An archivist sifting through the papers and memorabilia amassed during former President Bill Clinton's time as Arkansas governor found a moon rock brought back by the Apollo 17 mission that had mysteriously gone missing.
Now that the missing
moon rock has been found, is there chance the missing Whitewater files might be
among the treasures? Wouldn't that be a find? be ###
Fox News: For years, Arkansas historians have searched for a valuable lunar rock from the Apollo 17 mission, one of the moon rocks NASA presented to each state in the 1970s.
While other
states also continue to dig for the rocks that came to be known as the Goodwill
Moon Rocks, the mystery in Arkansas was solved Wednesday -- sort of -- when an
archivist discovered it in former President
Bill Clinton's gubernatorial papers.
Still up in
the air is how the moon rock got there.
Bobby
Roberts, director of the Central Arkansas Library System, told Reuters the
archivist opened a box previously archived as "Arkansas flag plaque."
The tiny flag was also sent to space, Roberts said. The rock was inside.
"The
moon rock, which is in a plastic container, had fallen off the plaque,"
Roberts said. "The archivist immediately knew what he had
discovered."
Other states
such as New Jersey and Alaska have also misplaced their Goodwill rocks, which
some experts estimate could be worth millions of dollars.
Some states
have found theirs in recent years, including Colorado, where former Governor
John Vanderhoof confessed in 2010 he had the rock in his personal collection
and agreed to give it back to the state.
Roberts, who
worked for Clinton when he was governor, said the moon rock was presented to
Governor David Pryor in 1976. He could only speculate about how Clinton ended
up with it.
Roberts'
theory is that when Clinton became governor in 1978, Pryor left the plaque in
the office. When Clinton lost re-election in 1980, everything in his office was
packed up and stored.
"Ironically,
I moved those papers out," Roberts said. "I'm a historian and I never
saw that plaque."
The Butler
Center for Arkansas History and Genealogy, which is part of the library system,
acquired the Clinton papers in 2004. The papers, photographs and memorabilia
are contained in 2,000 boxes.
"We will
talk to the Clinton Foundation
and the Governor's office and determine where it should be," Roberts said.
"It should definitely be in a museum."
Roberts said
that the moon rock, which is now in a safe, will be re-attached to the plaque. More
