Neil Armstrong Gifted a Girl Moon Dust, Now NASA Wants It Back
If Neil Armstrong gifted you a vial of moon dust when you were a child, you would probably cherish it your entire life, at least that’s what Laura Ann Cicco did. But when NASA became aware she was in possession of “lunar material,” it sought to confiscate the gift from her, more than 40 years later.
Now Cicco, née Murray, is suing the space agency to hold on to her prized gift from the famed astronaut. Cicco and her attorney are contending that lunar material is not contraband and that it is not illegal to possess moon rocks. Cicco says she is the rightful owner of the sample and that there is no law preventing her from owning it.
The dust has been tested and results say it has been cross-contaminated with earthly material, likely from being vacuumed out of a spacesuit or maybe simply from being on Earth for so long. But the report did find consistencies with “the known composition of lunar regolith,” saying “there is no evidence to rule out a lunar origin.”
A signed, personalized note from Armstrong himself was also analyzed and determined to be authentic, adding to the sample’s veracity.
But there is some precedent for NASA’s desire for the vial, as it has repossessed lunar samples in the past. In April 2013, 20 vials of moon dust were discovered sitting in a warehouse at Berkeley National Laboratory that had been forgotten for 40 years. NASA got them back, though the lab was quick to oblige as it was run by the U.S. Department of Energy.
Last year, a bag of moon dust sold at auction for nearly $2 million, after Nancy Lee Carlson purchased it through a federal auction website for $995. Before the auction, Carlson sent it to NASA for verification, but found that the agency refused to give it back. Carlson sued and had the sample returned to her, promising to contribute some of the auction money to charitable causes.
Ironically, Carlson’s bag of moon dust was originally confiscated as part of a multitude of stolen items found in the home of a Kansas space museum owner, named Max Ary. Police seized a number of items from Ary, before selling them at government auctions, apparently not realizing they should be returned to NASA.
When it comes to moon rocks and space dust, it’s likely NASA is so protective due to the frequency of con artists selling counterfeit samples. NASA agents will frequently go undercover to bust people, including the time in 2011 when agents ran a sting operation on a 74-year-old woman in a Denny’s parking lot. The woman, Joann David, said her husband was gifted her granular lunar sample from Armstrong as well, much like Cicco.
But while David’s attempt to sell her sample was probably legal, there have in fact, been quite a few cases of counterfeit deals NASA has intercepted over the years.
Of the more than 800 pounds of lunar samples brought to Earth during the Apollo missions, many samples were given to foreign countries and private individuals as gifts, though NASA claims this was under the pretense they still remained government property – essentially, they were loaned. Though it’s now estimated that 90 countries and 10 U.S. states cannot account for their samples. So, when they end up in the hands of private individuals, who’s to blame?
It was determined that 180 of the 270 moon rocks brought back to Earth from Apollo missions are unaccounted for. These are mostly rocks gifted to foreign nations by the Nixon Administration, known as Goodwill Moon Rocks. One of these rocks, gifted to Honduras, was recovered during a sting operation in Miami, but most remain missing, likely hidden in private collections throughout the world.
Secret Space Programs and Breakaway Civilizations

In July 2014, on the 45th anniversary of Apollo 11’s moon landing, the government declassified information about a secret space program from the 1950s called Project Horizon. The plan outlined the building of a permanent military base on the moon. Ten to twenty men would be sent with all their supplies and nuclear weapons. The secret moon base would be used for surveillance against and protection from the Soviet Union, and the men would have constant communication with the Earth.
The released documents show that the scientists knew it wasn’t possible to implement the plan, but it was expected to be put in place as technology advanced. Project Horizon never got off the ground. But, that isn’t the end nor the beginning of the story about secret space programs from the past, present and the future.
Secret Space Programs and FDR
In the 1940s, according to recently released documents, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt commissioned a secret space program. He was concerned about how to move large numbers of people in case of nuclear war to avoid massive radiation damage. He thought there might also be a need to escape the ravages of some other global cataclysmic event. Since there was no place on Earth to which large masses of people could be moved, he considered the possibility of moving to locations in space.
At first, moving to the nearest star, Alpha Centauri, seemed like an option. However, the distance made such a plan impossible. As a next step, FDR focused on the moon, Mars or Venus as alternatives to Earth.
Beginning in 1945 at the conclusion of WWII, after President Truman took over, he brought 1,500 German scientists and engineers to the U.S. The scientists, under Hitler’s leadership in Nazi Germany, made advancements in the development of flying saucers, like the Nazi Bell, before and during the war. The German scientists worked at Fort Bliss, near El Paso, Texas, and were assigned the task of developing secret space programs under the project name of Operation Paperclip.
Truman believed the Germans had knowledge of anti-gravity propulsion engines and other spacecraft flight technology. Werner von Braun was the most well-known member of this group, who eventually became the designer of the Saturn V launch vehicle, which was used to propel American astronauts to the moon. He eventually became the director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and spoke out frequently about the need for space exploration.
Secret space programs are believed to be financed by secret “Black Budget” programs with contributions made by people with great wealth, private contractors and some government agencies. This secret funding keeps the programs from being subject to congressional oversight. Since the early 1960s, the programs have been kept secret even from the president: A memo was found in the newly released documents that said to keep “Lancer,” President Kennedy’s secret service nickname, out of the loop.
Secret Space Programs and Breakaway Civilizations
Secret space programs may have developed Breakaway Civilizations in outer space. Well-respected UFO and space researcher Richard Dolan, defines a Breakaway Civilization as a secret group of technologically advanced people who don’t share their knowledge with the rest of the world. These are essentially the Earth’s elite who have knowledge far above the rest of the world.
These elite may know of an upcoming imminent global geological cataclysm event and are building space bases as shelters for themselves. For example, they could be planning their escape from Nibiru Planet X, which “triggers comet showers” every 27 million years. One of those comets is expected to crash into the Earth and totally destroy it sometime in the not too distant future.
Scotland native, Gary McKinnon, hacked into thousands of government secret files. He found evidence of an anti-gravity propulsion system that traveled at incredible speeds. Also, he found evidence of portal technology that, when coupled with anti-gravity propulsion, would allow space travel to other stars and planets to be accomplished in a short amount of time.
It appears that Einstein’s theory that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light has been debunked. It also appears the Black Budget keeps these secrets even from NASA, since NASA apparently does not have access to anti-gravity technology. It still propels its rockets with fossil fuel.
McKinnon claims he saw nearly 300 photos of structures and civilizations existing on the back side of the moon. He says these structures (alien bases on the moon) are erased out of any photos when they are released to the public. Unfortunately, when he hacked into the computers, he was using a dial-up connection so he couldn’t download the photos. He says he took a screenshot of one that was saved on his computer, but his computer was seized when he was arrested. When his computer was subsequently returned to him, the photo was gone.
McKinnon also reported viewing a file that included names of “non-terrestrial officers” who he says were assigned to ships that weren’t U.S. Navy ships. He concluded these were the officers assigned to space ships, not navy ships, indicating that Breakaway Civilizations already exist.
There are many outstanding questions about secret space programs. Why do these programs remain secret? Will there be an opportunity for non-elite citizens to be part of a Breakaway Civilization? A poll taken in 2015 shows that 54 percent of Americans believe extraterrestrial intelligence exists. With such a large number of people supporting alien existence, why is there still a need to maintain secrecy?
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