Attention, countries of the world: Do you know where your moon rocks are? The discovery of a fake moon rock in the Netherlands' national museum should be a wake-up call for more than 130 countries that received gifts of lunar rubble from both the Apollo 11 flight in 1969 and Apollo 17 three years later. Nearly 270 rocks scooped up by US astronauts were given to foreign countries by the Nixon administration. But according to experts and research by The Associated Press, the whereabouts of some of the small rocks are unknown. “There is no doubt in my mind that many moon rocks are lost or stolen and now sitting in private collections,” said Joseph Gutheinz, a University of Phoenix instructor and former US government investigator who has made a project of tracking down the lunar treasures. The Rijksmuseum, announced last month it had had its plum-sized “moon” rock tested, only to discover it was a piece of petrified wood, possibly from Arizona. The museum said it inherited the rock from the estate of a former prime minister. Genuine moon rocks, while worthless in mineral terms, can fetch six-figure sums from black-market collectors. Of 135 rocks from the Apollo 17 mission given away to nations or their leaders, only about 25 have been located by CollectSpace.com, a Web site devoted to the subject. The AP reviewed declassified correspondence between the State Department and US embassies in 1973 and was able to locate ten additional Apollo 17 rocks - in Switzerland, Belgium, Italy, Barbados, France, Poland, Norway, Costa Rica, Egypt and Nepal. With the passage of time, the rocks' value has skyrocketed. NASA keeps most of the 382 kilograms (842 lbs) gathered by the Apollo missions locked away, giving small samples to researchers and lending a set of larger rocks for exhibitions. Apollo 11 gift rocks typically weigh just 0.05 grams. The Apollo 17 gift rocks weigh about 1.1 grams. In one known legal sale of moon samples, in 1993, moon soil weighing 0.2 grams from an unmanned Russian probe was auctioned at Sotheby's for $442,500.
