American Dennis Hope made millions of dollars by selling land on the moon. Hope believes that the moon belongs to him, but the interesting thing is that many people believe him and are willing to pay for it.
In 1980, Hope pointed out that the 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty forbids nations, not individuals, from owning the moon. He wrote a letter to the UN, claiming ownership of the moon and asking for an explanation of why a person could not do so. The international organization still has not responded to him.
Since then, Hope, 65, has been selling certificates of land on the Moon for $24 per acre (0.4 hectares). Among his buyers are famous Hollywood actors such as Nicole Kidman, Tom Cruise and John Travolta, as well as former U.S. presidents George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter. Living in Gardenville, Hope once even sold a piece of land the size of a small country (2.6 million acres) for $250,000.
University of Nevada space law professor Franz Dunk told the New York Times that the property certificates from Hope are "fraud and nothing."
However, Hope is not embarrassed by these statements: when China announced plans to build a lunar base, he wrote the Chinese that their ship would not fly to a satellite of the Earth without his personal consent.
"We're not against scientific research, but if someone is going to build something permanent, they can't do it because they don't own the moon," Hope said. - It's the same as if Canada came to the U.S. and started building something without any permission given to them."
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