Treasured "Moon Rock" Is Petrified Wood 209
Hugh Pickens writes "BBC reports that a treasured piece at the Dutch national museum — a supposed moon rock from the first manned lunar landing given to former Prime Minister Willem Drees during a goodwill tour by the three Apollo-11 astronauts shortly after their moon mission in 1969 — has been revealed as nothing more than petrified wood, curators say. A jagged fist-size stone with reddish tints, it was mounted and placed above a plaque that said, 'With the compliments of the Ambassador of the United States of America... to commemorate the visit to The Netherlands of the Apollo-11 astronauts.' The plaque does not specify that the rock came from the moon's surface. Researchers from Amsterdam's Free University said they could see at a glance the rock was probably not from the moon. They followed the initial appraisal up with extensive testing. 'It's a nondescript, pretty-much-worthless stone,' wrote Geologist Frank Beunk in an article published by the museum. Beunk says the rock, which the museum at one point insured for more than half a million dollars, was worth no more than $70. The 'rock' had originally been been vetted through a phone call to NASA. As the US Embassy in the Hague said it was investigating the matter, the Rijksmuseum says it will keep the piece as a curiosity."
Rock swap? (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder if someone swapped the fake rock for the real one back when it was presented.
Re:Rock swap? (Score:5, Insightful)
It was apparently good enough to fool everyone for quite a while.
How many people did it need to fool? For most people, I daresay the story of how it was presented is probably proof enough of what it is. My guess is someone switched it at some point.
Re:Rock swap? (Score:1, Insightful)
Yeh, nobody except the Russians of course
Records? (Score:4, Insightful)
Ha. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, the obvious jokes about trees on the moon and fake lunar landings have already been made, so I'll make a simple observation: The curators at the Dutch National Museum thought that a red rock the size of a fist was a moon rock?
I'm not a curator at a national museum, nor am I even an amateur geologist, but I'm pretty sure I would at least recognize that the rock described didn't look like any moon rock I had ever seen or heard about. It would be woefully sad if the piece of fossilized tree was one that you could still see the rings in.
Clearly, they never knew the demand for moon rocks [slashdot.org], and thought that enormous pieces are handed out to foreign politicians all the time:
Each year an independent peer review panel evaluates new research proposals, and curators mail out about 400 lunar samples to 40 to 50 scientists worldwide. Almost all are less than one gram in size. "We donâ(TM)t hand them out, we only loan them," Mr. Allen said.
Yes, scientists studying moon rocks have to write research grants in order to borrow a piece less than one gram in size. Yet the Dutch prime minister was given a fist sized moon rock. Yeah, OK.
Re:Rock swap? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ha. (Score:4, Insightful)
That's the whole harvest mankind has collected since before history began and there's little hope a new harvest will happen any time soon.
Re:Rock swap? (Score:1, Insightful)
More likely they were handing out moon rocks to all the countries they visited. Maybe we'll see more announcements soon from different countries after they've also had a chance to check out their moon rocks. A collection of fake moon rocks handed out by the US government as the real thing could still be worth something...