Of the 270 Apollo 11 Moon rocks and the Apollo 17 Moon rocks (dubbed the Goodwill rocks) that were given to the nations of the world by the Nixon Administration, approximately 180 are unaccounted for. Many of these rocks that are accounted for have been locked away in storage for decades. The location of the rocks has been tracked by researchers and hobbyists because of their rarity and the difficulty of obtaining more.

Investigations In 1998, a unique federal law enforcement undercover operation was created to identify and arrest individuals selling counterfeit Moon rocks. This sting operation was known as Operation Lunar Eclipse. Originally two undercover agents were involved in this sting, Senior Special Agent Joseph Gutheinz of NASA's Office of Inspector General (NASA OIG), posing as Tony Coriasso, and Inspector Bob Cregger of the United States Postal Inspection Service, posing as John Marta. This sting operation was later expanded to include agents from the United States Customs Service, namely, Special Agent Dwight Weikel and Special Agent Dave Atwood. The sting operation was led by NASA OIG Senior Special Agent Joseph Gutheinz. The sting operation recovered an Apollo era Moon rock, the Honduras Goodwill Moon Rock. This Moon rock had been given to Honduras by President Nixon, fallen into private hands, and then offered to the Agents for $5 million. In order to recover this Moon rock, the agents had to come up with the $5 million requested by the seller. Billionaire and one-time presidential candidate H. Ross Perot was asked by one of the agents to put up the money, and did so.

After leaving NASA for a teaching position at the University of Phoenix, in Arizona, Gutheinz challenged his criminal justice graduate students to locate the goodwill Moon rocks.

He subsequently extended this project to also cover the missing Apollo 11 Moon rocks President Nixon gave to the states and nations of the world in 1969. Hundreds of graduate students have participated in this project since 2002 and while many Moon rocks have been found, others are now known to be missing, stolen, or destroyed. Gutheinz patterned this college project after NASA's earlier Operation Lunar Eclipse, which he had participated in. Beginning in 2002, his graduate students began reporting to him that both the Cyprus Apollo 11 Moon rock (which is actually a collection of lunar dust in a Lucite ball) and Cyprus Apollo 17 Goodwill Moon Rock (a pebble-size Moon rock) were missing. Operation Lunar Eclipse and the Moon Rock Project were the subject of the 2012 book The Case of the Missing Moon Rocks by Joe Kloc.

Missing gifted rocks

United States

Delaware

The Apollo 11 display was stolen in 1976.

New Jersey

An Apollo 11 sample is on display in the New Jersey State Museum. Experts and politicians in New Jersey, including former Governor Brendan Byrne, are unaware where the Apollo 17 sample was, or if the state even received it.

International

Brazil

The Apollo 11 display is missing.

Canada

The Apollo 11 display is missing.

Cyprus

While the Apollo 17 Goodwill Moon rock presented to Cyprus was recovered, the Apollo 11 rock given to the country remains missing.

In his June 26, 2011 Op/Ed appearing in the Cyprus Mail entitled "Houston we have a problem: we didn't give Cyprus its moon rock", Joseph Gutheinz revealed that after NASA recovered the Cyprus Apollo 17 Goodwill Moon Rock over a year ago they failed to give the Moon rock to its legal owner, the nation of Cyprus.

Honduras

The Apollo 11 display is missing. The Apollo 17 display was stolen and later recovered.

Ireland

The Apollo 11 rock presented to Ireland was accidentally discarded in a landfill known as the Dunsink Landfill in October 1977 following a fire that consumed the Meridian room library at the Dublin Dunsink Observatory where the rock was displayed. Cleo Luff, a student from the University of Phoenix, obtained this information after her investigation into the Moon rock's location for a class she had with Professor Joseph Gutheinz. The Apollo 17 Goodwill Rock remains with the National Museum of Ireland.

Malta

On May 18, 2004, Malta's Goodwill Moon Rock was stolen from Malta's Museum of Natural History in Mdina. According to an Associated Press story appearing in USA Today, "there are no surveillance cameras and no custodians at the Museum of Natural History because of insufficient funding. The only attendant is the ticket-seller"... "A Maltese flag displayed next to the rock — which the U.S. astronauts had taken up with them — was not taken". Joseph Gutheinz, a retired NASA Office of Inspector General Special Agent who heads up a "Moon Rock Project" at the University of Phoenix (where he assigns his students the task of hunting down missing Moon rocks), urged the Maltese authorities to grant an amnesty period to the thieves. He advised that only an amateur thief would have taken the Maltese Goodwill Moon Rock and left the plaque and flag behind, as all three together would have been self-authenticating and eliminated the risk of a geologist needing to authenticate the Moon rock.

Malta's Goodwill Moon Rock has not been recovered and continues to be actively pursued.

Nicaragua

The Apollo 11 display was stolen and later recovered. The Apollo 17 display is missing.

Romania

University of Phoenix graduate students uncovered evidence that the Romania Goodwill Moon Rock may have been auctioned off by the estate of its executed former leader Nicolae Ceaușescu. Both Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife, Elena Ceaușescu, were executed by firing squad on December 25, 1989, for the crime of genocide. As late as 2009, Romania believed it only received one Moon rock from the Nixon Administration, the Apollo 11 Moon rock, and took issue with those who argued otherwise. Joseph Gutheinz provided Daniel Ionascu of the Jurnalul information from the U.S. National Archives which showed that the Romanian Goodwill Moon Rock was presented to Romania. Romania's Apollo 11 Moon Rock is at the National History Museum in Bucharest.

Spain

Evidence surfaced that both Spain's Apollo 11 Moon Rock and Apollo 17 Goodwill Moon Rock which were given to General Francisco Franco's Administration by the Nixon Administration were missing. Pablo Jáuregui, the Science Editor of El Mundo, a Spanish newspaper, disclosed in a July 20, 2009 story entitled: "Franco's grandson: My mother lost the lunar rock that was given to my grandfather." that the Spanish Apollo 17 Goodwill Moon Rock had finally been given back to the people of Spain in 2007 by the family of Admiral Luis Carrero; and Jáuregui suggested that Spain's Apollo 11 Moon Rock, as referenced in the title of the story, was last known to be in Franco's family's hands, and is now unaccounted for. Jáuregui wrote that Luis Carrero Blanco the son of Admiral Carrero Blanco stated "As for the stone that Kissinger gave Carrero Blanco, the stone was in possession of the family (first in the home of his widow, and after that of his eldest son ), until in 2007 they decided to donate it to the Naval Museum, where it is on display today, along with a Spanish flag which traveled aboard the 1972 Apollo 17 mission to the Moon. "My son told me that the gift was dedicated to 'The Spanish people', so it seemed right to donate it," recalls Luis Carrero Blanco. Admiral Carrero Blanco was assassinated while in Office by ETA, a Basque separatist organization recognized as terrorist by Spain, France, French list of terrorist organizations, in the annex of Chapter XIV the UK and the US,Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs). Retrieved on 16 April 2013. but not (anymore) by the European Union.

As for Spain's Apollo 11 Moon Rock the trail is more confused. Jáuregui relates the following from Franco's grandson: "The grandson of Franco stressed that neither he nor any other member of his family" had been told "that there might be some legal or ethical problem" regarding the Moon rock. "If you are given something and it's yours, why shouldn't you sell it?" He said. "In any case the rock was never sold", but according to Franco, at the moment it is not known where it is. "As my mother is a woman with many things in many houses, in a move or redecorating a room, in the end it must have got lost," he explains. Students assigned to the Moon Rock Project are currently looking for leads to Spain's Apollo 11 Moon Rock in Switzerland.

Sweden

The Apollo 11 plaque display was stolen from the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm on September 7, 2002.

Recovered gifted rocks

United States

Alaska

Elizabeth Riker was assigned the task of locating the Alaska Apollo 11 Moon Rock by her professor. On August 18, 2010, in a story she wrote about her investigation in the Capital City Weekly newspaper, of Juneau, Alaska, she stated that after conducting a thorough investigation for Alaska's Apollo 11 Moon Rock she has concluded that it is missing. She advised that she planned to continue to look for the Moon rock and asked for the help of the citizens of Alaska to accomplish her goal of finding it.

In 1973, there had been a massive fire at the Alaska Transportation Museum where the Moon rocks were being housed. Coleman Anderson (a crab-fishing captain who was on the TV show Deadliest Catch) claimed to have gone to the museum to scrounge through the garbage from the fire to see if there would be anything worth saving. Anderson, who was a child at the time, claimed to have found the Moon rocks and cleaned them up over the next few years.

To clear title to the rocks he filed a lawsuit against the State of Alaska, asking the Court to deem the rocks his sole property. The Official Complaint

The missing Moon rocks were returned by Anderson as of December 7, 2012.

Arkansas

In a front-page story, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette listed numerous sources suggesting the Arkansas Goodwill Moon Rock had gone missing, noting that the rock was potentially worth five million dollars. The rock was presented to the state by astronaut Richard H. Truly in 1976 at a Boy Scout event in Little Rock. Its whereabouts remained unknown until September 21, 2011, when it was discovered by Michael Hodge, an archivist with the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, while processing the gubernatorial papers of Bill Clinton."Hunt is on high, low, for moon rock state got from Apollo 17 " Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Sarah Wire, December 31, 2010.

Colorado

Based on the investigation of a graduate student, former governor John Vanderhoof, then age 88, acknowledged he had the Goodwill Moon Rock presented to the people of Colorado in his personal possession and agreed to give it back to the state. On August 25, 2010, the Colorado Goodwill Moon Rock was unveiled at the Colorado School of Mines Geology Museum by Dr. Bruce Geller, the museum curator.

Hawaii

Flaws in the State of Hawaii inventory control system were highlighted in 2009 when an estimated $10 million in Moon rocks from Apollo 11 and the Apollo 17 Goodwill Rock could not be located. Curators and officials at every museum and university in the state, along with then Governor Linda Lingle's office, capitol, and state archives, were contacted but none knew of the whereabouts of the items."State fails to account for priceless moon rocks" The Maui News (a Reprint from the Honolulu Advertiser), Will Hoover, October 24, 2009. Both Moon rocks were later found in a "routine inventory of gifts given to the governor's office over the years," in a locked cabinet in the Governor's Office. A senior advisor to the governor vowed to increase security and register the items with the state's Foundation of Cultural Arts."Missing moon rocks turn up " Honolulu Advertiser, Will Hoover, January 11, 2010.

Louisiana

Louisiana's Apollo 17 Moon rock was returned to the state in late 2020, hand delivered to the Louisiana State Museum by an anonymous Florida man. The state's Apollo 11 Moon rock is in the collection of the Louisiana Art and Science Museum.