sts60 writes:
"...there is no reason to believe this story was told "as it happened" rather than "as it was made up"..."
Suit yourself, but to my way of thinking, anyone who can pass the 7 tests to be called a medicine man has my attention.

OK, I'll stipulate for purposes of discussion that this person passed the 7 tests, without asking "whose 7 tests?", etc.

You evidently feel this makes this person an authority, or a wise man, or something along those lines. But this doesn't make them an authority on lunar samples, or physics, or selenology, or chemistry (except certain fields of applied chemistry as related to medicines used).

More importantly, the alleged "rock growth" is confined to this one story, and disagrees with known properties of such materials. Thus, it is a claim which needs some sort of evidence before it can even hope to be taken seriously.

(Note: my "as it happened" phrase only refers to RT's words (to author Doug Boyd) that "someone from the White House sent Mad Bear a request to look over some of the moon rocks". Attempting to contact Mad Bear now, thru RT's widow, to determine whether the "sent request" was in writing and whether he kept it.

Well, that would be a start. But by itself, that doesn't mean much. White House types are, generally speaking, as scientifically ignorant as the general public... if not more so.

See, I'm not denigrating anybody's belief system, or medicine men. I'm just pointing out that you claim a phenomenon which is physically impossible, which would require a massive conspiracy of to cover it up. There's no ojective reason to believe such a thing actually happened - unsubstantiated claims are not enough.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: sts60 on 2002-11-15 12:28 ]</font>

I've got it... why don't we get John Edward to contact Mad Bear on "the other side" and get the story first-hand?

[img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_rolleyes.gif[/img]

Conqueror Worm writes:
"...You almost seem apologetic...How are these tests conducted? How are the results quantified and reported?..."
I guess the apparent apologetic part comes from realizing my inability to convey, somewhat out of context, the two books' contents to a messageboard that has a particular (and fascinating) singular theme of it's own. As the moonrock quote appeared in the 1st book (RT), almost as a casual aside 3 years after "the landing", I can fathom no "intent to deceive" in its telling and take it at face value. The second book (RT Speaks; A Message for Turtle Island) is told in a contemporary medicine man's own words, wherein he talks about the 7 tests, among many other things relevant to what is happening at this point in time and why, in the plainest English I've ever encountered.
It's only $14 and worth having, if only for the recipes.
As for quantifying and reporting test results, well, it's Pass or Fail; there's no re-testing, that's for sure, and certainly no State Board Examiners involved.

Perhaps it would be wise to employ different criteria for deciding what can be taken at face value. What other outlandish phenomena could this author have mentioned as a "casual aside" with no apparent "intent to deceive" that you would have taken at face value? If a story defies logic and experience maybe it's not the best idea to blindly accept it just because it made it's way into a book.

"...outlandish phenomenom..."
Ah, but isn't that exactly the whole point of this forum?
Although not having been off-planet myself to prove it, might it be fair to say there's a bunch of it waiting to be witnessed? What could the guys who went there tell us, if not restricted by our super-paranoid government's restrictions on their speaking freely?
Acceptance is not belief; I'm simply remaining open to the possibility there's more to the Moon than reported by those in a position to know; without evidence either way, all we really have is this dead horse to beat.
The biggie for me is why there's no Moonbase by now, not even a storage shed. Is our lunar knowledge THAT complete?

But that's just it. There is evidence. We have well understood laws of physics saying that rocks can't grow. We have documentary descriptions of how the samples were handled, where they were taken and where they are being kept now. And we have examinations by geologists all around the world telling us just what these samples are like. All we have on the other side is the word of of some mysterious medicine man telling us that rocks can grow and that government agents asked him for advice. It doesn't take a genius to evaluate the two sides and decide which is most likely.

This is a straw man and a non sequitur. The fact that we have no moonbase now has nothing to do with the previous missions. We haven't gone back, not because we know everything, but because the US government (and the rest of the world for that matter) does not have the political mandate to return. The original moon landings were based on a political and ideological desire to one-up the Soviets, and it had the support of the public. Once that aim was accomplished, the attention of the people turned elsewhere and support for lunar missions dried up. And without political support, there's no monetary support. NASA has since then basically been scrounging about for enough money to continue the operations it has. It has had to accept less lofty goals and make due with orbital operations and robotic missions only. Don't you think they'd want to go back if they could?

We'll go back to the Moon someday, but it won't happen until the public wants us to go back. It has to start with public backing. Then money and talent will flow in, and we'll be back on the Moon faster than you can say "moon base".

__________________
...And that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped. --Sir Bedevere

Okay, okay, I confess! I made the whole thing up!
However...
Mr. Hall writes:
"...We have well understood laws of physics saying that rocks can't grow..."

and then concludes with:

"...PLEASE NOTE: Some quantum physics theories suggest that when the consumer is not directly observing this product, it may cease to exist or will exist only in a vague and undetermined state."

Let's ask whoever's in charge of the rocks: A) You been directly observing the rocks?
B) Did you measure them when you got them?
C) Measure them now; any difference?
Ain't that how theories become laws?

Seriously, why should we do this? If I were to say that I read somewhere that the moon rocks actually spoke to the Pope, should the scientific community respond by earnestly asking all the scientists who've observed the moonrocks if the rocks ever told any good rock jokes?

Dave Kew said:
That makes sense. If he felt it was the culmination of his life's purpose (or whatever), he probably would have had a copy he retained himself. Not to mention any rough drafts, compiled notes, etc. All of that material would have been left with his estate to be passed on or disposed of.

Possible, but not necessarily. Jay has already pointed out that Baron was known for having gone to the press with his story, and he was on record with the prior investigation that is mentioned, including the report that concludes about half is criticisms were valid. So his name was known, and the record of the types of things he would testify to was available without the 500 page report. Add to that the fact that the short report was entered into the testimony. It is conceivable that Baron had not turned over the long report, but that the committee and Mondale had read the short version. That would provide enough information to Mondale for him to know the type of material Baron would testify to, and would certainly fit Mondale's political agenda. Can you truly say that a busy Senator would take the time to read the full 500 page report, when he knows in passing that Baron is critical of NASA and is on record as providing complaints to investigators? Does he think he needs to see a word-for-word account to conclude Baron will be critical of NASA, and thus further his goals? Is he worried about the details, so long as the gist is met? The short report would be enough to satisfy his needs for Baron's expected testimony.

Jay's probably more informed than I, but it is my impression he had turned over his short report ahead of time and that was what the committee had studied. He was handing in the longer version when he came. It is possible, even probable, that if it was given early there would have been multiple copies. But would they have held onto their individual copies? Or would they have filed them in the "circular file"?

Consider: you're a busy congressman or senator. Are you really going to read a 500 page tome, especially when there's a condensed version provided? You might assign a staffer to peruse through it to see if there's anything substatially overlooked in the short form. And then when most of the committee regarded him as a poor witness, would they want to spend more time with his document, or pitch it? How many 500 page "desk anchors" do you have lying around? (Okay, I have a couple. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img] )

It's still a good thought as to if there were originally more than the one copy, and if so, what happened to them.

sarongsong, my comment about the stories being hallucinated was a little flippant, but it is no secret that hallucinagens play a substantial role in Native American medicine. Don't Navajo consider peyote a sacrament, and even argue that in courts? Now let's compare the two claims. I claim that a Native American medicine man probably hallucinated a story about being contacted about moon rocks swelling rather than that actually occurring.
That is very much in line with accepted and documented practice for medicine men. He claims he was contacted by some White House staffer to explain swelling moon rocks. This implies there were swelling moon rocks. I'm asking for a cite that moon rocks were swelling (or growing, or whatever). That claim is very far fetched, does not conform to what geology says about rocks, sounds ludicrous, and makes no sense. On the scale of things, which one of those two claims (mine or his) needs more documentation? Apply your common sense here.

I made no claims as to his motivation being about space. Rather, his motivation would be about Native American culture and issues. He wrote a book - that book advocates something. Doesn't have to be about space to include an amusing anecdote that suggests medicine men are wiser in the ways of the world than scientists.

There are other explanations. Maybe he made it up, as an allegory or just as something he thought would be fun. Maybe he was contacted by a White House staffer, but got confused over what it was about. Heck, maybe the White House staffer was on drugs. Any of those is more believable than the moon rocks were experiencing a bizarre phenomenon that has never been mentioned in the press or in technical journals by people studying the moon rocks. And not just U.S. government employees, but civilians in universities, and foreign scientists.

You're conflating to issues. Does NASA tell all? They do a pretty good job, considering that most of their material is open access. There were some DOD payloads on the Shuttle that are classified, and there are some technical materials related to rocket engineering that are controlled to keep them out of China et al's hands, but the bulk of their research, engineering, data, etc are all open to the public, and published in technical journals. The White House is a totally separate entity.

There is no secret to this answer. It is all politics. In the 60s American had the political will to get to the moon as a competition with the Soviets, to prove our superior technology and thus we had the better nuclear missiles. That political will dissolved almost the instant Apollo 11 landed. Not 100%, but very quickly the American public lost interest in watching the happenings on TV (or at least that was the sentiment of the broadcasters). And Americans were reeling from domestic political issues - ERA, Viet Nam, Nixon and Watergate. We had succeeded with Apollo 11, the rest of the missions were gravy as far as the political issue went. Oh, sure, a repeat trip put a cap on it, and Apollo 13 added some drama, but the bulk of the people and the government just weren't interested in what rocks the next Apollo crew found. That's why two Saturn V rockets are now lawn ornaments at NASA centers instead of having flown.

As for why nobody else (besides the US) has gone, again it falls to political will and financial/technological capability. For the bulk of the past 30 years, the only ones who have had the launch capability were the Russians. Western Europeans developed unmanned rockets for satellite launches, but they did not develop a human launch capability. The European Space Agency (ESA) and the Italians and even the Japanese have relied upon NASA for their human space programs. Now China is claiming they are making a go for it. Why? The political will is there because it would be a symbol of them taking the stage as an equal with Westerners, especially the U.S. If they can develop a manned program, they get huge international attention as a technological power. Meanwhile the Russian economy collapsed, and the Soviet government collapsed, and many of the former Soviet states are now independent countries with their own economic and social problems. And the U.S. has been concentrating on low earth orbit. First was Skylab, the space laboratory. Then the push for Shuttle, to reduce costs of access to space and reduce fuel use. Then Reagan challenged the Space Station, which has had it's ups and downs and hurdles both technical and political (and financial). There's been focus on doing these other things, and there just hasn't been the feeling of a need to prioritize a moon return. Recently, there have been a few robotic probes sent to the moon - Clementine, Lunar Prospector. And there are others in works, notably a Japanese satellite that will have the resolving power to identify Apollo artifacts.

Maybe he was taking a contemporary issue (the Apollo missions were still ongoing at the time) and using it to support his position of the importance of the way of the medicine man. As I said, there are other possible explanations for what happen that do not require him to be an intentional liar but that nevertheless do not require moon rocks to have been swelling, and scientists to go running to Native American spiritualists.

Conqueror Worm said:
A better question for sarongsong would be, "What outlandish phenomenon could this author have mentioned as a "casual aside" with no apparent "intent to deceive" that you would have questioned or doubted?" Could he have said anything that you would have reacted with, "That's just not right,"? If so, what is your criteria for that judgment? If not, telemarketers must love you.

sarongsong said:
Absolutely.

Hold on, what justification do you have to say that the Apollo astronauts are restricted from speaking openly about their experiences? This seems like a circular argument. "The moon landings are being covered up, because the government is super-paranoid, and so the super-paranoid government must be covering something up." The Apollo astronauts have been very forthcoming with their experiences - going on the news, writing books, painting, making websites with online forums that they frequent, giving in person presentations to the public. Give us some justification to accept that the "government" is making the astronauts not talk. Something more credible than the usual claptrap that has already been dismissed numerous times.

Acceptance is not belief???? What does that mean?

No, we could learn a lot by going back. We could also do a lot, from building space observatories (though the cost might exceed the return on that), to finding energy sources (helium 3 for fusion), and even for colonization. But all of those take substantial motivation, because they are expensive, technically challenging, and risky both to life and economically. To be undertaken, it would require substantial resources and motivation, which is why space has been largely the domain of governments till now.

Um, no. Theories don't become laws, in science. This is a misconception that unfortunately you probably picked up in school. A scientific theory is a coherent explanation of why something behaves as it does. A theory is a hypthesis that has been tested and there is evidence to support (and no evidence to disprove). A scientific law is a description of how something behaves. This is usually a mathematical description. Scientific laws are descriptive, not proscriptive (like social laws). A scientific law is "X changes to Y, which changes to Z." Not, "X had better change to Y, or Z is going to fine it $100,000 and kick it in the 'nads."

Now, back to the rocks. They have been observed and studied, for the last 30 years. By not just NASA scientists, but university scientists, and foreign scientists. They are kept in a special contamination controlled facility.

On a personal note, I know some of the people who work at NASA in the office that controls the lunar samples. We previously discussed the Mars samples and the reasons for their conclusions regarding the microscopic life, along with numerous other topics related to space rocks and dust. It seems downright strange that this would not have come up in conversation. Unfortunately, I know longer work there and am not in contact with these people, or I would ask about this directly with them.

I personally know several of the people who have examined moon rocks for years and are currently working on the "Life on Mars" rock and have been for years. If I see them at church tomarrow, I'll ask them what they think about the seeling rock claim. If not I'll get a hold of them soon.

Okay, good points All. Can we get a concensus on the following, particularly when Armstrong went out of view of the camera?
http://www.astronautix.com/details/apo11018.htm
...the two astronauts deployed the lunar surface experiments assigned to the mission and gathered 22 kilograms of samples of lunar soil and rocks...All lunar extravehicular activities were televised in black-and-white.
... Armstrong...made his first quick-look science report:
"...it looks like a collection of just about every variety of shape, angularity, granularity, about every variety of rock you could find...doesn't appear to be too much of a general color...though some of the rocks and boulders...are going to have some interesting colors...Some of the surface rocks in close here that have been fractured or disturbed by the rocket engine plume are coated with this light gray on the outside; but where they've been broken, they display a dark, very dark gray interior...could be country basalt. "
...Mission Control reminded him to scoop up the contingency sample, which he did..."Be advised that a lot of the rock samples out here, the hard rock samples, have what appear to be vesicles in the surface. Also, I am looking at one now that appears to have some sort of phenocryst."
...Aldrin reported that he saw a rock that sparkled "like some kind of biotite"...
Armstrong said..."the thing that I reported as vesicular before, I don't believe that any more...they look like little impact craters where BB shot has hit the surface."
...At one point Armstrong disappeared from the field of view of the TV camera, causing some momentary anxiety at his apparent departure from the plan. It turned out that some unusual rocks had attracted his attention and he had gone off a few meters to collect them...
... They passed the rock boxes and other items over to Collins..settled in for an uneventful trip back to earth.
...the film magazines and sample return containers were taken into the quarantine trailer, then passed out through a decontamination lock. Sample return container no. 2, holding the documented sample, was packed in a shipping container along with film magazines and tape recorders and flown to Johnston Island, where it was immediately loaded aboard a C-141 aircraft and dispatched to Ellington Air Force Base near MSC. Six and a half hours later the other sample return container was flown to Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii, and thence to Houston...
© Mark Wade, 2002 .

Oh, and Irishman:
"Acceptance is not belief???? What does that mean?"
I "accept", for instance, my girlfriend's story about visiting her niece last night, but don't for a second "believe" it. Okay?

Percy repeated this claim without, of course, naming an article, except that he went on to say ALL European newspapers had openly questioned the landing. I spent an afternoon in the library in Amsterdam trying to track this one down. All I found in Het Parool and de Volkskrant were accounts of the Moon landing, some editorials, and a cartoon of the LM stomping Vietnamese peasants. Nothing that said the thing was fake.

Of course in Wild Bill's World, that just proves the power of the almighty CIA....

Concensus? On what? Yes, that sounds like a description of the Apollo 11 landing.

I guess I see the distinction you're making on acceptance vs. belief. Seems to me your example, though, is merely letting the person lie rather than calling them on it. How you handle a personal situation is your business, but your example doesn't do well to support that the person is trustable, merely that you don't want conflict over that point.

"Concensus? On what? Yes, that sounds like a description of the Apollo 11 landing..."

Okay, "sounds like". It's the most complete description I've found so far, other than re-viewing the broadcast. Armstrong went off-camera to get more rocks AFTER the initial samples were gathered plus the contingency samples, because, according to the narrator, "...some unusual rocks had attracted his attention...". Descriptive comments were made about the initial and contingency samples; not a word was said about the 3rd (off-camera, "anxiety-producing") instance. Not a smoking gun, agreed, but an oddity, in light of the thoroughness exhibited thruout the narrative. What was so "unusual" to catch his attention?

Armstrong went off the camera for a few minutes to go to a nearby small crater, East crater. That happened around 111:10:00 GET. He didn't mention his little trip to the ground.

Harald

Of course in Wild Bill's World, that just proves the power of the almighty CIA....

This point comes up a lot. The CIA cannot simply make a published newspaper article disappear, nor would it be wise to do so. You can't distribute something in a relatively uncontrolled fashion to millions of people and then try to get it back out of their hands. How is the CIA going to get into my attic and peel the headlines out of my scrapbook?

Sometimes it's better to do without cookies than to get caught with your hand in the cookie jar. You wouldn't attempt a coverup if some enthusiast's scrapbook from Brussels will blow your plan out of the water.

It's a simple matter of research and scholarly courtesy. If I make the claim, "European newspapers widely reported that Apollo was a fake," I'm responsible for either:
a) giving references to the exact newspapers, preferably with facsimile copies; or
b) prefacing the statement with, "According to (some source), ..." and then citing that source, and demonstrating reasonable diligence in having verified the accuracy of the source.

This is the difference between history and gossip.

From the NASA transcript:
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11.clsout.html
111:21:16 Aldrin: Roger. (Pause) That's in progress. (Long Pause)
Neil has come back into view, near the right edge of the TV picture.
He is using a pair of long-handled tongs to collect rocks...into a weigh bag

[Armstrong - "...I picked up just the most different kinds of rocks in the
immediate area of the lunar module that I could."]
[One of the samples that Neil collected during this time,
Sample No. 10072,
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11-10072_0sml.jpg
is a 447- gram piece of vesicular basalt.]
..."Closing the bulk sample box (the first rock box) took a lot more strength
than I had expected. It took just about everything I could do to close the
documented sample box (the second rock box)...".

sarongsong, Are you suggesting that these supposedly surreptitiously gathered samples are the swelling moon rocks you mentioned earlier?

Naw, just having fun exploring the various tools on the net, like transcripts and photos, timelines, etc., in search of any hint of corraboration. Having met some of the characters in the book is what led me to read it in the first place. The reported swelling rock incident just stayed with me ever since the first read, some 25 years ago. Up til this forum, had no idea how extensively documented space things are, and figured this might be just the place to bring it up. Since the story didn't come to light until 3 years after the landing, and was "fresh", in the sense that Mr. (Mad Bear) Anderson was contemplating a trip to D.C. in response to a recently received request, it would follow that it took awhile for any "growing" to occur or be noticed.
(Remember, Nixon was President, so anything's possible---(grin).)
I have to agree with everyone here that it "is the silliest story heard so far", but if you were somewhat familiar with these characters, you might not doubt their integrities, IMHO. Then, of course, maybe they were the ones being gamed---who knows?So, I'll keep looking and maybe some of you, too, might come up with something.

Moon rocks, the minerals they are made from, are known to be absolutely dehydrated. Many minerals can contain chemically combined water. In Moon rocks, they don't. Maybe "dry" minerals exposed to a humid atmosphere recombine water in their minerals and this process slightly changes the volume of the mineral. Maybe you remember such a story or you remember a story that grossly exaggerated the effect (if it exists).
E.g. copper sulphate CuSO₄ can hold 5 water molecules per copper sulphate molecule, that's why you usually write CuSO₄*5H₂O to express this. If you heat copper sulphate, vapor exits and the blue crystals turn white. Adding water, they again turn blue.

Harald

kucharek, interesting observation, but I don't know about the likelihood. First, the samples were returned in hermetically sealed containers (a vacuum box). This was done to protect Earth from contamination, but also to protect the samples from contamination. After return, they were placed in an environmentally controlled testing facility.

I am not entirely aware just what the conditions are, so I suppose it is possible if they are in a standard room environment, they would have more air moisture than they typical, and perhaps it could have happened. Still seems far-fetched.

sarongsong, I was trying to find out what you were concerned about, why you thought it odd. It seems to be that you thought it strange that Armstrong was giving detailed descriptions during other samplings, and then just wandered off without saying a word. The astronautix account does indicate he stepped off-camera on an unplanned move, and the ground crew didn't know why at the time.

I think part of the problem is you've missed a detail. Several of the remarks you quote were not during the EVA and rock collections, but when Armstrong was still in the LM first describing where they put down and what it looks like. So it makes sense that he would be giving some detailed observations then. Versus when he was doing the collecting, and his attention was on getting the samples, and Aldrin is talking to the ground about packing up other things. I think it unfair to characterize this as an oddity, and it is not suspicious in the least. As pointed out in the astronautix description, this is exactly what they were supposed to do - look around and see what was most interesting, and try to get samples.

But it looks like you found at least some of your answer in the ALSJ.

Or did you think he was stepping off camera to take a leak? [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img]

The usual rumour is, that they leaked during the Nixon phonecall... [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

On later missions, there were more samples than would have fitted in the SRCs, so they were just stored in bags in the cabin. It was tried to keep the samples later in a vacuum or an inert atmosphere, but surely some were handled normally and exposed to the atmosphere. And the story handled here is about a rock on a museum display.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: kucharek on 2002-11-20 07:24 ]</font>

As I was saying, this forum and the tools available for "poking around" are quite new to me.
"...On later missions, there were more samples..."
Good point; so the rocks in question need not have come from Apollo 11; the following are possibilites that fit the book's timeline of early '72:
Zond 7 - Aug 7, 1969 - Return Probe
Apollo 12 - Nov 14, 1969 - Crewed Landing

Apollo 13 - Apr 11, 1970 - Crewed Landing (aborted)
Luna 16 - Sep 12, 1970 - Sample Return
Zond 8 - Oct 20, 1970 - Return Probe
Luna 17 - Nov 10, 1970 - Rover

Apollo 14 - Jan 31, 1971 - Crewed Landing
Apollo 15 - Jul 26, 1971 - Crewed Landing
Luna 18 - Sep 2, 1971 - Impact
Luna 19 - Sep 28, 1971 - Orbiter
1972
Luna 20 - Feb 14, 1972 - Sample Return
Apollo 16 - Apr 16, 1972 - Crewed Landing[list from
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary...timeline.html]

Ohowww !!! the only thing u can say is:
the laws of physics have been checked successfully on earth and at low earth orbit.

AND we are not quite sure what REALLY happened at moon distance/surface.

u laws of phisics could be simply earth-oriented approximation of unknown wider laws ... the physics constants (ie. electron charge, weight, mag permittivity, ...) look strange.
couldn't they be much simpler at other places in the universe ??

and that may explain why OJ Simpson's glove changed it's size just before trial ... [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img] [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Why should they be?

[In addition: The laws of physics have been frequently checked outside the Earth: through astronomy, on the space shuttle, through interplanetary probes, on the Apollo missions...]

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: informant on 2002-12-14 14:29 ]</font>

That isn't being logical at all. You're implying something Archerish about Apollo because the laws of physics could be different elsewhere.

As Jay likes to say, we don't care if the laws of physics could be different, we care about whether or not they actually are different. Can you provide us with evidence that they are?

If you can't, then there is no reason to assume it.

saronsong, only two Soviet missions were successful sample returns. Neither returned actual rocks; they returned soil samples.

There were likely a few attempted sample return missions before the ones you listed; several Luna-type spacecraft fell victim to launch vehicle failures or to the failure of their upper stage boosters (which stranded them in parking orbits). But of those that you listed:

Zond 7 -- successfully orbited the Moon and returned to Earth. This was not a lander. It was a test of the Soyuz spacecraft in lunar orbit and on return to verify that the spacecraft could handle reentry at lunar return velocities. It was launched by Proton rocket, which could not have also sent a lander; it just didn't have enough power. There was, however, a rocket under development which *would* have the power -- N-1. And that's another story....

Luna 16 -- first ever successful robotic sample return mission to the surface of another world. Returned 100 grams of lunar soil in a hermetically sealed canister.

Zond 8 -- final circumlunar Soyuz flight; reentry guidance system failed, leading to a high-G reentry over the Indian Ocean, from which any cosmonauts would not have been able to survive as they had no recovery vessels in the area -- I do not know whether the reentry module was even recovered afterwards.

Luna 17 -- delivered the first robotic rover to the Moon; did not return any samples to Earth

Luna 18 -- attempted sample return mission; something went wrong during final approach and it did not fire its braking rockets; contact was lost when it impacted the lunar surface

Luna 19 -- orbiter; never landed, never returned

Luna 20 - successfully landed on the Moon and returned 30 grams of lunar soil samples to the Earth

The Lunas were simply not capable of returning lunar rocks -- they were too small to have the liftoff capacity needed to do that. Only the huge Apollo LEMs have been powerful enough. So you can see, the rocks can only have been delivered to Earth by Apollo flights.