WAPAKONETA, Ohio -- Police say a rare gold replica of the lunar space module has been stolen from Ohio's Neil Armstrong Air and Space Museum.
Police in Wapakoneta in northwest Ohio responded to an alarm at the museum just before midnight Friday and discovered that the 5-inch high solid-gold replica had been stolen.
Replicas of the lunar excursion module produced by Cartier were presented to Neil Armstrong and his two fellow astronauts, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, in Paris shortly after their historic space mission. Armstrong, a Wapakoneta native, became the first person to step onto the moon’s surface in 1969.
Police say the value of the replica cannot be determined.
The FBI and the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation are assisting Wapakoneta police in investigating the theft.
Armstrong taught aerospace engineering at the University of Cincinnati from 1971 to 1979. He died in 2012 in Cincinnati at age 82. A mural in downtown Cincinnati commemorates his walk on the moon.
