The Insane, Probably Fake, Plan to Brighten the Moon

It sounds like the plot of a James Bond movie: There's a plan afoot to make the moon brighter in the night sky, potentially saving the world billions of dollars in power costs running street lamps.

How would such an ambitious idea even be possible? By strategically placing highly reflective material on the lunar surface. A lot of it.

The project is called Brighter Moon, and Swedish parent company Foreo says it has already secured more than $52 million in funding.

The thing is, Foreo is a cosmetics company. When asked for more information on the backers of Brighter Moon, company reps declined to name even one, citing privacy reasons. The "Foreo Institute" is also supposedly trying to crowd-fund a new kind of toothbrush — which may in fact be real — so the moon project may be an elaborate hoax created to drum up interest in that. Read more...