On a chill January night in 1989, members of the Experimental Plane Affiliation of Boston gathered for a particular occasion.
At 7 p.m., the group’s president launched a visitor speaker as a “grasp of the skies and area.” The thriller man marched onto the stage, carrying a powder-blue NASA flight swimsuit. Novice pilots leaned ahead of their chairs to take a more in-depth have a look at U.S. Marine Capt. Robert J. Hunt, who was 27 and raffishly good-looking, with a push-broom mustache. He arrived on the podium, his area patches shining brightly, and savored the applause.
Hunt launched into tales about his unbelievable life as a U.S. Marine fighter pilot. He spoke of zooming off the plane service USS Coral Sea in his F/A-18 jet fighter and showering Gaddafi’s Libya with bombs. He described hovering above Earth aboard the area shuttle Atlantis, on top-secret missions for the Division of Protection. He even introduced two blackened tiles that he stated had been scorched throughout his reentry. Two hours later, fingers shot into the air with questions.
“What is the climb fee of the F/A-18?” somebody requested.
“Labeled info,” he stated.
“What is the burn-fuel ratio?”
“Is dependent upon engine energy and altitude,” he stated.
“Are you acquainted with the DIANE system?”
“Digital Built-in Assault and Navigation Tools?” he replied, earlier than joking that there could be Russians within the viewers.
One attendee wasn’t satisfied. “He did not sound mental sufficient to be an astronaut,” Pleasure Alexander, 22 on the time, informed People Magazine. She discovered it unusual that Hunt spoke in a thick New England accent and cursed like a man who labored on a building website, not NASA’s $209 billion space shuttle program. “His perspective, which was impolite, appeared all improper to me,” she added. Older members scolded her for questioning an American hero.
Louis Pascucci, the group’s president, informed the Related Press (through The Boston Herald), “He certain impressed us. Hunt was one hell of an entertainer. We had a full home. He held us spellbound for 2 and a half hours.”
When the night was over, Hunt shook fingers and scribbled autographs, leaving aviation buffs with the sense that they had brushed shoulders with a legend.
However Hunt had by no means been to area. He did not have a pilot’s license, or perhaps a driver’s license. He was an imposter and, in lower than per week, he can be in custody as information of his unimaginable rip-off made headlines throughout America.
For years, Hunt had led cops and the FBI on a cat-and-mouse chase throughout the nation, posing as a U.S. Marine, baseball star, senator and different outstanding figures, at all times escaping prosecution. Solely when he grew to become an astronaut did he create a safety panic, embarrass politicians and captivate a nation. In March 2025, over the course of six telephone calls, he informed me his life story with a mixture of candor and grandiosity, evaluating his profession to NFL star Tom Brady’s.
“I used to be actually the perfect at what I did,” he informed me. As with all story informed by a convicted con man, it incorporates parts of fact, embellishment, and flat-out fabrication—however that’s precisely what makes his story so entertaining.
An early obsession with area
Hunt’s obsession with area started when he was 7 years previous, on the evening he watched the Apollo 11 moon touchdown on his household’s tv set in Everett, Massachusetts. Afterwards, the celebs above their modest dwelling appeared to beckon him. He felt a particular connection to Neil Armstrong and Alan Shepard, who served within the Navy, identical to his grandfather. As a teen through the Vietnam Conflict, Hunt snuck into the close by Chelsea Naval Hospital, slipped on discarded uniforms, and saluted himself within the mirror. He imagined exploring distant planets sooner or later. That picture of himself, he informed me, was “ceaselessly lasting.”
His father, Leo Hunt, was additionally obsessive about the Navy. He drove a jeep with a U.S. Marine Corps license plate and barked “Colonel Hunt” when he answered the phone. However he had by no means served. He was a plumber who, based on the Boston Herald, was pecking away at a guide about his alleged life within the navy, titled “Colonel Chameleon.”
Leo Hunt informed the Herald how his son, whom he known as “Roy,” began deceiving others at 14, when he bought a neighbor some canaries. “See, when the birds Roy bought him took a shower, all of the paint, or yellow chalk, or regardless of the hell it was, began to return off. They usually had been sparrows! Sparrows!” Father and son shared extra similarities than they had been keen to acknowledge. Leo taught his son easy methods to flip wrenches and repair water heaters. “He was very disciplined about it,” Robert Hunt informed me.
Hunt stated that, in 1979, whereas nonetheless in highschool, he joined the Marine Corps on a delayed-entry program for recruits who had been too younger to qualify. He claims that an administrative error led to an honorable discharge and that he was despatched dwelling from the recruit depot on Parris Island, South Carolina.
“It was disappointing, as a result of that was my dream,” Hunt informed me. “I knew all the things there was in regards to the Marine Corps and the Navy, so once I graduated, I simply carried on the dream.” He stated he merely bluffed his method into the barracks. “I knew the curriculum; I knew the instructions; I knew the construction,” he informed me. However an officer reprimanded him for carrying an unstarched hat, and crestfallen, he returned to civilian life.
“In plumbing, all people begins off on the backside,” Hunt informed me. He spent his days unclogging bathrooms, sure he was destined for one thing higher. Within the early Nineteen Eighties, he met his first spouse, who labored at Pease Air Force Base in New Hampshire and would develop into his first spouse. Not lengthy after their wedding ceremony, Hunt dressed as a second lieutenant and snuck onto the bottom. He was caught poking round Air Pressure 2, the vice chairman’s aircraft. His curiosity triggered an FBI investigation and the top of the wedding. Leo Hunt later informed Massachusetts’ The Day by day Merchandise newspaper that federal brokers known as off the investigation to keep away from embarrassing George H. W. Bush.
“Roy obtained onto his aircraft … and ended up at Bush’s dwelling,” Leo Hunt stated. “He even gave Bush a type of tiles, [and] the vice chairman stated, ‘How does it really feel to be up in space, Bob?'”
In 1983, Hunt married once more, telling his bride he was a university graduate with a baseball contract. Neither was true. He additionally claimed to personal a building firm, Hunt Builders Inc., which had shirts, indicators and a logo-painted truck, however no contracts. He constructed solely mannequin airplanes whereas his spouse labored two jobs. By 25, he had moved to Pennsylvania with nursing scholar Michelle Van Horn, who grew to become his third spouse.
That they had a son in 1986, which impressed Hunt’s subsequent scheme: a spray-on diaper cream known as “Love My Child.” He falsely claimed his invention was on the point of a $2.5 million Johnson & Johnson buyout. The key ingredient, he informed me, was “shark oil.” Utilizing his spouse’s bank card, he rented limos and posed as a TV producer casting a Tremendous Bowl industrial. He met with modeling businesses and focused Marie Rubel as a “lovely, blue-eyed mommy kind,” based on the Press Enterprise, a newspaper in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. Rubel grew suspicious and contacted the police. The police chief who busted Hunt, Robert Leighow of the Montour Township Police, described him as a clean talker who may “promote a fridge to an Eskimo,” and was a liar. “That is what this yo-yo did,” Leighow added. “He went out and fantasized all the things.”
Leo Hunt and his spouse Scarlet Hunt had been mortified by their son’s scandals, particularly when he ended up again at dwelling. “My spouse and I want we may crawl in a gap and conceal,” Leo Hunt as soon as informed The Day by day Merchandise. “However you understand who’s going to be on the backside.”
Hunt fled again to the navy. “Again in them days … if you happen to had been in uniform, all you needed to do is give them your SRB, which is a Service Document E book. That is it — ‘welcome aboard,'” he informed me. He admits including false pages to make it seem he was a helicopter pilot with Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 461, and stated he bypassed roughly two years of required coaching at Naval Air Station Pensacola. He doctored different individuals’s evaluations or solid his personal, he informed me. “It is like a rainbow,” he stated. “You simply observe it and see the place it goes.”
Hunt used his faux credentials to accumulate flight uniforms, coveralls and alternative uniforms from the requisition heart. “You simply needed to have the balls to do it,” he informed me. “I used to be strolling by headquarters, when a second lieutenant — a ‘butter bar’ — did not salute me. I jumped throughout [him].” Subsequent, he gave himself a promotion. He bought $20 Navy astronaut wings, reworking from Capt. Hunt, Marine pilot, to Capt. Hunt, America’s “youngest Marine astronaut.” When he appeared within the mirror, he felt a well-known burst of satisfaction.
In keeping with Hunt, he bluffed his method into NASA astronaut training. “I actually put myself within the service,” he informed me, describing an alleged switch from helicopter to fixed-wing plane coaching earlier than being chosen for NASA. Hunt informed me he underwent specialised bodily evaluations at Johnson Space Center, studied in Huntsville, Alabama—generally known as “Rocket Metropolis”—and even spent “9 weeks with Morton Thiokol” studying about rocket boosters. (Morton Thiokol, later ATK Thiokol and now Northrop Grumman Space Systems, construct the reusable strong rocket boosters for NASA’s area shuttles.)
There is not any verification for any of those claims past Hunt’s personal detailed-but-questionable narrative. He informed me his purpose was to develop into the primary imposter in area. “Consider it or not, that was my plan,” he stated. “I used to be truly scheduled for a shuttle flight.”
In April 1988, Hunt went on a blind date with Ann Sweeney, a 21-year-old optical engineer. Hunt stated he was a Marine captain, an evening detective for the Cambridge Police Division, and an astronaut in coaching. “We hit it off,” he informed me. Sweeney was a reasonably brunette who had an enviable job at Polaroid’s Massachusetts headquarters.
“He informed me he was sick of groupies, girls who went out with him as a result of he was a pilot,” Sweeney later informed the Boston Herald.” Hunt whisked her to the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, the place he stated he’d graduated first in his class. Wearing a tuxedo, he whirled her across the dance flooring at a Marine Corps ball. “Inside three weeks, I believed I might identified him a lifetime,” Sweeney informed Folks. (Sweeney didn’t reply to interview requests.)
The couple married 4 months later after which traveled first-class on varied unique holidays. Hunt claimed his flights and $41,000 leased Jaguar got here free along with his NASA job. He additionally purchased a Kawasaki Ninja bike to match his “Top Gun” persona and, in Miami, agreed to purchase a $1 million sport-fishing boat earlier than ghosting the dealer, who informed the Herald, “He is a liar.”
In September, the newlyweds boarded a non-public jet at Logan Airport certain for a romantic weekend in Montreal. Hunt informed the pilot he was an Atlantis space shuttle astronaut and autographed an image. He paid for the flight utilizing his spouse’s company bank card and, for some time, no person at Polaroid seen. The corporate was preventing off a hostile takeover by Roy E. Disney, backed by the funding financial institution Drexel Burnham Lambert.
“My spouse … had entry to the form of inventory info the highly effective guys at Drexel needed however could not get,” Hunt later informed The Day by day Merchandise. He claimed to have met with DBL workers on the Harvard Membership whereas carrying a Harvard ring he purchased on the campus retailer. “They requested for company info I didn’t have entry to,” Hunt informed me.
The takeover failed, and Hunt’s fragile double life remained intact, preserved by the unquestioning belief of these closest to him. Drew A. Curtis, a psychology professor at Angelo State College in Texas and professional on pathological liars, informed me that is known as “the ostrich impact.” His spouse, like most individuals, operated beneath a “fact bias,” assuming that individuals are sincere. She merely buried her head within the sand.
“Then it simply obtained uncontrolled”
In December 1988, Sweeney’s brother, who lived in Eire, boasted that his astronaut brother-in-law was coming to go to the Emerald Isle. Whereas boarding an Aer Lingus flight from Boston, Hunt dazzled a ticket agent along with his credentials and was upgraded to firstclass. When the pilot realized there was an astronaut aboard, they invited him into the cockpit. “And he turned to me, he stated, ‘You can be acquired at Dublin airport.’ And I am like, oh boy. Obtained? What the hell does this imply?” Hunt imagined the runway stuffed with police automobiles.
As an alternative, two smiling Irish authorities officers greeted him. “I did not even should undergo customs,” Hunt informed me. “That they had just a little band there … taking part in the nationwide anthem.” The reception exceeded his wildest expectations. “Earlier than I knew it, I used to be giving speeches and accepting awards. I made a decision to play together with it,” he added.
Over the following two days, Dublin embraced its customer from the ultimate frontier. “We stayed on the Shelbourne resort,” Hunt informed me. He sipped tea with town’s Lord Mayor, Ben Briscoe, and smiled for images. Hunt informed Briscoe that the British prime minister had organized for him to be married at Westminster Abbey — a uncommon privilege reserved for members of the British royal household and a choose few others. Briscoe realized that Hunt was “not the complete shilling,” a spokesperson later informed the Related Press, however politely let him keep it up.
“Every thing was paid for by town,” Hunt informed me: from pub visits, a visit to distant Irish castles, and even a journey to Donegal to journey “among the most lovely driving horses on this planet.”
Hunt left Eire with souvenirs of his deception: “Irish sweaters, Guinness beer mugs, hats,” and honorary Irish citizenship. “All I needed to do was go to my brother-in-law,” he informed me. “Then it simply obtained uncontrolled.”
Again within the U.S., Hunt continued his astronaut hoax with a number of lectures. He wore his Navy uniform and informed audiences how “Atlantis reaches seven Gs throughout takeoff,” and “glides in from 220,000 ft with zero energy.” Hunt informed me he additionally gave his father a navy uniform for a photograph, not realizing the badges had been misplaced and the hat was improper. Hunt insisted that his father did not educate him to be an imposter. “My father was an odd man,” Robert’s brother, Joseph Hunt, informed the Herald, “However he isn’t answerable for Roy.” Leo Hunt was his son’s longest-serving sufferer, having suffered the results of his painted sparrows, area fantasies and schemes.
Quickly, bother was brewing for Robert Hunt. American Categorical rejected his $5,000 cost for the personal jet journey, and alerted Polaroid. Sweeney’s household warned her one thing wasn’t proper about her husband, and New Englanders began speaking about Capt. Robert Hunt.
An extended historical past of hoaxes
So long as there was area journey, astronaut imposters have fooled harmless of us, principally to promote faux lunar souvenirs. Historical past’s first area hoaxer was Jerry G. Tees, a 28-year-old electrician who posed as an astronaut at a Houston nightclub in June 1963. After Milton Berle launched him on stage, a panicked Tees seen 4 real astronauts within the viewers.
“I used to be petrified,” he later informed the Related Press from jail, after admitting his month-long rip-off. “I do not know why I do it. I simply dwell in a dream world, I suppose.”
In 1998, a 49-year-old Texan named Jerry Whittredge allegedly claimed to be an astronaut to achieve entry to a Navy flight simulator. Boldly, Whittredge sat in NASA Mission Management as workers ready to rescue a satellite tv for pc.
“He was speaking to the astronauts in area,” stated Joseph Gutheinz, a former senior particular agent with NASA’s Office of Inspector General who captured him. “He stated, ‘My secret is, I am a CIA murderer generally known as ‘Black Demise.’” Gutheinz informed me the decide suspected Whittredge was a spy till he claimed his lawyer was Invoice Clinton. “Jerry was despatched to a Federal psych ward for analysis, after which the federal authorities opted for an alternative choice to punishment,” Gutheinz added.
Army imposters sometimes pose because the heroes of their time — Navy SEALs after the Osama bin Laden raid and, through the space-race period of the Nineteen Eighties, astronauts, who loved the cultural cachet of rock stars. Nearly everybody, other than the 22-year-old skeptic at one in all Hunt’s lectures, was blinded by his astronaut fame. Anthony Anderson, who based Guardian of Valor to reveal individuals who falsely declare navy service, informed me astronaut imposters are uncommon as a result of “there are very, only a few astronauts.” He added that real servicemen can simply spot misplaced patches or improper salutes, however imposters are inevitably caught by whistleblowers.
Investigations start
In January 1989, Massachusetts state trooper Andrew Palombo heard an odd grievance at Logan airport. A employee stated a NASA astronaut in a U.S. Marine uniform — full with sword, medals and a Purple Coronary heart — had visited her dwelling and satisfied her 18-year-old son to enlist within the Navy. When he modified his thoughts, the person demanded $4,000 to make use of his “Pentagon connections” for a discharge. She stated he claimed to command the area shuttle Atlantis and signed {a photograph} “Captain Robert Hunt.”
Palombo known as the Naval Investigative Service Command, who stated Hunt had been a member of the U.S. Marines Reserve for 2 months in 1979. He was “mustered out after a psychological analysis,” Palombo informed The Day by day Merchandise. This enraged the state trooper, who’d earned his elite place by way of a grueling paramilitary choice course of; he could not tolerate an imposter claiming unearned rewards.
Palombo cherished his job a lot, he typically stated he’d work at no cost — the place else may he put on a ponytail and earring, carry a gun, and drive Mustangs? His 6-foot-4-inch body was sufficient to intimidate the drug sellers, gangsters and serial killers he caught.
“He may rock ‘n’ roll with the perfect of them, and in the event that they needed to go a few rounds, tremendous. He may knock them out with one shot,” retired State Police Capt. Richard Downey informed The Day by day Merchandise. But, like Hunt, Palombo had two sides. In 1987, when a mentally unstable man threatened to explode a passenger aircraft, Palombo gently talked him down. “It was a really low-key dialog,” he later informed the Herald.
Palombo methodically unpicked Hunt’s cons. “This man has been masquerading as a NASA astronaut, a Marine fighter pilot, a Cambridge cop, and God solely is aware of what else,” he informed the Herald. “He is a flim-flam man, and from what we are able to determine, he is squeezed a minimum of $60,000 out of individuals since September.” Palombo additionally discovered the reality about Hunt’s navy wardrobe. “He obtained the stuff on credit score by posing on the telephone as an officer and a gentleman. … It was value about $1,000, and naturally, he did not pay for it.”
Sensing that his scheme was unraveling, Hunt deliberate an escape. A buddy of the Hunts informed the Herald that Sweeney left her job at Polaroid as a result of her husband “claimed he was being transferred to fly fighter jets from a Marine base in Hawaii.” However they did not make it to the airport.
Cracks emerge
There was a knock on Hunt’s door on Jan. 28, 1989. When it swung open, he discovered himself staring up at an enormous state trooper. Throughout a search, Palombo discovered navy paraphernalia, flight jumpsuits, a NASA helmet, police badges, and pictures of Hunt carrying Korean Conflict medals.
“He wasn’t even born then,” Palombo informed the Herald. A shocked Sweeney additionally surrendered two scorched area shuttle tiles. “However they’re simply bizarre flooring tiles,” Palombo stated. He arrested Hunt for larceny and dragged him to the station. “Palombo had this actual hard-on for me for some purpose,” Hunt informed me. “He was only a large bully kind.”
Palombo was troubled by a faux physician’s identification card in Hunt’s identify. “Should you maintain it as much as the sunshine, you’ll be able to see one other identify beneath his,” he informed The Day by day Merchandise. Hunt informed me that when his spouse Michele labored at a Pennsylvania hospital, he stole a white coat and posed as a Harvard-trained doctor. “She did not know I used to be delivering three infants a day down there,” he stated.
Palombo found that Hunt’s Marine uniforms and costume swords had been fronted to him from the Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, however the origin of his blue astronaut jumpsuit remained a thriller. A NASA safety specialist from Washington discovered that the gear did not match objects just lately stolen from an area show van.
NASA and FBI officers decided that impersonating an astronaut wasn’t unlawful except different crimes had been concerned. Palombo logged Hunt’s helmets and spacesuits as proof in his case.
“These items don’t have anything to do with the crimes he was charged with,” he informed the Globe. “They had been taken as a result of he used them to perpetuate a fraud.” When information of the arrest broke, the president of the Experimental Plane Affiliation of Boston, which Hunt had captivated along with his lecture, informed the Herald, “It was disappointing to listen to he wasn’t an astronaut. However the gang would not have any unhealthy emotions. A few of the guys stated let’s bail him out and see how he did it.”
Again on the police barracks, Palombo gently introduced Sweeney with the proof. “She had no thought he was doing all these things. She truly thought she was married to an astronaut,” he informed The Day by day Merchandise. “The individuals he ripped off had been good individuals, they usually actually favored him.”
“I used to be actually in a state of shock,” Sweeney informed the Herald. “It was virtually like watching somebody die. Right here was this individual I believed I knew, and little by little, in the middle of an hour, he simply dissolved, simply disappeared. I cherished the individual I believed he was however that individual by no means actually existed.”
After leaving her job at Polaroid, Sweeney moved again to her dad and mom’ dwelling, the place she ruminated on the crimson flags she’d missed and the way she’d ruined a promising profession. “I do not know whether or not to hate him or pity him,” she informed the Herald. “The place I grew up, individuals do not lie to one another. After studying of Hunt’s different wives and youngsters, she puzzled, “Did he ever love any one in all us, or did he hate us?”
Hunt in contrast himself to a primary responder who grows numb to tragedy over time. “They develop into disciplined and laborious over it, and that is me,” he informed me. Whereas the ache of every divorce diminished, he may by no means escape the struggling he inflicted on his dad and mom.
They came visiting him throughout a depressing 90-day keep in Boston’s Charles Avenue Jail through the winter of 1989. “The guards had been truly saluting him,” Leo Hunt informed The Day by day Merchandise. “He was a celeb, however he has that unimaginable reward. And I ought to know, he is taken my spouse and I for 1000’s of {dollars}, and we fall for it each time.”
“My dad was heartbroken,” Robert Hunt informed me. His dad and mom hated the publicity, just like the interview he gave to The Day by day Merchandise from jail about his Dublin hoax, by which he stated, “The Irish aren’t very good.”
On the morning of Hunt’s trial, lawmakers joked about spaceships parked outdoors the courthouse. He arrived carrying crimson Marine Corps sweatpants, was handcuffed to a different defendant and was grinning so confidently that many confused him for the prisoner’s arresting officer. His smile pale when he realized Sweeney was divorcing him. He pleaded responsible to larceny by false pretenses for utilizing his spouse’s company bank card and for swindling $4,000 from the younger recruit’s household. He was given a two-year suspended sentence.
As quickly as Hunt walked free in Could 1989, he introduced his candidacy for mayor of Revere, Massachusetts. “I do know energy and easy methods to get round it,” he informed the Herald. “Once I look again, I chuckle. I did issues among the greatest individuals within the nation do.” But in every single place he turned, there was Palombo.
“He was beneath the gun to make restitution to the courts, and I used to be anxious he could be accepting marketing campaign contributions,” the state trooper informed The Day by day Merchandise. “It’s important to notice that all the things he informed you is a lie. I do know. I’ve tracked him just about from the time he was 18 years previous,” he informed a Massachusetts newspaper. Hunt blamed his arrest by Palombo for each ruining his political profession and destroying his area dream. “If that had by no means occurred, I might have orbited,” Hunt informed me.
When a Herald reporter requested Palombo about Hunt’s motives, he stated, “Greed.” After pondering for a second, he added, “He by no means even obtained that a lot. I sat down and discovered that if he had gone to work for Burger King at $5 an hour, he would have been forward of the sport.”
Hunt didn’t pay a single greenback in restitution to his victims and skipped city with out paying his lawyer’s $20,000 payment. Courts in Massachusetts and New Hampshire issued arrest warrants, and by July 28, 1989, Hunt was a fugitive. “He walked away laughing at all people,” Palombo informed The Day by day Merchandise,” holding up Hunt’s powder-blue NASA jumpsuit, as a smile unfold throughout his face. “That is the one he claims he wore into outer area. He is a spaceman all proper.”
A tv crew from “A Present Affair” interviewed Hunt’s second, third and fourth wives, who in contrast notes on set. “That they had lots of related experiences,” Michele Hunt, the nurse and Hunt’s third spouse, informed the Press Enterprise. “I can discuss it so much simpler now.” Reporters staked out Leo Hunt’s dwelling, hoping to catch a glimpse of his lacking son, however he informed The Day by day Merchandise his son was in New York. “We’re anxious about him, however God solely is aware of, he is in all probability the governor of New York by now,” he stated.
Finally, Hunt reentered his household’s ambiance. His mom begged him to vary and gave him money for a recent begin. He thought-about turning into an “sincere” plumber however as a substitute spent the cash on one other Navy uniform. “That is once I grew to become a commando,” he informed me. He introduced himself on the Presidio of San Francisco, a U.S. navy base, as the top of SEAL Staff Six, the elite Navy counter-terrorist group. He slept in officers’ quarters and labored three weeks on the emergency operations heart, tooling round with computer systems. Hunt informed me he berated an aged man who questioned his authority, later realizing it was Eugene Cernan.
“Right here I’m, yelling at an Apollo astronaut,” he recalled. “Like, oh boy, this could’t get any f—— worse.” Nevertheless it did. After he parked in a common’s spot, the FBI charged him with false impersonation. He was lastly captured, pleaded responsible in July 1994, and served a yr in jail.
After his launch, Hunt’s cons continued, and Palombo doggedly pursued him far past his jurisdiction. When Hunt struck up a relationship with a rich feminine French-Canadian golfer and was accused of posing as a federal medication agent, Palombo known as the Canadian authorities and revealed his felony previous.
“He was fanatical,” Hunt informed me. Then, in July 1998, Palombo’s Harley-Davidson hit an oil patch and spun uncontrolled, killing him.
After the safety issues following 9/11, Hunt informed me his schemes grew to become “not possible.” Lastly, in 2005, the Stolen Valor Act made it unlawful to falsely declare navy decorations. Hunt hung up his faux uniforms and determined to rebuild his relationship along with his dad and mom.
“Once I obtained out of that mess, I used to be welcomed into their dwelling,” Hunt informed me. He recalled a heart-to-heart along with his father, who informed him, “You are my son. You will at all times be my son. However it is advisable to pull your life collectively.”
A con to the touch the celebs
Throughout hours of interviews, Hunt insisted he tricked his option to flying actual fighter jets and spun unimaginable tales of “proper engine blowouts” and unimaginable g-forces. “I used to be doing loopy stuff like nose-overs and again tail strain ups,” he informed me. I requested Gutheinz, the NASA investigator, if it was ridiculous to consider him. Gutheinz described how his imposter, Jerry Whittredge, waltzed previous “vault protected” navy safety and persuaded a navy base commander to write down to the Pensacola Naval Air Station, saying he wanted “just a little flight time” — all on the energy of a convincing story.
Over time, a few of Hunt’s tales have corrupted the general public report. He satisfied Rodney Stich, creator of “Defrauding America,” a guide about CIA conspiracies, that he flew secret missions to ship missiles to Iran. A Navy admiral as soon as publicly praised Hunt for a daring fight mission over Beirut. Leo Hunt informed The Day by day Merchandise, “No Marine pilots flew in Beirut, and my son definitely was by no means there. However consider me, it will all come out. I do know he is a liar, however there’s 98% fact on this story.” Regardless of all the things, Hunt’s father nonetheless needed to consider his son.
“There’s typically some true aspect within the internet of fiction {that a} con artist weaves,” stated Daniel Simons, a professor of psychology on the College of Illinois and co-author of “Nobody’s Fool” (Fundamental Books, 2023), a guide about scammers. But stolen-valor professional Anderson scoffed at the concept a plumber would have gotten close to the controls of a fighter jet or survived astronaut coaching. “He would have stood out like a sore thumb,” he informed me. The Nationwide Personnel Data Heart had the ultimate phrase: The navy has no report of Robert Hunt.
Right now, Hunt lives alone in New Hampshire, the place he has held varied building jobs. He’s 63, has few mates, and passes his time watching the Historical past Channel. He has repaired his relationship along with his father, he informed me, however Leo is 88 and “on the finish now.” (Leo Hunt couldn’t be reached for remark.)
“What I remorse is the individuals who obtained harm,” Hunt stated. “My ex-wives…did not deserve that, as a result of they went into it with a real coronary heart. …I went into it with the exact opposite.” He stated he ultimately stopped dreaming of area and “grew up.”
But Hunt’s eyes nonetheless gentle up when he displays on his favourite moments as an “astronaut.” “Once I’m carrying a blue flight swimsuit and all people else is carrying a grey or inexperienced one, you stand out,” he stated. “Like this man is the tremendous guru of pilots, so all of them wish to be your buddy.” Similar to the widespread sparrows he as soon as painted yellow, Hunt’s deceptions turned him into one thing extraordinary and, for a quick second, allowed him to the touch the celebs.