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Fake moon rock?

Roboramma

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This is a recovered thread; the date/time stamps are off, but all posts/content are as they were.
Posted By: Locknar


Apparently a dutch museum has a moon rock that was given to them by a former prime minister who claimed to have been given it by NASA in 1969. Recently it's been determined that what was claimed to be a moon rock was actually a piece of petrified wood.

If you search for it there are plenty of articles from well respected sources about this, here's one from the BBC:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8226075.stm

I first heard this listening to Joe Rogan's podcast where he does his "I don't believe that the moon landings were fake, but this is weird" thing. When I heard it I also thought it was surprising but there are obviously plenty of ways that an object can be mistakenly labeled or stolen or in some other way chain of custody can be broken, and as such wasn't too troubled by it.

I was talking to a friend of mine who also likes to listen to JRE and he brought up this "fake moon rock" business again at which point I just explained what I thought were very plausible scenarios in which a moon rock could be misplaced, but having discussed it I thought it worth while to actually look into it.

What I found interesting is that:
The "rock" had originally been been vetted through a phone call to Nasa, she added.
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Another article goes into a little more detail:

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/32581790/n.../#.WQGyhFJ7E_U
The museum had vetted the moon rock with a phone call to NASA, Van Gelder said.
She said the space agency told the museum then that it was possible the Netherlands had received a rock: NASA gave moon rocks to more than 100 countries in the early 1970s, but those were from later missions.
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This suggests that NASA didn't even have an actual record of giving him this rock, so all we're going on is the word of the former Dutch Prime Minister that he was given a moon rock by NASA. Perhaps he misremembered or maybe he just made up? I don't know.

The rock was also in this guy's personal collection from 1969 to 1988, during which time if it was genuine there is plenty of chance for something to happen to it. Maybe someone stole the rock and replaced it with the one that ended up in the museum.

That second article also makes an interesting point:
It was on show in 2006, and a space expert informed the museum it was unlikely NASA would have given away any moon rocks three months after Apollo returned to Earth.
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Apparently this was before it was determined to be a fake.

So how do you think it happened that this rock was thought to be a moon rock? Was an actual moon rock given to the prime minister and then misplaced? Was he not given a rock by NASA at all, or at least not one purporting to be a moon rock? Was he given a rock that NASA claimed was a moon rock but was actually just a piece of petrified wood?

I'm thinking it's mostly likely that he wasn't given the rock at all as there doesn't seem to be any actual record of this happening except for the former prime minister saying that it did and the fact that it's odd that he would be given a moon rock so soon after Apollo 11.

On the other hand even if he was I wouldn't find the other explanation, that it was lost somewhere between 1969 and 1988, to be particularly surprising.

Thoughts?
 
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Roboramma said:
Apparently a dutch museum has a moon rock that was given to them by a former prime minister who claimed to have been given it by NASA in 1969. Recently it's been determined that what was claimed to be a moon rock was actually a piece of petrified wood.
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Petrified wood on the moon? Someone buried the lede.
 
We used to have a number of actual Moon rocks here at the university. Every year or so, someone from NASA would come out and conduct an inventory.

It was one of the sillier things I ever saw. (We had to sort of supervise the procedure)

The guy from NASA had a big list of serial numbers. Each individual chunk of rock (they looked awfully like pea-gravel from your driveway) was in a lovely little machined aluminum and lucite container that probably cost a bundle. Each was inscribed with a serial number.

The NASA rep would pick a serial number at random, and the administrator would pick out that rock and show that indeed, they had it.
That was it. Half a dozen or so at random. No attempt to actually look at the rock itself.
 
Bikewer said:
The guy from NASA had a big list of serial numbers. Each individual chunk of rock (they looked awfully like pea-gravel from your driveway) was in a lovely little machined aluminum and lucite container that probably cost a bundle.
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Still... rocks... from the moon. Pretty awesome.
 
One of the things that Nixon did while president was to give away about 100 small Moon rocks to various leaders of the world to show the good will of the USA and to show himself off as well.

Anyway, it sounds like someone wanted his own Moon rock so that someone switched out a piece of petrified wood for this Moon rock.

I expect that there is a safe in someone's den right now where this Moon rock is located. While the owner is proud to have an actual Moon rock, the owner is also too scared to show it to anyone because if the authorities found out about it, then that owner would have some serious explaining to do.
 
Crossbow said:
One of the things that Nixon did while president was to give away about 100 small Moon rocks to various leaders of the world to show the good will of the USA and to show himself off as well.

Anyway, it sounds like someone wanted his own Moon rock so that someone switched out a piece of petrified wood for this Moon rock.

I expect that there is a safe in someone's den right now where this Moon rock is located. While the owner is proud to have an actual Moon rock, the owner is also too scared to show it to anyone because if the authorities found out about it, then that owner would have some serious explaining to do.
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Both Netherlands moon rock gifts from Nixon are in the Leiden museum where they belong, neither one is missing. They are one of the few museums to have kept careful and proper track of their moon rocks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nether...ample_displays

This giant "moon rock" from a US ambassador seems to be an oddball. It was never a moon rock, and never described as a moon rock. The cardboard with it does not say it is a moon rock.

The Amsterdam case appears to be not fraud but the result of poor vetting by the Rijksmuseum.

Spokeswoman Xandra van Gelder said the museum checked with NASA after receiving the rock in 1992 from the estate of the late Prime Minister Willem Drees. NASA told the museum, without seeing it, that it was "possible" it was a moon rock.

But it weighed a whopping 89 grams (3.1 ounces). In addition, its gold-colored cardboard plaque does not describe it as a moon rock.

The U.S. ambassador gave Drees the rock during an Oct. 9, 1969 visit by the Apollo 11 astronauts to the Netherlands. Drees's grandson, also named Willem, told the AP his grandfather had been out of office for more than a decade and was nearly deaf and blind in 1969, though his mind was still sharp.

"My guess is that he did not hear well what was said," said the grandson. "He may have formed his own idea about what it was."

The family never thought to question the story before donating the rock, to which it had not attached great importance or monetary value.
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https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech...oon-rock_N.htm
 
LTC8K6 said:
Both Netherlands moon rock gifts from Nixon are in the Leiden museum where they belong, neither one is missing. They are one of the few museums to have kept careful and proper track of their moon rocks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nether...ample_displays

This giant "moon rock" from a US ambassador seems to be an oddball. It was never a moon rock, and never described as a moon rock. The cardboard with it does not say it is a moon rock.


https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech...oon-rock_N.htm
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Thanks much for the data, and here is something that you mind find interesting as well ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen...ing_moon_rocks

Stolen and missing moon rocks

Of the 270 Apollo 11 Moon Rocks and Apollo 17 Goodwill Moon Rocks that were given to the nations of the world by the Nixon Administration, approximately 180 are currently[when?] unaccounted for. Many of the Moon rocks that are accounted for have been locked away in storage for decades. The location of the rocks has been tracked by researchers and hobbyists because of their rarity and the difficulty of obtaining more. Moon rocks have been subjects of theft and forgery as well.

...
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If it was an official gift wouldn't there be a record of it? I know all gifts given to our PM have to be registered and recorded.
 
It's worth noting that all of the "goodwill rocks" given out by the U.S. came from a sample collected near the end of the Apollo 17 mission, over three years after Drees is said to have received the "moon rock".

It appears to have gone down like this: Middendorf visited Holland during the Apollo 11 crew's tour and gave Drees a piece of petrified wood as a gift from America. Drees, who was still mentally competent, but nearly blind and deaf at the time, misunderstood the nature of the rock and mistakenly thought it was collected by the Apollo 11 mission. He mentioned to his family that he'd been given a moon rock. Nineteen years later Drees passes away and his family starts going through his possession, coming across the "moon rock". They donate it to the Dutch National Museum where some archivist lists it as a "moon rock".
 
Foster Zygote said:
It's worth noting that all of the "goodwill rocks" given out by the U.S. came from a sample collected near the end of the Apollo 17 mission, over three years after Drees is said to have received the "moon rock".

It appears to have gone down like this: Middendorf visited Holland during the Apollo 11 crew's tour and gave Drees a piece of petrified wood as a gift from America. Drees, who was still mentally competent, but nearly blind and deaf at the time, misunderstood the nature of the rock and mistakenly thought it was collected by the Apollo 11 mission. He mentioned to his family that he'd been given a moon rock. Nineteen years later Drees passes away and his family starts going through his possession, coming across the "moon rock". They donate it to the Dutch National Museum where some archivist lists it as a "moon rock".
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen...ck_proven_fake

Its amazing that eight years later, that its still regularly trotted out by hoaxers as fact (note not the O.P., but elsewhere) despite the almost immediate debunking of it as being a moon rock
Firstly the samples given out were several years later than the so called rock, and were almost microscopic in size, embedded in plastic
Also, despite many actually haven being lost over the years, Holland actually has 2 gifted rocks (Apollo 11 and Apollo 17), the locations both of which are still known and that partially led to the museums belief it was an actual moon rock, they actually checked with NASA, and they confirmed that there was an A11 rock had been presented and the two organisations didnt realise that they were talking about different items- had NASA sent a picture or described it, there wouldnt have been any confusion as the so called fake rock is nothing like what was given as the A11 rock in Hollands possession (at another museum to boot)

eg of A11 gifted rocks
529px-Norway_Apollo_11_display.jpg


eg of A17 gifted rocks
397px-NASA_photo_Honduras_Apollo_17_plaque.jpg

from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_sample_displays

A picture of the `fake rock' can be seen at http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/...18_468x409.jpg
 
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One has to wonder why NASA would be so stupid as to pass off a piece of fossilized wood as a "moon rock". Like they wouldn't have known to give out fakes that would seem at least plausible to a geologist? Its funny how the conspiracy theorist's scenarios swing from evil genius to slapstick stupidity. Heck, I recently saw a guy claim that NASA staged the Apollo 1 fire to silence Gus Grissom. The reason? He was about to go public with his concerns about the safety of the Block I Command Module.
 
Am I correct on recalling that the discovery of the true nature of the Drees rock was caused by a NASA geologist seeing it at the museum and telling them that it was definitely not a lunar sample?
 
Foster Zygote said:
One has to wonder why NASA would be so stupid as to pass off a piece of fossilized wood as a "moon rock". Like they wouldn't have known to give out fakes that would seem at least plausible to a geologist? Its funny how the conspiracy theorist's scenarios swing from evil genius to slapstick stupidity. Heck, I recently saw a guy claim that NASA staged the Apollo 1 fire to silence Gus Grissom. The reason? He was about to go public with his concerns about the safety of the Block I Command Module.
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I often see such confusion amongst the conspitards, personally I think its because they need to tell lies in order to support their stories, they often forget what lies they have told earlier, so consistency is indeed lacking, plus because they often had to make it up quickly, its not until later you end up thinking `whaaa???'

`yes in order to stop one of our people going off about unsafe conditions that could attract media attention, we had to kill him.'
`How did you do that?'
`Um we set fire to the capsule with him and his two partners in it because they might know of his suspicions and relay them to the media if we dont kill them all in an accidental fire the others might be suspicious'
`Good job, the media will never learn of any possible safety problems with the capsule now..... wait...um......oh ****.....'

It seems all the worlds greatest evildoers (kynoons illuminuti, nasa and their faked moon landings, our reptilian overlords etc) all went to the `Dr Evil skool of villani and doing bad things'
 
Has anyone looked into the Moon Nipper thing yet? This is a moon rock that's been hollowed out to hold liquor like a flask.
 
Foster Zygote said:
It's worth noting that all of the "goodwill rocks" given out by the U.S. came from a sample collected near the end of the Apollo 17 mission, over three years after Drees is said to have received the "moon rock".

It appears to have gone down like this: Middendorf visited Holland during the Apollo 11 crew's tour and gave Drees a piece of petrified wood as a gift from America. Drees, who was still mentally competent, but nearly blind and deaf at the time, misunderstood the nature of the rock and mistakenly thought it was collected by the Apollo 11 mission. He mentioned to his family that he'd been given a moon rock. Nineteen years later Drees passes away and his family starts going through his possession, coming across the "moon rock". They donate it to the Dutch National Museum where some archivist lists it as a "moon rock".
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It appears it wasn't a mistake by Drees. In 2009 a newspaper talked with Middendorf and he said he got the rock from the U.S. State Department and did not know why the U.S. would present a gift of a fake rock. So the legend goes back to at least Middendorf. Curiously, Middendorf said it would remain a mystery because all the people from the State Department who would know anything about it are dead, apparently without naming any names.
 
DevilsAdvocate said:
It appears it wasn't a mistake by Drees. In 2009 a newspaper talked with Middendorf and he said he got the rock from the U.S. State Department and did not know why the U.S. would present a gift of a fake rock. So the legend goes back to at least Middendorf. Curiously, Middendorf said it would remain a mystery because all the people from the State Department who would know anything about it are dead, apparently without naming any names.
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It would be interesting to see if the State Department still had any files about this

The real A11 dutch moon rocks werent given out until 1970, the A17 ones in 1973, so why would the State Dept be handing out fake ones in 1969????

You must also remember that when he was contacted in 2009, they were talking to an 85 year old man about an incident that had happened 40 years previously, did he have a diary or notes he could refer to, or was he relying on memory?

Altho I cant verify this one, it does appear to be claiming a `moon rock' was given to the Dutch Queen along with a replica of the message left on the moon, but it also states this happened in 1969, not 1970 when the Dutch received their `real' moon rock, 69 was the A11 crews `goodwill' tour but no rocks were given out as far as I can find out. Is it possible they were allowed to take a real moon rock with them to show off, but if they did, it certainly wouldn't be left as a gift- and if they had a rock, the leaving of the replica message plaque is being confused with the showing of a rock (which wasnt left as a gift)???? That could be a possibility?

http://www.awe130.com/apollo-hoax-ex...-and-the-queen

Any dutch readers that could translate the newspaper article?

https://www.history.nasa.gov/SP-4223/ch10.htm
A NASA staffers recollection of the A11 tour- sounded hectic to say the least
 
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But the astronauts would have certainly known that the big rock was not from the moon and it was also gigantic compared to the typical moon rock samples given out.

The gold card with the rock says nothing about the moon or the queen. If the rock was presented to the queen, wouldn't the card say so?

"Presented to her majesty..." etc.?
 
In my opinion the simplest explanation is that the United States did indeed give him a special rock collected from the Craters of the Moon National Monument, which includes a petrified forest. No bad intentions required, just a hazy memory and/or a misunderstood translation. "Craters of the Moon National Monument" turned into "The Moon".

The Wilderness Act of 1964 recognized wilderness as as "an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain". This definition has always fit a large portion of Craters of the Moon. Designation of the 43,243 acre Craters of the Moon National Wilderness Area was signed into law on October 23, 1970. With that legislation lands within Craters of the Moon National Monument and Petrified Forest National Park became the first within the National Park System to be designated as wilderness.
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Umm... we've know about this for at least 8 years. Here is my posting about it on another forum back in 2010!

Originally Posted by Me, on ApolloHoax
While true that there are multiple possibilites, I'd suggest rather then giving a ship full of examples, it is better to stick to the most obvious one, that it never was, nor was meant to be, a moonrock, and that someone in the chain has gotten confused in believing it was.

At this point the simple thing is that anyone claiming it was a faked rock has to show that it was meant to be a moonrock in the first place. As of yet I have never seen anyone actually able to show that the rock was presented as a genuine moonrock, and until that happens, there is little point of going further.
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My opinion hasn't changed. Unless someone can prove that it was actually presented as a moonrock, then all it was in an interesting rock that was given to the them PM by an Astronaut and at some point others assumed that it was one.
moonrockx-large.jpg
 
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Here is the evidence we have that it was presented as a moonrock.

1. Middendorf made a statement that he gave the stone to Drees.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/32581790/...rock-museum-just-petrified-wood/#.WQkx1vkrKHs
"I do remember that (Drees) was very interested in the little piece of stone," the NOS quoted Middendorf as saying. "But that it's not real, I don't know anything about that."
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He doesn’t specifically say it was a moonstone, but it implied. Even more so with:

http://www.simplyamsterdam.nl/Rijks...o_Dutch_prime_minister_is_not_moon_stone.html
Mr Middendorf says it will probably remain a mystery why the US would give a fake stone to a Dutch prime minister, as all people who could tell something about it, have died, according to him.
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Another report shows his memory a bit more sketchy:

http://archive.li/HAhkb
Middendorf said on Thursday that he doesn’t recall presenting the rock to Drees, but does recall when the Apollo 11 astronauts visited the Netherlands as part of their “Giant Leap” goodwill tour that followed their moon landing on July 20, 1969.
“It has been 40 years,” Middendorf said, “so I can’t remember the details.”
The former ambassador said the rock must have come either from the State Department or directly from the astronauts. “If it came from the astronauts, I would have thought it would be perfectly OK,” he added.
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I don’t think we can read these reports too precisely. There may have been a bit of loose interpretation of what he said, or he may have said things in an imprecise way. For example, other reports say he didn’t recall the details exactly, so a report may have reported that as he didn’t recall presenting the rock. Or he may have said he didn’t recall presenting the rock, meaning that he did not have a vivid memory the presentation rather than meaning he didn’t recall the presentation happening at all. So his statements may (or may not) be as contradictory as they appear.

We do have that first statement where Middendorf appears to specifically remember giving a stone to Dress. But as Dabop pointed out, he was 85 years old talking about a hazy recollection of some fairly insignificant event that happened 40 years prior. It is certainly possible that with the prompting of the press Middendorf formed false memories or confused it with another event. But we have at least some shaky evidence that Middendorf gave a rock to Dress.

2. A gift of a cheap piece of petrified wood makes no sense as a gift to commemorate A11. If Middendorf gave a rock to Drees, it was surely presented as a moonrock. The petrified wood is not some fine example. I’d value it at about $7. If for some reason a piece of petrified wood was deemed an appropriate gift it would have been a finer specimen, not a cheap chunk of rock that a layman could mistake for a moonrock.

The card appears authentic. Armstrong, Collins and Aldrin were on the Goodwill tour. It was in Amsterdam on October 9, 1969. They did go to the International Exhibition and Congress Center. Middendorf was the U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands. Middendorf was at the event. This can all be confirmed by multiple newspaper reports from the time.

The problem with the card is that it doesn’t mention what was presented, or even to whom it was presented. I can’t find confirmation that Drees was at the event. He was out of office, and politics, for over ten years at the time. But he was a senior statesman. It is not unlikely he was there. Since he ended up with the card, it is not unlikely that it was presented to him.

But we don’t know what was presented. It may have been the rock, or not. We only have Middendorf’s one statement to confirm that he gave Drees a rock. He may have been confused.
 
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Dabop said:
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Thats the same one I quoted further up thread, the card afaik is talking about the copy of the plaque left on the moon that was given out at each stop, and the rock/petrified wood was never given out with the card at all

My own thoughts about the dutch newspaper article was that they may have had an actual moon rock with them on the 69 goodwill tour (possibly?) and that it was shown at each stop, but kept on the tour, only the card and copy of the plaque being given out as gifts, this might explain the confusion. (I'd love to know how to confirm if there was a moon rock taken on the tour to show people- wonder who would still know?)

http://www.awe130.com/images/years/1...0maansteen.jpg

You have to remember that the card was not attached to the `fake rock' in any way (unlike the real A11 and A17 rocks which are affixed to a wooden backing plate with the plastic encapsulated rocks and a brass plaque, along with a miniature flag that had also been to the moon), and were found together in a drawer after his death, and were given to the museum 4 years after his death

Further confusion arose when the museum contacted NASA and they confirmed that it could possibly be a A11 rock, as there indeed was a real A11 rock at another museum- my thoughts are that the NASA person did a quick check, found there was a A11 rock (given in 1970) at a museum there and thought that this museum was the other one confirming they had one...
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earlier post that was still missing after bknights last post #24
 
Foster Zygote said:
One has to wonder why NASA would be so stupid as to pass off a piece of fossilized wood as a "moon rock".
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And why they would hand out a rock of that size to a former Leader of the Netherlands... (and what happened to the fake rocks they created in Kaysing's "radioactive oven"?).

Of course, in the special world the leftover Hoaxers live in, the fakers must have been complete idiots anyway.
 
Unless... maybe the moon rock is hidden inside the fossilized wood.
 
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