Official News page 4

REAL LIFE NEWS: SOME OF OUR MOON ROCKS ARE MISSING

by Hazed

The state of Colorado recently discovered that they had lost some moon rocks. They were given to the state in 1974 and are currently valued at around $5 million on the black market. But hardly anyone knew they existed until a college student wanted to study them as part of an assignment, so began searching for them.

About a decade ago, another set of moon rocks collected in 1969 was found in storage at the state history museum, but they have no idea where the other set have got to, and neither does the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, or the governor's office.

But wait... a few days after this story broke, a missing moon rock turned up - it turned out an ex-governor had it. The souvenir was given to former governor John Vanderhoof by the Nixon administration, which handed out chunks of moon rubble to all of the states as well as more than 130 foreign countries.

Mr Vanderhoof, now 88 years old and living in Grand Junction, had held the rock on a plaque in his house and had no idea of its worth until a Denver TV station called him up and asked him if he had the missing rocks. He joked that he had offered it to museums, but none of them were interested.

Just goes to show that one person's hunk of rubble is another person's priceless object!

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