But how did they do it? Orellana reported that the indigenous people used fire to clear their fields. We know that the Bolivian savannah has also been the “victim” of fire—though perhaps we should argue that it was “blessed” with fire. Bruno Glaser has found that Terra Preta is rich in charcoal, which is incompletely burnt wood. Terra Preta contains up to 64 times more of it than the surrounding red earth. He believes that the charcoal holds the nutrients in the soil and sustains its fertility from year to year. In experimental plots, adding a combination of charcoal and fertilizer into the rainforest soil boosted yields by 880 percent compared with fertilizer alone. With this information, we have made an important step toward understanding one of the great secrets of the early Amazonians: Set the soil on fire, and it will regenerate. Of course, though science may have long forgotten about this technique, in the highlands of Mexico, these techniques can still be seen at night, when local farmers set parts of their fields alight. But the science of Terra Preta is not nearly as simple as that. A simple slash-and-burn technique does not produce enough charcoal to make Terra Preta. Instead, a “slash-and-char” technique must have been used. Named by Christopher Steiner of the University of Bayreuth, this technique does not burn organic matter to ash, but incompletely, whereby the charcoal is then stirred into the soil. Carbon is, as mentioned, a key ingredient in this process. When a tree dies or is cut down, the carbon stored in its trunks, branches, and leaves is released, but when plants and trees are reduced to charcoal, the carbon remains in the charcoal, apparently for periods up to 50,000 years, according to research by Makoto Ogawa. This explains the high levels of carbon in Terra Preta.
Today, we know that the distribution of Terra Preta in the Amazon correlates with the places that Orellana reported were zones where farming occurred. Today, as in the past, Terra Preta holds great promise for the Amazonian population—as well as other areas of the world—where modern chemicals and techniques have failed to generate significant food from Amazonian soil in a sustainable way. Though some of the secrets of this soil have been discovered and will provide great help to many impoverished regions, some ingredients of Terra Preta remain unidentified—or at least difficult to reproduce. In fact, one missing ingredient is how the soil appears to reproduce. Science may not know the answer, but the Amazonian people themselves argue that as long as 10 inches of the soil is left undisturbed, the bed will regenerate in about 20 years. A combination of bacteria and fungi are believed to be the transformative agents, but the exact agents remain elusive from science’s microscopes.
So in the Amazon and on the Bolivian plains, we have a terraforming substance that someone in the distant past knew and developed, but whose secrets have been lost (though modern farmers in those regions know how to work with the manmade soil). The people who created it just disappeared. The communities Orellana saw were gone some decades later. What became of them? Tragically, Orellana’s and other groups were responsible for their demise. Such visitors brought diseases to which the natives had little resistance: smallpox, influenza, measles, and so on. So even though perhaps hundreds of thousands of people could survive in the New World for millennia by transforming the land they lived on, they had no protection against the new viruses that were brought in by the Europeans. Contact with our own kind, after thousands of years of separation, is dangerous; what to think of making contact with an extraterrestrial species?
Crystal Skulls
It took 15 years before Harrison Ford, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg agreed on what Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the fourth installment of the Indiana Jones saga, had to be. The problem was not which object to have Indy chase; that decision had been made: crystal skulls. The problem was the realization by Lucas that this installment would have to involve extraterrestrials. Ford and Spielberg disagreed on this point, and it was a debate that carried on for several years. In the end, Lucas proposed that he would call the beings “intra-dimensional,” rather than extraterrestrial. But when Spielberg asked, “What are they going to look like?” Lucas replied, “They’ll look like aliens!”
Crystal skulls are not “just” objects like Indy’s prior treasures, the Holy Grail and the Ark of the Covenant. Crystal skulls are said to contain knowledge, and psychics who have come in contact with them have heard these skulls speak. Indeed, some believe them to be alien communication devices. But the interest in crystal skulls is more recent than the interest in the Ancient Alien Question. It was only in the 1980s, when U.S. citizens like Nick Nocerino traveled through what was once the Mayan heart-land and found that local shamans were offering crystal skulls, that their story began to emerge in the Western world. Since the late 1980s, crystal skulls have become a popular subject of intrigue, some allegedly having been carved by a lost—if not alien—civilization.
The British Museum Skull in London is one of the most popular items on display in one of the greatest collection of artifacts in the world. The label on its case reads, “Originally thought to have been Aztec, but recent research proves it to be European,” of late 19th-century fabrication. The museum obtained the skull for 120 pounds in 1897 from Tiffany & Co. As to how Tiffany had acquired it, speculation was that it originated from a soldier of fortune in Mexico.
In 2004, Professor Ian Freestone, of the University of Wales at Cardiff, examined the skull and concluded that it was cut and polished with a wheeled instrument, which he said was not used by the Aztecs. Freestone argued that the sculpture was therefore of modern, post-Columbian origin, further noting that the crystal used was common in Brazil, but not Mexico—the Aztec homeland—and that “the surface of the skull, which contains tiny bubbles that glint in the light, is more sharply defined than softer-looking Aztec crystal relics with which it has been compared.”2 However, Freestone said that even though there was strong circumstantial evidence suggesting the artifact was 19th-century European in origin, this did not amount to cast-iron proof.
In recent years, the story of how the British Museum acquired the crystal was investigated by Dr. Jane MacLaren Walsh of the U.S. Smithsonian Institution. She concluded that the British Museum Skull and the one at Musée de l’Homme (Museum of Man) in Paris were both sold by Eugène Boban, a controversial collector of pre-Columbian artifacts and an antiques dealer who ran his business in Mexico City between about 1860 and 1880. Though it is indeed likely that Boban placed the British Museum Skull at Tiffany for auction, there is no hard evidence. However, such evidence does exist for the Musée de l’Homme Crystal Skull, which in 1878 was donated by collector Alphonse Pinart, who had bought it from Boban. Boban’s 1881 catalogue does list another crystal skull, “in rock crystal of natural human size,” selling for 3,500 French francs—the most expensive item in the catalogue. It is possible it was never sold, and hence was offered to Tiffany to sell at auction.
Having established these facts, however, Walsh then argues that the skulls are not genuine artifacts but were instead manufactured between 1867 and 1886 in Germany, as German craftsmen were deemed to be the only people with the skills to be able to carve these skulls.
Though Boban was indeed a controversial figure, he was no different from all the other operators on the antiquities markets in those days—some of whom made deals for treasures such as the Rosetta Stone or the Elgin Marbles that continue to upset entire nations from which they were “exported.” No one disputes that the Elgin Marbles are genuine, but the same cannot be said for crystal skulls. There is no evidence—not even circumstantial—that Boban sourced these skulls from Germany. That is only a tenuous connection made by Walsh. Is it not more logical to conclude that, as Boban operated in Mexico, he may have acquired the skulls in Mexico? It would be completely logical to assume that, if they are Aztec in origin, they were offered on the Mexico City antiques market, where Boban then picked them up. This is the most logical scenario, yet academics seem to prefer the modern German fabrication theory for which there is no evidence. Why? Because science and crystal skulls is not a
happy marriage.
As to the fact that the skulls were polished with a wheeled instrument, Professor Freestone himself argued that this in itself does not mean they are modern fabrications. Though Freestone, Walsh, and others have suggested that this overturns the likelihood that the skulls are pre-Columbian, other experts like Professor Michael D. Coe of Yale University stated that evidence of wheel markings in no way proves that the skulls are modern. He actually said that although it has long been accepted that no pre-Columbian civilization used the rotary wheel, new evidence contradicts this scientific dogma, which Walsh and Freestone continue to adhere to as it seems to suit their agenda. Wafer-thin obsidian ear-spools are now known to have been made using some rotary carving equipment and to be dated to the Aztec/Mixtec period. When Coe was asked about the opinions of Walsh on the subject, according to Chris Morton and Ceri Louise Thomas in The Mystery of the Crystal Skulls, Coe concluded: “People who sit in scientific laboratories don’t know the full range of the culture they’re dealing with. We really don’t know half as much about these early cultures as we think we do. People need to reexamine their beliefs.”
Walsh and some of her colleagues have largely presented Boban as a charlatan, but they’ve failed to report that he was known to have owned genuinely ancient artifacts as well as a collection of rare books and early Mexican manuscripts. He had even written a scientific study, Documents pour server à l’histoire du Mexique (Documents to serve the history of Mexico), in 1891. Furthermore, he personally crusaded against frauds and fakes, such as in 1881 when he spoke out against forgeries that were being made in the suburbs of Mexico City. Would he shoot himself in the foot that same year by listing a fraudulent crystal skull in his catalogue?
Mentions of the German connection and claims of Boban’s dishonesty come from a single letter from one of Boban’s competitors, Wilson Wilberforce Blake. He wrote how they should buy from him, not Boban, who was, as he said, not honest, and he made accusations that the skull Boban had sold was a forgery, insinuating that the skull had been made in Germany instead. However, no evidence was ever produced for any of these claims, and Blake had an obvious motive for smearing Boban’s character: He was after Boban’s share of the market.
In short, Walsh has uncovered good indications that Boban had skulls and sold them, but regarding the German connection, she has relied on the words of a man who was out to smudge Boban’s character, and this is not evidence. The story of the way the crystal skulls have been treated by academics has—alas—all the usual hallmarks of the way the scientific establishment treats all anomalous finds: It pushes them aside, labeling them fakes.
But could these skulls be genuine archaeological finds? As Morton and Thomas pointed out, Boban’s artifacts went on sale at a time when Teotihuacán, just north of Mexico City, was being excavated. Teotihuacán is one of the most important archaeological sites in the Americas, containing pyramids—and a pyramid layout—on par with the pyramids of the Giza Plateau.
Boban is known to have visited the excavations; in fact, he did so in the company of Leopoldo Batres, the Inspector of Monuments. Interestingly, if we look at Blake’s incriminating letter a bit more closely, he claimed that Batres, too, was “not only a fraud but a swindler.”3 Is it even possible that Boban got the skull from Teotihuacán? If so, the finger of guilt should point to Batres, and because Batres sold other finds he made at this site, why not a crystal skull as well? In those days, half of the finds the excavators made ended up on the black market, and the other half became part of the “archaeological record.” It is known that even the great Howard Carter, in his exploration of the Tutankhamen tomb—heralded as the greatest archaeological discovery of the 20th century—fell victim to this scheme. Nonetheless, concluding that the skulls are genuine archaeological treasures is more logical—and better documented—than speculating about a theoretical German connection.
It was not only archaeologists who were selling crystal skulls. The Mayans themselves were selling them, too. Entire Mayan villages are known to have been financially supported by the sale of archaeological goods that at one point they had placed on the black market. Nick Nocerino claims that he met a shaman in 1949 while traveling in Mexico, who led him to a Mayan priest who said he was authorized to sell crystal skulls because the village needed money for food. Nocerino didn’t buy any of the skulls, but he did study them. With such things on offer, why would Boban need to source a German crystal skull, only to have great difficulty selling it? Walsh will have you believe that the reason is that there are no genuine crystal skulls and that the entire subject area is a modern myth. That is simply not true.
The Mitchell-Hedges Crystal Skull
Scientists argue that none of the crystal skulls were found during an archaeological excavation—that is, apart from the so-called Mitchell-Hedges Crystal Skull, which was mentioned in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Of all the crystal skulls, this is—rightfully or not—seen as the most intricate and is definitely the most controversial. “Believers” see it as the one crystal skull that is impossible to have been made by human hands—leaving only one possibility: that the skull was made by a non-terrestrial intelligence.
The Mitchell-Hedges Crystal Skull is the most enigmatic of all crystal skulls. Its detachable jaw, made from the same piece of crystal as the rest of the skull, has posed an impossible challenge for those looking for a simple explanation.
The skull was named after its discoverer, the adventurer F.A. “Mike” Mitchell-Hedges, if we believe the “official” version of its find. The official version goes that the skull was found in the ruins of Lubantuun in Belize (then British Honduras) in 1924 during an archaeological survey of the site. This “Skull of Doom,” as Mitchell-Hedges labeled it, was not referenced until 1931, and the seven-year gap has been used by skeptics to argue that the story of its discovery is a lie.
In his autobiography, Danger My Ally (1954), Mitchell-Hedges stated that “The Skull of Doom is made of pure rock crystal and according to scientists it must have taken 150 years, generation after generation working all the days of their lives, patiently rubbing down with sand an immense block of rock crystal until the perfect skull emerged.” He continued, “It is at least 3,600 years old and according to legend was used by the High Priest of the Maya when performing esoteric rites. It is said that when he willed death with the help of the skull, death invariably followed. It has been described as the embodiment of all evil.”
So, Mitchell-Hedges associated this crystal skull with the Maya in 1600 BC—when the Maya were not yet around. Noting Mitchell-Hedges’ interest in finding evidence for a lost civilization of Atlantis, many people have argued that the skull is therefore a relic of this earlier civilization. You can imagine what the skeptics have made of this theory.
In 1936, eminent anthropologist G.M. Morant and Adrian Digby, a future Keeper of the Department of Ethnology at the British Museum, analyzed the Mitchell-Hedges Skull and argued that it is not of modern workmanship. Digby wrote, “...in neither case [including the British Museum Skull] is there any trace of identifiable tool marks, and it is certain that neither specimen was made with steel tools. On the teeth there is no trace of a lapidary’s wheel which would betray one or both specimens as being of comparatively recent origin.”4 This is at odds with the conclusions drawn by Walsh, who saw clear evidence of tool marks. She argues that Morant and Digby’s tools were far inferior to hers, which is true, but what Walsh fails to note is that in the intervening decades the Mitchell-Hedges skull is known to have been polished by art restorer Frank Dorland, who is known to have used modern tools. Writing in the journal Man in July 1936 (Vol. 36), Morant and Digby both commented that the skull’s detachable lower jaw would have taken the creator—whoever it was—many hundreds if not thousands of hours of extra work, and that thus there would have to have been an important reason why the jaw had to be detached—more than purely artistic reasons.
In 1964, Anna “Sammy” Mitchell-Hedges—
the adventurer’s adopted daughter and custodian of the Skull of Doom—lent the skull to Frank and Mabel Dorland, famous art experts and restorers. Dorland commenced his study by taking many photographs from various angles. He also used a binocular microscope to create a three-dimensional image of the skull. It was during this scientific analysis that the skull began to reveal a magical dimension.
One evening, Dorland finished his work too late for the skull to be returned to its vault in the Mill Valley Bank. So he took the skull home, placing it next to the fire he had lit for the evening. He then noticed how the light of the fire was reflected through the eyes of the skull. This made him realize that the skull allowed certain optical effects to be produced—though other stories state that throughout the evening the house was also a hive of poltergeist activity.
Dorland discovered that the optical effects were the result of the way the skull had been carved, which gave him further insights into the precision of the workmanship. He observed that there was a type of “layering” on top of the skull, which made it behave like an amplifying glass. The back of the skull channeled the light through the eye sockets at the front of the head. Although no one would be able to see what was happening from behind the skull, anyone looking at the face would perceive a spectacular series of images that would appear to come from within the skull itself.
Dorland also discovered two holes at the bottom of the skull that are invisible when the skull is positioned upright. The holes allow the skull to be swung without falling over. This was a further indication, along with the detachable jaw, that this skull was not a mere display object but had been created to perform certain functions: to move, if not pretend to speak (via the detachable jaw), and to project certain images to the observer standing in front of it.
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