From the Geil Archive (33)—Geil on the Moon

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A year ago on Round and Square (25 October 2012)--Displays of Authenticity—Bayonets and Buggy Whips
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[a] Where is the Great Wall? RF

Click here for other posts written by Guest Contributor Julia Lacher:
1-About Me                                       2-American Flag                    3-Simultaneous Coin Extractor          
4-Geil Visits the British Museum      5-Friends in High Places        6-Sanitarium
7-Geil on the Moon

Julia Lacher is a proud native of Des Moines, Iowa, and graduated from Beloit College in May with a double major in Anthropology and History and a minor in Museum Studies. She is the only intern working with William Edgar Geil's papers at the Doylestown Historical Society who did not take Professor Rob LaFleur's class on "The Accidental Ethnographer," and is currently wondering what she got herself in to.

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Please note that all items marked "DHS" are property of the Doylestown Historical Society, and used with DHS permission. If you wish to use an image, you need permission of the Society. Please contact Robert LaFleur (lafleur@beloit.edu), and he will put you in contact with the appropriate people.

[b] Great Wall RF

There are a lot of myths and misinformation about the Great Wall of China. Perhaps the most prevalent legend is that the Great Wall is the only man-made structure that can be seen from space, or more specifically, the moon. This piece of information is included in textbooks and games of trivial pursuit, and has become a cultural touchstone and a source of pride for many people. It is not, however, true. At least, not completely. 

How has this saying endured for so long? I remember hearing this piece of information in kindergarten! How and why has this statement become so ingrained in popular culture and history? It turns out that Geil may have been part of the popularity and pervasiveness of this myth.

When did the rumor begin? Most sources point to a letter written by William Stukeley, an English antiquarian and archaeologist. In 1754 Stukeley wrote the Great Wall, “makes a considerable figure upon the terrestrial globe, [and] may be discerned at the moon.” Over a hundred years later, Henry Norman wrote in his 1895 book The Peoples and Politics of the Far East, “…besides it’s age [the Great Wall] enjoys the reputation of being the only work of human hands on the globe visible from the moon.” 

Fourteen years later, in The Great Wall of China, William Edgar Geil also seized upon the idea of being able to see the Great Wall from the moon. He described his first view of the wall: 

[c] A Yankee on the Great Wall DHS

It danced before us in every-varying shapes, now rolling itself together like a scroll, now stretching itself   out to its full length…until we could almost fancy the Wall to be some agile imp playing hide and seek in our imagination, instead of the great structure that some lunar inhabitant might see like a black welt  across the face of the earth.

This was not the only time Geil used this imagery. In an earlier version of The Great Wall of China titled A Yankee on the Great Wall, Geil wrote, “It has been sagely remarked that this long structure…could be clearly defined by the mysterious Man-in-the-Moon if such an individual exist and if he is endowed with the same faculties which we possess.” 

While it seems that Geil was not solely responsible for coming up with the idea, he was certainly active in helping it to spread.

But can we really be so harsh on Geil and those who perpetuated and popularized this myth? Writing in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries, Geil and his counterparts would have no reason to believe the Great Wall could not be seen from space, or for that matter, the moon. The first satellites wouldn’t be launched until 1957, and the moon landing was like-wise hundreds of years away. Writers from this time period would have no frame of reference for what was and was not visible from space. Today the idea seems fanciful and if you’re being harsh, preposterous. However, in the context of the early twentieth century, the statement was perhaps meant to be taken as a metaphor. The idea of a structure built by human hands being visible from the moon is undeniably a captivating one. And really, who would be able to refute the statement in 1909? 

[d] International Space Station

It wasn’t until 1967 that definitive proof could be obtained. While it is absolutely impossible to see the Great Wall from the moon, it is sometimes visible from low-level orbit of Earth – if weather conditions are absolutely perfect. This issue came to the forefront in 2005 when NASA’s website published this article on the visibility of the Great Wall from the International Space Station. 

A Chinese astronaut on the ISS reported that he was not able to see the Great Wall from his vantage point, 230 miles above Earth. However, close examination of photos taken by another astronaut named Leroy Chiao were determined to show some sections of the wall. NASA reported that Chiao’s photos “were greeted with relief and rejoicing by the Chinese,” and were printed in newspapers throughout the country, even though Chiao reported that he hadn’t seen the wall and wasn’t sure the pictures showed it. 

While the Great Wall may be visible from low orbit of earth, the same can not be said of the moon. Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean summed it up when he stated, “The only thing you can see from the Moon is a beautiful sphere, mostly white, some blue and patches of yellow, and every once in a while some green vegetation.” 

[e] Earth Rise RF