Like their contemporaries, Mormons were fascinated with possible inhabitants on the planet closest to earth. Encouraged by the recent spectoscopic discoveries which indicated that the moon had an atmosphere, Oliver B. Huntington related in 1892 an occasion on which Joseph Smith was purported to have expressed his belief that "the moon was inhabited by men and women the same as this earth." According to Huntington, Smith described the moon's inhabitants, saying that "they lived to a greater age than we do—that they live generally to near the age of 1000 years," that the men averaged "near six feet in height, and dres[sed] quite uniformly in something near the Quaker style."

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81. Young Woman's Journal 3 (Mar. 1892): 263. See also Young Woman's Journal 5 (April 1894): 346, where Huntington repeated this statement. Huntington recorded in his journal for January 1881 that he heard Philo Dibble relate Smith's statement about the moon, so his account probably stems from Dibble's memory or at least was influenced by it. See Oliver B. Huntington Journal, typescript, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.