Speaker 1: Welcome curious minds to the deep dive. Today, we're peeling
back the layers of a mystery that, well, it's baffled
scientists and captivated adventurers for decades. Now, imagine this a
quiet research lab at Hewlett Packard. This is back in
the nineteen seventies, right, and this wasn't just any lab.
It was a leading facility staffed by brilliant scientists, really
renowned for their work with quartz technology, you know, the
very material that underpins our modern digital world.
Speaker 2: Mm hm hmm. They really knew their stuff when.
Speaker 1: It came to crystals exactly. They'd handled thousands of crystals,
understood their properties inside and out. But then they were
confronted with an object unlike anything they had ever encountered.
Speaker 2: And that was the Mitchell Hedges crystal skull precisely. What's
truly fascinating here, I think, is how a single artifact
could force these leading scientists, you know, masters of courts
technology to question their fundamental assumptions about material properties, the
limits of engineering everything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because when the skull was presented, it looked undeniably ancient.
The estimate was over ten thousand years.
Speaker 2: Old, right, That was the claim.
Speaker 1: Yet its clarity was absolutely shocking. I mean, as clear
and pure as if it had been polished yesterday, which.
Speaker 2: Just doesn't happen naturally over that kind of timescale. It
defied all conventional geological and physical expectations for an object
of that supposed age.
Speaker 1: Absolutely so these brilliant minds naturally decided to put it
to the test. They carefully lowered the skull into a
bath of benzyl alcohol and then illuminated it with polarized light. Okay,
now for our listeners, this isn't just some fancy light show.
This technique is typically used to detect internal stresses, growth patterns,
inclusions within crystals.
Speaker 2: Basically, it's how you look inside the material great to
understand how it formed, how it was worked exactly.
Speaker 1: And what they saw was well, utterly perplexing. And it's
probably putting it mildly. This skull defied everything they knew
about physics, geology, engineering, even optics.
Speaker 2: And that creates a profound implication, doesn't it when an
object just doesn't fit the known rules. The paradox for
them was glaring the level of precision the technology required
to create something like that. It simply didn't exist. Thousands
of years ago, not according to our understanding of history.
And here's the kicker that left them really scratching their heads.
According to those very HP scientists, that specific technology still
doesn't exist today but even now, not on Earth, not
with our current conventional methods. Anyway, that was their assessment
at the time. It wasn't just an anomaly. It was
like a conceptual earthquake for them.
Speaker 1: Wow. So it left them wondering, how could something so
ancient be so technologically advanced if it even was ancient?
Speaker 2: Exactly. That's the core question and.
Speaker 1: That's the core of our deep dive today for you,
our listener. We're going on an investigation into this profound paradox.
What was this impossible object, where did it truly come from?
Speaker 2: And maybe more importantly, what deeper truths might it real?
Not just about the past, but about human knowledge, belief,
and maybe even our own capability. Yeah, absolutely indeed, And
this isn't just about the Mitchell Hedges skull famies as
it is, it's about the incredible, multifaceted story of the
crystal skulls plural. It's this sprawling narrative that reaches from
well ancient myths and seemingly impossible artifacts right through to
modern scientific investigation, and some truly surprising revelations about human potential.
Speaker 1: That's right. We're going to explore the fantastical legends that
spun up around them, these captivating tales of their alleged discovery, and.
Speaker 2: The strange, often unsettling experiences reported by people who studied them,
really weird stuff sometimes.
Speaker 1: Definitely, and then we'll pivot. We'll look at the rigorous
scientific findings that sought to uncover their true origins.
Speaker 2: And it's important to say this journey isn't simply about
debunking a myth, though that's part of it.
Speaker 1: No, it's more nuanced.
Speaker 2: It's about appreciating the enduring power of storytelling, the profound
elure or of the unknown, and perhaps most importantly, the
remarkable capabilities that exist within our own world, within humanity itself.
Speaker 1: We're sifting through layers of mystery today, hopefully to find
some truly surprising and I think maybe even empowering insights
for you.
Speaker 2: Let's dive in.
Speaker 1: Okay, So to truly begin this incredible journey, we have
to start with an origin story that is frankly completely
out of this world. Uh, huh, We're not talking about
ancient Earth. We're going way way back, maybe seventy thousand,
eighty thousand years, to ancient Mars.
Speaker 2: Yes, this is where the narrative takes a truly unexpected
and for some, a pretty mind bending turn.
Speaker 1: Right Mars.
Speaker 2: The idea of a Martian connection might sound like pure
science fiction, but it was actually explored by your real,
declassified government program, the CIA's Project Stargate.
Speaker 1: Okay, Project Stargate, I've heard of that remote viewing right exactly.
Speaker 2: For over twenty years, from the seventies up to nineteen
ninety five. This highly controversial program focused on remote viewing,
essentially attempting to perceive distant or unseen targets using well
psychic ability, and.
Speaker 1: They targeted the usual suspects Soviet Union, China.
Speaker 2: Yeah, many targets were what you'd expect, the Soviets, China,
various intelligence gathering locations in the Middle East. But one
particular target truly stood out from the rest.
Speaker 1: Let me guess, Mars.
Speaker 2: Mars, but not Mars as it is today, you know,
the barren red planet we see. The CIA was specifically
interested in ancient Mars, long before its atmosphere vanished.
Speaker 1: Okay, so how did they do that?
Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty four, they gave one of their most
talented psychics, a man named Joe mcmonagle, specific coordinates four
point eight nine degrees north, nine point five to five
degrees west, very precise, Yeah, and they instructed him to
focus on what was there long long ago, seventy to
eighty thousand years in the past.
Speaker 1: And what did he see or what did he claim
to see.
Speaker 2: Well. Mcmonagal's vision, as it's recorded in the declassified documents,
was incredibly detailed, vivid even. He describes seeing tall, slender.
Speaker 1: Beings, aliums, martians.
Speaker 2: Presumably beings with what appeared to be highly advanced technology.
He saw structures that looked remarkably like pyramids, though maybe
more slender, more elegant than ours.
Speaker 1: Interesting pyramids on Mars. That's a whole other.
Speaker 2: Rabbit hole, isn't it. He also perceived very large people
wearing some kind of strange, heavy clothes, almost like protective suits.
It wasn't just a fleeting image. His account was quite specific,
detailing an entire civilization.
Speaker 1: And what kind of civilization.
Speaker 2: He described magnificent crystal towers on the surface of Mars.
But get this, these weren't just architectural wonders. He perceived
them as giant computers.
Speaker 1: Giant computers made of crystal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, vast crystalline structures capable of storing and transmitting information
across immense distances. Think about that, entire cities conceived as
vast living data centers.
Speaker 1: That's a revolutionary idea even now.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And it raises a crucial question, doesn't it. How
does a society or even a government grapple with phenomena
that seemed to defy all known scientific.
Speaker 1: Principles like remote viewing ancient Mars.
Speaker 2: Right, the very existence of Project Stargate, controversial as it was,
shows a willingness, at least in some corners, to explore
beyond conventional boundaries.
Speaker 1: So what else did McMoneagle see about this Martian civilization?
Speaker 2: His vision continued with a profound dilemma. They were facing.
Their atmosphere was being irrevocably script away, likely by solar winds.
It was an unavoidable fate they couldn't stop so extinction.
They knew their civilization was facing extinction.
Speaker 1: Yes, wow, okay, So if you're an advanced civilization on
the brink of absolute annihilation. What do you do? How
do you preserve your legacy?
Speaker 2: According to this legend, the Martians came up with a drastic,
maybe ingenious solution. They decided to preserve all their knowledge,
their entire history, their very essence, in thirteen crystal skulls.
Speaker 1: Thirteen. That number comes up a.
Speaker 2: Lot in myths, it does. And each of these skulls
supposedly had a specific symbolic purpose within this grand design.
Twelve of them, it was said, contained the complete history
and wisdom of a different world where intelligent life exists.
Speaker 1: So twelve skulls for twelve planets, like a galactic library system.
Speaker 2: Sort of, yeah, a repository of unique galactic civilization. And
then there was the thirteenth skull, the Master School exactly.
This one was truly unique, the ultimate connector the master Key.
It supposedly contained the combined knowledge of every civilization in
our galaxy, a singular, comprehensive repository linking all the others.
Speaker 1: That's an incredible concept, a galactic archive in crystal.
Speaker 2: It really is. And then the story, this incredible galactic saga,
it transitions the Martians facing their end in a final
act of preservation entrusted these incredibly powerful skulls to another
advanced civilization, one whose technology and understanding of crystalline structures
was nearly as sophisticated as their own, the Atlanteans Atlantis.
Speaker 1: Of course, it always comes back to Atlantis, doesn't it.
Speaker 2: It often does in these kinds of narratives. Lan As
the high priests, supposedly deeply attuned to ancient knowledge, understood
the immense power held within these artifacts.
Speaker 1: So they knew what they had.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, they meticulously built sacred temples for each skull,
keeping them closely guarded, hidden from the uninitiated. They knew
that in the wrong hands, such concentrated knowledge and energy
could be catastrophic, world destroying potential if misused.
Speaker 1: Makes sense. Power like that needs careful handling.
Speaker 2: But history, or maybe legend, has a way of repeating itself. Atlantis, too,
faced its own devastating extinction event, the Great Flood, the
cataclysm that wiped out their continent.
Speaker 1: So the cycle continues.
Speaker 2: It seems so. Before their magnificent lands sank beneath the
waves forever, the Atlantean priests, with foresight and desperation, transported
the skulls. They scattered them to different hidden locations around
the globe for safe keeping, awaiting a future.
Speaker 1: Time scattered across the Earth, and.
Speaker 2: According to ancient Maya legend, or at least certain lineages
within the Maya tradition, the most powerful skull the thirteenth one,
the Connector. Yeah, it was specifically entrusted to them.
Speaker 1: The Maya got the master skull.
Speaker 2: Okay. This Maya's skull was said to be truly exceptional,
possessing extraordinary properties. You could communicate telepathically. Apparently.
Speaker 1: I thought, wow.
Speaker 2: It could supposedly answer any question asked of it, not
just with simple answers, but with profound insights. It knew
mankind's true origin, our purpose. It held the truth behind
all the great mysteries of the Pyramids, Stonehenge, even Atlantis itself.
Speaker 1: So it was like a cosmic search engine.
Speaker 2: You could say that, the legend claimed, all you had
to do was ask and it would reveal everything.
Speaker 1: Here's where it gets really interesting. This isn't just a
local myth. It's this galactic saga, a cosmic relay race
of knowledge. It makes you wonder about humanity's enduring fascination
with ancient wisdom and hidden powers, doesn't it?
Speaker 2: It really does, and the grand prophecy surrounding these skulls
the culmination of this Martian Atlantean legacy that when all
thirteen were finally reunited, the power of the gods would
be unleashed, revealing the ultimate fate of the entire human race.
Speaker 1: Whoa heavy stuff.
Speaker 2: But there was a crucier caveat a condition. This profound
revelation would only happen when mankind was deemed worthy worthy.
Speaker 1: How do you define worthy on a species level?
Speaker 2: That's the million dollar question. Isn't it worthy of such
immense truth and power? Presumably without misusing it?
Speaker 1: So a test of maturity? Maybe?
Speaker 2: Perhaps so. For twelve thousand long years, the legends say,
these skulls remained hidden, patiently, awaiting the day when humanity
had matured enough technologically and spiritually to be trusted.
Speaker 1: Twelve thousand years is a long time to wait, a
very long time, and then, supposedly, in January nineteen twenty four,
that day arrived, or seemed to right.
Speaker 2: We shift our scene dramatically now to the dense, dangerous
jungles of British Honduras, which is now modern day Belize.
Speaker 1: And you weren't kidding about dangerous. Describe this jungle.
Speaker 2: It was a truly perilous environment, a wild, untamed wilderness
determined to keep his secrets, teeming with formidable natural guardians
like what snakes? Venomous snakes, absolutely fair vipers, coral snakes
camouflage perfectly. Their neurotoxins could kill within hours. But danger
wasn't just on the ground.
Speaker 1: What else?
Speaker 2: Predatory jaguars attacks from above, powerful jaws capable of crushing
a human skull with one bite. Then you have malaria
carrying mosquitoes buzzing incessantly, scorpions, fire ants, nasty parasites, even
flesh eating botflies. It was hostile territories.
Speaker 1: Sounds absolutely dreadful. Why would anyone go there?
Speaker 2: Few explorers dared to venture that deep into what was
still largely uncharted Maya territory. Even fewer emerged unscathed. But
someone did dare.
Speaker 1: And into this wild, untamed wilderness. Steps Frederick Mitchell Hedges.
Speaker 2: The man himself. But he wasn't just an explorer. He
was an adventurer, a larger than life character who seemed
to believe he was living out his own epic novel.
Speaker 1: What was his philosophy?
Speaker 2: I firmly believed true discoveries weren't made in dusty libraries.
They were made in the field, in the dirt, with
grit and daring. His autobiography Danger Mayale really sums up
his persona filled with incredible, often unbelievable exploits. Unbelievable how
well Minchell Hedges cultivated this grand reputation. Stories of his exploits,
many self promoted dramatically embellished, made him a celebrity back
in England, Like what kind of stories he claimed to
have been a spy in World War One, a sausher
An escape artist captured by dangerous tribes.
Speaker 1: Seriously, oh yeah.
Speaker 2: Claims he thought deadly animals bare handed discovered ancient ruins
buried treasure. He truly embodied that swashbuckling adventurer archetype. Almost
too perfectly. You might say.
Speaker 1: He sounds like a character straight out of a pulp
fiction novel, or maybe maybe even a certain archaeologists adventurer
we all know and love.
Speaker 2: There are definite parallels drawn. Yes, and funnily enough, a
lot of the lore from the fourth Indiana John's movie
Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was actually based on this
very legend we're discussing today.
Speaker 1: No kidding. So Indy Owes something to Mitchell Hedges, or
at least the myth around him in a way.
Speaker 2: Mitchell Hedges was obsessed with lost cities ancient civilizations, especially
the Maya. He was captivated by how their sophisticated knowledge math, astronomy,
architecture seemed to appear almost suddenly in the historical record
from nowhere exactly. It prompted him to speculate that an
advanced culture, maybe Atlantean survivors, or even as local legends hinted,
star people, star people, Yeah, that they had aided the
Maya in their rapid development.
Speaker 1: Okay, star people, where did that idea come from?
Speaker 2: Local workers descendants of the Maya in British Honduras told
Mitchell Hedges stories about mysterious beings who appeared suddenly from
the sky, shared immense knowledge, and then just vanished. Some
of these descendants believed these beings were indeed from Atlantis,
a belief Mitchell Hedges wholeheartedly embraced. He actively sought to
prove it.
Speaker 1: So he went looking for evidence.
Speaker 2: Yes, with the these theories burning in his mind, he
hired local guides to lead him deep into the jungle.
He promised to find a lost city, something that could
finally provide concrete proof of his grand theories, maybe even
find that legendary thirteenth skull.
Speaker 1: Must have been a tough journey.
Speaker 2: Slow, painstaking work through that dense, suffocating jungle, relentless heath
and humidity. But then, after weeks of hacking through foliage,
Mitchell Hedges spouted it, a tiny break in the canopy
above a sign. He signed his team to stop. Crouched down,
started digging. About six inches down, his shovel hit something solid.
He called for help. Within minutes they cleared the soil
revealed a gleaming white stone. If he found it, he
thought the legend was true. He believed he had found
an ancient lost city. He had no idea he was
about to discover something or so the story goes much
much older and more significant.
Speaker 1: What was the city like?
Speaker 2: Mitchell Hedges and his team spent weeks clearing the site.
The ancient Maya city they uncovered was truly unlike anything
he had seen before, definitely not typical Maya construction. The
colossal stones were perfectly cut, fitted together without mortar, reminiscent
of ancient Egyptian sites, which only fueled his Atlantean theories.
Speaker 1: What kind of structures they found?
Speaker 2: Remains of homes, markets, temples, and amphitheater and at the
center a great pyramid unlike any other in meso America.
These were the ruins of Lubantun.
Speaker 1: Lubontun, what does that mean?
Speaker 2: Place the fallen stones? A name that certainly makes you wonder,
as Mitchell Hedges did, where such perfectly cut stones might
have fallen From.
Speaker 1: Good point, he must have been thrilled.
Speaker 2: Oh, he meticulously documented everything in his field journal, The
position of each stone, building alignments convinced he was compiling
proof of a global advanced civilization in.
Speaker 1: The pyramid anything special.
Speaker 2: There After clearing heavy debris from the very top of
that central pyramid, a small dark opening was revealed. Peering
down about forty feet below, they saw a distinct glint,
a flat flash of light, like something glowing in the
darkness of the temple chamber. That was the thought. Mitchell
Hedges measured the opening far too small for him to
fit through. He needed one of the younger, thinner men.
They go. They all flatly refused, their faces contorted with fear.
They were convinced entering that sacred temple would bring a
terrible curse. They insisted whatever was inside should remain undisturbed.
Ancient magic, they said.
Speaker 1: But Mitchell Hedges didn't buy it, not at all.
Speaker 2: He called it superstitious hocus pocus. He looked at their
terrified faces, their earlier excitement gone, and apparently dramatically asked,
does nobody have the courage to make the greatest discovery
in history? Silence fixed, silence broken only by jungle sounds,
and then from the back, a soft, unwavering voice responded,
I'll do it.
Speaker 1: Who was it?
Speaker 2: Mitchell Hedge's seventeen year old daughter, Anna.
Speaker 1: His daughter? She was there?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yes, Anna had been her father's fearless traveling companions
since she was just ten, accompanied to him on perilous expeditions.
She was every bit as daring, maybe just as reckless,
as he was.
Speaker 1: Wow, so Anna volunteered.
Speaker 2: She crouched over the small dark opening, scanned the cavern below,
determined to gaze. A few seconds later, turned around and
calmly said, fetch me the rope.
Speaker 1: What day was this?
Speaker 2: It was supposedly her seventeenth birthday in nineteen twenty four,
a date she would later emphasize repeatedly, I'm maybe adding to.
Speaker 1: The dramatic flare, right, So they lowered her down.
Speaker 2: Carefully lowered her into the black void. When she reached
the chamber floor, she approached the altar where the glint
was seen, fell to her knees and began digging with
her bare hands, feeling around in the ancient dust. Must
have been tense, breathless minutes passed, Then she tugged twice
on the rope, the signal to come back up. When
Anna finally emerged back into the jungle sunlight, she has
something carefully wrapped in her shirt. She unwrapped it, handed
it to her father, a flawless human skull carved from
his single, impossibly pure piece of quartz crystal, absolutely perfect,
glimmering in the sun.
Speaker 1: What did the workers do?
Speaker 2: Mitchell Hedges held it high. There was a moment of stunned,
almost reverent silence from the Maya workers. Then they just
erupted joy awe, maybe fear too. An elder stepped forward,
eyes wide, confirmed its ancient status, thousands of years old,
he claimed, and then he shared a chilling legend. What
ledgend passed down through generations, high priests could will someone
to death using that skull, such was its inherent dark power.
Speaker 1: Will someone to death? Yikes?
Speaker 2: From then on. Mitchell Hedges, ever, the showman, immediately dubbed
it the skull of Doom.
Speaker 1: The skull of Doom quite a name. So what does
this all mean? It's a story straight out of an
adventure novel, right, The daring daughter, the cursed temple, the
miraculous fine, the ancient prophecy.
Speaker 2: It's got all the classic irresistible.
Speaker 1: Elements, it really does. Mitchell Hedges return to London, carefully
packed the skull away and surprisingly didn't show it to
anyone or even discuss it publicly for almost thirty years.
Speaker 2: Oh, isn't it to dramatic discovery? He only mentioned it
one more time in writing before he died in nineteen
fifty nine. Very odd, and the sheer perfection of that
discovery narrative, almost too neat, makes you wonder how much
of what we want to believe actually shapes the stories
we tell, even influences how we perceive evidence. It's a
recurring theme with artifacts like this.
Speaker 1: That's a good point. So what happened after he died?
Speaker 2: When Anna inherited the skull in nineteen fifty nine. She
claimed she finally understood why her father kept it hidden.
The crystal skull, she said, started talking to her, talking
like voices, and not just talking, it was singing, singing.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's quite a claim. An inanimate object communicated.
Speaker 2: Absolutely so naturally. Animental Hedges contacted Frank Doreland in nineteen
sixty three. He's an art restorer, a crystal expert, had
a reputation for working with unusual materials.
Speaker 1: She wanted him to analyze.
Speaker 2: It, exactly, analyze the skull determined secrets. He of course
said yes, intrigued by the repetation of the skull of Doom,
and as soon as Frank received it, he immediately noticed
something strange himself. He claimed the skull would emit this
low resonant singing sound.
Speaker 1: He hear.
Speaker 2: That's too, so, he claimed, And soon even more peculiar things,
according to Dorelyn and his wife, started to occur neck
what whenever the skull was out of his protective vault.
They claimed they could hear soft, disembodied voices, ethereal music
like whispers and humming, seemingly coming from the crystal.
Speaker 1: Itself, whispers and music.
Speaker 2: Okay, Then there was the phenomenon of smells. Some people
reported the sweet, fresh scent of apple blossoms near it.
Others described a pungent, athytic smell like vinegar, different sense
for different people at different times.
Speaker 1: Frank Dorlen's experiences sound like something straight out of a
suspense thriller or maybe a ghost story. Whispers, smells, visions.
It certainly added to the mystique, didn't it.
Speaker 2: It absolutely fueled the legend. He studied the skull for
six years, particulously documenting every range occurrence. He claimed the
skull channeled light through its perfectly carved eye sockets, making
them glow with an internal light.
Speaker 1: Glowing eyes. Seriously, that was the claim.
Speaker 2: Different people apparently experienced different physiological effects too. Some felt
overwhelming thirst, other's unusual warmth or chills, and the sense persisted.
But perhaps most dramatically, some, when looking intently through the
skull's left eye, claimed to see vivid visions ancient temples
ruins played out like little movie scenes inside the crystal.
Speaker 1: Visions in the skull's eye.
Speaker 2: That's wild, And one night Dorlan even recounted hearing unsettling
movement downstairs, faint bells, chimes, whispers, went down to find
objects scattered everywhere, and the skull itself supposedly perfectly positioned
to capture the sunrise, staring at him with bright orange eyes.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's getting into Poltergeists territory.
Speaker 2: It really is, and this period highlights that human tendency
doesn't it to attribute unusual phenomena to unknown, often supernatural force,
especially when faced with an object that seems to defy explanation.
The desire to understand, even to believe in, the extraordinary,
can be very powerful.
Speaker 1: So did Dorelyn think it was magic cursed?
Speaker 2: Interestingly, No, despite all these seemingly magical experiences, Dorelyn didn't
actually believe the skull was enchanted or supernatural in that sense.
He theorized it was an incredibly sophisticated machine. A machine
he believed the crystal somehow interacted with human thought, with
consciousness through something he called crystallography, the idea that crystal
structures could be influenced by and maybe influence the human mind.
Speaker 1: Crystallography. Okay, so he wanted proof, yes.
Speaker 2: To prove his theory, he confidently took the skull back
to Hewlett, Packard's crystal lab. He believed their unparallel expertise
in courts would validate his claims about its unique machine
like properties.
Speaker 1: Back to HP. Imagine being those scientists again. They spent
their careers perfecting courts tech.
Speaker 2: And Dorelyn brings this thing clumbing. It interacts with minds.
They assigned their top people to it, the absolute best
minds in crystal engineering.
Speaker 1: And what do they find this time?
Speaker 2: Every test they conducted, every angle they pursued, it led
them back to the same bewildering conclusion. One they just
couldn't wrap their heads around. Even with all their expertise,
Their assessment remained this object should not exist.
Speaker 1: Still, what specifically did the tests show?
Speaker 2: Well, their initial tests were thorough. They confirmed again that
the skull and its detachable jaw came from a single
monolithic piece of quartz crystal, which is already incredibly difficult
without modern tools.
Speaker 1: Right, we covered that, But what was even.
Speaker 2: More baffling was that the courts had been cut against
its natural axis. Think of it like carving wood against
the grain. It's extraordinarily difficult, usually causes the material to
splinter or shatter.
Speaker 1: So how is it done?
Speaker 2: They deemed it almost impossible with any known conventional technology
of the time, or frankly, with any traditional stone cutting
techniques even now.
Speaker 1: Surface did they find tool marks this time?
Speaker 2: That's the other mystery. When viewed under a high powered microscope,
the skull's surface was perfectly smooth, almost unnaturally so. No
discernible tool marks, no microscopic scratches or imperfections that would
indicate how it was shaped, none at all, None they
could detect. The only explanations the HP scientists could offer
were well pretty extreme. Either over a century of continuous
polishing with water and sand, a.
Speaker 1: Century of polishing that sounds absurd.
Speaker 2: A monumental, almost absurd undertaking for one artifact, yes, or
the more unsettling possibility it was made with technology we
don't understand. A phrase that coming from leading experts carries immense.
Speaker 1: Weight technology we don't understand. Wow.
Speaker 2: Furthermore, the skull's intricate internal structure suggested deliberate advanced engineering.
The cranium, for instance, contained what they described as intricate
ribbon prisms and light tunnels. The eye sockets were precisely
crafted lenses deg to focus and manipulate lights.
Speaker 1: So it wasn't just carved, It was engineered internally.
Speaker 2: That's what it looked like. This wasn't an accidental formation
or a simple carving. It pointed towards deliberate engineering, maybe
even molecular alteration of the crystal. Modern techniques like using
femtosecond lasers can create nanostructures inside crystal now.
Speaker 1: But not back then exactly.
Speaker 2: We're only just mastering that kind of thing, let alone
achieving it potentially thousands of years ago. The scientific conundrum
was profound. How could this object exist with such precision,
such properties, without the tools and knowledge we consider prerequisites.
Speaker 1: Imagine the sheer cognitive dissonance for those scientists trying to
grapple with something that literally shouldn't be possible according to
their own physics and engineering principles. It's a true enigma,
a challenge to the established paradigm.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and when Healtt Packard, a reputable scientific institution, publicized
these baffling, inconclusive findings, while it naturally fueled White iidespread public.
Speaker 1: Speculation, people must have gone wild.
Speaker 2: They did. People started to genuinely wonder if the ancient
legend of the thirteen crystal skulls was actually true, and
if maybe, just maybe mankind was now worthy that more
skulls were out there, waiting to be found, destined to reunite.
Speaker 1: So the HP tests kicked off a new search.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, this publicity ignited a widespread, almost frantic search. Researchers, enthusiasts,
even some governments started contacting museums worldwide asking if they
had any ancient crystal skulls of their collections, maybe tucked
away in storage, and did they Surprisingly, yes, they found more.
In nineteen ninety two, a mysterious, unmarked package arrived at
the Smithsonian Institution no return address, inside a substantial crystal
skull weighing a hefty thirty one pounds thirty one pounds
and anonymous hotly anonymous. This skull, later dubbed the Peris
Skull due to its eventual identification, sparked doctor Jane Walsh's
extensive and rigorous investigation into the whole crystal skull phenomenon.
Speaker 1: Doctor Jane Walsh at the Smithsonian, Okay, so she took
a lead.
Speaker 2: She did, and her research quickly revealed that this Smithsonian
skull wasn't unique, nor was the Mitchell Hedges skull the
first one known she hadn'covered two other skulls that had
appeared even before Mitchell Hedges made his famous.
Speaker 1: Find earlier ones where.
Speaker 2: In eighteen seventy eight an Aztec crystal skull appeared at
the museat U Kai Branley in Paris, and another showed
up at the British Museum in London in eighteen ninety.
Speaker 1: Seven, Paris and London before Mitchell Hedges.
Speaker 2: Exactly, and the common thread connecting these earlier discoveries, the
thread that began to unravel the whole mystery a rather
notorious figure named Eugene Bobon.
Speaker 1: Eugene Bobon, who was he Beobon.
Speaker 2: Was a fascinating character, a French archaeologist who, perhaps seeing
more profit and trade, transformed into a shrewd antiquities dealer.
Speaker 1: An archaeologist turned Dealeray the Napoleon.
Speaker 2: The third had sent him to Mexico back in eighteen
fifty seven to collect artifacts for France, but it seems
Bobon collected quite a few for himself too, coognizing their
potential market value.
Speaker 1: Ah helping himself to the goods, seems like it.
Speaker 2: Bobon eventually opened a shop in France in eighteen sixty nine,
and there he sold a crystal skull to a French explorer.
This was the first publicly displayed one, now known as
the Paris.
Speaker 1: Skull, the one Walsh ended up studying the.
Speaker 2: Very same Ten years later he sold another one to Tiffany's,
the famous American jewelry company. That one eventually made its
way into the British Museum and became known as the
London Skull.
Speaker 1: So Boben is the source for these earlier skulls.
Speaker 2: He's the common link.
Speaker 1: The scientific detective work here is just as compelling as
the myth itself. It's like a historical hood unit, where
the tools, or lack thereof, tell the story. So doctor
Walsh and her colleague.
Speaker 2: British scientist Margaret Sachs, they teamed up, armed with modern
forensic analysis, electron microscopes the works. They set about meticulously
examining these skulls, the Paris one, the British Museum one,
the mysterious Smithsonian one.
Speaker 1: And what can an electron microscope show you on a
crystal skull?
Speaker 2: He uses a beam of elect trons to magnify objects
millions of times. You can see incredibly fine details microscopic scratches,
tool marks, things invisible to the naked eye, evidence of
how it was made.
Speaker 1: And did they find anything?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yes, their critical discovery was truly the smoking gun.
Under that powerful magnification, they found definitive, unambiguous marks from
grinding wheels on all of.
Speaker 1: Them, grinding wheel like modern grinding wheels exactly.
Speaker 2: These weren't ancient, unexplainable marks from primitive tools. Crucially, these
specific pattern striations grooves perfectly matched the unique cutting techniques
used on stones from meat or Oberstein.
Speaker 1: Eider Oberstein, Where's that a small.
Speaker 2: German village famous for its precision gem cutters and its
state of the art grinding wheels since the late nineteenth century.
Speaker 1: Germany, not Mexico or Central America.
Speaker 2: Not only that, but further tests on the courts itself
showed the material wasn't from Central America at all. It
was from Brazil or Madagascar.
Speaker 1: Brazil or Madagascar and.
Speaker 2: Guess what I'd or overseen had received large shipments of
Brazilian courts right around that time, specifically between eighteen seventy
and eighteen ninety.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's pretty conclusive.
Speaker 2: It lined up perfectly. So the puzzle pieces started falling
into place with stunning clarity. Both of Bobin's skulls, the
ones he sold in the late nineteenth century, were now
definitively confirmed manufactured in Germany between eighteen seventy and eighteen ninety.
Speaker 1: Okay, so Bobin's skulls were fakes. What about the Smithsonian one,
the anonymous package.
Speaker 2: It had identical grinding patterns, and it was hydration dated
that the method estimating age based on how much water
the surface is absorbed over time to the exact same
period eighteen seventy eighteen ninety.
Speaker 1: Incredible, The science nailed it down.
Speaker 2: The truth was laid bare. Three supposedly ancient mystical skulls
were unequivocally exposed as sophisticated forgeries, modern reproductions made in Germany,
then deceptively sold by Eugene Boben as authentic Mexican artifacts.
Speaker 1: The world must have been stunned. The legend just crumbled.
Speaker 2: It did, and it raises that important question again, what
does it mean when science, with its rigorous method can
so definitively challenge a widely held, almost revered belief. It
just underscores the critical importance of skeptical inquiry. Robust methodology
when evaluating extraordinary claims, no matter how appealing the story is.
Speaker 1: So three skulls down, what about the most famous one,
the Mitchell Hedges skull of Doom.
Speaker 2: Naturally, after the truth about the others hit the media,
everyone wanted Anna Mitchell Hedges to allow her skull to
undergo the same tests.
Speaker 1: Did she agree?
Speaker 2: No, Anna, fiercely protective of her father's legacy and her
dramatic story, steadfastly refused. She guarded her secret, her narrative
right up until her death in two thousand.
Speaker 1: And seven, so she never let it be tested.
Speaker 2: Not by Walsh's team. No. However, when Anna passed away,
her husband Bill Holman, inherited the skull okay, and in
two thousand and eight, maybe confident in its authenticity or
maybe just wanting to put the matter to rest, Holman
made a big decision. Bravely walked into the Smithsonian carrying
the infamous skull of dooone to face doctor Jane Walsh
in her team.
Speaker 1: He brought it in. What happened well.
Speaker 2: As it turns out, it didn't take the scientists much
time at all to reach the inevitable conclusion.
Speaker 1: It was a fake too, the Mitchell.
Speaker 2: Hedges crystal skull was also conclusively proven to be man made,
bearing the identical telltale tool marks found on the other
confirmed forged skulls from Idar Oberstein oh Man.
Speaker 1: The final nail in the coffin for the legend.
Speaker 2: Pretty much the entire fantastical narrative. Anna had meticulously constructed,
the jungle adventure, the miraculous birthday discovery, all of it
began to crumble under the weight of scientific evidence.
Speaker 1: So what was the real story with Frederick, Mitchell Hedges
and Anna.
Speaker 2: Well. While Frederick was undeniably an adventurer a prolific writer,
his adventures, it became clear, were wildly exaggerated, off and
outright fiction. Anna, it seems, took after him, inherited his
flare for the dramatic. Her discovery story was a complete fabrication,
woven from whole cle loss. So she claimed to find
the skull in Lubenton in nineteen twenty four on her
seventeenth birthday, but historical records showed she wasn't even in
Lubenton that year.
Speaker 1: She wasn't there nope.
Speaker 2: Furthermore, her father didn't discover Lubentune either. The site was
actually found and excavated by a different archaeologist, doctor Thomas Gohne,
way back in nineteen oh three.
Speaker 1: Wow. So the whole foundation of the.
Speaker 2: Story was wrong completely, And her dates for finding the
skull kept shifting too, Sometimes nineteen twenty four, sometimes twenty five,
twenty six, twenty seven, even twenty eight.
Speaker 1: But always on her seventeenth birthday.
Speaker 2: Always her seventeenth birthday, a detail that clearly became part
of her evolving narrative, not a concrete memory. You'd think
she'd remember the actual year she made such an incredible find.
Speaker 1: Good point. So if she didn't find it, how did
they get it?
Speaker 2: The actual acquisition was far more mundane. Truth is often
less dramatic than fictional. He usually is Frederick Mitchell Hedges
acquired it in nineteen forty three. He bought it from
Sotheby's auction house in London.
Speaker 1: He bought it at an auction.
Speaker 2: YEP, which lanes why neither he nor Anna ever mentioned
the skull in the nineteen twenties or thirties. They simply
didn't own it yet that.
Speaker 1: Makes perfect sense. Who sold it at Sawbebiest.
Speaker 2: The seller was a man named Sidney Burnie of London.
And guess who he claimed he got it from.
Speaker 1: Let me guess Eugene Boben.
Speaker 2: A collection once owned by none other than Eugene Bobon.
It finally closed the loop, definitively tying the Mitchell Hedges
Skull to the same fraudulent origins as the others, a
century long chain of deceit.
Speaker 1: Unbelievable. It all traces back to Bobon and the German
gem cutters, it seems so.
Speaker 2: And if that wasn't enough, it looks like Mitchell Hedges
might have even borrowed elements for his story.
Speaker 1: Borrowed from where from?
Speaker 2: A nineteen thirty six novel by Jack McLaren called The
Crystal Skull a novel?
Speaker 1: Seriously, Yeah.
Speaker 2: The book was about a scientist who finds a crystal
skull that has telepathic powers and can show visions of
the future, a striking parallel to the legend he later propagated.
Speaker 1: That's that's almost comical, life imitating art, which was then
presented as life.
Speaker 2: Something like that.
Speaker 1: What about Frank Dorlin, the guy with the singing skull
and visions? Did he ever backtrack?
Speaker 2: He did? Dorland eventually admitted to fabricating those sensational supernatural
aspects himself, the magic voices, the poulter diced, the glowing eyes.
He made it all up, good question, Maybe for attention,
maybe to enhance the mystique. Ironically, his admission actually annoyed Anna,
led to a falling out between them.
Speaker 1: Why would she be annoyed if it helped the legend?
Speaker 2: Because his increasingly outlandish stories were apparently making potential buyers
for the skull uncomfortable, hindering her attempts to sell it.
Later on, he wanted to sell, she wanted to keep
the legend pure. Maybe their interests diverged.
Speaker 1: Money complicates everything, And just to be clear, HP's.
Speaker 2: Tests right, let's clarify that. Yeah, Hewlett Packer did test
the skull, as we mentioned, they did confirm it was
a single piece of quartz and noted the difficulty of
its manufacture cutting against the axis, no tool marks, etc.
But the categorically refused to test anything supernatural or validate
any of dore Lyn's more fantastic claims about voices or visions.
Their official statements were carefully worded, focusing only on the
physical properties, so.
Speaker 1: The public kind of filled in the blanks heard what
they wanted to hear exactly.
Speaker 2: The public, eager for a mystery, ran with the inconclusive
parts and the should not exist angle, ignoring the lack
of confirmation for the supernatural.
Speaker 1: Stuff got it. So the final word from.
Speaker 2: Science, the final definitive word from rigorous scientific investigation, is
this the Maya legend of the thirteen crystal skulls as
we know it is firmly debunked.
Speaker 1: No such legend existed.
Speaker 2: Neither the Maya, nor the Aztec, nor any other Mesoamerican
civilization had any such legend of thirteen prophetic skulls from
space or Atlantis. They certainly worked with quartz and other
stones culturally, but not this specific myth.
Speaker 1: So where did the myth come from?
Speaker 2: It was, in fact almost entirely created by the New
Age movement of the nineteen seventies and nineteen eighties. They
were eager for spiritual mysterious artifacts to elevate their beliefs,
and the skulls fit the bill perfectly.
Speaker 1: So a modern myth attached to nineteenth century object.
Speaker 2: Precisely, this captivating, intricate legend managed to fool people and
persistent popular culture for a full century.
Speaker 1: This is a powerful lesson, isn't it How myths can persist,
sometimes for a century or more, even when evidence starts
mounting against them. It highlights that fascinating blend of genuine
human fascination, our desire for profound stories, and well outright
fabrication that fuels these enduring legends.
Speaker 2: It really does.
Speaker 1: But here's the kicker, and this is truly exciting. Even
though the legend of the crystal skulls turned out to
be a hoax, a magnificent story, but a hoax. Nonetheless,
the time and effort spent investigating them were absolutely not wasted.
So because quartz crystal itself, the very material of these
fabled artifacts, possesses truly astounding properties, making it, in a
very real scientific sense, as close to a magic material
as we can get.
Speaker 2: Ah, So the materials where the real wonder lies.
Speaker 1: Exactly. What's truly fascinating here is how science, by rigorously
debunking one captivating story, often inadvertently opens doors to much deeper,
more profound truths about the natural world and our own
technological capabilities.
Speaker 2: Okay, tell me about quartz. What makes it so special? Scientifically?
Speaker 1: Well, crystals, for instance, are remarkable at manipulating light. They
can manipulate light frequencies with incredible precision, splitting them, combining them,
focusing them. This property by refringents is fundamental to how
lasers work.
Speaker 2: Right. Lasers rely on crystals.
Speaker 1: Essential components in those powerful beams of light used everywhere
from fiber optics to medical surgery.
Speaker 2: Okay, what else?
Speaker 1: Okay, so the skulls weren't alien tech, but the material
they're made from. This is where the real wonder truly begins.
It's like the real world is even more incredible than
the myth. Crystals, particularly quartz, can generate electricity when you
put mechanical stress on them. That's the piece of electric.
Speaker 2: Effect us to electric like in watches and lighters exactly.
Speaker 1: It's why quartz crystal in watches, those clicky igniters, and lighters,
even microphones. But not only can they generate electricity, certain
crystals can store it more efficiently than even our best
batteries rather than batteries potentially, yes, and some crystals can
conduct electricity with perfect efficiency at extremely low temperatures, bordering
on what's called zero point energy territory.
Speaker 2: Zero point energy that's theoretical, right, tapping energy from the
vacuum of space.
Speaker 1: Highly theoretical, yes, but the potential implications if harnessed are
well world changing.
Speaker 2: Okay, what else can crystals do? This is fascinating.
Speaker 1: Beyond energy, crystals are crucial in cutting edge fields like
quantum computing because they can entangle particles.
Speaker 2: Quantum entangle that that weird linkage between particles.
Speaker 1: Right, exactly, that bizarre phenomenon where particles become linked sharing
the same state no matter how far apart they are. Crystals,
with their precise atomic lattice, help create and manipulate the
entangled photons needed for carantum information.
Speaker 2: Key to future computing.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and scientists are also actively using crystals to create
self healing materials. Self healing like materials that fix themselves.
Speaker 2: Imagine a cracked phone screen or a damaged airplane wing
just repairing itself. They embed tiny crystals that respond to
damage by releasing healing agents or reforming their structure.
Speaker 1: That sounds like science fiction.
Speaker 2: It's cutting edge research in some theories, really pushing the
boundaries of physics, even suggest crystals could be key to
breakthroughs like teliportation.
Speaker 1: Tetleportation seriously, or.
Speaker 2: Even understanding the secret to consciousness itself. Now, a lot
of this is still theoretical or in early stages, but
the immense potential is undeniable.
Speaker 1: Okay, mind blown. But you said there was one property
that connects back to the original legend.
Speaker 2: Ah, yes, the ultimate property maybe, and one we are
using right now increasingly so. It finds an astonishing parallel
with those initial Martian and Atlantean legends.
Speaker 1: Data story, data storage in crystals, those Martian computer towers.
Speaker 2: Precisely, if you were an advanced civilization facing extinction wanting
to preserve all your knowledge, your entire history forever, encoding
that knowledge onto crystal would truly be the ultimate solution.
Speaker 1: Why is crystal? Why not?
Speaker 2: You know, hard drives durability. Crystal, specifically, quartz is harder
than steel. It can survive extreme heat, immense pressure, corrosive
environments that would destroy traditional storage media in no time.
Speaker 1: How long could data last?
Speaker 2: Data is stored on crystal using Wadern techniques can literally
last for over thirteen billion years.
Speaker 1: Thirteen billion that's older than the Earth.
Speaker 2: Effectively geological timescales outliving civilizations, planets, maybe even stars. Imagine
the longevity of that information enduring across.
Speaker 1: Eyon's Okay, that's durable. What about capacity? Can it hold much?
Speaker 2: The capacity is immense, almost unfathomable. Scientists have already made
incredible strides. Get this. They've successfully encoded the entire human genome.
Speaker 1: All three billion based pairs, all.
Speaker 2: Of it onto a tiny crystal smaller than a quarter
How do they even do that? They use focused femtosecond lasers,
these fire pulses lasting mere quadrillions of a second to
create microscopic layers of nanostructures inside the crystal. Think of
it like a truly five D hard drive. Five D
data encoded not just on a surface, but in multiple dimensions, depth,
orientation of the nanostructures, polarization of light passing through it
packs information incredibly densely.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's incredible. So let's take that a step further,
our mythical thirty pound crystal skull. If that were real
and could store data this way, how much could it hold?
Speaker 2: Hypothetically, if a thirty pound crystal skull could store data
using these advanced techniques, it could hold exabtes of information eggszapites.
Speaker 1: That sounds like a lot. Put that in.
Speaker 2: Perspective for us Okay, try to grasp this scale. On
just one of those skulls. You could store the full
text of every single book ever written in human history,
from ancient scrolls to every novel published yesterday, and still
room to spare.
Speaker 1: Every book ever written. Wow, okay, what else?
Speaker 2: Then? You could add every single scientific paper, every journal,
every research study ever conducted by humanity, from the first
observations to cutting edge quantum physics, and still have room.
Speaker 1: Keep going.
Speaker 2: Then, include every letter, every historical manuscript, every record that
has ever existed, ancient tablets, digital archives, everything, and still
have room for every single photo or video ever taken
by human beings.
Speaker 1: Photos and videos too, the entire visual record.
Speaker 2: Everything captured, and if you could somehow digitize it, you
would still have room for every song, every song, every
symphony composed, every piece of music humanity is ever created.
Speaker 1: Music, books, dot science, dot hisstory, dot photos, dot videos.
Speaker 2: What's left after all of that? You would still have
room in that single thirty pound crystal skull for every
single word spoken in every conversation by every human who
has ever lived on this planet, from the dawn of
language to today.
Speaker 1: Wait, every conversation, And that's impossible to even comprehend.
Speaker 2: The storage potential is astronomical.
Speaker 1: Imagine having all of human knowledge, art, all our collective
conversation stored in something you could literally hold in your hands.
That's an almost unimaginable leap in information preservation. It shows
the very real, tangible future of data.
Speaker 2: It really does.
Speaker 1: So, as we wrap up the steep dive the legend
of the Crystal skulls, While it was ultimately debunked by science,
it should serve as a powerful, maybe inspiring reminder, a
reminder of what that wisdom, profound insight, groundbreaking technical innovation.
They don't need to come from a lost civilization from
outer space, right.
Speaker 2: The profound insight here is that the human race is
inherently capable of achieving everything described in that legend, and
vastly unimaginably more. We haven't even scratched the surface of
our own potential, our collective ingenuity, our capacity for discovery.
Speaker 1: That's right. I have no doubt that one day humanity
will unlock power and technology far beyond what we can
eat even properly imagined today. Interstellar travel, anti gravity, maybe
even telepathic communication, teleportation, instant access to all human knowledge.
Speaker 2: These aren't just science fiction fantasies anymore, are they? They
feel closer within our grasp, within our intellectual and creative
evolution exactly. But this immense power, of this profound understanding,
it won't come from an ancient skull supposedly from Mars
or some hidden Atlantean artifact. It will come from a
machine far more advanced, a machine that's constantly learning, adapting,
endlessly evolving.
Speaker 1: And that machine, the.
Speaker 2: Skull sitting on your shoulders, the human mind itself. If
we connect this to the bigger picture, it really encourages
us to look inward for solutions, for discoveries, to harness
our own incredible potential, rather than always looking outward to
external mythical sources. The greatest mysteries and their most profound
answers often reside right within us.
Speaker 1: So the real magic wasn't in ancient artifacts or alien visits,
but in the boundless power of human ingenuity, relentless curiosity,
and our incredible capacity to imagine and then crucially to create.
What an incredible journey we've been on today.
Speaker 2: It really has been from Mars to Atlantis, to the
jungles of Blize and finally into the lab and the
potential of the human mind absolutely, and that leads us
with this final thought to ponder for you, our listener,
if we can now scientifically imagine storing all of human knowledge, art,
and conversation on a mere crystal, what does that imply
about the unwritten knowledge, the yet to be discovered truths,
the untapped creative potential that resides right now in our
collective consciousness.
Speaker 1: What secrets, what breakthroughs might your skull unlock in the
coming centuries