Green Moon Hoax Will Leave Many Disappointed Tonight

Sorry folks, but there won't be a green moon tonight. The hoax appeared on social media in recent weeks claiming that a special planetary alignment, which supposedly happens every 420 years, would cause the moon to appear green on April 20, every marijuana enthusiast's favorite day. As with many things you see on social media, this isn't true and never will be.

Claims that a green moon will appear this month have been circulating primarily on Facebook, though they can be found on Twitter and elsewhere, too. According to the hoax, the rare green moon event will take place late tonight; the moon will supposedly turn green and stay that way for 90 minutes before going back to normal.

It's easy to see how some people fell victim to the claim: we have terms like "Blue Moon" to mark certain celestial events (though the moon doesn't actually turn blue, we're sorry to say). The idea was exciting to a subset of the popular that considers 4/20 a holiday. Marijuana is green and so, the joke goes, will be the moon.

Oddly enough, this isn't the first time we've seen this hoax appear in April; it already made its rounds once a couple years back, but apparently the public has a short memory. Regardless, the green moon event didn't happen in 2016 when many anticipated it, and it won't happen tonight, either.