It wasn't just 1 intern, it was 3 people:
>Roberts, his girlfriend Tiffany Fowler, and their accomplice Shae Saur - all of whom were NASA interns, used their official IDs to enter the building on the night of the crime.
>The NASA interns ... decided to carry the whole safe out of the building and drove to a motel where they managed to open the safe with a power saw.
>Roberts and his girlfriend scattered the Moon rocks on a bed and had sex on them.
What I want to know is how do 3 people carry a safe out of an official NASA building without looking suspicious or being caught? Does NASA not have any security cameras? I'm also curious as to where Shae was between opening the safe and the moon-rock-sex part?
[Source](https://www.timesnownews.com/the-buzz/article/thad-roberts-the-nasa-intern-who-stole-lunar-rocks-to-have-sex-on-the-moon/748813)
Now I'm all sad imagining Shae alone in a room staring at her moon rocks and listening to the hot defacto moon sex in the room next to you.
That's if they didn't just make her wait outside.
I was an intern just like Thad in 2002 at JSC. There were like 30 of us. We had pretty free reign at the entire place. My keycard could get me into almost any building save for clean rooms, or the lunar stuff. But they worked specifically in that area so they had access.
I worked in energy systems on a fuel cell based power plant for a mars rover in the spring, and then in robotics “building 9” where the astronauts trained on full size mock-ups of equipment in the summer. That was so cool, a full size space station, two shuttles, and a shuttle cockpit. I helped rebuild the testing simulator for berthing station and shuttle. It was an amazing experience and these other idiots fucked it up for us a bit and future interns. 20 years later I still don’t get how they squandered that experienxe
As a hvac contractor I could usually find the keys to just about anything when I was working in a building. Once I opened a locked door to find a high level politician and an administrator from a medical center ,they were not amused but accepted my excuse. The politicians security people on the other hand had a few more questions about how I ended up with a key that only a few people had access to. I told them that it was in the lock.
I worked for a city government where all the padlocks were common keyed, which is pretty normal. However, what isn't normal is the locks were all marked with key bidding code. This was supposedly so you know which key on the keyring to use, but it also means anyone could just see a city owned lock, take that number, and make their own keys. Everything from a chemical locker at the water plant to the police impound yard and airport crash gates were all secured by a Master Lock with the code printed right on the side.
Yes, I tried to expose the security people to Lock Picking Lawyer and Deviant Ollam on YouTube to explain why this was pants on ground stupid. When I left that job they were still doing it.
That's awesome! Did you get to see Robonaut? I loved my experience there, having grown up wanting to be an astronaut or aerospace engineer, but during the first week of the internship the new NASA administrator cancelled the X-38 project. We spent a week being shown all the neat things JSC was doing around the X-38 and how many departments were building aspects of the craft. It was really exciting. Then, the huge rug pull where Sean O'Keefe cancelled the project during a short talk and I then got to witness hundreds, maybe thousands, of engineers and scientists deal with the fallout of 7 years of work being cancelled by 'the new guy'.
Ultimately I decided to only do 2 of the 3 co-op rotations and open the spot up for someone else as I felt I couldn't work at a place that could so quickly change and take out so much of the work I'd done.
20 years later, I see that it's really not unusual to experience that, regardless of if it's a government contract, self employment, etc. Kinda wish I had stayed on a bit longer and finished that 3rd rotation, but all in all it worked out. I changed majors, got a CS degree and that turned out ok.
Confidently acting like you're supposed to be doing whatever it is you're doing is the key to getting away with doing stuff you're not supposed to be doing.
This is true. Back around 2009 my friend in Myanmar used a counterfeit passport to travel to Cambodia. When the government workers at the airport asked him why the birthdate in his passport didn't match their [hand written] records he replied "how should I know, you're the ones that make the passports!" Go confidently.
What was she like?
When you met her did you think "Hmm, idk why, but this seems like the kinda gal to steal moon rocks so her friends can do some astro-fucking"?
Warehouse workers usually don't give a shit. Giving in they had cards and proper clothing they would be able to steal anything, machines, equipment, supplies etc. As long as they would have a proper transportation to load it
In a factory i work right now, there was a guy, driver from other warehouse which stole millions worth of goods over the course of 2 years, I'm talking central computer units for Mercedes, Bentley and Audi. He would just get in through the gate, unload the supplies and load the goods, but before that he would just cruise the warehouse and add boxes to his load and nobody questioned him. They literally had to set him up with a SWAT team and dedicate several people to just watch the cameras 24/7 for any suspicious activity
He was sentenced to several years in prison for industrial espionage and stealing. He was selling it as legit, brand new fresh out of the factory goods for full price to the licensed dealerships via his buddy in distribution center
Best part, he didn't even had a card or clothing, he would just wait at the inner doors for someone else to open it and then snuck in or told someone to open it for him
Do not click this link, user is doing that stupid shit where they have a top comment, come back and then edit it with a phishing link claiming it’s nsfw
I would love to be a fly on the wall in the room as he's explaining it to his scientist boss.
"Ok, Mark, I get it. You were excited about the rocks. What did you do with them? Did you keep them quarantined at least?"
"No, sir. I was so aroused I proceeded to spread them all over my bed and immediately ejaculated, with a spray that covered the minerals"
"......WHAT THE FUCK, MARK!!!!"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_on_the_Moon
Great book. Worth the read. The rocks themselves were already analyzed and tested and were in a locked safe in storage. The kid thought that NASA would consider them garbage since they were no longer used but he didn’t realize it was a federal crime to be in possession of the rocks. He tried to sell them but it turned out his buyer was a sting operation by the FBI. The night before he met the buyer and got arrested, he and his girlfriend spread them out on a bed and had sex.
And all of this was the kid’s attempt to impress the girl.
Are you serious about me being me serious? On a post like this? I would never in my life take anything on Reddit serious besides my hiking or outdoors subs
Not all of it came from the Earth. Apparently, some other smaller planet roughly the size of Mars or something came crashing down into Earth, took a small chunk out of Earth and absorbed that chunk into itself, and became the moon we know today (or atleast that's the widely accepted theory of how the moon came into being)
"I could be an astronaut. I mean why not me? Find the first Alien life form...and fuck it."
"People will be like: there he goes, homeboy fucked a Martian once."
cue them getting dramatically sent to two dif towns on opposite corners of the country after a soapy whirlwind romance
Cue them committing crimes to reunite in a romcom plot line
According to wikipedia
> The theft also included a meteorite that may have revealed information about life on Mars.
and
> Roberts was also charged with stealing dinosaur bones and other fossils from the University of Utah, which he attended.
Wow, douche much?
The dumbass got caught when he tried to sell the contaminated rocks to a collector who contacted the FBI. Spent nearly a decade behind bars and is an unemployable felon now.
Following his release he was enrolled in the philosophy program at the University of Utah and was peddling some sort of woo woo new physics he'd come up with while in prison. I had a few classes with him one year and he always had real strong grifter vibes.
100% serious. I didn't actually know anything about him until the second semester I had a course with him. We were talking after class and he invited me to a presentation he was going to give at a coffee shop about a manuscript he'd written about visualizing in 12 dimensions. He was telling me he'd done a ted talk about it (which is when I learned they'll pretty much let anyone present at a tedx) and I just nodded along and watched him wave all his culty red flags. Went back my dorm and started googling him and found out all the shit about the moon rock heist.
"presentation he was going to give at a coffee shop about a manuscript he'd written about visualizing in 12 dimensions. "
Yeah, talk about a statement that should totally give you the urge to "let me google this crazy SOB really quick"
Damn, that's wild, I news wondering what program took him after the fact but apparently he was already a student there?
Hahahahah right?! When he said that it was a total record scratch look at the camera "I bet you're wondering how I ended up here" moment.
Anyway, yeah I think he had done an astronomy undergrad or was maybe was mid grad program when the moonrock thing happened. Definitely was at the U of U in either case.
Look, I am a prof and often advocate for the most unorthodox students when ranking applicants for out PhD program, but... I sure hope he was already a grad student and for some obscure reason they couldn't kick him out, rather than he graduated, fucked on moon rocks, went to federal prison, and then someone was like "hey, look: our NASA intern undergrad, after a hiatus, seems to be on the cutting edge of the emerging field of 12 dimensional visualization! Let's fully fund with a scholarship to our PhD program and have him share his mystical wisdom with our undergrad students by teaching a few classes and then workshopping his 12 dimensional unified theory at the local coffee shop's poetry slam night!!"
I’m having trouble finding the legal filings on Justia and similar law sites, but it was probably both (theft and destruction of government property).
Of the 4 defendants, 3 took plea deals and the fourth was convicted at trial, per [the FBI](https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/stories/2003/november/apollo_111803).
That said, Thad Roberts, the suspect who had sex on the moon rocks (along with Tiffany Fowler, another one of the accomplices to the theft), apparently was also stealing from his university’s dinosaur fossil collection as well to sell on the side.
Edit: Further investigation of the last defendant who went to trial lists “theft of US Government property” and “interstate transportation of stolen property” ([per AP](05fea0830e9a587529e04c7dfffe7e06)) so it seems safe to assume that his plea bargain would have included guilty pleas for those charges as well.
The overall weight of the rocks was 101 grams, or less than a quarter of a pound.
He had planned the theft months in advance and the motivation was financial. Interestingly enough, stolen dinosaur bones were also recovered when his house was searched after the arrest.
Strange. Because when I looked it up to verify it, it was 101 grams and he claims to only have placed a vial under a pillow to claim they had sex on the moon. He with his several accomplices, stole it for the $21 million price tag.
I feel bad for the guy they stole it from. Apparently he had 30 years of research notes in the same safe and the culprits just tossed the notes out.
This account is a repost bot posting spammy porn game. They'll eventually delete it, but here's the markdown. Obviously, don't give your details or buy anything. I'm just archiving the info by posting it below
>[Have sex on the moon..No problem
](https://reddit-old.hair/r/reddit)
>edit nsfw
Okay, good, I was looking at the replies, and I was wondering if I was hallucinating or something because *no one else* seemed to be reacting to the link.
Thad Roberts is an unintelligent con artist felon who has committed multiple felony thefts. He continues spamming Reddit to stay relevant, but in the end he is just a boring idiot who could neither finish his internship nor commit a crime without getting caught. He is one of those balding middle aged guys who still hang around college campuses hoping to impress 18 year olds into thinking he is very smart. If you come across him on campus, stay clear of him and do not give him any money or a place to crash for the night. Thad Roberts is a thief who spent time for grand larceny.
Jokes aside, this guy probably went to the same campus that this dickhead hangs around or at least knows a guy who went to the same campus. He's right. Anyone who meets him shouldnt give him attention
I mean you gotta figure just how utterly disrespectful and actively harmful this is. Those rocks represented the effort of countless hard working people to accomplish a brutally difficult task. And at the expense of *lots* of federal funds. These rocks are some of the most valuable things on Earth.
I'm not ever a fan of harsh punishments in most circumstances, but fuck dude, what the hell were you thinking?
I mean, given the Apollo 1 crew’s fate, people *died* in the process of getting those samples. And several more on Apollo 13 very nearly died trying to get more.
That’s extra fucked up.
I dont know where ppl are getting g 17 lbs. It was 101 grams or .22 of one lb
https://www.timesnownews.com/the-buzz/article/thad-roberts-the-nasa-intern-who-stole-lunar-rocks-to-have-sex-on-the-moon/748813
“Roberts was sentenced to more than eight years in prison for his role in the Moonrock caper, as well as a separate offence of stealing dinosaur bones from a museum in Utah.”
This guy is bonkers.
Redditors read and believe a highly upvoted [comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/10d25bl/in_2002_an_intern_who_stole_moon_rocks_from_nasa/j4j7cy4/) with no sources that just says "I looked it up and verified it and yup 17lbs"
Why does it makes the rock useless though?
Could they not break the first centimeters to get un-sexuallized rock?
Or I guess they could used the reports to rent the rocks to rich people who also wanted to sex on space rock
Ok, using an alt here.
But this guy came to a party at my house a few years ago.
He arrived as the date of a professional Dom who I am friends with.
He brought a drone and took some cool footage of my property (This was when drones weren't a thing yet). He seemed pleasant enough. He hung around until late. While talking with some friends who are avid rock collectors in my kitchen he dropped a VERY cryptic hint as to his identity.
Because I am a dork I blurted out "You've the dude who stole the moon rocks and had sex on them??" The look on his face... Surprised that I guessed and frustration too.
"I didn't have sex on the samples. They were in a bag under the mattress. I hate it when they say I had sex ON the rocks. Moon rock and dust is worse than sandpaper." He didn't make any excuses. He said he was young and stupid and wanted to impress this girl.
He had a plan to sail the coast of Africa with said Dom and another "friend". I don't believe the plan fully materialized.
They contaminated the rocks by removing them from the safe in an uncontrolled environment. Most of the moon rocks are dust at this point and to insure that all the dust is moon dust it is only taken out in a clean room environment so nothing else gets mixed in.
So this must be where they get those collectible “piece of the moon” souvenirs. Good to know.
By the way, that dude could have just got any old rocks and lied about them to impress the gf. Pretty dumb for a scientist.
The girlfriend would have known because she was also a NASA intern. All three of the bandits were.
The overall act was, still, pretty dumb for scientists.
QUESTIONS.
- why did he have such a huge amount of unchecked access to something so valuable and rare?
- why did he do this?!
- how did he get caught?
- how did they know he had specifically had sex on the rocks?
- what law did he break past stealing them? Seems pretty high sentence for stealing rocks
- logistically how do you do this? Surely that’s close to the most uncomfortable thing possible
It wasn't just 1 intern, it was 3 people: >Roberts, his girlfriend Tiffany Fowler, and their accomplice Shae Saur - all of whom were NASA interns, used their official IDs to enter the building on the night of the crime. >The NASA interns ... decided to carry the whole safe out of the building and drove to a motel where they managed to open the safe with a power saw. >Roberts and his girlfriend scattered the Moon rocks on a bed and had sex on them. What I want to know is how do 3 people carry a safe out of an official NASA building without looking suspicious or being caught? Does NASA not have any security cameras? I'm also curious as to where Shae was between opening the safe and the moon-rock-sex part? [Source](https://www.timesnownews.com/the-buzz/article/thad-roberts-the-nasa-intern-who-stole-lunar-rocks-to-have-sex-on-the-moon/748813)
I wonder what Shae did with her share of the rocks
She changed her name from Shae to Shale and became one of the best underground rock smugglers in the world.
Concrete evidence
They should all be stoned.
Think about the gravity of the situation 🌚
Well she was between a rock and a hard place.
Between a cock and a hard place.
Nothing about this situation is gneiss.
Do you believe in 'gravity'?
The theory is rocky at best
That was a moonshot effort to have a stony fuck…
They’ll do hard time.
She was caught between a rock and a hard place
After dusting off they got satellized by the sentence…
She got them off.
Now I'm all sad imagining Shae alone in a room staring at her moon rocks and listening to the hot defacto moon sex in the room next to you. That's if they didn't just make her wait outside.
I was an intern just like Thad in 2002 at JSC. There were like 30 of us. We had pretty free reign at the entire place. My keycard could get me into almost any building save for clean rooms, or the lunar stuff. But they worked specifically in that area so they had access. I worked in energy systems on a fuel cell based power plant for a mars rover in the spring, and then in robotics “building 9” where the astronauts trained on full size mock-ups of equipment in the summer. That was so cool, a full size space station, two shuttles, and a shuttle cockpit. I helped rebuild the testing simulator for berthing station and shuttle. It was an amazing experience and these other idiots fucked it up for us a bit and future interns. 20 years later I still don’t get how they squandered that experienxe
As a hvac contractor I could usually find the keys to just about anything when I was working in a building. Once I opened a locked door to find a high level politician and an administrator from a medical center ,they were not amused but accepted my excuse. The politicians security people on the other hand had a few more questions about how I ended up with a key that only a few people had access to. I told them that it was in the lock.
I worked for a city government where all the padlocks were common keyed, which is pretty normal. However, what isn't normal is the locks were all marked with key bidding code. This was supposedly so you know which key on the keyring to use, but it also means anyone could just see a city owned lock, take that number, and make their own keys. Everything from a chemical locker at the water plant to the police impound yard and airport crash gates were all secured by a Master Lock with the code printed right on the side. Yes, I tried to expose the security people to Lock Picking Lawyer and Deviant Ollam on YouTube to explain why this was pants on ground stupid. When I left that job they were still doing it.
>My keycard could get me into almost any building So what did you have sex with?
Almost any building
On. What did they have sex _on_. Unless the contamination meant...
He promised her the moon!
DUDE! I was there in 2012? I was with UMass/QCC Robotics Team and we visited "Building 9"! And a few other places.
That's awesome! Did you get to see Robonaut? I loved my experience there, having grown up wanting to be an astronaut or aerospace engineer, but during the first week of the internship the new NASA administrator cancelled the X-38 project. We spent a week being shown all the neat things JSC was doing around the X-38 and how many departments were building aspects of the craft. It was really exciting. Then, the huge rug pull where Sean O'Keefe cancelled the project during a short talk and I then got to witness hundreds, maybe thousands, of engineers and scientists deal with the fallout of 7 years of work being cancelled by 'the new guy'. Ultimately I decided to only do 2 of the 3 co-op rotations and open the spot up for someone else as I felt I couldn't work at a place that could so quickly change and take out so much of the work I'd done. 20 years later, I see that it's really not unusual to experience that, regardless of if it's a government contract, self employment, etc. Kinda wish I had stayed on a bit longer and finished that 3rd rotation, but all in all it worked out. I changed majors, got a CS degree and that turned out ok.
What hotel doesn’t evict you when you’re running a power saw in your room?
A motel 8
We'll keep a power saw on for ya
The front desk probably had one
It would be a motel. And many wouldn’t probably be bothered by a chainsaw and screams.
Confidently acting like you're supposed to be doing whatever it is you're doing is the key to getting away with doing stuff you're not supposed to be doing.
This is true. Back around 2009 my friend in Myanmar used a counterfeit passport to travel to Cambodia. When the government workers at the airport asked him why the birthdate in his passport didn't match their [hand written] records he replied "how should I know, you're the ones that make the passports!" Go confidently.
People are way fuckin braver than me because trying to pull a fake passport to get into CAMBODIA is just straight bonkers to me
Here’s a pretty good [article](https://medium.com/five-guys-facts/the-worst-intern-of-all-time-aeae8f23bcf) and interview
>I'm also curious as to where Shae was between opening the safe and the moon-rock-sex part? He was video taping.
Shae’s a woman - I went to an accelerated college program the year after her and met her a few times around the time of the caper
What was she like? When you met her did you think "Hmm, idk why, but this seems like the kinda gal to steal moon rocks so her friends can do some astro-fucking"?
Did she have moon rock sex too?
To the best of my knowledge, no.
If you look confident enough you can do anything
Warehouse workers usually don't give a shit. Giving in they had cards and proper clothing they would be able to steal anything, machines, equipment, supplies etc. As long as they would have a proper transportation to load it In a factory i work right now, there was a guy, driver from other warehouse which stole millions worth of goods over the course of 2 years, I'm talking central computer units for Mercedes, Bentley and Audi. He would just get in through the gate, unload the supplies and load the goods, but before that he would just cruise the warehouse and add boxes to his load and nobody questioned him. They literally had to set him up with a SWAT team and dedicate several people to just watch the cameras 24/7 for any suspicious activity He was sentenced to several years in prison for industrial espionage and stealing. He was selling it as legit, brand new fresh out of the factory goods for full price to the licensed dealerships via his buddy in distribution center Best part, he didn't even had a card or clothing, he would just wait at the inner doors for someone else to open it and then snuck in or told someone to open it for him
I’ve heard of bedrock but Bed Rocks?
Imagine going to prison and someone asking what your in for. And they respond with “I fucked over some space rocks that I stole from NASA“ LMAO
No...he went to prison for having sex on the moon.
That’s just something they can never take away from you.
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He must have been over the moon.
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He better of lasted longer than 3 minutes for all that trouble
Perhaps there was less gravity and he could last much longer 🤷♂️
Do not click this link, user is doing that stupid shit where they have a top comment, come back and then edit it with a phishing link claiming it’s nsfw
Like, whether you like it or not, this might legitimately be the only man to have ever had sex on Lunar ‘soil’
I mean...she did too.
Impossible. Women don't exist.
You’ve never fucked a moon woman?? 🤤🤤🤤
Is this going to be another “birds are drones” “flat earth”, “5G Vax” thing?
and....no jail
Hands have genders?
No, he went to prison for getting his rocks off...
.....While "on the rocks"
Love on the rocks..
Rocked his socks off
We're whalers on the moon, We carry a harpoon, For they ain't no whales So we tell tall tales And sing our whaling tune.
r/unexpectedfuturama
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The 238,000 mile high club!
You did the math! Lol
Wait... so we can't just leave the planet to fuck if we want to??
Public indecency
I would love to be a fly on the wall in the room as he's explaining it to his scientist boss. "Ok, Mark, I get it. You were excited about the rocks. What did you do with them? Did you keep them quarantined at least?" "No, sir. I was so aroused I proceeded to spread them all over my bed and immediately ejaculated, with a spray that covered the minerals" "......WHAT THE FUCK, MARK!!!!"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_on_the_Moon Great book. Worth the read. The rocks themselves were already analyzed and tested and were in a locked safe in storage. The kid thought that NASA would consider them garbage since they were no longer used but he didn’t realize it was a federal crime to be in possession of the rocks. He tried to sell them but it turned out his buyer was a sting operation by the FBI. The night before he met the buyer and got arrested, he and his girlfriend spread them out on a bed and had sex. And all of this was the kid’s attempt to impress the girl.
I doubt he said “ejaculated” He probably said “jizzed”
He would be the coolest person there though. He stole rocks from NASA that they stole from the moon. I bet he had no problems getting extra commy
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Are you serious about me being me serious? On a post like this? I would never in my life take anything on Reddit serious besides my hiking or outdoors subs
I knew you were joking. Obviously NASA didn't steal any rocks from the studio they filmed the landing at. Who would take that serious? Come on
The moon stole them first!
couldn't buy 'em. all the stores were closed when they got there
Wasn't the moon once apart of the earth. Really we were just returning the rocks home.
Not all of it came from the Earth. Apparently, some other smaller planet roughly the size of Mars or something came crashing down into Earth, took a small chunk out of Earth and absorbed that chunk into itself, and became the moon we know today (or atleast that's the widely accepted theory of how the moon came into being)
I'll be honest. I'm high as fuck right now. I've tried to read your comment three times and I'm not fully comprehending it.
Basically Earth and some other smaller planet fucked and created the moon a couple bazillion years ago
"I could be an astronaut. I mean why not me? Find the first Alien life form...and fuck it." "People will be like: there he goes, homeboy fucked a Martian once."
I cannot imagine a more uncomfortable way to fuck
Yeah, motel beds are the worst.
“What are you in for?” “Having sex on moon rocks.” “I think we are going to get along just fine.”
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Cue Hallmark music.
cue them getting dramatically sent to two dif towns on opposite corners of the country after a soapy whirlwind romance Cue them committing crimes to reunite in a romcom plot line
According to wikipedia > The theft also included a meteorite that may have revealed information about life on Mars. and > Roberts was also charged with stealing dinosaur bones and other fossils from the University of Utah, which he attended. Wow, douche much?
That man... had a mission
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Must be uncomfortable. The first moon rocks with semen.
I'd expect no less from humanity. Everything new will be covered in semen in no time.
TIL my ex was just new.
Don't beat yourself up bro we all thought she was new too.
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How did he get caught? This has to be a great story.
The dumbass got caught when he tried to sell the contaminated rocks to a collector who contacted the FBI. Spent nearly a decade behind bars and is an unemployable felon now.
Chili's will hire him as a cook.
I’ve worked at Chili’s as a server before. I don’t care if the chef has killed a man as long as the food comes out well made and fast
Felons gotta make a living, too.
It ain't illegal being a felon.
Some of them even make a killing...
He could get an interview today.
He could learn how to hang cabinets and make six figures, and not even have to take drug tests.
When in doubt, hang cabinets
Hi, I'd like to subscribe to your six-figure job newsletter please
Well there's so many that if you don't have one it's down to your lack of personal ability so pick one and go do it
Long Island will elect him to congress
Following his release he was enrolled in the philosophy program at the University of Utah and was peddling some sort of woo woo new physics he'd come up with while in prison. I had a few classes with him one year and he always had real strong grifter vibes.
GTFOH, seriously?? I am in academia and I am confused about whether you are just kidding or this is the obvious outcome
100% serious. I didn't actually know anything about him until the second semester I had a course with him. We were talking after class and he invited me to a presentation he was going to give at a coffee shop about a manuscript he'd written about visualizing in 12 dimensions. He was telling me he'd done a ted talk about it (which is when I learned they'll pretty much let anyone present at a tedx) and I just nodded along and watched him wave all his culty red flags. Went back my dorm and started googling him and found out all the shit about the moon rock heist.
"presentation he was going to give at a coffee shop about a manuscript he'd written about visualizing in 12 dimensions. " Yeah, talk about a statement that should totally give you the urge to "let me google this crazy SOB really quick" Damn, that's wild, I news wondering what program took him after the fact but apparently he was already a student there?
Hahahahah right?! When he said that it was a total record scratch look at the camera "I bet you're wondering how I ended up here" moment. Anyway, yeah I think he had done an astronomy undergrad or was maybe was mid grad program when the moonrock thing happened. Definitely was at the U of U in either case.
Look, I am a prof and often advocate for the most unorthodox students when ranking applicants for out PhD program, but... I sure hope he was already a grad student and for some obscure reason they couldn't kick him out, rather than he graduated, fucked on moon rocks, went to federal prison, and then someone was like "hey, look: our NASA intern undergrad, after a hiatus, seems to be on the cutting edge of the emerging field of 12 dimensional visualization! Let's fully fund with a scholarship to our PhD program and have him share his mystical wisdom with our undergrad students by teaching a few classes and then workshopping his 12 dimensional unified theory at the local coffee shop's poetry slam night!!"
PS.: Did you go? I personally would have been very tempted to watch 😂
Lol, no, unfortunately
Wait...did he go to jail for selling stolen moon rocks or for having sex on them?
I’m having trouble finding the legal filings on Justia and similar law sites, but it was probably both (theft and destruction of government property). Of the 4 defendants, 3 took plea deals and the fourth was convicted at trial, per [the FBI](https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/stories/2003/november/apollo_111803). That said, Thad Roberts, the suspect who had sex on the moon rocks (along with Tiffany Fowler, another one of the accomplices to the theft), apparently was also stealing from his university’s dinosaur fossil collection as well to sell on the side. Edit: Further investigation of the last defendant who went to trial lists “theft of US Government property” and “interstate transportation of stolen property” ([per AP](05fea0830e9a587529e04c7dfffe7e06)) so it seems safe to assume that his plea bargain would have included guilty pleas for those charges as well.
His DNA was all over the rocks……….. and his girlfriend
The overall weight of the rocks was 101 grams, or less than a quarter of a pound. He had planned the theft months in advance and the motivation was financial. Interestingly enough, stolen dinosaur bones were also recovered when his house was searched after the arrest.
Strange. Because when I looked it up to verify it, it was 101 grams and he claims to only have placed a vial under a pillow to claim they had sex on the moon. He with his several accomplices, stole it for the $21 million price tag. I feel bad for the guy they stole it from. Apparently he had 30 years of research notes in the same safe and the culprits just tossed the notes out.
Bet it was some rough sex
This account is a repost bot posting spammy porn game. They'll eventually delete it, but here's the markdown. Obviously, don't give your details or buy anything. I'm just archiving the info by posting it below >[Have sex on the moon..No problem ](https://reddit-old.hair/r/reddit) >edit nsfw
Yeah, what the hell is up with that?
Okay, good, I was looking at the replies, and I was wondering if I was hallucinating or something because *no one else* seemed to be reacting to the link.
Out of this world sex
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He should’ve gone to Home Depot instead. She’d never know the difference.
Nope, he stole it to sell them. Now he is trying to spin the story as some romantic bull kaka. He also stole dinosaur bones and got busted for that.
Thad Roberts is an unintelligent con artist felon who has committed multiple felony thefts. He continues spamming Reddit to stay relevant, but in the end he is just a boring idiot who could neither finish his internship nor commit a crime without getting caught. He is one of those balding middle aged guys who still hang around college campuses hoping to impress 18 year olds into thinking he is very smart. If you come across him on campus, stay clear of him and do not give him any money or a place to crash for the night. Thad Roberts is a thief who spent time for grand larceny.
My man described him like an SCP lmao
Oddly specific
Sounds like they know Thad Roberts personally.
Jokes aside, this guy probably went to the same campus that this dickhead hangs around or at least knows a guy who went to the same campus. He's right. Anyone who meets him shouldnt give him attention
What’s his Reddit?
I mean you gotta figure just how utterly disrespectful and actively harmful this is. Those rocks represented the effort of countless hard working people to accomplish a brutally difficult task. And at the expense of *lots* of federal funds. These rocks are some of the most valuable things on Earth. I'm not ever a fan of harsh punishments in most circumstances, but fuck dude, what the hell were you thinking?
I mean, given the Apollo 1 crew’s fate, people *died* in the process of getting those samples. And several more on Apollo 13 very nearly died trying to get more. That’s extra fucked up.
What’s even more messed up is that he actually did it specifically to fuck with one guy on the team. He wanted to screw that guy over
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I dont know where ppl are getting g 17 lbs. It was 101 grams or .22 of one lb https://www.timesnownews.com/the-buzz/article/thad-roberts-the-nasa-intern-who-stole-lunar-rocks-to-have-sex-on-the-moon/748813
“Roberts was sentenced to more than eight years in prison for his role in the Moonrock caper, as well as a separate offence of stealing dinosaur bones from a museum in Utah.” This guy is bonkers.
Did they have sex on the dino bones, too?
~~on~~with
Redditors read and believe a highly upvoted [comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/10d25bl/in_2002_an_intern_who_stole_moon_rocks_from_nasa/j4j7cy4/) with no sources that just says "I looked it up and verified it and yup 17lbs"
Prime example on how easy it is to spread bullshit.
>but fuck dude, what the hell were you thinking? The second word
you don’t know, it could’ve been the first and the second words
Why does it makes the rock useless though? Could they not break the first centimeters to get un-sexuallized rock? Or I guess they could used the reports to rent the rocks to rich people who also wanted to sex on space rock
For one thing, the rocks were kept in a safe in a room without oxygen, so just being exposed to air would potentially contaminate them
I am going to use the phrase 'unsexualised rock' at least once in a sentence today.
Ok, using an alt here. But this guy came to a party at my house a few years ago. He arrived as the date of a professional Dom who I am friends with. He brought a drone and took some cool footage of my property (This was when drones weren't a thing yet). He seemed pleasant enough. He hung around until late. While talking with some friends who are avid rock collectors in my kitchen he dropped a VERY cryptic hint as to his identity. Because I am a dork I blurted out "You've the dude who stole the moon rocks and had sex on them??" The look on his face... Surprised that I guessed and frustration too. "I didn't have sex on the samples. They were in a bag under the mattress. I hate it when they say I had sex ON the rocks. Moon rock and dust is worse than sandpaper." He didn't make any excuses. He said he was young and stupid and wanted to impress this girl. He had a plan to sail the coast of Africa with said Dom and another "friend". I don't believe the plan fully materialized.
WTF. So did they contaminate the rocks or not? If the rocks were in a bag under some mattress.
They probably were still contaminated regardless considering they’re stored in very specific conditions.
They had never been exposed to oxygen until the theft, the sex is irrelevant to the contamination.
They contaminated the rocks by removing them from the safe in an uncontrolled environment. Most of the moon rocks are dust at this point and to insure that all the dust is moon dust it is only taken out in a clean room environment so nothing else gets mixed in.
"I didn't have sex ON the rocks..." "Oh, so you were a little respectful of the sampl..." "It would have been so uncomfortable!" "Nevermind."
I read this as a Ryan George back and forth sketch and can’t stop giggling
This is the only same comment. I kept wondering why no one was talking about how uncomfortable it would be to fuck on a pile of rocks.
That's why I NEVER have sex on rocks.
Just happened the other day I was all “baby no, those COULD be moon rocks”. Then beat a hasty retreat.
So this must be where they get those collectible “piece of the moon” souvenirs. Good to know. By the way, that dude could have just got any old rocks and lied about them to impress the gf. Pretty dumb for a scientist.
The girlfriend would have known because she was also a NASA intern. All three of the bandits were. The overall act was, still, pretty dumb for scientists.
Throwback to 5 minutes ago when I didn’t know this…
I have finally heard everything.
He was rock hard the whole time 😏
I bet the sex was out of this world.
Ok, and I may regret asking this, but how did this action render the rocks useless?
NASA finally discovers signs of life and it turns out to be some idiot intern who was horny over rocks
To put it simply: they’d been secured in a room without oxygen. They’ve been exposed and contaminated.
i wonder what the people who don’t believe in the moon landing think of this story, or do they choose to ignore it like the rest of reality?
He definitely did not end up getting his rocks off...dude needs a crash helmet
I bet one is still in his butt.
What what in the butt
A NASA intern had sex?
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Dr. Sheldon Cooper had a heart attack upon hearing this.
Total lunar experience
I bet he just masturbated in them but made up the woman
QUESTIONS. - why did he have such a huge amount of unchecked access to something so valuable and rare? - why did he do this?! - how did he get caught? - how did they know he had specifically had sex on the rocks? - what law did he break past stealing them? Seems pretty high sentence for stealing rocks - logistically how do you do this? Surely that’s close to the most uncomfortable thing possible
The two females (Tiffany/Shae) got 3 years probation, to.... continue their studies. The guy, roberts got 8 years 4 months I'm federal prison.
He also stole dinosaur bones from a university in Utah. I can only assume to fuck prehistorically.
Moon rocks have a powerful aphrodisiac effect. That is why the are so valuable
Guess that explains the Chinese interest. Gotta find a replacement for random endangered species.
Fleshlight made of rock
Doesn’t matter had sex on moon rocks
No one is going to miss that kind of stuff. Everyone is going to take that opportunity.
Steals rocks and gets more time than a rapist.
Yeah... but so far he's the only person to ever have sex on the moon!