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What are crystal skulls? · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, Chuck, yo, we're in the present time, yes, which
0:03
Speaker 1: means that we need to take this opportunity to do
0:06
Speaker 1: a little bit of an intro for the episode. Everybody's
0:09
Speaker 1: about to hear because it's a yeah, this has never
0:15
Speaker 1: happened us before. But you said, hey, I thought we
0:18
Speaker 1: already recorded one on Crystal Skulls. Yeah, I think you're right,
0:22
Speaker 1: and Jerry went, oh, it's right here in my desk drawer.
0:25
Speaker 1: We forgot to publish it. Yeah, so this is a
0:28
Speaker 1: long lost episode and we decided to publish it anyway,
0:30
Speaker 1: and just with a little caveat because it might. I'm
0:33
Speaker 1: sure there's some stuff that sounds stated. It stated right
0:35
Speaker 1: off the bat. We talked about whether the world's gonna
0:38
Speaker 1: end or knowledge it doesn't as well, that's kind of
0:40
Speaker 1: the dead giveaway. There's some dating to it. But yeah,
0:42
Speaker 1: so it's a lost episode. And thanks to whoever it
0:45
Speaker 1: was on Twitter that suggested a Crystal Skulls episode, because
0:48
Speaker 1: that's what started this whole thing in the in the
0:50
Speaker 1: first place. Well you certainly gave them their due, but
0:53
Speaker 1: calling them whoever it was, thanks whoever? Alright, so cool,
0:57
Speaker 1: So here we go with Crystal Skulls Welcome to Stuff
1:02
Speaker 1: you Should Know from house stuff Works dot com. Hey,
1:11
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck,
1:15
Speaker 1: Oh my god, everything's coming to it, and Brian that
1:19
Speaker 1: makes this stuff you should know? Right? How you doing?
1:23
Speaker 1: I shouldn't even ask. My life is a little upside
1:25
Speaker 1: down right now. I'll be all right. It's not like
1:28
Speaker 1: it's my in and it's twenty twelve or anything. Well,
1:32
Speaker 1: we've already done that one. And I guess we know
1:35
Speaker 1: that the the world isn't necessarily gonna end in twenty twelve,
1:39
Speaker 1: so that kind of presupposes how we feel about this podcast.
1:42
Speaker 1: I guess right. That's actually but let me let me
1:45
Speaker 1: give some news first. And you know this because you
1:48
Speaker 1: found this and it's literally today's news. Yeah, that has
1:51
Speaker 1: done often happen. Yeah. Um, but we're talking about crystal skulls.
1:54
Speaker 1: And there was a piece on crystal skull that was
1:58
Speaker 1: found recently in a home in a Bavarian village. Um
2:03
Speaker 1: and this crystal skull, it weighs I think nine pounds. Um,
2:07
Speaker 1: it's life size. No, it was nearly twenty pounds. It's
2:10
Speaker 1: life size, maybe a little bigger. Uh. It matches the
2:14
Speaker 1: death's head insignia worn by Nazi SS officers UM, which
2:19
Speaker 1: is appropriate because this crystal skull apparently belonged to Heinrich Himmler,
2:23
Speaker 1: that's right, who was the chief of the s S. Yeah,
2:26
Speaker 1: and I wrote an article we should podcast on that
2:28
Speaker 1: sometime about the Nazis interest in archaeology. They were like
2:31
Speaker 1: all the Indiana Jones stuff was right on the money.
2:34
Speaker 1: They had all sorts of programs, archaeology programs basically to
2:38
Speaker 1: try and prove through historical research that the Aryan race
2:43
Speaker 1: was superior. Right, Yes, that was behind it all. And
2:46
Speaker 1: supposedly the UM the Nazi Party arose from some sort
2:50
Speaker 1: of kind of like UM good time sex cult that
2:53
Speaker 1: like all of the people who were eventually like the
2:56
Speaker 1: head of the Nazi Party were members of Hitler comes
3:00
Speaker 1: along as like, you guys are freaks, but I'm going
3:02
Speaker 1: to use this to my advantage and bada boomboada being
3:05
Speaker 1: under fere and everything starts to go horribly horribly awry.
3:10
Speaker 1: But back to UM Today's news, a crystal skull was found,
3:15
Speaker 1: which is a very unusual thing, and it was found
3:18
Speaker 1: hidden on a rafter in the attic of this house.
3:22
Speaker 1: In Bavaria. Um that belonged to a woman who had
3:27
Speaker 1: been married to a high ranking SS officer, and it's
3:30
Speaker 1: now in the possession of Swiss journalist Luke Bergen. Yeah,
3:33
Speaker 1: he makes quite a claim. He claims that quote, I
3:36
Speaker 1: am sure that this is one of the skulls of
3:39
Speaker 1: the Mayans, but we need clarity and all available tests
3:42
Speaker 1: will be carried out to ascertain authenticity. So what what
3:46
Speaker 1: Luke um Bergen has just said is that he's about
3:49
Speaker 1: to be very very disappointed. It's spoken like a man
3:52
Speaker 1: who just got his first crystal skull. Yeah, exactly, and
3:55
Speaker 1: it's done zero research on it. Basically, Um, the the
3:58
Speaker 1: prevailing chuck, we should hold on. Let's bring spring sarcasm down. Uh.
4:05
Speaker 1: The the the legend behind the crystal skulls, and anybody
4:10
Speaker 1: who has not seen crystal skulls type them into your
4:13
Speaker 1: favorite search engine and um find an image and you'll
4:16
Speaker 1: be like, oh, yeah, crystal skull, crystal skull. Um. The
4:20
Speaker 1: there's supposedly thirteen of them that were crafted by the
4:23
Speaker 1: Mayans um and they were scattered throughout the globe and
4:29
Speaker 1: um nine of them were colored to represent the races
4:32
Speaker 1: of man, and then four of them were clear to
4:35
Speaker 1: represent the animals that crawl, walk, slither, slides, and fly,
4:43
Speaker 1: um and you. Basically, the world's supposed to end on
4:47
Speaker 1: December twenty one at eleven eleven am. And if the
4:54
Speaker 1: these thirteen skulls aren't reunited, discovered and reunited in a
4:58
Speaker 1: specific alignment I would imagine probably at some sort of
5:01
Speaker 1: Mayan temple um, then the world will end. If we
5:04
Speaker 1: can get them aligned in this proper alignment by this time,
5:08
Speaker 1: we can prevent the world from ending. The problem is, though, Josh,
5:11
Speaker 1: there's a lot more than thirteen of these things floating
5:14
Speaker 1: around the world. Yes, and so there's some doubts as
5:18
Speaker 1: to their legitimacy and if it depending on what this
5:23
Speaker 1: skull looks like. I don't know if the The Daily
5:26
Speaker 1: Mirror was the news source that you got this from.
5:29
Speaker 1: It they're not exactly They're tabloid. There are tabloids tabloid actually, well,
5:34
Speaker 1: I believe that this skull was found, I'm sure, But
5:37
Speaker 1: the picture that they've used, I don't know if that's
5:39
Speaker 1: the skull that was supposedly found or whatever. But um,
5:42
Speaker 1: there are some telltale signs that a skull might be
5:46
Speaker 1: a fake, that it could be real. Let's start digging in, Chuck,
5:51
Speaker 1: Let's dig into crystal skulls. Uh. Well, they can vary
5:54
Speaker 1: in size and appearance. Some of them are sort of
5:57
Speaker 1: crudely shaped. Some of them are really detailed. Some of
6:00
Speaker 1: them are beautiful and clear. Some of them are hazy
6:02
Speaker 1: and colored. Some of them have detached jaws, some of
6:05
Speaker 1: them do not. Some of them have I sockets, some
6:07
Speaker 1: of them don't write. That's just a brief off for you.
6:10
Speaker 1: That's there's crystal skulls of the appearance, and some people
6:14
Speaker 1: believe that they are, you know, from the ancient Mayans,
6:17
Speaker 1: descendants of the h what's the underwater Atlantis? Atlantis? Is
6:23
Speaker 1: that where the minds came from? Some people say that,
6:26
Speaker 1: some say they're a direct ascens of of Atlantis, But
6:29
Speaker 1: I don't know. So this, this whole idea that the
6:32
Speaker 1: the Mayans creating crystal skulls, or that these crystal skulls
6:37
Speaker 1: are of Mayan descent, are based somewhat on fact the
6:41
Speaker 1: Miyands did. Um they do reference crystal skulls in their
6:45
Speaker 1: creation myth. Yeah, So I mean like that's not like
6:48
Speaker 1: somebody's like crystal skull and Maya. There's there's there's definitely
6:54
Speaker 1: a legitimate connection between the two. But whether the crystal
6:58
Speaker 1: skulls that are in existence right now are Mayan in
7:00
Speaker 1: origin is what what's up for debate and not really
7:03
Speaker 1: up for debate, and whether or not they have they're
7:06
Speaker 1: a rumor to have healing properties. Um, the visions like
7:10
Speaker 1: a crystal ball that you can see into the future,
7:12
Speaker 1: into the past. It's like a crystal ball but cooler.
7:15
Speaker 1: What else is there they say they can do? They
7:17
Speaker 1: make sounds, yes, choir, I think it's mainly healing and visions.
7:24
Speaker 1: That's pretty good ones enlightenment of some sort. Um. The
7:29
Speaker 1: but the world of crystal skulls that when you start
7:31
Speaker 1: to kind of dig into it is what It doesn't
7:35
Speaker 1: really matter what you believe. It's a really interesting world
7:38
Speaker 1: filled by almost caricatures of people, adventurers and broadsters and bucksters.
7:45
Speaker 1: To talk about him. Yeah, so let's let's start with um,
7:49
Speaker 1: I guess the most famous crystal skull of all the
7:51
Speaker 1: Mitchell Hedges skull. This one kind of set the tone
7:54
Speaker 1: for most other Basically, the Mitchell Hedges said, this is
7:59
Speaker 1: what Crystal Skull study is going to be all about.
8:04
Speaker 1: We're going to provide all the character for it and
8:06
Speaker 1: everybody else following our footsteps. Okay, that's right. And supposedly
8:09
Speaker 1: it was discovered and we're gonna say allegedly and supposedly
8:12
Speaker 1: a lot because these stories are not verified as fat
8:16
Speaker 1: and out of reverence for a dead one year old
8:18
Speaker 1: woman who Anna, she's dead now A seven? Really yeah,
8:24
Speaker 1: that's a bummer. Uh yeah. So it was discovered allegedly
8:27
Speaker 1: in the nineteen twenties by who we just referenced, Anna
8:30
Speaker 1: Mitchell Hedges, who is the adopted daughter of F. A.
8:33
Speaker 1: Mitchell Hedges World Adventurer. Yeah and he really was too. Yeah,
8:38
Speaker 1: from the from the sounds of it, he was. Um.
8:40
Speaker 1: She says that she found the skull beneath the Mayan
8:43
Speaker 1: temple at an Altar and uh lu Batan. He pronounced
8:48
Speaker 1: that that's what I took. Have you seen the pictures
8:50
Speaker 1: of that place, like a ruined Mayan city and believes
8:54
Speaker 1: it's awesome. It's like overgrown temples and stuff like that.
8:58
Speaker 1: It's very neat, I like the mind temples. So anyway,
9:01
Speaker 1: Anna says that she found this thing near Belize on
9:04
Speaker 1: her seventeenth birthday, and she said that the Mayan's actually
9:07
Speaker 1: told her that it was a skull used to will
9:09
Speaker 1: death so a priest would be too old to continue
9:13
Speaker 1: his priesting and he would lie down and transfer his
9:17
Speaker 1: knowledge to a younger priest via the powers of the
9:21
Speaker 1: skull and then die. Right. So that's her story. That's
9:24
Speaker 1: what the skull was for. That's what she says, um,
9:27
Speaker 1: and said, sorry, that's right. So the and the Mitchell
9:31
Speaker 1: Hedges skull is like the it's a trendsetting skull in
9:34
Speaker 1: another way in that it's pretty much the pinnacle of
9:38
Speaker 1: craftsmanship of crystal skulls. It's clear courts crystal is very pretty. Um,
9:43
Speaker 1: it's life size, um. It had it's about five inches high,
9:47
Speaker 1: five inches wide, eight inches long, UM. Totally transparent, twelve
9:52
Speaker 1: pounds UM. It's got the the ridges and cheekbones and
9:56
Speaker 1: nose socket and eye sockets that are like very anatomically correct.
10:01
Speaker 1: And as far as I know, it's the only one
10:03
Speaker 1: that has a detachable jawbone, which is really anatomically correct.
10:08
Speaker 1: Like this is just an amazing work of art, you know,
10:13
Speaker 1: and that's how they should be viewed. Josh, right, did
10:16
Speaker 1: I just ruin it? Do you want to poke some
10:18
Speaker 1: holes in Anna's story? Yeah? Um, First of all, in
10:23
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty six, m a description of this skull was
10:26
Speaker 1: in a British journal called Man, but they said it
10:29
Speaker 1: was owned by a guy named Sydney. Bernie Anna says,
10:32
Speaker 1: oh no wait, my dad Um f A UM gave
10:35
Speaker 1: it to Sydney and he um auctioned it off to
10:39
Speaker 1: pay a debt in the in the forties and then
10:41
Speaker 1: we bought it from Sotheby's from him to get it
10:45
Speaker 1: back in the family, right like it came down to
10:46
Speaker 1: the wire at the Southebeast all. So basically what you
10:49
Speaker 1: can take from that story is that f A. Mitchell
10:52
Speaker 1: Hedges acquired this Mitchell Hedges skull at South Beast. That
10:57
Speaker 1: part is completely documentable and um but that they they
11:02
Speaker 1: think that that may be where he got it for
11:03
Speaker 1: the first time, probably because in that nineteen thirty six journal,
11:08
Speaker 1: Um the the author, I guess Bernie UM wrote a
11:13
Speaker 1: letter that was I'm sorry it was quoted later, but
11:16
Speaker 1: but Um Bernie, the guy who actually had that Mitchell
11:19
Speaker 1: Hedges skull before Mitchell Hedges, said that he acquired it
11:22
Speaker 1: from a collector who had it for several years, and
11:25
Speaker 1: Um that collector bought it from another collector who had
11:29
Speaker 1: it for several years. No mention of F. A. Mitchell,
11:31
Speaker 1: who was not a collector, he was an adventurer. He
11:33
Speaker 1: probably called it the Bernie Skull to Yeah, I'm sure
11:36
Speaker 1: and um so that that that was in nineteen thirty three,
11:40
Speaker 1: which by this time F. A. Mitchell had just supposedly
11:43
Speaker 1: already had it or owned it. Um and then the
11:47
Speaker 1: other well, there's several other weird parts. Uh Mitchell hedges
11:51
Speaker 1: fa we'll just call him or faugh um he he
11:56
Speaker 1: only wrote about the skull once. This is my favorite
11:59
Speaker 1: part of this article. In the name of his book taken.
12:02
Speaker 1: He wrote a book about his adventures, I guess, some
12:04
Speaker 1: sort of memoir and it was called danger My ally
12:08
Speaker 1: that's the way you say it too. And that was
12:10
Speaker 1: from nine fifty four, I think. And in that book
12:14
Speaker 1: that's the first and only mentioned he makes of the
12:17
Speaker 1: crystal skull. By this time it was in his possession,
12:19
Speaker 1: he owned it. Seems like he would have mentioned it,
12:21
Speaker 1: yeah prior to this he he um. He says chuck
12:25
Speaker 1: that it dates back at least thirty six hundred years,
12:29
Speaker 1: that it took about a hundred and fifty years to
12:31
Speaker 1: rub down with sand from a single block of courts.
12:35
Speaker 1: So he alleges it was not it was shaped from
12:38
Speaker 1: rubbing sand on it and not actually carved with tools
12:41
Speaker 1: over the period of a hundred and fifty years, which
12:44
Speaker 1: I mean that's a lot of dedicated people, a lot
12:46
Speaker 1: of sand rubbing. Yeah. Um. He never mentions that his
12:51
Speaker 1: adopted daughter find found it. He actually says that he
12:55
Speaker 1: has reason to not mention how it came in his possession. Yeah.
12:58
Speaker 1: He warns very forebodingly about several people have cynically laughed
13:03
Speaker 1: at it and died. Others have been stricken ill. So
13:06
Speaker 1: he says, how I got it, I have reasons to
13:08
Speaker 1: not tell you. This is a really easy way to
13:11
Speaker 1: get around not telling people. Um, that's what That's what
13:15
Speaker 1: we should say whenever somebody wants to know, like, what's
13:18
Speaker 1: what's your backstory? How did you guys meet? We have
13:21
Speaker 1: reasons to not tell you. We have very important reason
13:23
Speaker 1: because it's very important. Um. And then also, Chuck, there
13:26
Speaker 1: were two people so f a Mitchell head just did
13:29
Speaker 1: actually go down to lu Batan and he was there
13:35
Speaker 1: in that's documented. There's plenty of photos of the dig
13:39
Speaker 1: two friends who went with them, who later wrote about this.
13:42
Speaker 1: This experience never mentioned Anna being there certainly never mentioned
13:47
Speaker 1: the crystal skull. Yeah. Lady Richmond Brown and Dr Thomas
13:50
Speaker 1: Gan and then lastly Anna Um in different interviews, gave
13:56
Speaker 1: different dates of when she acquired the skull, never the
13:59
Speaker 1: correct one. So um, there's a lot of holes in
14:03
Speaker 1: her story. Yet up to her deaths she alleged that
14:05
Speaker 1: this was the truth. Um. And she had what I
14:09
Speaker 1: take to be an indomitable spirit, like you could tell
14:12
Speaker 1: her just about anything, but she knew what was right
14:15
Speaker 1: with the crystal skull. Yeah. And she also claimed um
14:18
Speaker 1: not verified, but claimed that it had been used for
14:20
Speaker 1: healing a number of times and she didn't get very
14:22
Speaker 1: specific with that, and that she hoped one day it
14:25
Speaker 1: would go to an institution where it could be studied
14:28
Speaker 1: and that might happen. Um. If you go on to
14:32
Speaker 1: Mitchell Hedges skull dot com or Mitchell Hedges dot com,
14:36
Speaker 1: I think there's a hyphen in there, not Benson and Hedges. Um.
14:40
Speaker 1: The The skull is now in the possession of its
14:42
Speaker 1: newest owner, Bill Hollman, who is very dashing guy, likes
14:47
Speaker 1: to wear like in Indiana Jones hat Um. He loves
14:50
Speaker 1: posing with the crystal skull. It's very cool. But his
14:54
Speaker 1: aim is to build a museum for the skull in Sedona, Arizona,
14:58
Speaker 1: so they can be study ead and and basically be
15:01
Speaker 1: available to the public all the time, which is pretty cool.
15:03
Speaker 1: Where he would sell tickets, I don't know. I'm sure
15:06
Speaker 1: he would. Who knows. There's not a free museum. Actually
15:08
Speaker 1: that's not true. It's plenty of free museums. I take
15:11
Speaker 1: that back completely, okay, but there's plenty that aren't as well.
15:15
Speaker 1: I agree with you. So that's what that's what's going
15:17
Speaker 1: on with the Mitchell Hedges skull right now. Bill Hollman
15:19
Speaker 1: has it here in the US, and there may be
15:22
Speaker 1: Ah well, I don't know if it will be reunited.
15:26
Speaker 1: Surely people who own crystal skulls are going to take
15:29
Speaker 1: them to Mexico or something in November. See what happens. Right,
15:36
Speaker 1: Um So, Mitchell Heades skull is is the most famous,
15:40
Speaker 1: but it's far from the only one, right, Yeah, there's
15:42
Speaker 1: one another famous one in the British Museum, and I
15:45
Speaker 1: believe they just called this the British Museum skull, right, Yeah,
15:49
Speaker 1: it's kind of let down. They called the Paris skull
15:53
Speaker 1: the Paris skull, and it's also life size. It's not
15:56
Speaker 1: quite as detailed as the Mitchell hedges, and the jaw
16:00
Speaker 1: does detach as you say, and it's cloudy courts. It's
16:03
Speaker 1: not completely clear. And this was purchased. We know a
16:05
Speaker 1: little bit about the real back story on this one.
16:08
Speaker 1: It was purchased by the museum from Tiffany and Company
16:11
Speaker 1: in supposedly came from Mexico. And here is where we
16:16
Speaker 1: have a guy entered the picture named Eugene Bouban. Yeah,
16:21
Speaker 1: he's kind of an important character as well. Yeah, he's
16:23
Speaker 1: a French art dealer and a lot of these skulls
16:26
Speaker 1: seemed to have passed through his ownership at one point
16:29
Speaker 1: or another, which isn't necessarily fishing in and of itself.
16:33
Speaker 1: Like a dealer can specialize in something, and Boban specialized
16:38
Speaker 1: in Mayan relics another and the pre Columbian stuff. So yeah,
16:42
Speaker 1: it's not like that makes it hinky. I'm just pointing
16:44
Speaker 1: that out. Then you got the pair of skull and
16:46
Speaker 1: it's a more crude still than the other two and
16:50
Speaker 1: has a hole cut in the top that they think
16:52
Speaker 1: it is supposed to hold across. Yes, and that is
16:54
Speaker 1: in Paris at the a You're gonna pronounce that one
16:56
Speaker 1: for me, the muse de lom okay, the Museum of
17:02
Speaker 1: the Museum of Man. Is that what it is? Do
17:05
Speaker 1: you speak French? Um, I'm piquito. I used to do that.
17:13
Speaker 1: It took German in high school and then learned just
17:16
Speaker 1: sort of rough Spanish by working in the Mexican restaurants.
17:19
Speaker 1: And I would always mixed German and Spanish up in
17:24
Speaker 1: my college days. I was mixing up a lot back
17:27
Speaker 1: then though, anyway. Uh. And then in this one's a
17:34
Speaker 1: little weird in the Smithsonian received a crystal skull in
17:38
Speaker 1: the mail anonymous Yeah, with an anonymous note that said, hey,
17:41
Speaker 1: this is Aztec. I bought it in nineteen sixty in
17:44
Speaker 1: Mexico City and do what you will with it. Brought
17:47
Speaker 1: me nothing but bad luck. Yeah, maybe please don't ever
17:50
Speaker 1: try to track me down. And that one is hollow,
17:51
Speaker 1: which is slightly unique as well. Yeah. Um, so here's
17:56
Speaker 1: there's a couple of points that you've just brought up.
17:58
Speaker 1: One Eugene boban remember um um. Secondly, this anonymous skull
18:04
Speaker 1: is thought to be as Tech or was mentioned as Aztec.
18:07
Speaker 1: The British Museum skull is possibly considered as tech possibly,
18:14
Speaker 1: so that kind of knocks the mayan Um legend out
18:18
Speaker 1: a little bit. Let's do that some more. Okay, um, Well,
18:23
Speaker 1: first let's talk about some more um crystal skulls real quick.
18:26
Speaker 1: There's there's uh again, there's a whole world of crystal
18:29
Speaker 1: skull collectors and some people have a few, some people
18:33
Speaker 1: have one, but all of them are pretty like if
18:36
Speaker 1: you have a crystal skull, like you're a well known individual. Yeah,
18:39
Speaker 1: it's not like a being a commemorative plate collector, right
18:44
Speaker 1: like Joanne Parks who owns Max the Texas Crystal skull. Um.
18:49
Speaker 1: She apparently got it in the eighties and it's supposed
18:53
Speaker 1: to be from Guatemala, which is my end. Yeah, we've
18:58
Speaker 1: been there. And Jake Jake van Deeton, who suposedly owns
19:03
Speaker 1: a few of them, joke, joke, yoke, what I call him? Jake? Yea?
19:07
Speaker 1: This is she? Okay? Now? She says that her skull
19:11
Speaker 1: et healed her brain tumor. That's right, and that's a
19:14
Speaker 1: pretty cool name for a skull. If you're a skull owner,
19:17
Speaker 1: I would say a movie fan. And then what else
19:20
Speaker 1: is there? There's Shanna Ra not shann Annah, and it's
19:24
Speaker 1: a big one. It weighs about thirteen pounds, owned by
19:26
Speaker 1: Nick no Serino, and he is a self described expert,
19:30
Speaker 1: which are a favorite kind of experts in crystal skulls,
19:34
Speaker 1: and he claims he found that one in Mexico. And
19:36
Speaker 1: then lastly there's an amethyst goal called amy am I
19:41
Speaker 1: or me if you're speaking French, um, and that is
19:45
Speaker 1: supposedly has a squiggly white line around the circumference of
19:50
Speaker 1: this skull. No idea what that means, and supposedly mine. Yeah.
19:55
Speaker 1: And then there's a bunch of smaller skulls like little
19:57
Speaker 1: ones um that are about an inch in diameter, have
20:00
Speaker 1: holes drilled through them, and they think that they were
20:02
Speaker 1: ambulance or pendants or some sort of They were worn
20:05
Speaker 1: as necklaces. They were sold at the gift shop, the
20:08
Speaker 1: crystal skull get shop back in the day. So is
20:10
Speaker 1: the deal do all these people think they have one
20:12
Speaker 1: of the thirteen? Is that? Is that pretty much what's
20:15
Speaker 1: going on here? That's the impression I have, Okay, um,
20:19
Speaker 1: especially if you if you're if you consider your crystal
20:22
Speaker 1: skull is the source of the healing of your brain
20:24
Speaker 1: tumor and chuck, there's it's there's a certain um, there's
20:31
Speaker 1: a certain rationale to the idea that a crystal skull
20:35
Speaker 1: can allow you to see visions, and there's just something
20:38
Speaker 1: more going on there besides it being just a lump
20:41
Speaker 1: of courts. And that actually is um one found in
20:45
Speaker 1: one of the properties of courts, which is piezza electricity.
20:49
Speaker 1: You want to say, it's kind of Italian pizza electric right,
20:52
Speaker 1: So that is um the property of courts in particular,
20:57
Speaker 1: but generally crystals and ceramics to be able to generate
21:02
Speaker 1: an electrical charge just from pressure from like a what's
21:07
Speaker 1: called um mechanical uh energy stress stress. So basically just
21:14
Speaker 1: rubbing a like a piece of courts crystal skull, you
21:19
Speaker 1: should be able to generate electricity. And the harder you rub,
21:23
Speaker 1: the more electricity you generate. So that no one's ever
21:27
Speaker 1: been able to say, well, then that's why you would
21:31
Speaker 1: heal your brains from or anything like that. But the
21:32
Speaker 1: fact that courts is piezzo electric is one of the
21:37
Speaker 1: things that people who believe in the healing powers of
21:40
Speaker 1: these crystal skulls point to, and crystals in general. Yeah
21:44
Speaker 1: that you know Little five Points has had that crystal
21:46
Speaker 1: shop forever, is it's still around. Yeah, I think. So
21:50
Speaker 1: people go in there and they buy their crystal and
21:51
Speaker 1: hanging around their neck, and they believe it has healing
21:55
Speaker 1: properties or energy property, or at the very least it
21:58
Speaker 1: generates a mild electrical current. Yeah. Yeah. Um. Then there's
22:01
Speaker 1: also slightly wilder claims that UM that these these the
22:06
Speaker 1: Piazzo electricity isn't necessarily for healing. It's to um facilitate
22:11
Speaker 1: time travel or UM it serves as some sort of
22:15
Speaker 1: communication device between UM, the aliens who brought it here
22:20
Speaker 1: or Atlantis. We just haven't figured out how to tap
22:24
Speaker 1: it or unlock it yet. Yeah. What is it they
22:26
Speaker 1: compare it to is like a a computer chip potentially
22:30
Speaker 1: that has all this uh ancient wisdom and facts and
22:35
Speaker 1: knowledge just waiting, just waiting. We just don't know how
22:37
Speaker 1: to access. It's like the lunar doomsday are but in
22:41
Speaker 1: crystal skull form exactly. So speaking of Mitchell Hedges, which
22:45
Speaker 1: we weren't uh speaking of, but I'm bringing up in anyway,
22:50
Speaker 1: she UM has loaned it out for study a couple
22:54
Speaker 1: of times. Yeah. Some some people who own skulls are
22:57
Speaker 1: cool with them them being studied, But more frequent the
23:00
Speaker 1: ones that are in possession of a biomuseum. Those are
23:03
Speaker 1: the ones that have been studied. The most uh in
23:06
Speaker 1: vent and art restore named Frank Dorland studied the Mitchell
23:09
Speaker 1: head of skull for six years and he said he
23:12
Speaker 1: heard ringing bells, the sound of choir singing, he saw
23:16
Speaker 1: auras around the skull, and he could see images when
23:19
Speaker 1: gazing into it. Yeah, and this is an art restore.
23:21
Speaker 1: He's not necessarily like a crystal skull devote, right. But
23:25
Speaker 1: he also claimed, on the other hand, that it showed
23:27
Speaker 1: signs of mechanical grinding and holes drilled that we're obviously
23:31
Speaker 1: using modern techniques of metal drill. So he sort of
23:36
Speaker 1: sort of said it was mystical in some ways, and
23:38
Speaker 1: also said, well, but this thing is an ancient because
23:41
Speaker 1: it was clearly made with you know, modern technology. Um.
23:45
Speaker 1: He also supposedly took it to Hewlett Packard's laboratories. Yeah,
23:50
Speaker 1: I thought this was interesting. He said there that they
23:52
Speaker 1: performed a test on it um to to find out
23:56
Speaker 1: if it was pure courts, and they dropped it in
23:58
Speaker 1: benzel alcohol and it disappeared. Yes, it vanished because benzo
24:03
Speaker 1: alcohol and courts have the same diffraction coefficient, which means
24:07
Speaker 1: they bend light at the same angle, which means that
24:10
Speaker 1: if you immerse one and the other is going to
24:12
Speaker 1: disappear and turn invisible. Right. Um. The they also found
24:19
Speaker 1: at Hewlett Packer that was carved from a single piece
24:22
Speaker 1: of crystal, and it was carved against the green, which
24:25
Speaker 1: is very unusual. Um. The problem is Helt Packer has
24:29
Speaker 1: absolutely no record of of these tests being performed. It's
24:34
Speaker 1: possible that that dore Lyn had a friend who you know,
24:38
Speaker 1: said come on buy, we'll have some beers and test
24:40
Speaker 1: your skull, and it wasn't like an official project or
24:44
Speaker 1: he didn't really take it there. This is such a
24:46
Speaker 1: weird claim. Uh. And on a TV show in the
24:49
Speaker 1: eight and nine Arthur C. Clark had a show called
24:52
Speaker 1: Mysterious World and there was a gem expert name Alan
24:56
Speaker 1: Jobbins who also studied the crystal skull the Till Hedges
25:00
Speaker 1: when and said that he thought that it was from crystal,
25:04
Speaker 1: Brazilian crystal from seventeen hundreds, which would not make it ancient. Right, Um,
25:10
Speaker 1: that's not my skull that they think are as possibly Brazilian.
25:14
Speaker 1: The Paris skull and the British Museum skull they think
25:17
Speaker 1: are probably Brazilian, no mines in Brazil. And like you said,
25:22
Speaker 1: after the seventeen hundreds, this is post Columbia, not just
25:25
Speaker 1: post contact. This is like there's revolution stirring in America
25:31
Speaker 1: by this time, and these things were made, right, and
25:35
Speaker 1: all all signs start pointing further further back to Jean Boban. Yeah,
25:40
Speaker 1: and they also thought it was they were carved in
25:42
Speaker 1: Germany most of these, yes, which kind of the Himler
25:44
Speaker 1: thing all of a sudden makes sense apparent. But I
25:47
Speaker 1: would I would venture to guess that Himmler would have
25:50
Speaker 1: never thought that it was made in Germany. I'm sure
25:52
Speaker 1: he thought it was like one of the thirteen Mins skulls.
25:56
Speaker 1: They were very superstitious, those Nazis. Alright, So back to Boban. So,
25:59
Speaker 1: Bob Bonn had his hands on like several of these,
26:02
Speaker 1: um he uh you mentioned Germany. Um, apparently there's a
26:07
Speaker 1: lot of Brazilian crystal that was being worked in Germany
26:10
Speaker 1: in the seventeen hundreds, right or no, the nineteenth century,
26:14
Speaker 1: eight hundreds, um. And apparently Boban got his hands on
26:18
Speaker 1: these things, sold them. But it's not clear whether he
26:22
Speaker 1: knew that they were frauds or not, because I mean,
26:26
Speaker 1: there was a lot of money to be made during
26:27
Speaker 1: the museum period. There was a big boom in artifacts
26:29
Speaker 1: and museums and and auctions like this. So you know,
26:34
Speaker 1: obviously if you're claiming it's one of the original things,
26:36
Speaker 1: you're gonna get top dollar for it exactly, which is
26:39
Speaker 1: how the British Museum came about. It's um skull. It
26:43
Speaker 1: was purchased, like you said, in eight from Tiffany and Company,
26:47
Speaker 1: probably the age of the museum when people would pay
26:49
Speaker 1: a pretty penny for these things. But I guess to
26:52
Speaker 1: its credit, the British Museum led the way in proving
26:56
Speaker 1: that these things were fakes. And I just made air
26:59
Speaker 1: quotes because there's still amazing works of art. They were.
27:03
Speaker 1: They were made by master craftsman in the eight hundreds.
27:07
Speaker 1: Just call it that. That's what I say, what works
27:09
Speaker 1: of art? Yeah, so they can be admired and not
27:11
Speaker 1: and not kind of poked fun at by nonbelievers. Well
27:14
Speaker 1: that's why that school still in the British Museum. They're like,
27:17
Speaker 1: this thing isn't mine, but still check it out exactly,
27:20
Speaker 1: And I'm staring to the aura. Now, the Mitchell Heads
27:23
Speaker 1: of School doesn't fall into that because there's no there's
27:25
Speaker 1: been no UM, I guess acceptance that it was made recently. Yeah,
27:34
Speaker 1: and she and at one point she kind of withdrew
27:36
Speaker 1: it from further investigation in that, right. Yeah, So the
27:41
Speaker 1: British Museum concluded that there's there's was made um using
27:44
Speaker 1: a jeweler's wheel after the European arrival in the America's uh,
27:50
Speaker 1: it's high polish indicates it was carved using traditional European techniques.
27:54
Speaker 1: And then in two thousand five, Jane Walsh, who was
27:57
Speaker 1: an anthropologist with the smith Oonian took the Smithsonian skull
28:02
Speaker 1: to the British Museum and said, hey, look look at
28:04
Speaker 1: this one to do an electron microscope, and they did
28:07
Speaker 1: in there like it's the same thing. They may have
28:09
Speaker 1: actually been made by the same craftsman. Yeah, they said
28:12
Speaker 1: that there's you know, there would have been pretty clear
28:14
Speaker 1: evidence that it was made with ancient tools by the
28:18
Speaker 1: fact that wouldn't be nearly a smooth it would be
28:20
Speaker 1: scratch marks things like that. But it bore none of those, right,
28:23
Speaker 1: And they found, you know, the tell tale signs of
28:27
Speaker 1: modern tool use, right, they didn't. Yeah, they there were
28:32
Speaker 1: no signs of the ancient tool use again if you're
28:35
Speaker 1: a believer in crystal skulls. While these things are they
28:39
Speaker 1: were made over a hundred and fifty years. Of course
28:42
Speaker 1: you're not gonna find as marks or whatever you hack, right,
28:47
Speaker 1: It's a hundred and fifty years of sand rubbin right
28:49
Speaker 1: doing that kind of work. But this is the thing
28:52
Speaker 1: that I like the most. There are out there very
28:57
Speaker 1: crude um crystal skulls. There are some that don't. They
29:02
Speaker 1: don't look like they were made um from a jeweler's
29:07
Speaker 1: wheel and janney in the nineteenth century. So you're saying
29:10
Speaker 1: those are the ones. Who knows, you know, my favorite
29:13
Speaker 1: part is danger and my ally stuff. So we have
29:18
Speaker 1: to mention a few pop culture references UM, starting with
29:21
Speaker 1: Stargate SG one, and then it's been in some video
29:26
Speaker 1: games Nancy Drew Legend of the Crystal Skull, Pirates of
29:30
Speaker 1: the Caribbean third greatest selling video Games two thousand six.
29:34
Speaker 1: And then obviously the biggest reference UM would have to
29:37
Speaker 1: be The Abominable and Forgettable. I said it Indiana Jones
29:43
Speaker 1: and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. And man, I've
29:47
Speaker 1: never wanted to love a movie so much in my life,
29:50
Speaker 1: and I've never been as disappointed. And I'm on record,
29:53
Speaker 1: I'm saying this. I know, and I feel bad because
29:55
Speaker 1: you know, I know that it hurts when we're criticized.
29:58
Speaker 1: We're like, we're doing our best. I'm sure that they
30:01
Speaker 1: really wanted to put out a great movie. They were
30:05
Speaker 1: the Mark. Supposedly they're going to do another one, and
30:08
Speaker 1: I heard I think if Steven Spielberg, if you're listening,
30:13
Speaker 1: Mr Lucas, get back to basics, brothers. That's what I say.
30:17
Speaker 1: Forget all the comparison for can do is on stunts though,
30:21
Speaker 1: forget all the c g I monkeys and uh killer
30:24
Speaker 1: ants and all that silliness. Just get back to basics. Yeah,
30:27
Speaker 1: I agree, go practical And that's that for Chuck. That's
30:31
Speaker 1: it all right? Yes. Uh. If you want to learn
30:35
Speaker 1: more about crystal skulls and see some cool images and
30:37
Speaker 1: crystal skulls, type Crystal skull into the handy search bart
30:41
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. Uh. And since I said that,
30:44
Speaker 1: Chuck's got a letter in his hand and that means
30:46
Speaker 1: it's time for a listener mail. That's right, Josh. A
30:51
Speaker 1: few weeks ago you asked for a call for if
30:53
Speaker 1: you have any ways, you're trying to better humanity. And
30:56
Speaker 1: we got quite a few of these, and so we're
30:57
Speaker 1: gonna read some of them over the next few episodes.
31:01
Speaker 1: This one I'm partial to because i just think it's neat.
31:04
Speaker 1: This from Rachel. She's written in before. I have a
31:07
Speaker 1: project which I'm attempting to improve humanity. Almost every day
31:10
Speaker 1: for the past three years, I've written a pep talk
31:12
Speaker 1: at my website website either one website daily pep talk
31:18
Speaker 1: from a best Friend dot com. My goal is to
31:22
Speaker 1: improve the reader's self esteem by telling them what their
31:24
Speaker 1: best friend might say in a moment of crisis. Type
31:27
Speaker 1: your issue into the handy dandy search bar, find yourself
31:30
Speaker 1: a pep talk. There's more than eight hundred of these,
31:33
Speaker 1: and I'm pretty sure I've covered whatever has you blue
31:35
Speaker 1: or befuddled. So if I haven't covered a particular topic,
31:39
Speaker 1: readers can write to me and request at pep talk
31:41
Speaker 1: also do shout outs for anything a reader wants to celebrate.
31:45
Speaker 1: And I have a podcast called your Effing Awesome e
31:50
Speaker 1: F F I n G. That's how I'm trying to
31:52
Speaker 1: improve humanity. If you were to mention this, I would
31:54
Speaker 1: be thrilled. I'm forever looking to share the pep and traffic,
31:58
Speaker 1: like self esteem can always use boost. Uh. And then
32:02
Speaker 1: she gives an example of a pep talk and it's
32:04
Speaker 1: kind of cool. You know, I showed this stimily. She
32:06
Speaker 1: liked it as well. It's very cool. It's almost like, um,
32:09
Speaker 1: a daily horoscope or fortune cookie, but much better because
32:14
Speaker 1: it's a fortune cookie. Well you know how a fortune
32:17
Speaker 1: cookie it's much less vague. Yeah, I mean it gives
32:19
Speaker 1: you a pep talk. It's you could choose your own
32:21
Speaker 1: adventure fortune cookie. So that's Rachel. The website is daily
32:24
Speaker 1: pep Talk from a best Friend dot com. And it's
32:27
Speaker 1: just it's positive, it's it's neat. I'm glad she's doing it.
32:30
Speaker 1: That's the bad Boys that has a lot of work.
32:33
Speaker 1: I know, I wouldn't figure it to be a need
32:35
Speaker 1: for more than like six different kinds of pep talks. Yeah,
32:37
Speaker 1: I wonder if it's one of those things where she
32:39
Speaker 1: thought that too, and then started to really think about
32:41
Speaker 1: it and kept going and going, and she went mad
32:43
Speaker 1: along the way and ended up killing housecats and then
32:46
Speaker 1: like coming back from the brink and then had to
32:48
Speaker 1: write pep talks about all those exactly. Yeah, and now
32:51
Speaker 1: she's done. Okay. If you have something that you need
32:55
Speaker 1: a pep talk on, ask chucking me and if we
32:59
Speaker 1: can't do it, maybe we'll just send you to um
33:02
Speaker 1: what is it daily pep talk from a best friend
33:04
Speaker 1: dot com? Yes? Uh, send us an email. You can
33:08
Speaker 1: address it to Stuff podcast at discovery dot com. For
33:18
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how
33:20
Speaker 1: Stuff works dot com. This episode of Stuff You Should
33:30
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