Lake Elsinore Moon Rock Case Strange As Ever

Five months after a 74-year-old grandmother was grilled at a for trying to sell a moon rock to undercover NASA agents, no charges have been filed in the case and no one is talking, the Associated Press reported today.

Davis asserts the incident was innocent and that she was trying to sell the rock to raise money for her sick son.

She also insists the rock is rightfully hers, the AP reported. Davis told the AP her husband was given the lunar material by Neil Armstrong in the 1970s.

NASA officials saw things differently.

On May 19 an undercover NASA agent met with Davis at Denny’s and agreed to buy the artifact for approximately $1.7 million, Riverside County Sheriff’s Department Sgt. Todd Pauling said earlier this year.

"After conversation, the moon rock was produced inside the restaurant (and) several (sheriff's) investigators and NASA agents moved in on the suspect, took possession of the rock and detained the suspect,'' the sergeant reported on May 20.

"It's a very upsetting thing," Davis told The Associated Press. "It's very detrimental, very humiliating, all of it a lie."

NASA contends that any lunar material recovered during a NASA mission is government property and cannot be sold for profit.

Davis allegedly triggered the investigation when she emailed a NASA contractor May 10 trying to find a buyer for the rock and a nickel-sized piece of heat shield that protected the Apollo 11 space capsule as it returned to earth from the first successful manned mission to the moon in 1969, the AP reported.

Davis told the AP the items were among many of the space-related heirlooms her husband left her when he died in 1986.

In follow-up phone conversations with a NASA agent, Davis allegedly acknowledged the rock was not sellable on the open market and fretted about an agent knocking on her door and taking the material, which she was willing to sell for "big money underground," the AP reported.

NASA investigators then arranged the sting on Davis and her current husband at the Lake Elsinore Denny's.

Soon after settling into a booth at the restaurant on Grape Street, Davis said she pulled out the goods when sheriff's deputies and NASA investigators rushed in, the AP reported.

When officers in flack vests took a hold of the 4’11” Davis, she told the AP she was so scared she lost control of her bladder and was taken outside to a parking lot, where she was questioned and detained for about two hours.

"They grabbed me and pulled me out of the booth," Davis told the AP. "I had very, very deep bruises on my left side."

NASA declined comment to the AP regarding the incident.

Davis has hired an attorney and the two are considering legal action against the government agency, the AP reported.