Latest / Ridiculous History / Moon Rock Heists, Part Two: The Romantic Misadventures of Thad Roberts

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Moon Rock Heists, Part Two: The Romantic Misadventures of Thad Roberts · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio.
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Speaker 2: Welcome back to the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you,
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Speaker 2: as always so much for joining us. Let's give a
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Speaker 2: shout out to our fellow moon Man of Positive Lunatic
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Speaker 2: super producer, mister Max Williams.
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Speaker 3: A lunatic. Get it like lunar? A lunar. Yeah, that's good,
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Speaker 3: it's good. Remember I remember that band. I think they
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Speaker 3: are like a riot crow band called the Lunatics. That's
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Speaker 3: I do. That's fine. I'm Noel, your Ben. We're having
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Speaker 3: fun talking about moon rocks, talking about people stealing them, misbehaving.
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Speaker 3: Episode one was pretty much all about the history of
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Speaker 3: moon rocks and their placed in American culture and Tricky
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Speaker 3: Dicky Nixon messing things up, you know, causing some of
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Speaker 3: them to go missing. But that wasn't exactly a heist.
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Speaker 3: That was more a case of incompetence and people just
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Speaker 3: kind of having some oopsis and losing the moon rocks.
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Speaker 3: The what were they called, Ben, Goodwill moon rocks.
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Speaker 2: Previously on Ridiculous History, we discussed everything that you've excellently
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Speaker 2: recapped their nol the good will moon rocks given out
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Speaker 2: during the Tricky Dick administration, there were two hundred and
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Speaker 2: seventy of these very small samples of lunar material taken
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Speaker 2: by the Apollo missions, given out often unilaterally by the
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Speaker 2: President of the time, Richard Nixon. However, as we learned previously,
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Speaker 2: not only were a bunch of those mislaid, stolen or
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Speaker 2: simply lost, there was a guy who's a real hero,
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Speaker 2: a real Indiana Jones, who has been hunting these down
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Speaker 2: for the good grace of the United States. That's the
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Speaker 2: ex US Military Intelligence Officer NAS investigator Joseph Gutes. And
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Speaker 2: now in part two, we're getting to something we and
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Speaker 2: our pal Jordan liked to call sex on.
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Speaker 3: The moon, which is not just a bangingly delicious cocktail
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Speaker 3: that should exist. If it doesn't, what would be in
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Speaker 3: that moon juice? That's not a thing. We'll workshop that one.
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Speaker 3: We have indeed arrived at what our buddy Jr. Describes
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Speaker 3: as the most famous instance of missing and misused moon rocks.
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Speaker 3: In July of two thousand and two, a guy named
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Speaker 3: fad Fattius Roberts. I'm adding the fattiest boy do I
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Speaker 3: hope that is short for Thadeus, twenty five year old
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Speaker 3: intern in NASA's elite cooperative education program orchestrates boldly goes,
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Speaker 3: but not to space. He goes into a life of
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Speaker 3: crime in the form of a heist that will go
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Speaker 3: down in history, at least the history of NASA. The
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Speaker 3: theft of seventeen pounds of Apollo moon rocks. Valued and
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Speaker 3: here we go. We promised it. Here it is valued.
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Speaker 3: It between seven million and twenty one million US dollars
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Speaker 3: plus BLUs for good measure of Martian mediaite.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. I was gonna say, but wait, there's more. A
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Speaker 2: meteorite were at It descended from Mars.
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: This guy, Thad Roberts, who we mentioned in part one.
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Speaker 2: He's you know, he's mid twenties. He's up and coming.
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Speaker 2: He's looking at the vast chasms of space, the deep ink,
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Speaker 2: and the world in which we revolve, And he says
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Speaker 2: why not. So he has a girlfriend. This is a
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Speaker 2: romance story. She is also an intern at NASA. Her
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Speaker 2: name is Tiffany Fowler. And they pick up in accomplice
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Speaker 2: who is also an intern. This is Shay soer So
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Speaker 2: like last name sore Sour, like the end of Dinosaur
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Speaker 2: spelled a little different. They use their work ideas and
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Speaker 2: the trust of their cohorts and superiors to steal these
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Speaker 2: priceless materials. They get the codes for the locks, they
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Speaker 2: rewire the surveillance, and they they've got I'll say it,
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Speaker 2: absolutely lunar balls. They get a lot of hutsban this.
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Speaker 2: They do something that is positively cinematic. It's a six
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Speaker 2: hundred and one pounds safe and at first get this,
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Speaker 2: NASA doesn't even realize they got got.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, they definitely approached this with mission impossible
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Speaker 3: levels of planning. You got to give him credit for that,
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Speaker 3: But boy, what a stupid thing to do. And we're
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Speaker 3: going to get more into that because the plan ultimately
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Speaker 3: failed because Thad's levels of confidence seemed to exceed his
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Speaker 3: criminal prowess and he ended up spending years behind bars.
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Speaker 2: Right, and the old poet Burns would say, man's reach
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Speaker 2: must exceed his grasp. Else what's a heaven for? Unfortunately,
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Speaker 2: you cannot plead that in a US court. Let's go
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Speaker 2: to New York Times journalist Ben Mesrich. He wrote a
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Speaker 2: book about this, and he called it Sex on the Moon.
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Speaker 2: In an interview with CBS News in twenty twelve, he
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Speaker 2: said that Roberts is the most complicated person I've ever
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Speaker 2: written about. He's an incredibly complex character. And I've written
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Speaker 2: about Mark Zuckerberg. I've always been writing about these genius
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Speaker 2: kids who live in that gray area between right and wrong.
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Speaker 2: And here's this kid who basically does a one hundred
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Speaker 2: yard sprint through that gray area right into the black
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Speaker 2: area to your point earlier. In all the black area
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Speaker 2: I think means.
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Speaker 3: Crime, I would think. So. Have you seen the new
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Speaker 3: Alien series on Hulu, Ben, Alien Earth?
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Speaker 2: Not yet? I'm very excited.
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Speaker 3: It's good and there's a really awesome character who's like
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Speaker 3: exactly what is being described here, the kind of overly educated,
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Speaker 3: perhaps gifted, with a little too much power and confidence.
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Speaker 3: And he's got the best name. He's referred to often
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Speaker 3: as the boy genius, but his name is the Boy Cavalier,
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Speaker 3: and I just I love everything about it. Some people
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Speaker 3: are all iffy about the series, but I'm into it
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Speaker 3: so far. But similarly complex character who himself tends to
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Speaker 3: dip his toe in that black area. So prior to
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Speaker 3: his incarceration, Roberts aspired to be an astronaut like you, Ben,
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Speaker 3: Maybe not a werewolf fashionaut, but an astronaut just the same.
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Speaker 3: In addition to earning a triple degree in physics, geology,
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Speaker 3: and geophysics at the University of Utah, he was also
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Speaker 3: a licensed pilot and a scuba diver, which will come
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Speaker 3: into play in the order of events regarding the heists.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, and with all these bona fides, he is entered
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Speaker 2: into NASA's co Op program. Now, no, I know you
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Speaker 2: always wanted to go to Space Camp. I would say,
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Speaker 2: cut past Space Camp and go to this program. It's
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Speaker 2: pretty prestigious.
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Speaker 3: It absolutely is. It only accepts six percent of applicants.
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Speaker 3: That's quite an elite number there. Despite his impressive accomplishments,
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Speaker 3: Roberts was super shy, didn't possess the most high levels
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Speaker 3: of people's skills. He was also quite insecure. He went
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Speaker 3: through a bit of a tough upbringing where he was
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Speaker 3: disowned by, as you may have gathered from the University
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Speaker 3: of Utah, his de out Mormon family when they discovered
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Speaker 3: that he had had premarital sex with his then girlfriend,
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Speaker 3: which is a megan. No, now, so he was, you know,
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Speaker 3: borderline shunned. That's not I know that's a that's an
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Speaker 3: amish thing, but I think the term still applies here.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, he was in a tough spot. And in
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Speaker 2: this tough spot, he meets Tiffany Fowler, the other intern
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Speaker 2: we mentioned earlier. She is twenty two years old. He
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Speaker 2: is on a late night beach. Hag. It's the perfect
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Speaker 2: meet cute. He will later go on to tell the
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Speaker 2: La Times in two thousand and four the following when
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Speaker 2: I met Tiffany, says Roberts. We talked for fourteen hours straight.
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Speaker 2: She was blonde, blue eyed, of very toned. She was
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Speaker 2: way out of my league. She was a former cheerleader.
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Speaker 2: And at the time she is interning at NASA's Tissue
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Speaker 2: Culture Laboratory. They're conducting stem cell research. Please, let's all
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Speaker 2: remember that NASA does a lot of astonishing, very important science.
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Speaker 2: They both dig each other. Tiffany Fowler later goes on
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Speaker 2: to say, this guy is very intelligent. He's pretty much
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Speaker 2: good at everything. To your point, Noel, I think that
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Speaker 2: triple degree would argue the same. So look, they meet
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Speaker 2: up and they have a great time. And then later
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Speaker 2: our buddy Tad, just like a few weeks after their
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Speaker 2: meet coot on the night beach, he moves in to
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Speaker 2: Tiffany's apartment and he says he's been pretty consistent about this.
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Speaker 2: He says he wanted to do this Moon Rock and
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Speaker 2: Martian heist as a romantic gesture. It's not about the money.
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Speaker 2: It's because I love you.
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Speaker 3: Yeah. It seems quite misplayed, wrapped up in some of
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Speaker 3: the complexities of this individual's upbringing and that perfect storm
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Speaker 3: of insecurity and intelligence. It's very odd. It's an odd
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Speaker 3: thing to you know. I'm all about a grand gesture
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Speaker 3: when it comes to the ways of romance, but this
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Speaker 3: just seems quite ill informed and very specific.
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Speaker 2: And he again, back to the La Times interview, our
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Speaker 2: buddy Thad says, I was in love with Tiffany in
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Speaker 2: my mind. I was thinking, to your point, all about
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Speaker 2: misplaced good intentions. He says, literally, I was thinking, baby,
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Speaker 2: I'd give you the moon. It would be a romantic
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Speaker 2: start to our relationship.
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Speaker 3: What is he like a character and the Honeymooners. He's
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Speaker 3: just like, maybe I'd give you that moon. And it
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Speaker 3: just sounds like something like a fifty sitcom star would say.
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Speaker 2: It's also an appeal to emotion that does it really
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Speaker 2: deliver because later research would prove that that Roberts came
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Speaker 2: up with this plan to steal lunar material and sell
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Speaker 2: it to her private collector months before the meet cute
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Speaker 2: at night on the beach. She's just kind of convenient
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Speaker 2: for this, you know.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what Okay, I'm with this, La Times writer.
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Speaker 3: This is indeed a complex character.
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Speaker 2: A little bit sociopathic.
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Speaker 3: I think so too. And let's also, you know, to
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Speaker 3: your point bend exercise a little empathy. I would argue
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Speaker 3: the literalness of a lot of these things implies a
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Speaker 3: position somewhere on the far end of the spectrum.
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Speaker 2: I hear you. Yeah, he did have a buyer lined up,
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Speaker 2: which we'll get to in a moment. And in later
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Speaker 2: conversations postbust, by the way, obviously Thad gets busted. In
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Speaker 2: later conversations, he gets confronted with proof that there was
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Speaker 2: a financial rather than romantic motivation here, at least at
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Speaker 2: the beginning. And he sticks with the story, right, He
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Speaker 2: sticks with the story of a lover gone wrong. And
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Speaker 2: he said, in my own head, stealing something wasn't the
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Speaker 2: way I looked at it. We weren't going to take
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Speaker 2: this money we're getting from it to go buy a
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Speaker 2: yacht or lots of cars or a big house. We
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Speaker 2: were going to live just the small kind of lifestyle,
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Speaker 2: but fun science that might change the world, you.
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Speaker 3: Know, soleusions of grandeur much holy cow, this dude. It's
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Speaker 3: probably a good time to note that between their first
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Speaker 3: meetings and the night of the theft, robertson Tiffany had
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Speaker 3: known each other for all of about three weeks. When
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Speaker 3: asked about this, Roberts explained, I don't think that kind
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Speaker 3: of connection that people really desire requires much time. Okay,
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Speaker 3: love at first sight kind of cat a real hopeless
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Speaker 3: romantic when you know, you know, Okay, I don't know
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Speaker 3: about that. So let's get into what's the plot. The scheme,
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Speaker 3: as Jordan puts it, one dumb step for man beautiful.
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Speaker 2: So our buddy Thad is moved in with this lady's Mett,
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Speaker 2: Tiffany Fowler, and he tells her, beb, I love you.
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Speaker 2: I got this idea. Let's steal you know, rocks but
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Speaker 2: like moon rocks, and she goes, oh my god, be byeb.
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Speaker 3: They're also now all of a sudden they have transmorphed
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Speaker 3: into the Californians, which I am here for.
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Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, yeah, And we are not giving you accurate impressions.
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Speaker 2: We're doing impressions that we find.
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Speaker 3: Hilarious impressions of impressions, at least the impressions that exist
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Speaker 3: in our mind of what these people may or may
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Speaker 3: not have sounded like, Yeah, what is that thing that
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Speaker 3: that Joker movie that tanked that phenomenon where two people
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Speaker 3: kind of make each other co crazy folly a dude,
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Speaker 3: that's the wine. I think there's a bit of that
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Speaker 3: going on here, because she was not a passive bystander
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Speaker 3: and all that, she was not just the object of
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Speaker 3: this bonker's you know, grand gesture of affection. She urged
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Speaker 3: him on. Not only did she urge him on, she
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Speaker 3: offered to be his accomplice.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, not a sidekick, a co conspirator. And they
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Speaker 2: did have a good case in that they weren't planning
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Speaker 2: to harm anyone. They weren't planning to injure people. They
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Speaker 2: weren't planning to you know, do headshots or anything like that.
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Speaker 2: And the rationalized they rationalized this mission by saying, look,
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Speaker 2: these rocks had already been contaminated, right, so maybe they
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Speaker 2: aren't worthwhile to science, to scientific research and in depth.
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Speaker 2: And I'm gonna be honest, as former President Biden was
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Speaker 2: wont to say, that's malarkey.
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Speaker 3: Malarkey. Indeed. I mean, sure, one person's space trash is
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Speaker 3: another person's space treasure. But like you said, Ben, all
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Speaker 3: of this appears to be some pretty circular reasoning trying
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Speaker 3: to justify, you know, doing a crime. So on one
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Speaker 3: rainy Saturday evening in July of two thousand and two, Roberts,
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Speaker 3: Tiffany Fowler, and Shay Souer pulled up to Houston's Johnson's
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Speaker 3: Space Center in a Jeep Cherokee Classic heightst vehicle. If
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Speaker 3: you ask me, The guard recognized Roberts as he was
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Speaker 3: a known entity around there and the fact that this
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Speaker 3: wasn't his normal vehicle, So he inquired, quite reasonably, you
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Speaker 3: get a new call and this guy's from Boston, No, sir,
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Speaker 3: he responded, that's that I borrowed. It's to help a
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Speaker 3: friend move.
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Speaker 2: And that guy's Matt Berry.
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Speaker 3: Playing question, that's the only impression that.
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Speaker 2: So if this helps our Bostonian not really Bustonian security
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Speaker 2: guard wave them through and the accomplices get to Building
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Speaker 2: thirty one and this is where allegedly they begin rewiring
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Speaker 2: the security cameras. Good question, though, how did they do that?
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Speaker 2: How did they know where the cameras were Anyway, fast
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Speaker 2: forwarding through this, their accomplice Shay is waiting in the
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Speaker 2: car keeping an eye on these rewired cameras, and Tiffany
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Speaker 2: and Thad into the building. They use a key code
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Speaker 2: that they got from a former coworker, and then they
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Speaker 2: don't this is so cool, Mexican. We get some heist music,
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Speaker 2: make it real, mission impossible, Ocean's eleven perfect, So they
16:55
Speaker 2: get this. They put on neopering bodysuits so that they
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Speaker 2: won't admit heat that would set off a thermal alarm,
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Speaker 2: and the rocks are kept in an airless vacuum. So
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Speaker 2: this is where the scuba stuff you mentioned earlier comes in. Noel,
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Speaker 2: they bring along breathing paraphernalia from Thad Roberts scuba gear.
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Speaker 2: I just got to say, at this point, ethics aside,
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Speaker 2: I'm impressed.
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Speaker 3: I'm impressed too. The rewiring of the cameras alone hadn't me. Unfortunately,
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Speaker 3: by the time they entered the room with the rocks,
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Speaker 3: they only had about three minutes to figure out how
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Speaker 3: to crack the safe before they had run out of
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Speaker 3: oxygen from those breathing apparatuses. The clock is indeed ticking.
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Speaker 3: They decided to simply load the entire six This reminds
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Speaker 3: me of like someone's stealing an ATM, you know, figure
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Speaker 3: out what to do with it. Later, six pounds safe
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Speaker 3: onto a dolly and wheeled it out to their car.
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Speaker 2: What could go wrong?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, this was literally sagging the suspension of the gene.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So the jeep is dragging, and they make
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Speaker 2: it by the security right, because they've already been allowed in,
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Speaker 2: it's easier to get out, right, And so two days
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Speaker 2: later it takes a full forty eight hours, NASA notices, Hey,
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Speaker 2: our six hundred and one pounds safe is not where
18:22
Speaker 2: it was earlier. What could have happened? They look around,
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Speaker 2: Thad Roberts, Tiffany Fowler left, no fingerprints, no hair, no
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Speaker 2: security footage, Shay is a ghost. And in the wind
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Speaker 2: they pulled off the perfect heist. And then they get romantic.
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Speaker 2: They drive to the Houston suburb of Clear Lake.
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Speaker 3: This is the moment in the movie where the star
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Speaker 3: crossed lovers who have just like robbed a bank or
18:55
Speaker 3: something get it on in a pile of cash, only
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Speaker 3: a much nerd your version, much nerdier they at least.
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Speaker 3: Sad says in an interview that once they finally cracked
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Speaker 3: open the safe. Took them a while. He knew what
19:10
Speaker 3: they had to do. He says, I take some of
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Speaker 3: the moon rocks and I put them underneath the blanket
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Speaker 3: on the bed, and then we made love.
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Speaker 2: I never said anything, but I'm sure she could feel it,
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Speaker 2: this guy, but she's crazy.
19:22
Speaker 3: I bet she could feel it.
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Speaker 2: Princess and the Peace story, Yeah, oh geez, he said.
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Speaker 2: It was more about the symbol of what we were doing,
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Speaker 2: basically having sex on the moon. It's more uncomfortable than not.
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Speaker 2: But it wasn't about the comfort at that point. It
19:40
Speaker 2: was about the expression.
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Speaker 3: The psycho this guy is nuts. Come on, I'm sorry,
19:46
Speaker 3: I'm not mental health shaming here, but this dude is unwell.
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Speaker 2: And no, he's great at yoga. Can you imagine patting
19:52
Speaker 2: your back that consistently.
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Speaker 3: Well, yeah, that's exactly right. But we're seeing a lot
19:56
Speaker 3: of these delusions of grandeur. We're seeing a lot of
19:58
Speaker 3: these just absolute you know, the moments of megalomania and delusion,
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Speaker 3: pure delusion, not just of grandeur. So once that deed
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Speaker 3: that you know, Rocky uncomfortable deed had been artistic expression,
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Speaker 3: fair enough, I'm sure they had to get some kinks
20:17
Speaker 3: out of their backs, and also no kink shaming here.
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Speaker 3: Of doing it on moon rocks is your thing. By
20:22
Speaker 3: all means, go with God, just don't steal them from
20:24
Speaker 3: the government. It was, in fact now time to fence
20:27
Speaker 3: the stolen moon rocks, including the lightly sullied ones, the
20:34
Speaker 3: sext ones lightly sext.
20:36
Speaker 2: Which bite fetch a higher price. I don't know, maybe
20:40
Speaker 2: after the fact, maybe maybe. Yeah. So there's this guy
20:46
Speaker 2: that is going to function as their fence. His name
20:49
Speaker 2: is Gordon mcward and Jordan just absolutely loves this guy's name.
20:54
Speaker 2: So they go to a mineralogy website and they list
20:59
Speaker 2: the these pieces of lunar material for between two thousand
21:04
Speaker 2: and eight thousand, gray four less dollars.
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Speaker 3: Priceless stolen moon rocks. Nothing to see here, folks, don't
21:12
Speaker 3: don't don't dig too deep. Everything's above board. We assure you.
21:15
Speaker 2: They didn't say stolen.
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Speaker 3: But I'm just saying, where else are they gonna come from?
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Speaker 3: This is in the midst of a moon rock heist,
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Speaker 3: unless these were some of the remaining a good will
21:26
Speaker 3: moon rocks that had surfaced. But as we know, our
21:29
Speaker 3: dogged investigator of the moon rock whatever Society he would
21:35
Speaker 3: have known. It just seems like a real boneheaded thing
21:38
Speaker 3: to advertise this in a public forum.
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Speaker 2: My guy, check out the pseudonym that Gordon mcwarter real
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Speaker 2: Dave Gordon mcwater used this pseudonym. Are you ready orb Robinson?
21:52
Speaker 3: Orb?
21:52
Speaker 2: Are you kidding me?
21:54
Speaker 3: I would have gone with Roy Orbison. That would have
21:56
Speaker 3: been final.
21:57
Speaker 2: I think that's where they were coming pretty soon.
21:59
Speaker 3: They were We're all going to be crying.
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Speaker 2: Right right? Yeah? Oh manh yeah. And I guess that
22:07
Speaker 2: would say that it was all for a pretty woman.
22:10
Speaker 2: If you have an interest and if you have an
22:13
Speaker 2: interest the the listing reads in purchasing a rare and
22:19
Speaker 2: historically significant piece of the moon, and would like more information,
22:23
Speaker 2: then please contact me by email and leave your contact
22:27
Speaker 2: information and an explanation of your interest. Sincerely, orb So bad,
22:36
Speaker 2: It's bad, so bad. Oh, it's so like not good
22:40
Speaker 2: operational security.
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Speaker 3: It just seems like up to this point they'd done
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Speaker 3: everything so relatively smartly, aside from the you know, moonrock
22:48
Speaker 3: sex being a little odd and I'm not really having
22:51
Speaker 3: a plan to crack the safe, but they got out
22:53
Speaker 3: of there. They were kind of free and clear at
22:55
Speaker 3: this point. How do we get them, busted man, that's
22:59
Speaker 3: what I I want to know.
23:01
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, yeah, there's a Belgian mineral collector named Axel Emmerman,
23:07
Speaker 2: and he reaches out. He responds to Orb, and Orb
23:12
Speaker 2: says the following, H and folks, ridiculous historians. You listen
23:18
Speaker 2: to this and tell us if it sounds suspicious to you.
23:22
Speaker 2: H Noel, can you do the honors on this quotation?
23:26
Speaker 3: This response, as you well know, it is illegal to
23:29
Speaker 3: sell Apollo lunar rocks in the United States, as obviously
23:32
Speaker 3: has not discouraged me since I live in the United States. However,
23:37
Speaker 3: I must be cautious that this deal is handled with
23:39
Speaker 3: the utmost delicacy in that I am not publicly exposed. Terrible,
23:46
Speaker 3: terrible buddy, buddy buddy. I mean, tell yourself, why don't
23:50
Speaker 3: you right now? I'm your quotation is amazing. I'm saying, buddy, buddy,
23:54
Speaker 3: buddy to our boy or Broubison or whatever. The frick
23:58
Speaker 3: Ammerman is understandably completely weirded out by this. The price
24:05
Speaker 3: is also much lower than anything that would be considered
24:09
Speaker 3: above board should possibly be for such an artifact. So
24:13
Speaker 3: he contacted the FBI, like you do. Who at this
24:17
Speaker 3: point had already gotten the word from NASA about the
24:20
Speaker 3: stolen goods.
24:22
Speaker 2: Don't doom, don't dum dum dum doom.
24:25
Speaker 3: Doom, seriously bone headed stuff.
24:28
Speaker 2: So undercover agents decide to pose as the American relatives
24:34
Speaker 2: of Axel Emmerman, and they say, okay, we're going to
24:38
Speaker 2: meet up with you on July twentieth, two thousand and two,
24:41
Speaker 2: and we hope to god it wasn't olive Garden and
24:46
Speaker 2: that they got bottomless breadsticks. Of course, when you're there,
24:49
Speaker 2: your family. When you're there, your family. So coincidentally, this
24:54
Speaker 2: was also the thirty third anniversary of the moon landing
25:00
Speaker 2: the Apollo eleven mission. So that Roberts arrives at this
25:04
Speaker 2: Italian restaurant and he is a little bit tired because
25:10
Speaker 2: he's been driving from Houston to Florida. It's a long drive,
25:15
Speaker 2: and he he makes a joke because again he's not
25:19
Speaker 2: the brightest crayon in the box. He says, I'm just
25:23
Speaker 2: hoping you don't have a wire on you.
25:26
Speaker 3: Kuck kuck. FBI agent Lynn Billings, who set across from
25:30
Speaker 3: him at the restaurant, was indeed wearing a wire, capturing
25:34
Speaker 3: his hilarious tone deaf line for posterity. Despite this, audio
25:39
Speaker 3: recordings of the meeting revealed that Roberts and his accomplices
25:43
Speaker 3: were completely taken in by the rousse.
25:47
Speaker 2: No you think, oh this sounds great. You guys, so
25:51
Speaker 2: you're related to Emmerman, You're related to Axel Immerman. You
25:55
Speaker 2: know what, can we get some more Brett six? Yeah,
26:00
Speaker 2: like as a kid.
26:01
Speaker 3: So Roberts admitted that he was so excited that he
26:03
Speaker 3: couldn't even finish his bottomless bread sticks. He only had
26:06
Speaker 3: one round of bread sticks. And McWhorter even tipped a
26:09
Speaker 3: waitress thirty dollars just to cheer her up, just to
26:12
Speaker 3: make her have a brighter day. Remember these are also
26:15
Speaker 3: interns in their early twenties, giving off mega early twenties energy.
26:18
Speaker 3: The undercover agents accompany the group back to their room
26:21
Speaker 3: at the Sheridan, of course, of course, the old, the
26:24
Speaker 3: famous Orlando Sheridan, home to many acon to Sechacan like
26:28
Speaker 3: a conference and also cons apparently soon surfee anyhow, which
26:33
Speaker 3: were being kept the goods that is, in a tackle box.
26:37
Speaker 3: And that's when Thad Roberts, Tiffany Fowler, and Gordon McWhorter
26:40
Speaker 3: were arrested on the spot.
26:42
Speaker 2: Ah for theft of government property and interstate transportation of
26:48
Speaker 2: said property of stolen goods. They got swarmed by forty
26:53
Speaker 2: federal agents. Armed agents. By the way, helicopters were coming in.
26:59
Speaker 2: The freeway got shut down just in case they were
27:02
Speaker 2: clever enough to have a burner car. And the person
27:06
Speaker 2: we mentioned earlier, Shay Sower, who did not go with him,
27:10
Speaker 2: was arrested later that very same day in Houston, Texas. Now,
27:22
Speaker 2: our buddy that Roberts consummate romantic, as he said, he's
27:27
Speaker 2: jammed up in a Florida jail for sixteen months, a
27:30
Speaker 2: waiting trial, and he's a waiting trial because he called
27:35
Speaker 2: his parents for help with the bail money and his
27:39
Speaker 2: parents said no.
27:41
Speaker 3: I mean, he was already kind of on their shiit
27:44
Speaker 3: list for that premarital sex snapper right that they did
27:49
Speaker 3: not approve of, and they had apparently said to him previously.
27:52
Speaker 3: I don't know how this comes up, but I guess
27:54
Speaker 3: it does that if any of his children ever got
27:57
Speaker 3: into jail, he would make sure they stayed there as
27:59
Speaker 3: long as possible, and then he was basically getting what
28:02
Speaker 3: he deserved.
28:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, And Thad Roberts claims that he wrote a novel
28:09
Speaker 2: about his time. We looked into it. It has not
28:13
Speaker 2: been widely published, but perhaps we can read it. One day,
28:18
Speaker 2: the FBI went and searched Thad roberts apartment to see
28:23
Speaker 2: if there were any more stolen moon rocks. And you
28:26
Speaker 2: know what they found, Not moon rocks, but fossils that
28:30
Speaker 2: he had stolen from his time at the Utah Museum
28:34
Speaker 2: of Natural History.
28:36
Speaker 3: This guy's just insatiable in his thirst for stealing historical artifacts.
28:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, and apparently he was called a master manipulator in
28:47
Speaker 2: October two thousand and three. Yeah, we don't think he's
28:51
Speaker 2: that great. No, we don't think he is.
28:52
Speaker 3: This is the court rhetoric.
28:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Judge and c Conway calls him that she
28:58
Speaker 2: doubles the sentence seen guideline and knocks them up for
29:03
Speaker 2: eight years in the federal pin. The other two accomplices,
29:07
Speaker 2: Tiffany Fowler Chaiseauer, are given more lenient sentences because they cooperate.
29:13
Speaker 3: Imagine this must have probably put it into their astronautical
29:17
Speaker 3: career pursuits, or at least Tiffany's.
29:20
Speaker 2: I love the idea that there might be some black
29:23
Speaker 2: bag NASA contingent, right, that that pulls you out of
29:28
Speaker 2: the pen and says, you're exactly what we're looking for.
29:32
Speaker 2: We're putting you together with a team of oil drillers.
29:35
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, or like the slow horses in the British
29:39
Speaker 4: that's like where the all the really crappy disgraced agents go.
29:43
Speaker 4: You know, yeah that are podcasting right, So, uh, these
29:48
Speaker 4: these other two accomplices, their sentence is much reduced. They
29:52
Speaker 4: get one hundred and eighty days of house arrest, which
29:55
Speaker 4: honestly sounds kind of fun. And then they get one
29:59
Speaker 4: hundred and fifty hours of community service, which is a
30:03
Speaker 4: good thing you should do anyway. You should always try
30:07
Speaker 4: to help out the community around you. And then they're
30:10
Speaker 4: on probation for three years.
30:12
Speaker 3: Not too bad, not too shabby. But again they got
30:15
Speaker 3: a record probably not ever gonna be able to work
30:17
Speaker 3: in the sciences. Dare we say ever again?
30:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, like you said, they're going to be on the
30:24
Speaker 2: slow horses end of that for sure.
30:27
Speaker 3: Yeah. And the FBI actually explained in a press release
30:32
Speaker 3: the severity of the incident, saying that the young thieves
30:36
Speaker 3: did more than just try to sell off a collection
30:38
Speaker 3: of lunar samples in the process. And this is funny
30:41
Speaker 3: because this is referenced by fat himself as a justification,
30:44
Speaker 3: saying this was not true and didn't matter. In the process,
30:47
Speaker 3: the FBI said, they also contaminated them, making them virtually
30:51
Speaker 3: useless to the scientific community. So I don't know that
30:55
Speaker 3: justification maybe didn't hold water, or it was very much
30:58
Speaker 3: what it was, just just that a justification, because who
31:01
Speaker 3: is he to say? It's another one of those moments
31:04
Speaker 3: of just like, I know better, and therefore it's something
31:06
Speaker 3: you see all the time in sociopathic behavior, someone thinking
31:09
Speaker 3: that they are the ultimate authority on what's right and
31:12
Speaker 3: what's wrong, and they have their own kind of code.
31:15
Speaker 3: They also destroyed three decades worth of handwritten research notes
31:19
Speaker 3: by a NASA scientist. Didn't talk about this that, did you?
31:22
Speaker 3: That had been locked in the safe.
31:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're all wondering about the fourth guy, Gordon mcward.
31:30
Speaker 2: Gordon got jammed up hard, Okay, he got sentenced to
31:34
Speaker 2: six years in prison, and he was, in our opinion,
31:39
Speaker 2: rightly pissed about this. He would later go on to
31:43
Speaker 2: state quote, I use the Internet for two hours and
31:46
Speaker 2: got six years. I'm not a terrorist. I'm a college
31:50
Speaker 2: kid who got caught up in a glorified fraternity prank.
31:54
Speaker 3: Jeez Jesus, these folks are so good at justification, shall
31:57
Speaker 3: I say, rather bad at justification.
32:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, well we'll have to ask them. We also want
32:04
Speaker 2: to note that two other significant pieces of NASA history
32:08
Speaker 2: were missing at the time of the crime. They are
32:12
Speaker 2: not recovered as we record today. The first is you'll
32:17
Speaker 2: love this or your friend who doesn't believe in the
32:19
Speaker 2: moon Noel will love this. The original videotapes of the
32:24
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty nine Apollo eleven lunar landing proof are are gone.
32:29
Speaker 3: Proof positive that doesn't exist. They don't want they don't
32:34
Speaker 3: want you to know. If you had the videotapes, you'd
32:37
Speaker 3: be able to see Kubrick in the background framing up
32:40
Speaker 3: the shot.
32:41
Speaker 2: I love that joke from Mitchell and Webb. The idea
32:44
Speaker 2: is that Kubrick is such an odd tour that he
32:48
Speaker 2: faked the moon landing, but he had to go to
32:52
Speaker 2: the Moon to fake it.
32:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's like something Christopher Nolan would do. There's all
32:56
Speaker 3: these jokes about him actually detonating an atomic bomb to
32:59
Speaker 3: make op.
32:59
Speaker 2: And yeah, just to keep it accurate and due to
33:04
Speaker 2: oh the other thing missing. Six folders of more mysterious
33:09
Speaker 2: content supposedly in that safe. Would that be the handwritten
33:14
Speaker 2: notes referred to by NASA authorities, We don't know. Thad
33:18
Speaker 2: Roberts claims he never saw him, and that Roberts is
33:22
Speaker 2: never going to walk on the moon. He can never
33:26
Speaker 2: become an astronaut. Things did not work out with him
33:30
Speaker 2: and Tiffany Fowler. He also was get this, folks, married
33:37
Speaker 2: to someone else during the entire time. The person he
33:41
Speaker 2: was married to was a resident of Utah when that
33:46
Speaker 2: went to NASA in Houston, Texas, and she filed for
33:51
Speaker 2: divorce as soon as the story hit the news. Ultimately,
33:56
Speaker 2: your buddy fed is serving six years at the Federal
33:59
Speaker 2: correct Institution in Florence, Colorado. And then he writes a
34:06
Speaker 2: thesis of five hundred page thesis and we would just
34:11
Speaker 2: love to give you the title, folks. It is available
34:14
Speaker 2: now on Amazon.
34:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, and let me just say that is nobody's buddy.
34:19
Speaker 2: That sucks.
34:21
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, he's just boil boy everything. All the worst
34:25
Speaker 3: parts of like elitism and privilege represents it here and
34:29
Speaker 3: just this idea that like, no, no, no, this is
34:31
Speaker 3: totally I'm doing God's work here. I am the one
34:35
Speaker 3: that's going to forward science with my very very selfish acts.
34:39
Speaker 2: Guys, I read about the Bible, and you know what
34:42
Speaker 2: I figured out. I'm Jesus, actually says every cult leader. Yeah, uh, Noel.
34:48
Speaker 2: Can you give us the title of this prison thesis?
34:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, super humble title here, five hundred page thesis
34:58
Speaker 3: entitled Einstein's Intuition Visualizing an eleven dimensional Framework of Nature
35:04
Speaker 3: an Introduction to Quantum Space Theory, which you can now
35:07
Speaker 3: get as an ebook on Amazon if you wish.
35:11
Speaker 2: And he was a model prisoner. He did get a
35:16
Speaker 2: telescope and he taught an astronomy class while in the pen.
35:21
Speaker 2: Why are we speaking in past tense, Well, that's because
35:24
Speaker 2: that Roberts was released from prison in early two thousand
35:29
Speaker 2: and eight and has become a theoretical physicist. Has Ah
35:35
Speaker 2: has straightened up his life. And well, folks, let's see
35:40
Speaker 2: what you make of his quotation to NBC News when
35:45
Speaker 2: he was asked about his previous crimes.
35:47
Speaker 3: Well, jeez, Ben, I guess this totally goes against my
35:49
Speaker 3: theory that all of these folks would be completely shunned
35:52
Speaker 3: by the scientific community. We will, however, say that these
35:56
Speaker 3: federal convictions would prohibit him from ever becoming a NASA
36:00
Speaker 3: astronaut again, but he had this to say, I, like
36:03
Speaker 3: many others, am filled with awe and I reflect upon
36:05
Speaker 3: how those rocks demonstrate humanity's limitless potential. Is this what
36:08
Speaker 3: he said to the parole board. This is great, but
36:11
Speaker 3: that awe does not live within those rocks. It belongs
36:15
Speaker 3: to all of us. From experience, I can say that
36:17
Speaker 3: there are more appropriate and more productive ways to come
36:20
Speaker 3: face to face with our magnificent insignificance than stealing a
36:24
Speaker 3: piece of the moon. Whatever you do, don't repeat my mistakes.
36:29
Speaker 2: Convince it.
36:33
Speaker 3: I know I'm a little skeptic.
36:34
Speaker 2: I'm a little skeptical to be.
36:36
Speaker 3: I saw you, I saw that very reasonable. Irol you're
36:39
Speaker 3: not really.
36:40
Speaker 2: I mean look, he also gets asked about whether or
36:44
Speaker 2: not he can become an astronaut, and based on our
36:49
Speaker 2: previous conversation these past two episodes, you can tell that
36:53
Speaker 2: Noel Max and yours truly are what we would call
36:56
Speaker 2: big skeptic about this. However, Thad Roberts remains optimistic and maybe,
37:03
Speaker 2: listening to this podcast today, said the following, anything's possible.
37:08
Speaker 2: I think it's gonna still make a run for space.
37:11
Speaker 2: The private industry is still maybe going on. This might
37:15
Speaker 2: be the big thing of our lifetime, and if it is,
37:19
Speaker 2: I'm going to try to find a way to go.
37:21
Speaker 2: Maybe I can pick up a moon rock legally this time,
37:24
Speaker 2: one that I can keep put on my mantle and
37:27
Speaker 2: not have to keep it a secret.
37:28
Speaker 3: Well, Ben, we didn't even talk about this. I mean,
37:31
Speaker 3: one of the biggest space programs around Private is run
37:35
Speaker 3: by a pretty outwardly megalomaniacal creep. So maybe he and
37:41
Speaker 3: Saddle I'll get along just fine. I'm just saying the
37:45
Speaker 3: idea of like NASA being the only path to space
37:48
Speaker 3: is no longer the case, and we are living in
37:50
Speaker 3: a time where bona fides are less and less important
37:53
Speaker 3: and it's more about kind of who you know looking
37:55
Speaker 3: at you, Katie Perry.
37:57
Speaker 2: The post truth environment, and yes, my wonderful co host
38:02
Speaker 2: Dol Brown is still mad at Katie Perry.
38:05
Speaker 3: I'm not mad at Katy Perry. Let hard to do
38:08
Speaker 3: what you want. It was just a really, it was
38:10
Speaker 3: just such a tonel bungled Yes, publicity stunt, Yes, I do.
38:16
Speaker 2: I do love it though, and we hope that you
38:19
Speaker 2: love these episodes. Thanks again to our research associate JR.
38:25
Speaker 2: Jordan run Tall you can find him on multiple other shows.
38:29
Speaker 2: I really like a lot of his work, Noel, can
38:32
Speaker 2: you pitch some of the other endeavors of our boy.
38:35
Speaker 3: He's got a great podcast that publishes pretty regularly called
38:38
Speaker 3: Too Much Information or TMI for short, where he delves
38:41
Speaker 3: into all kinds of pop culture shenanigans with his co host.
38:46
Speaker 3: And he's also we and he and I have worked
38:48
Speaker 3: together on some shows in the past, one about David
38:51
Speaker 3: Bowie's life that you can find just search for David
38:54
Speaker 3: Bowie podcast, and one about the Rolling Stones storied exile
38:58
Speaker 3: on Main Street album and tour that we did with
39:01
Speaker 3: some of the folks who were actually around for those
39:05
Speaker 3: moments of chaos, debauchery and sometimes genius. So yeah, do
39:10
Speaker 3: check out. He's also got printed work that you can
39:12
Speaker 3: find in various publications of note, including Rolling Stone and
39:16
Speaker 3: People Magazine. He's written, you know, profiles on everyone from
39:19
Speaker 3: Paul McCartney to James Taylor. So he's a real music
39:24
Speaker 3: head and we really appreciate him bringing us this incredible
39:28
Speaker 3: heist story about Moon Rocks.
39:30
Speaker 2: Agreed and also big thanks to our super producer mister
39:34
Speaker 2: Max Williams. Huge thanks to Alex Williams. Max's biological brother
39:39
Speaker 2: who composed this slap in bop. And again, we just
39:44
Speaker 2: want to make a PSA for one person in the crowd,
39:48
Speaker 2: Jonathan Strickland aka the Quister, Please turn in the moon rocks.
39:54
Speaker 3: You know you did, you know, and you know what
39:57
Speaker 3: you did. Yeah, And I'd like to offer one last
39:59
Speaker 3: little thanks to Puppy Apolo, who's our own little little
40:04
Speaker 3: space dog mascot for this pair of episodes. So Paula
40:08
Speaker 3: waves goodbye to you lovely folks out there. We'll see
40:12
Speaker 3: you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
40:22
Speaker 3: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
40:25
Speaker 3: your favorite shows.