![]() On May 18, 2004, Malta's Goodwill Moon Rock was stolen from Malta's Museum of Natural History in Mdina. Main article: Malta lunar sample displays Missing gifted rocks United States Delaware Operation Lunar Eclipse and the Moon Rock Project were the subject of the 2012 book The Case of the Missing Moon Rocks by Joe Kloc. Beginning in 2002, his graduate students began reporting to him that both the Cyprus Apollo 11 Moon rock (which is actually a collection of lunar dust in a Lucite ball) and Cyprus Apollo 17 Goodwill Moon Rock (a pebble-size Moon rock) were missing. Gutheinz patterned this college project after NASA's earlier Operation Lunar Eclipse, which he had participated in. Hundreds of graduate students have participated in this project from 2002 to the present and while many Moon rocks have been found, others are now known to be missing, stolen, or destroyed. He subsequently extended this project to also cover the missing Apollo 11 Moon rocks President Nixon gave to the states and nations of the world in 1969. Īfter leaving NASA for a teaching position at the University of Phoenix, in Arizona, Gutheinz challenged his criminal justice graduate students to locate the goodwill Moon rocks. Ross Perot was asked by one of the agents to put up the money, and did so. Billionaire and one-time Presidential Candidate H. In order to recover this Moon rock, the agents had to come up with the $5 million requested by the seller. This Moon rock had been given to Honduras by President Nixon, fallen into private hands, and then offered to the Agents for $5 million. For the first time in history the sting operation recovered an Apollo era Moon rock, the Honduras Goodwill Moon Rock. ![]() The sting operation was led by NASA OIG Senior Special Agent Joseph Gutheinz. The Agents were targeting individuals selling bogus Moon rocks, which con artists sell to the elderly and to space enthusiasts. Agents posted a quarter page advertisement in USA Today asking for Moon rocks. This sting operation was later expanded to include Agents from the United States Customs Service, namely, Special Agent Dwight Weikel and Special Agent Dave Atwood. Originally two undercover agents were involved in this sting, Senior Special Agent Joseph Gutheinz of NASA's Office of Inspector General (NASA OIG), posing as Tony Coriasso, and Inspector Bob Cregger of the United States Postal Inspection Service, posing as John Marta. This sting operation was known as Operation Lunar Eclipse. In 1998, a unique federal law enforcement undercover operation was created to identify and arrest individuals selling bogus Moon rocks. Moon rocks have been subjects of theft and forgery as well. The location of the rocks has been tracked by researchers and hobbyists because of their rarity and the difficulty of obtaining more. Many of these rocks that are accounted for have been locked away in storage for decades. Of the 270 Apollo 11 Moon rocks and the Apollo 17 Goodwill Moon Rocks that were given to the nations of the world by the Nixon Administration, approximately 180 are unaccounted for. Sample from NASA's lunar surface collection at Johnson Space Center's vault in Houston, Texas
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