The Houston Chronicle reports that the FBI has arrested four people who attempted to sell moon rocks over the Internet. Three of the four were actually employed by NASA. They stole a 600-pound safe containing the rocks out of the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
:smack:
I think it was actually a 670 lb safe, at least that’s what the local station reported last night. They were contract employees, students hired for the summer. They’d tried to pre-sell the items, 5 oz of dust and cuttings, for 250K via the net.
Now they’re felons. How frikken stupid do you have to be to think you’re not going to get caught?
Maybe they can still become bottle rocket scientists.
There’s something weird here. I just heard a story on the radio a couple of days ago about someone trying to sell moon rocks from (I think) Honduras. It turns out they were real – they were rocks that had been given by the U.S. Government to the government there. Evidently some corrupt politician had sold them to a private collector. They passed through at least one other private collector’s hands, until he saw an ad for moon rocks, and tried to sell them. It turned out to be a “sting” operation set up (by the FBI?) to catch con artists selling moon rocks. The upshot is that you can’t sell real moon rocks, and the Honduran government (or whoever) wants them back.
So my question is – what’s the deal with selling moon rocks, suddenly? You got the four people ion the OP, this guy I heard about, and evidently a lot od scamsters. Is there something special about moon rocks? Do they contain Kryptonite? Can they be used by terrorists? Inquiring minds want to know.
Ca, Cal, Cal… they’re MOON ROCKS! From the MOON! Where the Moon Maid and the Moon Men live! Isn’t that special enough for you?
No?
OK try this for special little mister… They were collected by Astronauts! Yep that’s right freakin’ Astronauts in their freakin’** Astrocar!**
Want more eh? They were stolen from NASA! Yeah that right sparky, NASA! where they launch the big assed Space Shuttle that has a freakin’ GIANT ROBOTIC ARM made in CANADA!!
Something like this happened about six years ago, and I think it turned out to be a hoax.
I’ve seen the moon rocks in the Smithsonian and the Museum of Natural History in NYC. But the best was when I saw one that was on loan to the tiny Deke Slayton Museum in Sparta, WI.
Truly incredible to know the tremendous effort it took to allow me to stand there in this ratty little museum, in a town in the middle of nowhere, on a rainy day, and gaze in awe at this little rock.
The director of the museum told me she had to travel to Houston to get it. It came in a suitcase, and she was instructed to NEVER let it out of her sight, not even for an instant.
Is it against the law for private individuals to own moonrocks?
I think the market is being cornered by those Apollo-landing-was-a-hoax crackpots. See, if they can get a hold of all the rocks, their opponents won’t have a of that damning “evidence.” I hope the FBI is checking to see if any of the four thieves is related to a certain Dr. Hoagland…
I actually heard about the Honduran moon rock quite a while ago.
What’s shocking to me is how quickly this new set of moon rocks were recovered. Makes you wonder about the selective efficiency of the Men in Black. I think these are anomalous moon rocks that have tiny structures and antennae embedded in them. If you look closely enough, you’ll even see tiny tire tracks on the surface of the rock.