Talk:Sex on the Moon

Should the pseudonyms be used?

The question is - which names should we use in this article? The article is about a book that's about a real crime but uses fictional names for a couple of major characters.

In the book Thad's partners in crime are identified as Rebecca, Sandra, and Gordon. Page 279 mentions Rebecca's full name as "Rebecca Moore." I thought the book mentioned the full names for Sandra and Gordon at least once. Gordon's last name is implied on p. 103 when it mentions his sister's name as Kelen McWhorter. The author acknowledges a "Gordon McWhorter" in author's note on p. vii and in the author's acknowledgments on p. 207 though does not say this is the same Gordon as in the story.

At present the second paragraph in the article uses the FBI summary as a source and uses the real names in the article. I have not thought about a clean way to deal with this. Delete the entire paragraph or use the pseudonyms in the Wikipedia article while citing an article that uses their real names?

The FBI summary of the crime is used as a citation and it names the criminal partners as Tiffany Fowler and Shae Saur. The FBI summary identified Gordon as "A fourth associate from Utah." Media reports consistently identify the people as Thad Roberts / Thad Ryan Roberts, Tiffany Fowler / Tiffany B. Fowler, Shae Saur / Shae L. Saur, and Gordon McWhorter / Gordon Sean McWhorter.

FWIW - The book mentions Kelen McWhorter's death. This is confirmed via Kelen's obituary which also has Gordon's full name as Gordon Sean McWhorter. --Marc Kupper|talk 00:34, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Unsourced additions

I've removed the following contents from the article. While the critique of the book could be valid, it looks to be original research, is completely unsourced and doesn't maintain a neutral point of view.

On March 4, 2012, Nat Geo US (National Geographic Channels) broadcast a documentary special called "Million Dollar Moon Rock Heist", produced by Icon Films based on the Johnson Space Center Heist central to Ben Mezrich's book. The film featured testimony from accomplice Gordon McWhorter, Robert's ex wife Kaydee Wilson, mineral collector Axel Emmermann, NASA scientist Dr Everett Gibson (from whom they stole the moon rocks and meteorite samples) and the investigating federal agents from NASA's Office of the Inspector General and the Tampa division of the FBI.

The findings of the film contradicted Mezrich's book in a number of ways. Firstly, Gordon McWhorter says he does not believe that they had "sex on the moon", unless, he stated, "they could make their beds like chambermaids". FBI evidence-pictures, taken after Robert's arrest in Orlando, of the undisturbed room's still-made beds with the unopened tackle box that contained the stolen rocks situated next to the beds, were shown on screen. Secondly, the FBI stated in the film that Building 31N had no security cameras, which contradicts Mezrich's assertion that Roberts trained hard to work out a system of getting down the corridor to avoid being spotted on the close-circuit TV system. Thirdly, Mezrich asserts that Roberts used a combination of fluorite, gypsum and talcum-based powder in order to detect the numbers being punched on the cipher lock to Dr.Gibson's lab. There was no evidence of this found during the investigation. Lastly, there is the issue of Dr Gibson's notebooks - over 30 years of notes on samples brought back from the Apollo Missions. Gibson had intended to write a book based on these notes. The notebooks were stored in the stolen safe - pictures taken on the evening of the burglary clearly show them on the floor of the Motel 6 where the gang took the stolen safe and these pictures were shown in the Nat Geo film - but Thad Roberts denies ever seeing them. They remain unaccounted for.

Benmezrich.com refers to the book as "The Right Stuff meets Catch Me If You Can: SEX ON THE MOON is the incredible true story of how a bright young NASA recruit and two female accomplices stole the rarest substance on the planet from an impregnable high-tech vault, written by the New York Times bestselling author of The Accidental Billionaires and Bringing Down the House." In fact Roberts and Fowler did not break into an "impregnable high-tech vault". Rather they broke into a small laboratory secured only by a push-button number cipher-lock. The strap line of the US print of the book claims it to be "The Amazing Story Behind The Most Audacious Heist In History". The veracity of the book's integrity is also brought into question by the strap line of the British print (William Heinemann: London, 2011, ISBN 978-0-434-02079-9) which claims it is "The Amazing TRUE Story Behind The Most Audacious Heist In History".

Gobōnobo ^{+ c} 20:35, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Fiction and non-fiction and the question of whether the pseudonyms should be used?

If this article is about a book, the content of that book must guide the use of names and pseudonyms. If this article is about the real world event that inspired the book, the real names should be used. Because there is no clear evidence that the book is indeed non-fictional, on the contrary there are some things that point to the book being fictional, the claim of non-fiction should be dropped. I will take care of that in a moment. --81.229.102.134 (talk) 19:18, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

It's still considered nonfiction, with fictionalized dialogue. Real and pseudonyms should both be used if reliable sources for the former can be located. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 15:41, 22 July 2014 (UTC)