+- Deep Politics Forum (https://deeppoliticsforum.com/fora)
+-- Forum: Deep Politics Forum (https://deeppoliticsforum.com/fora/forum-1.html)
+--- Forum: Science and Technology (https://deeppoliticsforum.com/fora/forum-11.html)
+--- Thread: Dutch Moon Rock Turns Out To Be Fake... (/thread-2018.html)
Pages:
1
2
Dutch Moon Rock Turns Out To Be Fake... - Peter Lemkin - 27-08-2009
Conspiracy theorists rejoice: Prized 'moon rock' in Dutch national museum is a fake
'Moon rock' in Dutch museum is just petrified wood
By TOBY STERLING | Associated Press | 2 hours, 30 minutes ago
It's not green cheese, but it might as well be.
In this photo released by the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam on Thursday, Aug. 27, 2009, a rock supposedly brought back from the moon, and a note from the then-U.S. ambassador is seen. The Dutch national museum... (Associated Press)
The Dutch national museum said Thursday that one of its prized possessions, a rock supposedly brought back from the moon by U.S. astronauts, is just a piece of petrified wood.
Rijksmuseum spokeswoman Xandra van Gelder, who oversaw the investigation that proved the piece was a fake, said the museum will keep it anyway as a curiosity.
"It's a good story, with some questions that are still unanswered," she said. "We can laugh about it."
The museum acquired the rock after the death of former Prime Minister Willem Drees in 1988. Drees received it as a private gift on Oct. 9, 1969 from then-U.S. ambassador J. William Middendorf during a visit by the three Apollo 11 astronauts, part of their "Giant Leap" goodwill tour after the first moon landing.
Middendorf, who lives in Rhode Island, told Dutch broadcaster NOS news that he had gotten it from the U.S. State Department, but couldn't recall the exact details.
"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."
He could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday.
The U.S. Embassy in the Hague said it was investigating the matter.
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.
"Apparently no one thought to doubt it, since it came from the prime minister's collection," Van Gelder said.
The rock is not usually on display; the museum is primarily known for its paintings and other works of fine art by masters such as Rembrandt.
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
It was given at the opening of an exhibition on space exploration.
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.
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," Geologist Frank Beunk concluded in an article published by the museum.
He said the rock, which the museum at one point insured for more than half a million dollars, was worth no more than euro50 ($70).
Van Gelder said one important unanswered question is why Drees was given the stone. He was 83 years old in 1969 and had been out of office for 11 years. On the other hand, he was the country's elder statesman, the prime minister who helped the Netherlands rebuild after World War II.
Middendorf was treasurer of the Republic National Committee from 1965 until 1969, when President Richard Nixon dispatched him to the Netherlands.
Dutch Moon Rock Turns Out To Be Fake... - Jan Klimkowski - 27-08-2009
Shawshank Redemption - Andy's in the infirmary after being abused by the "sisters", and Red and the cons are looking to find him some rocks suitable for carving into chess pieces
Quote:79 EXT -- FIELD -- DAY (1949) 79
A HUNDRED CONS at work. Hoes rise and fall in long waves.
GUARDS patrol on horseback. Heywood turns up a rocky chunk,
quickly shoves it down his pants. He maneuvers to Red and the
others, pulls out the chunk and shows it to them.
FLOYD
That ain't quartz. Nor limestone.
HEYWOOD
What are you, fuckin' geologist?
SNOOZE
He's right, it ain't.
HEYWOOD
What the hell is it then?
RED
Horse apple.
HEYWOOD
Bullshit.
RED
No, horse shit. Petrified.
Cackling, the men go back to work. Heywood stares at the rock.
He crumbles it in his hands.
Dutch Moon Rock Turns Out To Be Fake... - Peter Lemkin - 28-08-2009
The implications are rather amazing, and I guess every receipient of a moon-rock will now start testing them. Most all were given encased in plexiglass with a plaque and seal of the USA w/flag. It was once insured for 2 million...and is worth 2 cents - if that!......hmmmm.... Hey, Jack, maybe you were right.
Dutch Moon Rock Turns Out To Be Fake... - Myra Bronstein - 28-08-2009
Peter Lemkin Wrote:The implications are rather amazing, and I guess every receipient of a moon-rock will now start testing them. Most all were given encased in plexiglass with a plaque and seal of the USA w/flag. It was once insured for 2 million...and is worth 2 cents - if that!......hmmmm.... Hey, Jack, maybe you were right.
I'm agnostic on the veracity of the moon landings. But I would LOVE it if this incident spurred more "moon rock" testing and they proved fraudulent. It's my domino theory--if one whopper is exposed maybe people will open their minds to others.
Back to reality, the mainstream media would probably refuse to report a wide spreak moon rock dubunking.
Dutch Moon Rock Turns Out To Be Fake... - Peter Lemkin - 28-08-2009
Myra Bronstein Wrote:Peter Lemkin Wrote:The implications are rather amazing, and I guess every receipient of a moon-rock will now start testing them. Most all were given encased in plexiglass with a plaque and seal of the USA w/flag. It was once insured for 2 million...and is worth 2 cents - if that!......hmmmm.... Hey, Jack, maybe you were right.
I'm agnostic on the veracity of the moon landings. But I would LOVE it if this incident spurred more "moon rock" testing and they proved fraudulent. It's my domino theory--if one whopper is exposed maybe people will open their minds to others.
Back to reality, the mainstream media would probably refuse to report a wide spreak moon rock dubunking.
This is not a subject I've labored on, but my educated guess is that there were some real and some not real missions. I'm a professional mineral collector and mineralogist and it is quite easy [if expensive!] to test if a rock is terrestrial or not [meteor, moon-rock, other]. I'm also aware from mineral shows that very small pieces of rock represented as moon-rock get prices in the many millions. I fear many have been had....but that an Ambassador, who presumably got the sample from NASA, was passing a fake [likely unaware of this fact]......is really amazing! Many museums must be quite alarmed today, and authorizing the appropriate tests! I do believe some samples have proven to be non-terrestrial - although some non-terrestrial rock does come down to Earth naturally - meteorites, for example. Another indication on meteorites are ages older than the Earth. I have one such in my collection. It hardened from molten form about 1 billion years before Earth did.
Dutch Moon Rock Turns Out To Be Fake... - Magda Hassan - 28-08-2009
Well, it is bad form too treating your 'good friends' like that though I expect that Ambassador himself had no idea. I wonder if all the other countries that received 'moon rocks' will test theirs? It's like Richard Burton buying Liz Taylor a zircon for an engagement ring and passing it off as the Hope Star.
Dutch Moon Rock Turns Out To Be Fake... - Peter Lemkin - 28-08-2009
Magda Hassan Wrote:Well, it is bad form too treating your 'good friends' like that though I expect that Ambassador himself had no idea. I wonder if all the other countries that received 'moon rocks' will test theirs? It's like Richard Burton buying Liz Taylor a zircon for an engagement ring and passing it off as the Hope Star.
It will be interesting to find-out who high in NASA was parceling-out the rocks and the chain-of-evidence, if known. Others are in leading university Geology Departments. They can easily test theirs. What, as a mineralogist, amazes me is that they choose a completely wrong type of rock for this fake....like Burton putting a lump of coal on a ring and trying to pass it off as the Hope Diamond. I think only that they were encased [for the most part] in lucite has kept this silent so far....if others are fakes and are 'official' USG via NASA gifts......a von Braun joke or 'get even'?! Is NOTHING real nor truthful in American anymore?!
Dutch Moon Rock Turns Out To Be Fake... - Peter Presland - 28-08-2009
Magda Hassan Wrote:.... It's like Richard Burton buying Liz Taylor a zircon for an engagement ring and passing it off as the Hope Star.A type of behaviour which over the past half century or so has, with increasing accuracy, come to define "The American Way". Or so it seems to me.
Dutch Moon Rock Turns Out To Be Fake... - Jack White - 28-08-2009
Peter Lemkin Wrote:Myra Bronstein Wrote:Peter Lemkin Wrote:The implications are rather amazing, and I guess every receipient of a moon-rock will now start testing them. Most all were given encased in plexiglass with a plaque and seal of the USA w/flag. It was once insured for 2 million...and is worth 2 cents - if that!......hmmmm.... Hey, Jack, maybe you were right.
I'm agnostic on the veracity of the moon landings. But I would LOVE it if this incident spurred more "moon rock" testing and they proved fraudulent. It's my domino theory--if one whopper is exposed maybe people will open their minds to others.
Back to reality, the mainstream media would probably refuse to report a wide spreak moon rock dubunking.
This is not a subject I've labored on, but my educated guess is that there were some real and some not real missions. I'm a professional mineral collector and mineralogist and it is quite easy [if expensive!] to test if a rock is terrestrial or not [meteor, moon-rock, other]. I'm also aware from mineral shows that very small pieces of rock represented as moon-rock get prices in the many millions. I fear many have been had....but that an Ambassador, who presumably got the sample from NASA, was passing a fake [likely unaware of this fact]......is really amazing! Many museums must be quite alarmed today, and authorizing the appropriate tests! I do believe some samples have proven to be non-terrestrial - although some non-terrestrial rock does come down to Earth naturally - meteorites, for example. Another indication on meteorites are ages older than the Earth. I have one such in my collection. It hardened from molten form about 1 billion years before Earth did.
Peter, I did not know of your geological expertise. In recent years
I read that METEORITES FROM THE MOON had been discovered in
Antarctica. Please tell me how...
1. A meteorite would decide to leave the moon and go to earth, and
2. How is it determined that a given meteorite is "from the moon"?
When I read this, my curiosity was aroused.
Jack
PS...anyone interested in my Apollo studies click on:
http://www.aulis.com/jackstudies_index1.html
http://www.aulis.com/skeleton.htm
Dutch Moon Rock Turns Out To Be Fake... - Peter Presland - 28-08-2009
Jack White Wrote:PS...anyone interested in my Apollo studies click on:That's some impressive work Jack. Thanks for posting it.
http://www.aulis.com/jackstudies_index1.html
http://www.aulis.com/skeleton.htm
Frankly I have never taken that much interest in the 'did US astronauts really land on the moon?' thing. Plenty of other crap to be going along with, without opening another can of worms.
My working assumption/hypothesis - held for the purposes of living the consensus trance along with masses of others - has always been that they did. I'm now forced to turn yet another one on its head. :hmpf:
Hey Ho.