Update (5:00 p.m.) : The hands were re-installed on both faces of the clock this morning, Pugh said in an email to Vox. One of the hand sets was previously in storage, and Pugh added that “the missing hands have not been recovered.”

Update (3:00 p.m.): According to Director of Media Relations Rachel Pugh, the hands were replaced by the University.

Some time late last night or early this morning, Healy clock tower’s hands were returned to their original place, safe and intact. It is unclear whether the University replaced them or the thieves.

The clock hands were missing for eight days. The thieves sent an email to the Georgetown community last Wednesday, May 2, claiming the hands were en route to Vatican City.

Vox had the opportunity to speak with one of the former Healy clock thieves from 2005 who preferred to remain anonymous. He alleged that the clock hands are very easy to take down and do not weigh more than five pounds.

He also stressed that the administration should be more accepting of this tradition. “We like to talk about it on student tours, maybe we could actually harness [the tradition]. We could open one of the doors of Healy and have somebody symbolically steal the hands, [the University] could embrace it … but instead they are acting like its unsafe. But the truth is it’s not unsafe at all,” he said. ”To me it’s one of the least dangerous things I’ve done in my life, it’s more dangerous to drive to work each day.”

The damage done in 2005 was under $500 and the two thieves were not expelled for their actions.

At 2:36 a.m. today, the Voice received an email addressed to “the faculty, staff, and students of Georgetown University” from three people claiming to be the thieves of the Healy Clock hands. The senders, who went by the names “Reaper, Goliath, and Juliet” and sent the message through a hushmail email address, told of how they “gained access to the restricted area above Healy Hall” despite “a series of countermeasures and obstacles.” The email also included a screenshot (again, covering their tracks) of the hands, pictured left, as proof of the senders’s validity.

And for those of us concerned with tradition, the thieves assure us that the hands are currently on their way to the Vatican. Hoya Saxa, Pope Benedict.

The full text of the email is below:

To the faculty, staff, and students of Georgetown University: