Neil Armstrong steps into history July 20, 1969 by leaving the first human footprint on the surface of the moon. (Photo by NASA/Newsmakers)
ST. LOUIS, Mo. (KMOX) – It came from outer space, but ended up for sale at a St. Louis auction house. Then the feds stepped in.
“There have been rumors about this material being on the black market for years,” said U.S Attorney Richard Callahan. “But no one knew for sure.”
The U.S Attorney’s Office in St. Louis says it has returned what it believes is moon dust from the Apollo 11 Missions to the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Callahan says there are no charges pending against the auction house, Regency-Superior Auctions, nor against the woman who tried to sell it. The name of the consignor is not being released. She apparently acquired it from her late husband, but it’s not clear how he got it.
Callahan believes the lunar soil is part of a batch smuggled out of NASA by an employee. “It was in a piece of tape, protected under heavy plastic,” explains Callahan. “We’re talking about a very very small amount.” That piece of tape was apparently later sold to a German national who divided it up in to smaller pieces and sold it as space memorabilia.
Preliminary tests done at NASA confirmed it was lunar material, Callahan said.
On having the lunar material in his office for a day, Callahan quipped, “It wasn’t much to look at, but I will never be that close to the moon again.”
Copyright KMOX Radio
64 Comments
“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” ~ Voltaire — http://911essentials.com
June 23, 2011 at 4:27 pm | | Report comment
You mean like the Hope & Change thing? No doubt.
June 23, 2011 at 5:36 pm | | Report comment
June 23, 2011 at 5:54 pm
Actually yes, the Hope and Change thing is working out very well for me. My life is better now than it was under 8 years of that vapid idiot Bush. I am making more money now and have more opportunities now. THANK YOU OBAMA FOR DOING WHAT A BUNCH OF WHITE REDNECKS COULD NOT – giving our country a leader who is intelligent and articulate.
June 24, 2011 at 8:20 am
JUST BECAUSE YOU PUT SOMETHING IN ALL CAPS DOESN’T MAKE IT TRUE. THIS PRESIDENT IS A COMPLETE DISASTER AND WE ALL KNOW IT.
June 24, 2011 at 11:09 am
I LIKE TO SHOUT HORRIBLE THINGS ABOUT POLITICS!
June 24, 2011 at 1:13 pm | | Report comment
Thank you President Obama my business has never been better.
-Greg
Bankruptcy Attorney
June 24, 2011 at 2:39 pm
2nd
June 23, 2011 at 4:38 pm | | Report comment
How much are they going to spend to prove it is moon dust, hell it may be some old pet’s ashes, and this is why we are in debt.
June 23, 2011 at 5:41 pm | | Report comment
It looks like Bursh Derangement Syndrome lives on. Who’s wearing the tinfoil hats now!?
June 24, 2011 at 8:34 am | | Report comment
Amazing how one so intelligent is some things can simply turn their intelligence off in other areas of thinking.
June 24, 2011 at 9:06 am | | Report comment
The amount Bush spent on the wars is pale next to the billions banks were force to give people so every American could have a house under the Democratic Regime. Ten years ago I paid $175,000 for a house that is now valued at $34,000. Was I suckered; NO it was the fair market value at the time. In the past two years we’ve had 9 foreclosures on my street alone. My zip code has the most Katrina Refugee’s in the state and the third highest rate of foreclosures in Georgia. Many of these homes were bought with nothing down and at time with an extra $15,000 to $20,000 to fix them up which was spent on TV’s and furniture. Then our joke of a President and Democratic Congress gave trillions to banks and business because they are “too big to fail”. Now we fine due to the NY Times and Washington Post this money went to banks overseas to cover their investments. By the way, thanks to Obama we’re still in Iraq, Afghanistan and now he’s bombing Libya; AND Gitmo is STILL there! Plus the size of government had TRIPLED! What does gov’t produce? Regulations and red tape! What does the Banking, Healthcare and Automobile industries all have in common beside their cost and failure? They are the most gov’t regulated industries in the US. Blame Bush all you want but the Obama and a Democratic Congress has failed to save us and that’s why the damn Republicans are winning it back.
June 24, 2011 at 9:16 am | | Report comment
you’re insane if you actually believe this. we are in debt for many reasons. testing moon dust at a NASA facility is not one of those reasons
June 24, 2011 at 10:21 am | | Report comment
Pingback: Moon Dust Found At St. Louis Auction House « Treasure News
Pingback: Moon Dust Found At St. Louis Auction House « Domain Don
Will the Conspiracy theorist finally believe we’ve been to the moon?
June 23, 2011 at 6:50 pm | | Report comment
I dare you to try to go to the moon “again”. You’ll have bodies floating in orbit.
June 23, 2011 at 8:37 pm | | Report comment
What the heck does that mean?
June 23, 2011 at 10:45 pm
June 24, 2011 at 7:34 am
Why the quotation marks around “again”?
June 24, 2011 at 8:09 am
I think Gus is implying that we never went. But that would be incorrect; the Chinese and Russians tracked us on the DSN and wouldn’t you think if we faked it they would be the first to let the world know? There have been pictures taken by orbiting satellites of the flag and landing implements still on the moon. However, if the contrarians and uninformed still believe that it was ‘photoshopped’ take a look at this very intellectual and ‘irrefutable’ evidence. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kojsfbN8ulc
June 24, 2011 at 10:34 am
http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/Apollo1.html
June 24, 2011 at 12:46 pm
I have some. It was given to one of the researchers and he was my thesis adviser. I was helping him clean his office and saw a small vial of dust. I asked what it was and he said, “moon dust”. I asked him what he wanted me to do with it and he said, “toss it”. Of course, I tossed it into my pocket. Absolutely NOT for sale. I named my kid after the son after the guy and my son will receive the dust when I die.
Your friend,
Katz
June 23, 2011 at 7:02 pm | | Report comment
It was of course a joke which you didn’t get, so you will likely give your son his snot collection.
June 24, 2011 at 6:27 am | | Report comment
Gil-
Do some research into lunar remote sensing, lunar geology, and the men who laid the groundwork for the Apollo program. If you manage to understand a bit about the characters involved, you’ll begin to doubt your denial of fact.
-Katz
June 24, 2011 at 11:22 am
First of all, IF it’s really “moon dust” an ya don’t immediately turn it back over ta th nation I hope when they track ya down fer stupidly admittin that ya got it in a public forum like this on th Internet, that ya get locked up fer awhile.
Do ya honestly believe that ya are protected in these blogs that they can’t find out exactly who ya are?
Secondly, thair’s a lot of hyperbola over whether they went or whether it was faked. I am of th notion it was more fake than real fer a number of political reasons goin on at th time.
Th skin of th spacecraft was made out of light aluminum yet all these astronauts apparently passed through th Van Allen radiation belt fer extended periods of time twice in each mission. Yet strangely enough thair wasn’t any damage ta thair bodies AND equipment, including very sensitive photographic film, reported by any of those missions.
Then, back ta photography, many of the photos are obvious fakes as sun-lines, target markers cut on th lenses of the cameras an th view of th earth ALL don’t make any logical sense.
Capricorn I could actually be more factual than what was actually reported. An given my overall distrust of th government that payed fer all of this it really wouldn’t surprise me ta one day find it was all faked fer political expediency.
Time will tell th final tell when we return an we can see th evidence of footprints left on th lunar soil an th equipment left behind that tadays most powerful telescopes still can’t see.
Not sayin thair lyin about it but am a bit skeptical.
June 24, 2011 at 12:15 pm | | Report comment
jeez… i even stutter when i type
June 23, 2011 at 7:04 pm | | Report comment
I remember being at the Houston gun show in 1979 or 1980 and there were a couple NASA guys with a booth there selling index cards with moon dust on tape stuck across them. I talked to them and they said it was from the clean-up crew for all the gear that came back, space suits, camera’s, boxes, etc., that they’d just taken scotch tape to it all, snagging the moon dust off them all and then stuck it to cards. They were not too expensive as I remember them, should have gotten some. Would have been great if I’d also gotten a taped interview from those guys along with it.
June 23, 2011 at 7:11 pm | | Report comment
So if this statement of yours is true… What the hell do the feds care about this auction of dust?
Apollo 11
A11 work and no play makes jack a dull boy.
June 24, 2011 at 6:10 am | | Report comment
You can legally own lunar meteorite dust. It is only the dust and material brought back by Apollo astronauts on NASA missions that is illegal to privately own.
I own several lunar and martian-origin meteorite samples and they are 100% legal.
The only difference between the two is – the illegal variety was brought back by NASA astronauts, the other fell to Earth as a meteorite and was found by a private individual. But it is the same material either way – lunar rock, soil, or dust.
June 23, 2011 at 7:13 pm | | Report comment
Yeah, I have a ring that has a meteorite for the rock. They were sold all over the place and the company might still be selling them.
June 23, 2011 at 10:36 pm | | Report comment
Ground up moon rocks are pure poison. I am deathly ill.
June 23, 2011 at 7:22 pm | | Report comment
Hang in there, Cave. Help is on the way.
June 24, 2011 at 1:07 am | | Report comment
Moon rocks are made almost entirely of anorthosite – a common mineral found here on Earth. There is nothing poisonous or hazardous about it.
June 23, 2011 at 7:30 pm | | Report comment
After they quarantined the moon astronauts, they found the dust and rocks were harmless.
June 23, 2011 at 10:38 pm | | Report comment
Pingback: Missing moon dust found in St. Louis auction business returned to NASA’s … – Washington Post – A Bidding Frenzy
Come on Feds!!! I have over x grams of Lunar in my house right now.. John Humphries in Tombstone Az. I know people all over the world that have lunar and mars material in their house. I have over XX grams of Mars rock right here on my desk. Look it up on Google. Get with the times!!!
June 23, 2011 at 9:35 pm | | Report comment
I once snorted moon dust.At least that is what the dude said it was.I took a trip and never left the farm.
June 23, 2011 at 10:00 pm | | Report comment
I think Jimi Hendrix once said that… Great minds think alike
June 24, 2011 at 8:17 am | | Report comment
Two months ago I bought a jar of dust from Rigel VII at a yard sale for 100 dollars. I was totally ripped off as the dust ended up being from Rigel II.
Live and Learn.
June 23, 2011 at 10:50 pm | | Report comment
Ever smoked Moon dust Man what a rush. And now I have 2 heads, oh wait I already had 2 heads.
June 24, 2011 at 2:32 am | | Report comment
I’m pretty sure that it was on the bottom of Maxsene Waters shoes when she returned from planting that U.S. flag on Mars a few years back.
June 24, 2011 at 6:34 am | | Report comment
Pingback: Moon Dust From Apollo 11 Mission Found On Sale At Auction House... | Breaking News
QUICK!
Sell all of the moon rocks and dust before China gets there in 15 years!
Then it will be worthless!
Napoleon III gave out aluminum flatware to his special guests in the 1850′s, Aluminum was worth more then gold at the time, soon after a mining process was discovered that made aluminum much much cheaper!
The same thing applies here, SELL THE MOON ROCKS NOW!!!!
June 24, 2011 at 6:10 am | | Report comment
Hall-Heroult process from bauxite ore. Bam!
June 24, 2011 at 11:07 am | | Report comment
Pingback: Friday’s Reading Room « scottwilder.com
I didn’t know you could take dust from a sound stage in Burbank and sell it for millions.
June 24, 2011 at 7:52 am | | Report comment
If a little moon dust is that valuable whe should go back and get a $hit load of it just to sell.
June 24, 2011 at 8:11 am | | Report comment
I know one thing and NASA even admits this. There is so much space radiation coming from everywhere outside the magnetic field around the earth that any human wearing a normal space suit would be killed in a very short time. This magnetic field is the very thing that allows us to live on this rock. The moon is outside this field. Every human space mission has been under this field except the alleged apollo missions. I would like to know how they managed to spend this long outside the magnetic field with out getting radiation sickness? Somewhere I heard that you need to be encased in 8 feet thick layer of led to survive the trip through the magnetic field. These spacecrafts were for sure not that. And why are we still believing institutions like those of the government of the USA? They do nothing else but be fake and lie. For crying out loud, these supposed moon missions were going on in the middle of the cold war where everything was made to look like something else then it really was.
June 24, 2011 at 8:13 am | | Report comment
nasa admits this? yet they still say the moon landing was real. So you’re stupid, and a liar.
June 24, 2011 at 9:06 am | | Report comment
http://srag.jsc.nasa.gov/
Calling me stupid and a liar? NASA says this about space radiation. They even go on saying…
“September 8, 2005: On the Moon, many of the things that can kill you are invisible: breathtaking vacuum, extreme temperatures and space radiation top the list.
Vacuum and temperature NASA can handle; spacesuits and habitats provide plenty of air and insulation. Radiation, though, is trickier.
The surface of the Moon is baldly exposed to cosmic rays and solar flares, and some of that radiation is very hard to stop with shielding. Furthermore, when cosmic rays hit the ground, they produce a dangerous spray of secondary particles right at your feet. All this radiation penetrating human flesh can damage DNA, boosting the risk of cancer and other maladies. ”
http://science1.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2005/08sep_radioactivemoon/
Shows how much you research you stupid fool.
June 24, 2011 at 9:38 am
Wow, the amount of racism and ignorance that comes out in these comment threads is staggering. Reading some of these comments makes me ashamed for their parents. Mommy and Daddy must be proud they raised a bunch of racist fools and simpletons without any understanding of basic science.
Now go back to whining about our black president and a silly lunar-landing conspiracy that would require thousands of people to keep their mouths shut for decades.
I’m going to unsubscribe from this comment thread now. The stupidity present here is too much to take. Have fun with your canned beer, NASCAR, country music, and cross-burnings. BTW – your sister doesn’t count as a wife or girlfriend.
June 24, 2011 at 8:17 am | | Report comment
How you can proove a point. sshhhhhh, you and yours alike are the reason I am ashamed of being human.
June 24, 2011 at 9:45 am | | Report comment
…and you don’t think your comments are discriminative?
June 24, 2011 at 9:48 am | | Report comment
How is business at the car wash?
June 24, 2011 at 12:42 pm | | Report comment
He’s not black you don’t own him. He’s a Wigger and we all own him. Stupid as he is but he’s ours. I’m so proud of him. Snif snif.
June 24, 2011 at 1:54 pm | | Report comment
Fake moon landings, yet another violation of our rights. Add it to the list of gov’t violations of our rights:
They violate the 1st Amendment by placing protesters in cages, banning books like “America Deceived II” and censoring the internet.
They violate the 2nd Amendment by confiscating guns.
They violate the 4th and 5th Amendment by molesting airline passengers.
They violate the entire Constitution by starting undeclared wars for foreign countries.
Impeach Obama, vote for Ron Paul.
(Last link of Banned Book):
http://www.iuniverse.com/Bookstore/BookDetail.aspx?BookId=SKU-000190526
June 24, 2011 at 9:05 am | | Report comment
I wrote a short story about a thief who steals moon dust from NASA. It’s only 99 cents and it’s available at Kindle. It’s based on extensive research. I would be delighted if you would take a look.
http://amzn.to/kKY9gP
June 24, 2011 at 10:00 am | | Report comment
Moon dust for sale? Yeah, right. I have a rare New jersey swamp-rat briefcase on ebay now – looks and feels like real leather.
June 24, 2011 at 1:44 pm | | Report comment
I have rocks and dust in my backyard.
Am I missing something here?
June 24, 2011 at 2:40 pm | | Report comment
I have to admit also, my life is much better now than it was under the Bush years. I make close to 6 figures now. Employment for me is steady. I will vote for this man again.
June 24, 2011 at 3:18 pm | | Report comment
we don’t have to worry about any debt! NASA can sell several tons of moon dust in one one hundredth ounce packs.
June 24, 2011 at 6:18 pm | | Report comment
Wow, Moon dust is just cool like that.
real-privacy.no.tc
June 25, 2011 at 5:04 pm | | Report comment
Pingback: Allerlei Nachrichten vom Mond kompakt « Skyweek Zwei Punkt Null