WEBVTT - Operation Lunar Eclipse 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:12.039 It's December nineteen seventy two. Canadian Jamie Matthews, age fourteen, 0:00:12.720 --> 0:00:17.440 is sitting comfortably in his airplane seat. It's his first 0:00:17.520 --> 0:00:24.320 trip away from home. Jamie's first love is astronomy, and 0:00:24.480 --> 0:00:28.680 astronomy has earned him the trip of a lifetime. He's 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:32.920 been to the White House, to NASA's Mission control in Texas, 0:00:33.200 --> 0:00:39.760 to the United Nations, and now he's returning home. But 0:00:39.880 --> 0:00:44.040 there's a problem, and no it's not the airline food. 0:00:44.760 --> 0:00:50.040 Someone is threatening to kidnap Jamie because he has a rock, 0:00:50.720 --> 0:00:55.480 and not just any rock, a moon rock, one retrieved 0:00:55.600 --> 0:01:00.480 by an astronaut two hundred and forty thousand miles from Earth. 0:01:01.040 --> 0:01:05.000 This is your captain speaking, Jamie Matthews. Please come to 0:01:05.040 --> 0:01:08.039 the front of the plane. Jamie Matthews to the front 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:10.920 of the plane. Two scary men are here to pick 0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:16.080 you up. I repeat, two very serious looking men are 0:01:16.120 --> 0:01:17.760 here to take you away. 0:01:19.360 --> 0:01:25.319 Jamie takes some tentative steps forward. He's just landed in Detroit. 0:01:25.920 --> 0:01:29.440 Two adults in dark suits meet him on the tarmac. 0:01:30.000 --> 0:01:33.920 Now these men are not the kidnappers. They're from the 0:01:34.040 --> 0:01:38.880 United States Secret Service. They explain to Jamie what's happening. 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:43.440 His parents back in Canada received an alarming phone call 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:48.600 threatening his safety all because of this rock. They want 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:52.680 to escort him to the Canadian border just to be safe. 0:01:53.400 --> 0:01:57.720 Because the moon rock isn't exactly a souvenir, it's one 0:01:57.760 --> 0:02:02.920 of the most rare and valueable materials on Earth. It 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:07.160 could be worth millions. To Jamie, it's worth even more. 0:02:08.080 --> 0:02:11.960 But what the kidnappers don't know is that Jamie doesn't 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:17.520 have it, not yet anyway, but he will. And the 0:02:17.560 --> 0:02:22.079 men who called Jamie's parents, they're not the only ones 0:02:22.160 --> 0:02:28.239 who want a piece of the moon. Welcome to very 0:02:28.400 --> 0:02:34.280 special episodes and iHeart original podcast. I'm your host, Danish Schwartz, 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:42.679 and this is Operation Lunar Eclipse. Okay, so you know 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:45.400 how like when kids are like five or six, they 0:02:45.440 --> 0:02:48.959 have like hyper fixations. I feel like it's like dinosaurs, 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:52.400 it's like trucks. For me, it was like Greek mythology. 0:02:52.520 --> 0:02:54.600 But I feel like for some kids it's also space. 0:02:54.760 --> 0:02:57.040 Were you a space kid, Jason or Zarin? 0:02:57.560 --> 0:02:59.120 Oh, you're a space kid completely. 0:02:59.160 --> 0:03:02.680 I'm still mad that they took planetary status away from Pluto. 0:03:02.720 --> 0:03:03.919 I'm one of those space kids. 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:07.240 Oh my weird. I mean not weird at all. My 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:10.760 like space connection is. I grew up in the suburbs 0:03:10.760 --> 0:03:13.600 of Chicago, and when I was in high school, every 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:17.360 Sunday I would drive down to the Adler Planetarium and 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:22.240 volunteer all Sunday to like teach kids science and space demonstrations. 0:03:22.400 --> 0:03:25.560 Oh wow, I love you for that. That is awesome. 0:03:25.800 --> 0:03:27.880 It was so cool because it's like every kid, I 0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:30.280 mean I was not every kid. I as a dork, 0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:33.720 loved museums and this idea that I had like a badge, 0:03:33.720 --> 0:03:35.440 and I could, like I knew the code to like 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:37.200 get backstage at the museum. 0:03:37.280 --> 0:03:38.480 It was the coolest thing in the world. 0:03:38.560 --> 0:03:39.640 You're a museum insider. 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:41.560 I was a museum insider. 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:43.560 I don't mean to like, you know, big time you 0:03:43.680 --> 0:03:45.160 because I'm a huge celebrity. 0:03:45.280 --> 0:03:47.520 Yeah, no, I understand. I mean you can brag on that. 0:03:47.360 --> 0:03:49.520 That's worth it. Sometimes you got a flex on us. 0:03:49.560 --> 0:03:50.960 I taught them about the Moon mission. 0:03:51.000 --> 0:03:53.440 I taught them about gravity, but I had no idea 0:03:53.480 --> 0:03:57.560 about like the legality of buying and owning lunar rocks. 0:03:57.600 --> 0:03:59.760 They don't want you to know that that's what it is. 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:01.040 Those kids couldn't handle that. 0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:03.120 Yeah, we're it's all hidden from all of us. 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:04.640 All right, Well, do you guys want to hear a 0:04:04.680 --> 0:04:08.280 story about stealing moonrocks and they the black market for 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:10.320 illegal moon rock commerce. 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:14.480 I am buckled up and ready, Jason, you let's blast 0:04:14.560 --> 0:04:15.160 off it. 0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:18.600 Do some kind of countdown now, just let's just go 0:04:18.600 --> 0:04:25.520 to the episode. 0:04:23.760 --> 0:04:27.760 For a kid super into astronomy. Jamie Matthews had more 0:04:27.839 --> 0:04:30.440 run ins with the law than you might have expected, 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:34.480 not because he was breaking the law, but because police 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:38.400 kept finding him alone in the middle of the night 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:42.800 when he was just eight years old in the last 0:04:42.960 --> 0:04:44.400 place you'd expect. 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:51.320 My parents were not rich, and we had a house 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:56.800 that was close to the cemetery, and so that was 0:04:56.880 --> 0:04:59.719 the best place to look at the stars. 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:02.240 At night, That's Jamie. 0:05:02.520 --> 0:05:07.440 So occasionally the police would come back by and see 0:05:07.480 --> 0:05:11.160 this guy. And they would come and see a guy 0:05:11.200 --> 0:05:16.400 with a telescope, and so they got me home. I said, yo, 0:05:16.560 --> 0:05:18.040 I knew who I was. 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:21.839 As a kid. 0:05:21.920 --> 0:05:25.800 He lived in Chatham, Ontario. It's rural with lots of 0:05:25.839 --> 0:05:30.839 farms and lots of stargazing. As an only child, his parents, 0:05:30.960 --> 0:05:35.400 Jim and June, bought him a telescope, which Jamie took 0:05:35.480 --> 0:05:39.640 to the darkest part of the neighborhood, the graveyard. There 0:05:39.680 --> 0:05:43.640 he found ink, black skies, and a galaxy to explore. 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:47.559 Jamie isn't sure where his love of science came from. 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:52.200 His parents were blue collar workers. Neither was a college graduate, 0:05:52.720 --> 0:05:56.760 but they recognized their son had a fascination, so they 0:05:56.839 --> 0:05:58.640 nourished it any chance they could. 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:04.760 First memory was at two, looking at the stars, and 0:06:04.800 --> 0:06:09.880 from then on I was totally gone with the stars. 0:06:11.000 --> 0:06:15.320 Of course, they all watched as Neil Armstrong took Mankind's 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:19.159 first steps on the Moon during the Apollo eleven mission 0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:20.640 in nineteen sixty nine. 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:28.760 Paul for Man arm By a faf for man. 0:06:32.200 --> 0:06:37.000 Everyone remembers that it was a monumental milestone of the 0:06:37.040 --> 0:06:41.240 twentieth century, but people tend to forget how quickly the 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:48.440 world moved on, how easily the impossible became routine. NASA 0:06:48.560 --> 0:06:52.200 continued to visit the Moon in future Apollo missions, six 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:56.960 of them in all, but each time public interest fell off. 0:06:57.640 --> 0:07:01.200 By the time of the Apollo seventeen mission in December 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:05.720 nineteen seventy two, NASA had decided this would be the 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:09.840 last mission for at least a decade to commemorate it. 0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:14.560 NASA and the US State Department sponsored what they called 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:21.800 the International Youth Science Tour. It worked like this, Every 0:07:21.880 --> 0:07:25.080 country in the UN was invited to send a youth 0:07:25.240 --> 0:07:30.720 representative to watch the final Moon mission. Kids aged fifteen 0:07:30.800 --> 0:07:35.679 to seventeen were eligible. They'd see everything from the launch 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:40.240 at Kennedy Space Center to the splashdown on TV from 0:07:40.440 --> 0:07:44.760 UN headquarters in New York City. The seventeen day trip 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:49.480 would also include Disneyland, and the kids would get something 0:07:49.520 --> 0:07:52.920 else besides a front row seat to a Moon mission. 0:07:53.560 --> 0:07:58.160 NASA was arranging for each kid to receive a piece. 0:07:57.920 --> 0:07:58.840 Of Moon rock. 0:07:59.440 --> 0:08:02.480 They would present it to their country as a good 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:07.560 will gesture from the United States to the world. Gathering 0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:11.960 moonrocks was a priority of the Apollo missions. The samples 0:08:12.040 --> 0:08:15.400 revealed clues about the age of the Moon and how 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:19.000 it might have been formed. A Moon rock was one 0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:24.280 sentence or a sentence fragment in the story of our galaxy. 0:08:25.080 --> 0:08:28.560 For Jamie, the chance to hold the rock in his 0:08:28.680 --> 0:08:32.880 hand would come later. For now, his objective was seeing 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:38.120 a rocket launch, which was plenty exciting. Canada's Youth Science 0:08:38.160 --> 0:08:43.200 Foundation organized an essay contest the topic. The importance of 0:08:43.320 --> 0:08:49.400 space exploration to humanity. I mean, obviously two thousand words 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:53.840 in which Jamie brought forth a passionate argument for reaching 0:08:54.000 --> 0:08:58.960 the stars and beyond. He and a friend both entered, 0:08:59.559 --> 0:09:05.280 both sent their essays off, and then they waited. In 0:09:05.360 --> 0:09:09.760 November nineteen seventy two, Jamie received a letter from the 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:13.640 US embassy in Ottawa. There were a few words on 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:19.199 the page, but Jamie just focused on one of them, congratulations. 0:09:19.559 --> 0:09:21.000 It said You're. 0:09:20.800 --> 0:09:25.440 Going to the United States. It was somewhat bittersweet. Jamie 0:09:25.520 --> 0:09:30.560 winning meant his friend didn't. There was another wrinkle. Remember 0:09:30.679 --> 0:09:33.960 that the contest was only open to kids between fifteen 0:09:34.080 --> 0:09:38.920 and seventeen. Jamie was thirteen. He lied about his age 0:09:38.960 --> 0:09:40.320 when he submitted his essay. 0:09:40.800 --> 0:09:43.680 They found out a little bit before I got there, 0:09:43.800 --> 0:09:46.240 but because there are other things that I had to do, 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:50.520 and I guess finally I said that how old I was. 0:09:51.600 --> 0:09:54.080 They didn't like it, but by that time it was 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:55.880 too late, so I got to go. 0:09:57.240 --> 0:10:02.000 Jamie had just turned fourteen, so they let it slide. Still, 0:10:02.040 --> 0:10:04.760 he was the youngest of the eighty kids from around 0:10:04.840 --> 0:10:08.720 the world who would see Apollo seventeen touched down on 0:10:08.840 --> 0:10:12.200 the Moon. His parents naturally were thrilled. 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:16.160 Oh, they loved it, so they thought it was wonderful 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:16.480 for me. 0:10:18.440 --> 0:10:23.280 The International Youth Science Tours first stop was in Washington, 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:27.560 d C. Where a chartered plane delivered an assembly of 0:10:27.640 --> 0:10:34.120 students to the current president, Richard Milhouse Nixon. Nixon was 0:10:34.160 --> 0:10:37.760 a proponent of the space program. He had arranged for 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:41.280 moon rock samples to be dispensed from the Apollo eleven 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:45.840 mission and was doing the same for Apollo seventeen. Jamie 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:49.640 met Nixon, but the President didn't leave much of an impression. 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:53.600 To be honest, I don't remember anything that he did. 0:10:53.920 --> 0:10:58.840 I remember shaking his hand, and that's about all I know. 0:10:58.600 --> 0:11:01.640 I know, to be honest, that that time. To me, 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:06.400 it was just another guy. So there were other more 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:09.360 people later that I liked, but Nixon nah. 0:11:10.120 --> 0:11:13.480 When the tour moved to Kennedy Space Center in Florida, 0:11:13.679 --> 0:11:16.440 Jamie was put in a hotel room next to the 0:11:16.480 --> 0:11:20.960 man he really wanted to meet, the first human on 0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:21.480 the moon. 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:26.720 We were in a hotel with Neil Armstrong, and in 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:30.880 fact I with Neil Armstrong. His wife and his kids 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:35.520 were in the pool together for the entire afternoon, and 0:11:35.559 --> 0:11:40.240 so I got to do Marco Polo with the man 0:11:40.240 --> 0:11:44.199 that went on the Moon. There you go. 0:11:45.880 --> 0:11:48.480 All of them went to Kennedy Space Center for the 0:11:48.600 --> 0:11:52.800 launch of Apollo seventeen. This launch was notable not only 0:11:52.880 --> 0:11:56.839 for being the last manned Moon mission, but the first 0:11:56.840 --> 0:11:59.520 Saturn five rocket to take off. 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:00.880 At night one zero. 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:02.000 We have a lift dog. 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:05.040 It's just like daylight here at Kennedy Space Center. 0:12:05.160 --> 0:12:07.880 The Battern five is moving off the pad. It lifted 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:11.200 off at mid nate and so it was like the 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:16.079 sun rose. It was really amazing. It really was amazing. 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:20.160 Jamie and the others were situated about three miles from 0:12:20.160 --> 0:12:24.480 the Saturn rocket. That may not sound close, but consider 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:28.640 that three miles was roughly the distance any shrapnel would 0:12:28.679 --> 0:12:31.800 be able to travel in the event the rocket blew up. 0:12:32.200 --> 0:12:32.440 Yeah. 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:36.559 Yeah, In fact, it's really loud, but also so loud 0:12:36.720 --> 0:12:40.960 that all of your body is shaking at the time. 0:12:41.160 --> 0:12:46.199 It's it's really loud. But it was wonderful. It really was. 0:12:46.679 --> 0:12:49.520 I had not known what it would be like, and 0:12:49.880 --> 0:12:52.920 no one else will ever see it again, so it 0:12:53.000 --> 0:12:53.840 was wonderful for me. 0:12:56.080 --> 0:12:59.880 Later, Jamie went to mission control at the Manned Spacecraft 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:04.240 in Houston, which is now named for Lyndon Johnson. You've 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:07.800 seen it or a version of it in practically every 0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:11.480 movie ever made about space travel. Lots of guys with 0:13:11.640 --> 0:13:15.920 flat buzz cuts and short sleeve shirts, sweating over every switch, 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:19.400 flipped and root to the moon. But Jamie got to 0:13:19.440 --> 0:13:23.600 see the real thing in person on a screen. Astronauts 0:13:23.640 --> 0:13:29.040 Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmidt traversed the lunar surface. Cernan 0:13:29.320 --> 0:13:32.560 was the commander, Schmidt the co pilot, and the only 0:13:32.679 --> 0:13:35.200 trained geologist to ever visit the Moon. 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:44.000 There mark gravity okay down to get to. 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:51.360 Work, the men leapt between boulders the size of U 0:13:51.400 --> 0:13:55.960 haul trailers in the Moon's Taurus litro valley. They rode 0:13:56.000 --> 0:14:00.520 a lunar rover over uneven terrain and they chipped away rock, 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:04.680 coming away with one sample, in particular the size of 0:14:04.720 --> 0:14:08.560 a brick. But it was when Eugene Sernon spoke to 0:14:08.640 --> 0:14:12.640 the camera that the Youth Tour really began to perk up. 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:18.600 During the moonwalks, we were there at mission control and 0:14:18.679 --> 0:14:24.240 then on the last moonwalk just before they left the moon, Sunan, 0:14:24.360 --> 0:14:28.360 who was the captain, and Smith, who was the other 0:14:28.680 --> 0:14:33.360 person on the moon. They got a big rock, and 0:14:33.400 --> 0:14:36.520 they brought it to the camera and said, this is 0:14:36.560 --> 0:14:40.800 for you, this is for us. They said, when they 0:14:40.880 --> 0:14:45.240 gets back to Earth, they'll you get it into small 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:47.720 places and each of us will get one. 0:14:48.440 --> 0:14:49.920 And we did so. 0:14:50.040 --> 0:14:54.240 Yeah, the Moon Rock was what we're getting that. It 0:14:54.320 --> 0:14:55.640 was wonderful, It really was. 0:14:56.240 --> 0:14:59.480 Here's what Eugene Cernan said to the kids that. 0:14:59.480 --> 0:15:03.200 Day, when we return this rock. Are some of the 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:06.480 others like it? The Houston, we'd like to share a 0:15:06.520 --> 0:15:10.360 piece of this rock, but so many of the countries 0:15:10.360 --> 0:15:12.680 throughout the world. We hope that this will be a 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:17.440 symbol of what our feelings are, what the feelings of 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:21.080 the Apollo program are, and a symbol of mankind that 0:15:21.200 --> 0:15:24.160 we can live in peace and harmony in the future. 0:15:27.840 --> 0:15:32.080 The tour wound down after that, Jamie and the others 0:15:32.120 --> 0:15:35.640 watched on TV from the United Nations Building as the 0:15:35.680 --> 0:15:40.000 capsule splashed down, and soon Jamie was headed back home 0:15:40.400 --> 0:15:45.160 to be escorted to the Canadian border by Secret Service agents. 0:15:45.480 --> 0:15:48.760 But Jamie wasn't yet in possession of the rock. 0:15:49.440 --> 0:15:52.040 No well, because it was on the moot, So they 0:15:52.080 --> 0:15:54.800 had to wait until they got back and then they 0:15:54.840 --> 0:15:58.280 had this right get into little pieces and then each 0:15:58.320 --> 0:16:02.920 one was not in a peaks of plastic. And then 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:07.120 it got to me like in a month or so, 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:10.000 so somebody had held them and said that they were 0:16:10.000 --> 0:16:13.160 going to kidnap me and the rock, even though it 0:16:13.280 --> 0:16:13.840 wasn't there. 0:16:14.840 --> 0:16:18.360 The police guarded his house for a few months afterward. 0:16:19.080 --> 0:16:23.440 Eventually they grew satisfied that the kidnapping threat against Jamie 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:27.360 would never materialize. This isn't a story, by the way, 0:16:27.440 --> 0:16:32.280 about a young Canadian science enthusiast getting kidnapped, but that 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:38.240 young Canadian moonrock. The brick sized moonrock would be analyzed 0:16:38.280 --> 0:16:41.720 by NASA scientists before it was divvied up for one 0:16:41.800 --> 0:16:46.560 hundred and thirty five countries plus every US state and territory. 0:16:47.040 --> 0:16:51.320 A few weeks later, via special delivery, Canada's Peace arrived 0:16:51.400 --> 0:16:56.960 on Jamie's front doorstep. The rock fragment was encased in looseight. 0:16:57.600 --> 0:17:00.560 Below it was a Canadian flag which had been brought 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:03.960 to the Moon and back. The junior astronomer was in 0:17:04.040 --> 0:17:08.919 possession of something very few civilians have ever seen up close, 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:14.520 a moon rock, a little over one gram in size. 0:17:14.760 --> 0:17:19.040 It was very dark. People don't realize that the moon 0:17:19.359 --> 0:17:23.199 is really dark. We only see it because it's in 0:17:23.240 --> 0:17:26.440 the sky at night. But if you look at it 0:17:26.600 --> 0:17:33.120 without that, it reflects only about five six seven percent 0:17:33.280 --> 0:17:38.119 of the light from the sun, so it's almost like carcoal. 0:17:38.760 --> 0:17:41.800 Jamie didn't put it in a safety deposit box, nor 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:45.120 did he stick it anywhere for safe keeping. It went 0:17:45.240 --> 0:17:47.760 in a shoe box under his bed, where it could 0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:51.800 be periodically pulled out to show family or friends, or 0:17:51.880 --> 0:17:54.760 just to stare at before going to bed. Once it 0:17:54.840 --> 0:17:56.720 even wound up in the family car. 0:17:57.240 --> 0:18:01.080 It was in our car without theos locked at all 0:18:01.760 --> 0:18:05.439 for about two hours, and it was just there. Somebody 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:06.320 could have done it. 0:18:06.600 --> 0:18:10.959 But Jamie had been only a temporary custodian. The moondust 0:18:11.080 --> 0:18:14.719 sprinkled over his life for a fleeting period of time. 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:19.080 In early nineteen seventy three, he got a notice it 0:18:19.160 --> 0:18:21.919 was time to hand the moon Rock over to its 0:18:22.000 --> 0:18:27.160 intended recipient, the country of Canada. During a ceremony at 0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:32.720 Rideau Hall in Ottawa, Jamie dutifully but dolefully handed over 0:18:32.800 --> 0:18:37.480 the rock to Roland Missioner, the Governor General. Because Canada 0:18:37.520 --> 0:18:41.000 didn't want him to leave empty handed, they prepared a 0:18:41.040 --> 0:18:42.480 gift for him in return. 0:18:43.440 --> 0:18:46.720 You know what I got in Retune. I got a 0:18:46.880 --> 0:18:49.440 book called the Birds of Canada. 0:18:50.600 --> 0:18:55.680 Did Canada confuse astronomy with ornithology? Jamie never found out 0:18:55.760 --> 0:18:59.360 why he was given a book about birds. Maybe it's 0:18:59.400 --> 0:19:03.119 all they had lying around. But Governor General Mishner was 0:19:03.200 --> 0:19:06.280 not the final stop for the moon Rock. It was 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:10.040 given to the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Ottawa, 0:19:10.560 --> 0:19:13.680 and for Jamie it was like being forced to put 0:19:13.720 --> 0:19:17.600 it up for adoption. He agonized over the rocks well 0:19:17.640 --> 0:19:18.560 being for. 0:19:18.480 --> 0:19:21.280 A few years. I didn't go and see it, but 0:19:21.440 --> 0:19:24.440 I would call them occasionally and just say how is it. 0:19:24.960 --> 0:19:29.720 Then in nineteen seventy eight, Jamie made his customary call. 0:19:30.600 --> 0:19:34.679 The museum had some bad news for Jamie. 0:19:34.840 --> 0:19:40.199 I called and it was gone and they said that 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:43.400 it was stolen, And I thought, jeez, if you could 0:19:43.400 --> 0:19:45.359 have done that, I should have just kept it in 0:19:45.440 --> 0:19:47.320 a jew box in my bed. 0:19:56.760 --> 0:19:59.960 There was a reason the US government dispatched the Secret 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:03.960 Service to meet Jamie Matthews at the airport. Of course, 0:20:04.040 --> 0:20:06.359 they were concerned for the welfare of a child on 0:20:06.400 --> 0:20:10.040 a good will trip to improve foreign relations, but there 0:20:10.119 --> 0:20:13.480 was another factor at play. Moon rocks are one of 0:20:13.520 --> 0:20:18.359 the great black markets in the world. They're worth millions. 0:20:18.720 --> 0:20:21.280 This moon rock ended up in my pocket for almost 0:20:21.320 --> 0:20:22.520 twenty four hours. 0:20:23.040 --> 0:20:26.880 That's Joseph Goudheims. Joseph has one heck of a resume. 0:20:27.480 --> 0:20:32.440 Started off as an Army aviator and intelligence officer and 0:20:33.119 --> 0:20:36.720 went to work for the FA. I was recruited away 0:20:36.720 --> 0:20:39.520 as a special agent, recruited away from the FA by 0:20:39.720 --> 0:20:44.960 US Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General. And then 0:20:45.000 --> 0:20:50.800 I was recruited away from DOTIG by NASA Origent, where 0:20:50.800 --> 0:20:55.000 I served for about ten years a loooover actually as 0:20:55.040 --> 0:20:58.560 a senior special agent, which means I headed up task 0:20:58.640 --> 0:20:59.920 force investigations. 0:21:00.920 --> 0:21:06.040 That's right, NASA has special agents. They're armed, they can 0:21:06.080 --> 0:21:10.000 make arrests. They look into things like missing NASA property, 0:21:10.119 --> 0:21:14.720 people pretending to be astronauts, and cybercrime. How this isn't 0:21:14.760 --> 0:21:18.600 a CSI spin off yet is beyond me. But anyway, 0:21:19.280 --> 0:21:22.720 In the late nineteen nineties, Joseph took note of the 0:21:22.800 --> 0:21:25.680 fact that a number of the moon rocks gifted by 0:21:25.720 --> 0:21:29.680 the United States to foreign governments couldn't be accounted for. 0:21:30.359 --> 0:21:34.040 Some countries said they had no record of receiving them. 0:21:34.400 --> 0:21:38.399 Others said they had been reported missing or stolen, and 0:21:38.680 --> 0:21:42.640 sometimes Joseph would get word of a con man who 0:21:42.720 --> 0:21:47.440 purported to have a moonrock for sale. Usually they didn't, 0:21:47.720 --> 0:21:51.000 it would be a fake, like two brothers who insisted 0:21:51.040 --> 0:21:54.119 their father had been given some moon rocks by astronaut 0:21:54.240 --> 0:21:58.320 John Glenn. John Glenn was an astronaut, but he never 0:21:58.400 --> 0:22:02.480 went to the Moon. For the most part, moon rocks 0:22:02.560 --> 0:22:06.560 belong to NASA and the US government. Some have been 0:22:06.600 --> 0:22:11.320 retrieved by Russia and China, and some lunar meteorites have 0:22:11.520 --> 0:22:16.000 landed on Earth, but most moon samples were from the 0:22:16.040 --> 0:22:20.320 Apollo missions. They can only be gifted or loaned out 0:22:20.440 --> 0:22:25.480 by NASA. If anyone acquires an Apollo mission moonrock from 0:22:25.560 --> 0:22:30.720 anyone other than NASA, well that would be wrong. It 0:22:30.760 --> 0:22:33.439 would have to be offered, as in the case of 0:22:33.480 --> 0:22:36.040 the Apollo eleven and seventeen missions. 0:22:36.720 --> 0:22:40.840 NASA takes the position, as does the United States, that 0:22:41.080 --> 0:22:45.080 nobody can own a moon rock or duns. And so 0:22:45.240 --> 0:22:49.959 we gifted to the nations the world one hundred and 0:22:50.000 --> 0:22:55.320 thirty five Paull eleven moon rocks on a stand. And 0:22:55.400 --> 0:22:58.119 we gifted to the nations of the world one hundred 0:22:58.160 --> 0:23:01.480 and thirty five moon rocks on a plaque like this, 0:23:02.720 --> 0:23:05.720 And essentially these were our way of saying, hey, look 0:23:05.880 --> 0:23:08.240 all the members of the United Nations were all in 0:23:08.359 --> 0:23:11.760 on this together. We may be sending the rockets to 0:23:11.920 --> 0:23:15.200 and from the boon, but this is a global effort. 0:23:15.760 --> 0:23:18.360 There is one sort of exception. 0:23:18.600 --> 0:23:21.000 The astronauts when they came back from the boom. 0:23:22.280 --> 0:23:27.800 The moon isn't exactly a sterile working environment like coal miners, 0:23:28.280 --> 0:23:31.199 astronauts can come home dirty. 0:23:32.119 --> 0:23:36.359 They were allowed to keep their gloves and patches, and 0:23:36.440 --> 0:23:42.080 on the patches and gloves was lootered debris. And so 0:23:42.960 --> 0:23:46.199 there was one astronaut that would actually bang on his 0:23:46.320 --> 0:23:51.120 gloves and cut pieces of his pattions apart and put 0:23:51.160 --> 0:23:56.760 him in painting city. And so essentially NASA ruled Okay, 0:23:57.000 --> 0:23:58.760 we kind of gifted that away too. 0:24:00.200 --> 0:24:04.000 But for most people who haven't been blasted into space, 0:24:04.560 --> 0:24:09.080 being in possession of a lunar rock is suspicious and 0:24:09.280 --> 0:24:11.080 it didn't sit right with Joe. 0:24:12.160 --> 0:24:17.600 Risk to our astronauts. Remember we had astronauts guy in 0:24:17.720 --> 0:24:21.680 practice and a follow one. These guys were risking their lives. 0:24:21.720 --> 0:24:26.120 They got it, they accomplished something. The world united seeing 0:24:26.240 --> 0:24:29.879 Gil Armstrong take that first step down the boom and 0:24:30.000 --> 0:24:33.560 the idea that petty thugs would be stealing these moon 0:24:33.680 --> 0:24:37.280 rocks for their own wealth something that I never could 0:24:37.520 --> 0:24:41.639 understand and it seemed wrong. It's something that I wanted 0:24:41.680 --> 0:24:43.399 to accomplish when I was an agent. 0:24:44.240 --> 0:24:48.320 So in nineteen ninety eight, Joseph decided to take a 0:24:48.400 --> 0:24:53.520 closer look at the illicit moon rock market. His idea 0:24:53.840 --> 0:24:58.520 was incredibly simple. He would invite criminals to come to him. 0:24:58.920 --> 0:25:01.959 And essentially what we did was we put an ad 0:25:02.119 --> 0:25:07.040 in USA today moon Rocks wanted with an astronaut jumping 0:25:07.080 --> 0:25:10.000 on the moon, and I was looking for con artists 0:25:10.040 --> 0:25:14.200 to approach me so that we could do the sting operation. 0:25:15.320 --> 0:25:20.400 Moon Rocks wanted send asking price. What Joseph expected were 0:25:20.440 --> 0:25:24.040 a series of calls from con artists, and he did 0:25:24.240 --> 0:25:26.840 get some of those, but then he got a call 0:25:26.960 --> 0:25:28.679 from someone named Alan. 0:25:30.000 --> 0:25:33.000 What we didn't expect guy by the name of Alan 0:25:33.080 --> 0:25:35.159 Rosen to call me and say, hey, look, get all 0:25:35.200 --> 0:25:39.960 those other guys that are calling you. That's bogus. You're 0:25:39.960 --> 0:25:42.000 not you know, nobody's allowed to own a moon rock. 0:25:42.080 --> 0:25:46.720 But guess what I've got and it's for sale. And 0:25:46.960 --> 0:25:51.160 I said, what's the asking price? He said five billion dollars. 0:25:51.920 --> 0:25:55.439 Alan didn't sound like the others. For one thing, he 0:25:55.560 --> 0:25:58.120 had proof he was in possession of a moon rock. 0:25:58.720 --> 0:26:02.639 He sent Joseph ado of the very same plaque used 0:26:02.640 --> 0:26:06.080 in the Goodwill Moonrock Tour, the wooden plaque with the 0:26:06.160 --> 0:26:12.320 country's flag and Nixon's dedication. Alan, however, had taken one 0:26:12.359 --> 0:26:16.520 measure to make a positive identification of which country it 0:26:16.600 --> 0:26:18.320 was from a little more difficult. 0:26:19.000 --> 0:26:22.600 The center of the flag was blocked out, as was 0:26:22.640 --> 0:26:26.840 the recipient country. We contacted one country after the next, 0:26:26.880 --> 0:26:30.400 and we found out, guess what, nobody knows where their 0:26:30.400 --> 0:26:33.920 moon rocks are. We gifted the moon rocks, and they 0:26:33.920 --> 0:26:36.520 don't know where they are. Some thought they never even 0:26:36.560 --> 0:26:37.200 received them. 0:26:37.760 --> 0:26:42.040 Joseph later learned that the rock belonged to Honduras. So 0:26:42.240 --> 0:26:46.120