by a viral video posted recently by The Free Though Project no such thing will happen, the claim is not true.

The Facebook post was published on April 1, 2018 (archived here) and had following caption under the video:

Please share this historic event! ๐ŸŒœ Join Us: The Free Thought Project

The text in the video read:

On April 20th, 2018

Several planets will align causing the Earth's Moon to appear green for 90 minutes. This phenomenon is known as "green moon" and only happens once every four hundred & twenty years.

If you were wondering what the creators of the video were smoking, you'd be right. Snopes already debunked versions of this hoax in 2016 and 2017.

FACT CHECK: Will a 'Green Moon' Appear in April 2018?

On 20 April 2018, a Green Moon will appear in the sky, a rare event that only occurs every 420 years.

The references to the number 420 in the text (4/20, four hundred & twenty) are clearly meant as a nod to marijuana culture. However it appears the hoax came a little earlier this year so it could double as an April Fools' Day joke as well.

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  Maarten Schenk

Lead Stories co-founder Maarten Schenk is our resident expert on fake news and hoax websites. He likes to go beyond just debunking trending fake news stories and is endlessly fascinated by the dazzling variety of psychological and technical tricks used by the people and networks who intentionally spread made-up things on the internet.  He can often be found at conferences and events about fake news, disinformation and fact checking when he is not in his office in Belgium monitoring and tracking the latest fake article to go viral.

Read more about or contact Maarten Schenk

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