[FPSPACE] Apollo 11 moonstone Netherlands fake?

[Bert Vis]

Geert,

This was in the news yesterday. It's a very strange story. During their tour, the Apollo-11 crew presented a moon rock which is currently in a museum in Leiden. There's no doubt about the authenticity of this being real. The rock that was mentioned in the news reportedly was presented by the ambassador to former (!!!) prime minister Willem Drees, and when he died his family asked the Rijksmuseum if there was anything in his personal belongings that they thought was worth exhibiting in the museum. They then chose the "moon rock".

Now, I can't help but think that this is just the result of a very garbled memory and "family urban legend" from the 1960s. Drees was the Dutch prime minister from 1948 to 1958 (yes, 1958) and was out of politics since. He was born in 1886 so 72 when his term as PM ended. There was no reason whatsoever for the US to present a 83 former politician in Holland with a moon rock, if only because one had already been given by the Apollo-11 crew.

Geologists have determined that the "Drees rock" in the Rijksmuseum is indeed just fossil wood. The museum is said to have decided to keep the rock because of the remarkable story behind it.

Greetings,
Bert


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: David R. Woods 
  To: fpspace at friends-partners.org 
  Sent: Friday, August 28, 2009 4:21 PM
  Subject: Re: [FPSPACE] Apollo 11 moonstone Netherlands fake?




  -------- Original Message -------- Subject:  Apollo 11 moonstone Netherlands fake? 
        Date:  Fri, 28 Aug 2009 09:37:10 +0200 
        From:  Geert Sassen <GES204 at maerskcrew.com> 
        To:  David Portree <dsfportree at hotmail.com>, drwoods <drwoods at stny.rr.com>, jameseoberg <jameseoberg at comcast.net>, bhen <bhen at scarlet.be>, Jaap Terweij <japio at dds.nl> 


Good day,

I can't access FPSpace from this account as I'm not at home at this moment (writing from Salalah in the desert of Oman), but there was a somewhat weird story in the Dutch newspaper yesterday.

According to the Dutch world-news, geologists of the Dutch Amsterdam University ('Vrije Universiteit')  have been analysing a supposed piece of moon rock, which has been for many many years at the Dutch RichsMuseum ('Rijksmuseum'), and according to their analysis this is just a piece of fossilised wood, worth less then 50 euro, and certainly not from the moon.

The supposed piece of moonrock was handed over by US Ambassador Middendorf to Dutch prime minister Drees in 1969 when the Apollo 11 astronauts visited the Netherlands. It his been one of the prime exhibitions at the Dutch Amsterdam Richsmuseum ever afterwards and was insured for 100 000 euro.

Unfortunately I haven't got online Internet access from my present location, so I can't check this out any further, but maybe Jaap Terwey or any of our other Dutch/Belgium subscribers is at home and has more info on this?

Regards,

Geert Sassen
(home email: geert at navtools.nl will automatically forward this present mailaddress)





------------------------------------------------------------------------------


  _______________________________________________
  FPSPACE mailing list
  FPSPACE at friends-partners.org
  http://www.friends-partners.org/mailman/listinfo/fpspace
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.friends-partners.org/pipermail/fpspace/attachments/20090828/9fcacdb2/attachment.html