Bad Astronomy

Who stole Neil Armstrong’s portraits?

Wow, this is pretty low. Someone stole portraits of Neil Armstrong from his hometown Post Office. Happily, Wapkoneta, Ohio police have recovered the portraits.

Fuzzy shot of Buzz Aldrin on the Moon
The funniest thing about all this? The article linked above shows a picture of an astronaut on the Moon… and it’s Buzz Aldrin, not Armstrong. I would have loved to have seen the person trying to find a good picture of Armstrong for the article; there are no good still pictures of him on the Moon. Armstrong had the camera almost the whole time, so nearly all the pictures are of Buzz, and the few of Armstrong aren’t very good. There was a movie camera mounted on the lander that got shots of both of them doing things like setting up the flag, but that’s it. There are tons of publicity and training pictures of him, though.

Anyway, I wonder who stole the portraits, how they were recovered, and what the thief’s reasons were. The police have a suspect, but aren’t saying anything more. I’m not accusing anyone of anything, of course, but it’s hard to imagine someone with such screwed up ideas about Apollo that they would resort to doing something illegal like theft. I mean, gee, stalking an astronaut, trespassing on their property, accusing them of being brain washed, and slandering their integrity are one thing, but swiping a portrait! Sheesh!

[Update: As noted in the comments, at first I said there are no still pictures of Armstrong on the Moon, but I forgot about the very few Buzz took. That’s what I get for trying to post something while fighting a computer that is acting up (grumble grumble Apple grumble). Still, my fault. Thanks to the commenters who pointed this out!]