FLORIDA MAN RETURNS MISSING NASA MOON ROCK HE BOUGHT AT GARAGE SALE

futurism.com/ ^ | DAN ROBITZSKI

[BenLurkin]

A missing Moon rock originally gifted to the state of Louisiana by then-President Richard Nixon has been returned after a man in Florida found it sitting in an old box in his home. The man told CollectSPACE that he must have bought the rock, which vanished without a trace years ago, at some garage sale within the last 15 or so years — and that he never realized that he had bought such a priceless artifact.

The vast majority of the lunar samples brought back during the Apollo missions remain sealed away by NASA. However, most of the nearly 200 samples that Nixon gifted to the 50 US states, the country’s territories, and foreign governments have gone missing. A small percentage have been reported stolen, according to CollectSPACE. But the vast majority, like the Apollo 17 sample that the Florida man hand-delivered to the Louisiana State Museum, vanished without any clear explanation.

Louisiana State Museum interim director Steven Maklansky told CollectSPACE that the museum has no plans to launch an investigation into the rock’s bizarre journey from the state’s custody, to a garage sale, to a Florida man’s gun part storage, and back again, so we may never know how it got lost in the first place or who, presumably, had sticky fingers and decided to take it for themselves.

“As you can appreciate, I’m just happy that it is here now,”

[lee martell]

Ha ha!