# Talk:Patrick Moore

Perhaps there's someone in Wikipedia who could give me one or more answers to questions I have asked myself since the day I started exploring the rich history of selenography (the art of making moonmaps). Many years ago I explored and investigated the somewhat greenish colored map of the moon's near side in Patrick Moore's Atlas of the Universe (the 1983 edition), and I came across several names which look'd rather strange, such as the Loro basin near crater Parrot, the Lothrop hills near crater Euler, the Andreus hills near crater Gassendi, the Leon hills near crater Wichmann in Oceanus Procellarum, the Mishqui basin south of Mare Crisium, Morotcha near the upper rim of Mare Vaporum, the Mitika peak near crater Jansen in Mare Tranquillitatis, etc... These names are not IAU-related (they do not appear in the lists of the International Astronomical Union), and also not in the list of 100 "new names" from Hugh Percy Wilkins and his Spanish friends (Gerard P. Kuiper didn't want to know about these 100 "new" names). Could they (those strange names on that greenish colored moonmap) have been from Patrick Moore himself? -Danny Caes, Ghent-Belgium, tuesday the 14th of april, 2020.
Patrick Moore was a known flake when it came to the truth, it would be entirely in character for him to make a map and name some features as he desired, IAU and everyone else be damned.  He claimed in his autobiography to have personally discovered Mare Orientalis, for example.
Dr.gregory.retzlaff (talk) 04:23, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

According to https://www.the-moon.us/wiki/Mysterious_names_on_Rand_Mc.Nally%27s_moonmap , these names, along with the name Golubiz cluster (hillocks between Campanus and Kies), appear on Rand Mc.Nally's moonmap. This may have been Moore's source for these names; if so, they were not his own invention. 86.31.65.236 (talk) 23:08, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Just for the record, an IP made this edit on 18 March 2021, adding this text:

"The Commonwealth War Graves online database does have a record of a Lorna Gertrude Wittrick, killed aged 22 in Mortlake, 7th November 1940, and a Lorna Margaret Noble, killed aged 25 at Gabalfa, Cardiff, 18th May 1943."
This was correctly removed here with the edit summary "rv good faith edit, this is completely WP:OR and it changes nothing, because Moore never gave enough details for Lorna to be traced as a real person". Yes, it is WP:OR, and yes it changes nothing, but it just goes to show that Moore's claim that Lorna was "was killed in London in 1943 by a bomb which struck her ambulance" is not currently supported by that Commonwealth War Graves Commission online database. I have no idea how comprehensive or accurate the database may be. Martinevans123 (talk) 18:20, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

There can't be many people called Lorna who were killed in London in 1943 when a bus struck an ambulance, so if this happened the incident would probably have been traced by now. What the article doesn't say is that Martin Mobberley heard Moore tell various stories about Lorna, some of them inconsistent, and Mobberley believed that Lorna may have been a fictional character. This is discussed in several previous talk page threads (see above).--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 20:03, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
You assume that Lorna is her "proper" name, not always the case people can use a name other than what was registered. MilborneOne (talk) 20:07, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
Nobody has been able to trace a matching civilian casualty from 1943, and this has set off some suspicion about the Lorna story. Mobberley says that the Lorna story did not appear until many years after the war, and that it may have been used to explain why he never married.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 20:11, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Re this edit: since I can't see what is in this source, it's hard to know what it says. Can someone give more detail?--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 14:12, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

I've added the GoogleBooks url to Mobberley (2013) and using that link I'm able to see mention of "Lorna" on pages 28 and 29 (as well as on a few others). So I'm not sure what that edit summary was intended to mean. I think the text should be reinstated. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:30, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
OK, I've read this (thank goodness for Google Books) and agree to some extent that it is "not found in cited source" as it would be more accurate to say that no-one has been able to pinpoint a person who might have been Lorna due to Moore's vague and often varying accounts. The wording could be improved here, but the basic point is in the book.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 17:34, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
Maybe it's the "despite the meticulous records kept of wartime civilian casualties" that's the problem? (although the word "meticulous" is used 10 times in that book) Martinevans123 (talk) 17:43, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
Moore said that the incident occurred in "early July 1943", but this never proved to be enough to identify her.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 18:04, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
I propose we reinstate "Some doubt has arisen over Moore's account, as researchers have been unable to identify Lorna." with the same p.28 source. Martinevans123 (talk) 18:16, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
Done, incidentally Moore's claim to have met Orville Wright is also questioned in Mobberley's 2013 book. Mobberley says that Moore told varying stories about this as well and they never quite added up. It's the old WP:AUTO problem.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 18:50, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
Thanks. Ah, not this one, then. Martinevans123 (talk) 18:54, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
As matter of interest, I tried googling for Lorna's (with no surname) in the CWGC Debt of Honour database who died during 1943. There were only two Lornas altogether, neither of them civilians killed in this country. (The majority of names that came up in response to my goggle were Lorne's.Cloptonson (talk) 18:02, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

The article states that Moore claimed to have discovered Mare Orientale, then goes on to say he conceded that someone else discovered it, and then the article also goes on to state that Mare Orientale had been observed for a couple centuries.  Thus Moore certainly did not discover it; this is shown twice untrue in the article.  Thus his claim to discovery does not belong here, it has been twice disproved.
Dr.gregory.retzlaff (talk) 17:45, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Some readers might consider the fact that he claimed the discovery to be notable in itself. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:53, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
No, him making a ridiculous claim is not newsworthy.  Someone making a false claim then retracting it is not notable nor does it belong on Wikipedia.  If Margaret Thatcher claimed to have helped Britain win the World Cup, then retracted it, would that be notable and belong on Wikipedia??
Dr.gregory.retzlaff (talk) Dr.gregory.retzlaff (talk) 18:13, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
Yes, I think that would have been ample evidence of mental instability on Thatcher's part. So, yes, quite notable. Happy to hear what other editors say about the Mare Oriental claim. It seems that Moore may have invented a few things over the years. Martinevans123 (talk) 18:33, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
I see you had just removed it anyway, before you opened this discussion thread. Martinevans123 (talk) 18:43, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
OK, I did remove it at the same time as I opened discussion; I am new and not aware of the procedures, I apologize if I did it wrong.  But it seems to be a bit of a no brainer edit. Dr.gregory.retzlaff (talk) 18:46, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
No worries. Other editors may not object. But I think that detail has been in the article for quite some time. Martinevans123 (talk) 18:49, 11 March 2022 (UTC) p.s. I would certainly agree that the Mare Oriental claim is not "newsworthy". But Wikipedia is not meant to be a newspaper.
It's part of a pattern where Moore made WP:AUTO claims about himself and his career that were not properly backed up by external evidence. Lorna is the most famous example, and the Mare Oriental claim is another example where Moore himself backtracked on the claim.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 19:30, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
There is a pattern. Removing such claims allows for whitewashing. The ‘story’ of Mare Oriental claim should be reinstated to ensure that the pattern remains discernable.  Ian Yorston (talk) 12:12, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

I wonder if this section needs reorganising into chronological order. At the moment, it jumps back and forth a great deal (1970s, 1980s, 2001, 1950s, 2003, 1980s...) ElectronicsForDogs (talk) 22:49, 11 March 2023 (UTC)