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Originally Posted by GIGObuster
Of course, seeing that the article came from 2009 it is likely that there were follow ups already, and sure enough:
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/...oon-rock_N.htm
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Apollo moon rocks lost in space? No, lost on Earth
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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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This is still a little weird. Would they have given a chunk of the Moon to someone who had been out of office for more than a decade? Maybe, probably not. Perhaps the old boy had been hankering for a rock and our ambassador pulled a fast one on him, figuring he'd never notice.
Then again, this
was during the Nixon Administration. Perhaps the real rock is sitting in Bob Haldeman's safe somewhere. . . .
The real villian, of course, is that museum, which couldn't be arsed to establish the provenance of the piece.