Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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with the show. Back in nineteen sixty nine, In the
(01:52):
early nineteen seventies, the world watched as Apollo astronauts collected
rock samples from the surface of the Moon. These items,
along with a piece of meteorite that could hold signs
of life on Mars, were sealed to prevent contamination with
your atmosphere, and they were stored in a safe at
a Johnson's Space Center lab in Houston, Texas, until two
(02:16):
thousand and two, when a NASA intern named Thad Roberts,
his girlfriend of three weeks, Tiffany, and another intern decided
to steal that safe. This is mysterious circumstances. I'm your host, Justin,
and you're listening to the Moon Rock Heist. In the
(02:49):
spring of two thousand and two, NASA intern Thad Roberts
was a twenty four year old whiz kid. He was
an undergraduate junior at the University of Utah and he
was going for three degrees in physics, geology, and geophysics.
He was also a licensed pilot and a scuba diver.
At the University of Utah, he was the founder and
(03:11):
president of the u of U Astronomical Society and the
chair of the Student Advisory Committee in the Physics department.
That's when he landed an internship with NASA at the Houston,
Texas Johnson Space Center. At NASA, he was assigned to
the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Division. Needless to say,
(03:34):
the guy was not fucking dumb. He might not have had,
I don't know, a bunch of common sense or whatnot,
but very brilliant guy. But Roberts who was already married
to a woman back in Utah, and it should be
noted that he was also struggling financially at this point
in time. So anyway, while he's working at NASA, he
(03:57):
eventually meets a girl named Tiffany, and Tiffany was a
twenty two year old stem cell researcher working in the
tissue culture lab, and they fell hard for each other,
and the two quickly became a couple and they moved
in together within a month. Listen, I'm no expert in
(04:18):
relationships or anything. Uh, that's a fucking red flag. Man. Like,
if I'm dating a girl and she asked me to
move in within a month, that's a red flag. But anyway,
they moved in together, and a little bit of time
goes by and he starts thinking that he wants to
impress his new girlfriend. Right, So, not long after they
(04:40):
moved in together, he told her about his idea to
steal the moon rocks. Now, the whole scenario and thought
of it had apparently piqued her interest. So when Tiffany
finally agreed to be an accomplice, they decided to grab
another NASA in turn to help them. This other end
turn's name was Shay. Shay worked for the Structural Engineering
(05:04):
and Thermal Design division. So they all three get together
and they start putting this plan together. Then they get
a fourth accomplice by the name of Gordon, and Gordon
was a guy that Thad had new from the University
of Utah and his main job was to help them
sell these rocks once they got them. It should be
(05:26):
noted Roberts was familiar with the laws about the sale
of astromaterials because that was kind of his expertise. So
on May ninth, two thousand and two, they put them
up for sale on the website of the Mineralogy Club
of Antwerp, Belgium, and they stated that their genuine moon rocks,
(05:47):
and they're going from anywhere from around one thousand dollars
to five thousand dollars a gram. Now they technically don't
even have these things yet. In one email to a
potential buyer, he wrote, as you well know, it is
illegal to sell Apollo lunar rocks in the United States.
This obviously has not discouraged me since I live in
(06:08):
the US. However, I must be cautious that this deal
is handled with delicacy and that I am not publicly exposed.
I mean, he knew what he knew what was going on,
and they did actually find a buyer who was willing
to pay that price for these moon rocks. But there's
this Belgian rock collector named Axel Emmerman, and he heard
(06:32):
through the grapevine about this whole sale, and he starts
getting suspicious. He's he's wondering how the hell they could
get moon rocks to sell that are genuine, And basically,
I mean it sounds like he's kind of like, mind
your own fucking business man, you know, I mean, really
didn't have much to do with you. But on May
(06:53):
twenty fourth, two thousand and two, Emmermann decided to contact
the FBI, and, with the collector's help, agents in Tampa, Florida,
set up a ruse to catch this this little team.
He did this in part because he was trying to
repay a debt to NASA for a nineteen seventy eight
loan of a moon rock for an exhibit. And that's
(07:16):
basically why Axel was involved. He's like, hey, if I
helped these out, then maybe I can just you know,
this will be repaying my debt that I owe. The
FBI agents had the collector email the seller whose name
was Orbe Robinson and that would be Thad Roberts, and
the FBI had him say that he was interested in
(07:37):
buying the lunar rocks. The collector said, contacts my brother
and sister in law in Pennsylvania to set up a meeting.
And in reality this Belgian rock collector's American relatives are
actually undercover FBI agents. So Orb Robinson and these quote
(07:58):
unquote relatives that are actually undercover FBI they agreed to
meet at an Italian restaurant in Orlando, Florida, on July twenty,
two thousand and two. Ironically, that is on the thirty
third anniversary of the Apollo eleven moonlanding. Now they have
a buyer set up, they have everything. Now all they
(08:21):
have to do is get the moon rocks, and here's
how they do it. On the evening of July thirteenth,
two thousand and two, the three interns pulled up to
Building thirty one, where the moon rocks were being housed
Roberts and Tiffany Fowler. They headed into the building while
Shehay reportedly served as a lookout and watched the security
(08:43):
cameras that they had already rewired. The couple had authentic
NASA badges and wore neoprene body suits to avoid setting
off thermal alarms, and they went straight into the airless
lunar sample lab. They ended up grabbing and wheeling away
a six hundred pounds safe with a dolly and into
(09:06):
a jeep. Cherokee, and then they got to a motel
and undisclosed motel and they ended up cracking it open
using a power saw. That is some fucking shit. There's
actually a movie about this. It was. It wasn't like
very big budget or anything. I haven't watched it, but yeah,
they legit made a fucking movie about this. So what
(09:29):
they found inside this safe was seventeen pounds of moon
rocks from every lunar landing from nineteen sixty nine to
nineteen seventy two and a piece of meteorite ALH eight
four zero zero one Martian life meteorite is what they
refer to it as, and that could hold signs of
life on Mars. Along with all that, they stole thirty
(09:52):
three years of handwritten research notes from NASA scientist doctor
Gibson All In all, Thad Roberts and his accomplices had
stolen an estimated twenty one million dollars worth of moon rocks.
It actually took NASA two days to even notice the
safe was missing. That should be noted as well. So
(10:17):
on July twentieth, two thousand and two, the couple are
staying at the Orlando Hotel waiting to meet with this
alleged buyer, the American buyer. About an hour before the sale,
Roberts has an idea on how to commemorate the occasion.
He took some of the moon rocks and he put
them underneath the blanket in the bed, and then him
(10:38):
and Tiffany had sex on them. Like, oh man, here's
a quote from him from what he said about that.
I never said anything, but I'm sure she could feel it.
She never said anything directly either, But it was more
about the symbol of what we were doing, you know,
basically having sex on the moon more more uncomfortable than not.
(11:01):
But it wasn't about the comfort at that point. It
was about the expression. And no one had ever had
sex on the moon before. I think we can safely
say that, Like, it's just nonchalant as fuck about it.
Oh man, Here's how the bust ends up going down.
His luck runs out shortly at the meeting with the
(11:23):
undercover FBI agents, who are also supposedly the American relative
buyers from Pennsylvania. They place him in fowler and handcuffs,
and they are arrested by OIG agents and the FBI
authorities ended up getting Shay later that day. In Houston,
and the fourth accomplice, Gordon. He's the one who helped
(11:44):
find the buyers. He was also arrested. So Thad Roberts
pled guilty to stealing moon rocks. When authorities searched his home,
they also found dinosaur bones and fossils that he admitted
to stealing from the Natural History Museum in Salt Lake
City while he was attending the University of Utah. Oh
(12:07):
my god, So not only did he steal fucking moon rocks,
but he stole dinosaur bones and fossils from a museum
as well. And I mean, dude, he had no defense.
Like His defense was that he was essentially a fool
(12:27):
in love. Roberts has argued that the theft wasn't financially motivated.
When asked why he went through with the heist, he said,
the simple answer is to say that I did it
for love. I did it because I wanted to be loved.
I wanted someone to know that I'd cared about them
that much and to have that symbol there to remind
them of it. Now, FBI said that it most definitely
(12:51):
was about the money, and they point out that fact
that he had been in contact with a buyer from
Belgium who was willing to pay the asking prize of
one thousand to five thousand dollars per gram. On October
twenty ninth, two thousand and three, Thad Roberts was sentenced
to eight years in federal prison. Roberts was released two
(13:14):
years early from prison in two thousand and eight after
serving more than six years of his eight year sentence.
Tiffany and Shay pleaded guilty and were given one hundred
and eighty days of house arrest, one hundred and fifty
hours of community service, a three year probation, and ordered
to pay more than nine thousand dollars in restitution to NASA.
(13:35):
In her testimony, Tiffany said that Gordon didn't know about
the stolen moon rocks until he met up with the
Thad Roberts in her at the Orlando hotel where they
were arrested. She said he was surprised and seemed somewhat impressed.
Then there's also a report that he did absolutely know
about it, because he had reportedly told his uncle about
(13:58):
the plan to steal them as early as April of
that year, and the heightst didn't happen until July, so
Gordon who had set up all the sales on the
website sent emails. He served as kind of like the
broker then between persons, he was the only one to
plead not guilty and testify for the prosecution. His case
(14:19):
ended up going to trial, and he was found guilty
and received a six year federal prison sentence. The FBI
said the rocks are now virtually useless to the scientific
community because of contamination and the fact that they destroyed
three decades worth of handwritten research notes by a NASA scientist.
(14:42):
On the contrary, though a NASA spokesman at the time
said that none of the samples were pristine. He said
all of them had been degraded by previous analysis. You know,
maybe the FBI kind of was over dramatic about that one.
After the arrest, Roberts and Tiffany never saw each other again.
(15:03):
It should be noted as well that while Thad was
in prison, though he definitely did not waste his degree
and his brain in there, that's for sure, he ended
up thinking about all the greatest mysteries of the universe
and all this shit, and he comes up with a
seven hundred page thesis describing his quantum space theory. Now,
(15:25):
according to Roberts and his followers, quantum space theory or
QST could unify Einstein's general relativity with quantum mechanics. You know,
it's it's pretty wild, like he still was a smart dude,
and to be honest with you, he's still into that shit.
He works for a company still now. I mean, he's
(15:47):
a he's a legit genius. He also does speaking. He
talks about his experiences and stuff like that. So yeah,
I suppose that's about all I got for you. I mean,
you can find Tiffany Fowler on Instagram too, by the way,
because I had read that somewhere and I'm like, no,
they're just out here, all public and shit, but hey,
(16:08):
they serve their time. And to be honest with you,
what a fucking story, you know what I mean? Like,
who the hell gets in their brain to go steal
some damn moon rocks and even fuck on them? You know,
I mean, it doesn't sound horrible, but I wouldn't want
to go to prison for it. But anyway, that's all
I got for you this episode. I hope you guys
enjoyed it. I'll probably read some reviews on an upcoming
(16:33):
episode I'm putting a few out here in the next
few days, well probably the next week, I'll have three
or four out. But I got a polter Guy's case
coming up, I got the Sherman murders coming up. I
got David glint Lewis coming up, all that stuff. So
but yeah, if you want to reach out to me,
you can always follow me on the socials. I really
(16:54):
don't have TikTok on my phone anymore, so whatever. But yeah,
I'm on Facebook, I'm on Instagram, Twitter, all that good stuff.
So if you want to give me a follow, that's cool.
And uh, you can check the podcast description for a
link to all my promo codes for all the stuff
that I'm advertising for because I got a few things
(17:14):
on there and pretty good discounts like fifteen to twenty
percent off, and it's all shit that I can relate to,
so I know it's gonna be a shit that you
guys can relate to, because I ain't get just gonna
try to, you know, fucking sell shit for anybody. But anyway,
let's see you folks on the flip side. Sh