Larry Stifler, co-founder of the Maine Mineral & Gem Museum, speaks to a crowd of roughly 150 people who watched him unveil the largest chunks of the Moon ever to fall to Earth. It was part of the museum’s The Moon in Maine Lunar Landing Extravaganza event held Friday evening to not only reveal the largest collection of Moon specimens that fell to Earth, but also to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Neil Armstrong becoming the first man to walk on the Moon. Erin Place

BETHEL — It was something truly out of this world.

The Moon in Maine Lunar Landing Extravaganza held at Bethel’s Maine Mineral & Gem Museum on Friday evening revealed the largest piece of the Moon ever to fall to the Earth, along with other otherworldly pieces of the Moon.

The special event was launched to mark the 50th anniversary of Neil Armstrong becoming the first man to walk on the Moon on July 20, 1969, where he took “one small step for one man, one giant leap for mankind.” In addition to the reveal at the museum, there was plenty of live music including the appropriate rock ‘n’ roll, food trucks and lots of good vibes.

The five pieces of the Moon are part of the larger Stifler Collection of Meteorites housed at the museum at 99 Main St. The Maine Mineral & Gem Museum boasts of the largest collection of moon rocks that fell to Earth and were found in the wild.

“It is such an achievement for Larry [Stifler] to acquire all of these extraordinary, extraterrestrial rocks,” said Barbra Barrett, executive director of the Maine Mineral & Gem Museum about the founder of the museum. “We are so lucky to have this in Bethel. It is even hard to comprehend sometimes.”

But the largest collection of moon rocks belongs to NASA and are stored in the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. This is home to 80 percent of the lunar rocks and dirt samples that weighed 842 pounds and were brought back by astronauts during the six Apollo missions to the Moon, according to “Inside Earth’s largest collection of moon rocks” by CBS News.

Maine Mineral & Gem Museum Director Barbra Barrett, right, pulls down the shroud that hid the moon meteorites just before the formal unveiling ceremony Friday night in Bethel. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

“The largest one they (the astronauts) brought back was 11.7 kilos. The largest one we have is 58 kilos,” Barrett said.

Roughly 150 people crowded into exhibit to witness the unveiling. The five pieces of the Moon all had a base gray color and were peppered with white, but each had a little different coloring. One was accented by tan and another featured a rust color at the exposed triangle-shaped top.

Larry Stifler, who co-founded the museum with Mary McFadden, said he always has been fascinated with astronomy, astrophysics and the philosophical questions that go hand-on-hand with these sciences.

“I never get over the thrill of just holding a heavenly neighbor,” he said, as he cupped his hand as if he was holding a chunk of outer space. “We have one that is probably the oldest rock in the solar system. Just think of holding in your hand something else that is older than everything else in the solar system it makes you feel how … small we are. The[re are] fascinating things we learn from meteorites … and we learn new things about ourselves and the origins of the Earth.”

The largest pieces of the Moon were found in the Sahara desert, he added.

“It was clearly the largest find in lunar meteorite history. A very large percentage, probably close to 30 percent of all the known lunar meteorites, were found in this one strewn field, which covered, of course, dozens of square miles,” Stilfer said.

People, young and old alike, looked around and admired the exhibits already open to the public including “To the Moon and Back – Celebrating the Apollo Program” and “Meteorites: Rocks from Space,” along with Maine’s pegmatites and non-pegmatite rocks and other minerals from New England.

Jim Holmes made trip from Jefferson, N.H., for the special event.

“I came over to look at the museum and all of the improvements they made. It’s wonderful,” he said about the largest moon rock collection collected here from Earth.

“Look at these meteorites they’re incredible,” Holmes said, admiring the smaller meteorite collection on display before the unveiling. “They’re so expensive to buy one, you wouldn’t believe it. You’ve got to have big bucks.”

A closer look

The meteorites unveiled Friday evening were NWA 12760 weighing 58 kg, NWA 12691 weighing 28.49 kg, NWA 12691 weighing 24.29 kg, NWA 12691 weighing 15.55 kg and Rabt Sbayta 004, weighing 15.46 kg. The Maine Mineral & Gem Museum’s four other meteorites are all larger than Rabt Sbayta 004, which used to be the single largest piece of lunar specimen collected on Earth. These meteorites were recently registered with the Meteoritical Bulletin Database, Stifler said, and will be soon listed there.

Stifler noted the momentous efforts it took to get these special pieces of the Moon to the museum in Bethel.

“The group we work with really kept it undercover … because once it’s known and something’s found, you will a couple of hundred Arabs out there instantly,” he said. “Getting them here was quite a story. If you found these you wouldn’t want anyone to known you had them. … All the pieces were sent to separate places so if they were all going to a museum, they might not make it out of that place.”

The Rabt Sbayta 004 meteorite was acquired by Darryl Pitt for the Maine Mineral & Gem Museum, according to Meteoritical Bulletin Database, which is run by the international The Meteoritical Society.

No one saw Rabt Sbayta 004 fall from the sky, but it was discovered in October 2016 in Rio de Oro, Western Sahara in northwestern Africa, according to the listing in the Meteoritical Bulletin Database. Oubnaamar Salem discovered it “in the lunar meteorite strewnfield near Gatta Sfar.” Pitt purchased it in December 2016 from a Moroccan rock dealer.

“The single large stone (15464 g) was found sitting on the desert surface,” the listing reads. “The exterior is wind-ablated and lacks fusion crust; the fresh interior consists of angular whitish clasts in a dark gray matrix containing sparse small vesicles.”

The museum

The museum – which is slated to open officially by late summer – has its largest exhibit, the Stifler Collection of Meteorites, on the second floor. It wasn’t originally planned to the largest exhibit.

“As we were creating the museum, our collection of meteorites just grew and is amazing,” Barrett said.

In addition to the five chunks of the moon, the museums boasts of the largest piece of 4 Vesta, which is one of the largest objects in the asteroid belt and where most of the meteorites housed at the museum came from, she added. Stifler noted the museum also has the largest collection of Mars pieces and largest collections of pallasites, which are essentially gemstones formed inside meteors.

Stifler originally had acquired six pieces of the Moon, but the sixth one is currently at auction at Christie’s in New York.

“My goal is giving probably 85 percent to the museum [and] the 15 percent we will make available to private collectors and institutions,” he said.

Stifler noted that Harvard University doesn’t have any pieces of the Moon and he plans on trading a chunk of the Moon for Maine specimens and making similar trades with other institutions and private collections.

On the second floor just outside the Stifler Collection of Meteorites sits an 800-pound meteorite discovered in Campo del Cielo in Argentina.

“[It’s] just waiting for it’s time to shine,” Barrett said.