this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2025
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Not The Onion

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[–] expatriado@lemmy.world 95 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

this happened in 2002, if someone wondered

[–] Postmortal_Pop@lemmy.world 35 points 20 hours ago

I was genuinely worried it happened again.

[–] scarabic@lemmy.world 13 points 14 hours ago

Yeah 23 years ago and we get a present tense headline.

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 26 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

I swear I remember reading about this before...

edit: God fucking dammit I'm old:

More than 23 years ago, NASA intern Thad Roberts hatched a daring plan to steal 17 pounds of m

[–] chtk@feddit.nl 25 points 21 hours ago

Imagine stealing $21M in Lunar rocks, and not realising moon rock dust makes ideal portal gun surfaces.

[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 18 points 21 hours ago

that had to hurt.

moon rocks be made of razors yo.

[–] ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 19 hours ago (1 children)
[–] RobotZap10000@feddit.nl 9 points 17 hours ago

Cave Johnson here. It turns out that moon dust isn't in fact cocaine. I am now terribly ill.

[–] betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world 12 points 21 hours ago

NASA was just upset that their moon rocks were getting more action than their scientists.

[–] Bot@sub.community 10 points 8 hours ago

Lunatic? :)

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (1 children)

Goddamn, now that is a headline!

My inner J Jonah Jameson is impressed, hire that man immediately!

He already works for us?

Perfect!

Never let him know what we pay anybody else!

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 2 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Weird way to spell "Cave Johnson."

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 7 hours ago

I mean, I'm not super familiar with how he's characterized in the comics, but he is characterized this way in the... I guess now the 'older' Spider Man movies.

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 8 points 20 hours ago

That... Is from like 30 years ago or something? I was a kid when I read about this

[–] kibiz0r@midwest.social 7 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

After his arrest, Roberts admitted to also stealing dinosaur bones and fossils from the Natural History Museum in Salt Lake City.

Checks out.

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 1 points 14 hours ago

why would you steal dinosaur bones from salt lake when they're just laying in the ground a few hundred miles east

[–] aramis87@fedia.io 6 points 16 hours ago

I mean, you can just buy lunar meteorites and not have to risk the jail term, if you're that into the idea of "having sex on the moon". Hell, you can buy Martian meteorites, or outer space meteorites for that matter. The small slices aren't even all that expensive.

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 5 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (1 children)

https://nypost.com/2025/08/12/lifestyle/nasa-intern-stole-21m-of-lunar-to-use-during-sex-to-have-sex-on-the-moon/

Your link is showing a 404 error. This seems to be the current link.

Strange for a 23 year old story....

[–] quick_snail@feddit.nl 2 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Nypost is not a credible source. Please don't link to it

Meh, it's a human interest story that's decades old.

[–] miss_demeanour@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 21 hours ago
[–] MisterNeon@lemmy.world 4 points 21 hours ago (1 children)
[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 6 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Probably because this happened at least 20 years ago...

I mean, I guess it could have just happened again, but after the first time they stepped up security

[–] lividweasel@lemmy.world 3 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

So with inflation, it would be $500 million worth of moon rocks today?

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 3 points 21 hours ago

If I'm remembering it right, the act substantially ruined their value...

Like, not just money, it contaminated the samples and made them basically worthless scientifically.

I could be wrong tho, it was a while ago

[–] AmidFuror@fedia.io 4 points 19 hours ago

On the flip side, this creates evidence for Panspermia.

[–] ivanafterall@lemmy.world 3 points 17 hours ago
[–] tgirlschierke@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Oh yeah, I watched a documentary about that.

[–] Plurrbear@lemmy.world 2 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

What doc? I need to watch it!

[–] tgirlschierke@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 14 hours ago

I think it's called The Great Moon Rock Heist. I know it was from NatGeo.