Dennis Hope: The Man Who Allegedly Sold Presidents Land On The Moon (That He Doesn't Own)

Who owns the Moon? If you ask a hippy or a space lawyer, the answer is pretty clear: nobody. But according to Dennis Hope, the answer is "Dennis Hope" and "anyone Dennis Hope sells the Moon to". The latter category, according to Hope, includes presidents Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush.

In 1967, 111 countries around the world signed up to the Outer Space Treaty, which governs everything in space exploration from who is responsible for space junk, to who owns Neil Armstrong's Moon poops. That treaty states explicitly that "outer space is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means". That means no country can claim land on any celestial body, be it the Moon, Mars, or, for the truly ambitious, Jupiter.

"The most important precept of the Outer Space Treaty is that space is for everyone, and everyone shall have freedom of exploration and access to all areas. The other really important precept is that no state may claim territory in space," Michelle Hanlon, Air and Space Law Instructor, Research Counsel, told IFLScience, adding "nobody has that authority over the Moon." 

"If you’re building lunar research stations, the Outer Space Treaty has this concept that if it's for science it's OK, so long as you share all your information with everybody. But what about building a hotel on the Moon? There's nobody who has the authority to say, yes, you can build that hotel," said Hanlon.

But in the early 1980s, Dennis Hope, who had been unemployed for around a year, believed he had found a loophole. The Outer Space Treaty only explicitly states that nations cannot claim ownership of celestial bodies. It said nothing of individuals, and Dennis Hope was an individual.

"In 1980, a very bright, young and handsome Mr. Dennis Hope, recalling the Homestead Act of 1862 when the West was being settled, went to his local US Governmental Office for claim registries, at the San Francisco County Seat he made a claim for the entire lunar surface, as well as the surface of all the other eight planets of our solar system and their moons (except Earth and the sun)," Dennis Hope explains on his website Lunar Embassy.

After they reluctantly filed his claim, Hope then wrote to the United Nations and the Soviet government to inform them of his claim and his intent to start selling off some prime space property. When they didn't reply, he took this as permission. 

According to Politico, as of 2019, Hope estimated that he had earned at least $12 million from the venture, selling off pieces of land he doesn't own to people who will never be able to visit them. On the site Lunar Embassy, he offers pieces of land on Mercury and Venus for $34.99, the very definition of hot property. For $250,000, you can even buy dwarf planet Pluto, but as ever, they get you with the small print.

"Your Property comes with Mineral Rights," the Lunar Embassy website explains. "Should you mine your property for profit 10% of your proceeds will be payable to the Galactic Government for Humanitarian projects here on Earth."

The Galactic Government, you will be unsurprised to learn, was set up by Hope as "a democratic republic that represents extraterrestrial landowners with a ratified constitution, a congress, unit of currency and even its own patent office".

Hope claims that amongst his customers are presidents of the US, though you should take that with a pinch of salt from a man who also claims to own most of the Solar System.

"Our youngest owner was a newborn in Germany, and our oldest is 97," Hope told Vice. "We have politicians from around the world who are property owners, including three former presidents of the United States—Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush. They didn’t buy the properties themselves—Carter and Reagan’s aides bought theirs, and a customer bought it for George W. Bush."

In reality though, if presidents did make a purchase, what they bought was essentially a piece of paper.

"What Lunar Embassy is doing does not give people buying pieces of paper the right to ownership of the moon," Tanja Masson-Zwaan, president of the International Institute of Space Law, told National Geographic.

As (if) we explore the Solar System further, we may have to begin worrying about legal claims to territories, but it won't be as simple as calling planetary shotgun.

"It's a difficult process, but it has to happen if we are going to explore beyond our orbits," Hanlon added. "We're going to need to allow people to build houses and claim land. I personally would like to see the Moon treated a little bit differently from the rest of space, let's keep the Moon as pristine as we can."