A man promised her woman the Moon — and meant it. Twenty-three years ago, in July 2002, a NASA intern, Thad Roberts, and his accomplices, including his ex-girlfriend, pulled off an out-of-this-world heist
by stealing 17 pounds of moon rocks worth $21 million.
According to the FBI, Roberts, then 24, went to great lengths to carry out the dead-of-the-night burglary. He rewrote security cameras, wore Neoprene bodysuits, and managed to get authentic badges of NASA to steal 17 pounds of moon rocks and a meteorite from Houston’s Johnson Space Center– priceless samples from every Apollo mission, locked in a 600-pound safe, reported People.
Roberts, then a 24-year-old whiz kid with a triple degree in physics, geology, and geophysics from the University of Utah, arrived at NASA for an internship. There, he met Tiffany Fowler, a 22-year-old who worked in NASA’s tissue culture laboratory. The two quickly became a couple, moving in together within weeks.
Not long after, he told her about his idea to steal moon rocks, which was said to have intrigued her.
During an interview with the LA Times in 2004, Roberts had said that he did it for love. “I was in love with Tiffany (his then-girlfriend),”. He added, “In my mind, I was thinking, ‘Baby, I’d give you the moon.’ It would be a romantic start to our relationship.”
Some of the stolen lunar samples were bizarrely stashed under Roberts’ bed, to have “sex on the moon,” as reported by People.
How The Burglary Took Place?
Soon after getting into a relationship, they decided to steal the moon rocks. The duo roped in a third person, Shae Saur, also an intern at NASA.
One July evening, the three interns pulled up to Building 31, where the moon rocks were being housed. Roberts and Fowler entered the building, while Saur kept watch and monitored the tampered security cameras. Wearing Neoprene bodysuits, the couple made their way to the airless room and escaped with a safe containing the moon rocks, which they later cracked open using a power saw.
Additionally, Roberts placed moon rocks beneath the bed covers, later claiming the couple had “sex on the moon” as a symbolic gesture.
“I took some of the moon rocks and placed them underneath the blanket on the bed… I never said anything but I’m sure she could feel it,” he told CBS News in 2012.
“I mean, the simple answer is to say that I did it for love. I did it because I wanted to be loved. I wanted someone to know that I’d cared about them that much. And to have the symbol there to remind them of it,” he said when asked on carrying out the daring heist/
“It’s more uncomfortable than not, but it wasn’t about the comfort at that point. It was about the expression. And no one had ever had sex on the moon before. I think we can safely say that,” he added.
However, the FBI revealed that Roberts’ moon rock heist was financially motivated, with him in contact with a potential buyer from Belgium. The buyer was willing to pay $1,000 to $5,000 per gram for the rocks. However, when the buyer grew suspicious about the rocks’ origin, they contacted the FBI instead. This led to an undercover operation that ultimately caught Roberts and his accomplices.
Roberts pleaded guilty in 2002 to stealing moon rocks. He also admitted to stealing dinosaur bones and fossils from the Natural History Museum in Salt Lake City while he was attending the University of Utah, the Deseret News reported.
He was released two years early from prison in 2008 after serving more than six years of an eight-year sentence. Fowler and Saur pleaded guilty and were given 180 days of house arrest, 150 hours of community service, a three-year prohibition, and ordered to pay more than $9,000 in restitution to NASA.
Roberts and Fowler reportedly never met again after being caught and jailed. The story was later documented in Ben Mezrich’s 2011 book, “Sex on the Moon”.
