The Ancient Alien Question (20 page)

The Mitchell-Hedges Crystal Skull

Scientists argue that none of the crystal skulls were found during an archaeological excavation—that is, apart from the so-called Mitchell-Hedges Crystal Skull, which was mentioned in
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
. Of all the crystal skulls, this is—rightfully or not—seen as the most intricate and is definitely the most controversial. “Believers” see it as the one crystal skull that is impossible to have been made by human hands—leaving only one possibility: that the skull was made by a non-terrestrial intelligence.

The Mitchell-Hedges Crystal Skull is the most enigmatic of all crystal skulls. Its detachable jaw, made from the same piece of crystal as the rest of the skull, has posed an impossible challenge for those looking for a simple explanation.

The skull was named after its discoverer, the adventurer F.A. “Mike” Mitchell-Hedges, if we believe the “official” version of its find. The official version goes that the skull was found in the ruins of Lubantuun in Belize (then British Honduras) in 1924 during an archaeological survey of the site. This “Skull of Doom,” as Mitchell-Hedges labeled it, was not referenced until 1931, and the seven-year gap has been used by skeptics to argue that the story of its discovery is a lie.

In his autobiography,
Danger My Ally
(1954), Mitchell-Hedges stated that “The Skull of Doom is made of pure rock crystal and according to scientists it must have taken 150 years, generation after generation working all the days of their lives, patiently rubbing down with sand an immense block of rock crystal until the perfect skull emerged.” He continued, “It is at least 3,600 years old and according to legend was used by the High Priest of the Maya when performing esoteric rites. It is said that when he willed death with the help of the skull, death invariably followed. It has been described as the embodiment of all evil.”

So, Mitchell-Hedges associated this crystal skull with the Maya in 1600
BC
—when the Maya were not yet around. Noting Mitchell-Hedges’ interest in finding evidence for a lost civilization of Atlantis, many people have argued that the skull is therefore a relic of
this
earlier civilization. You can imagine what the skeptics have made of this theory.

In 1936, eminent anthropologist G.M. Morant and Adrian Digby, a future Keeper of the Department of Ethnology at the British Museum, analyzed the Mitchell-Hedges Skull and argued that it is not of modern workmanship. Digby wrote, “...in neither case [including the British Museum Skull] is there any trace of identifiable tool marks, and it is certain that neither specimen was made with steel tools. On the teeth there is no trace of a lapidary’s wheel which would betray one or both specimens as being of comparatively recent origin.”
⁴
This is at odds with the
conclusions drawn by Walsh, who saw clear evidence of tool marks. She argues that Morant and Digby’s tools were far inferior to hers, which is true, but what Walsh fails to note is that in the intervening decades the Mitchell-Hedges skull is known to have been polished by art restorer Frank Dorland, who is known to have used modern tools. Writing in the journal
Man
in July 1936 (Vol. 36), Morant and Digby both commented that the skull’s detachable lower jaw would have taken the creator—whoever it was—many hundreds if not thousands of hours of extra work, and that thus there would have to have been an important reason why the jaw had to be detached—more than purely artistic reasons.

In 1964, Anna “Sammy” Mitchell-Hedges—the adventurer’s adopted daughter and custodian of the Skull of Doom—lent the skull to Frank and Mabel Dorland, famous art experts and restorers. Dorland commenced his study by taking many photographs from various angles. He also used a binocular microscope to create a three-dimensional image of the skull. It was during this scientific analysis that the skull began to reveal a magical dimension.

One evening, Dorland finished his work too late for the skull to be returned to its vault in the Mill Valley Bank. So he took the skull home, placing it next to the fire he had lit for the evening. He then noticed how the light of the fire was reflected through the eyes of the skull. This made him realize that the skull allowed certain optical effects to be produced—though other stories state that throughout the evening the house was also a hive of poltergeist activity.

Dorland discovered that the optical effects were the result of the way the skull had been carved, which gave him further insights into the precision of the workmanship. He observed that there was a type of “layering” on top of the skull, which made it behave like an amplifying glass. The back of the skull channeled the light through the eye sockets at the front of the head.
Although no one would be able to see what was happening from behind the skull, anyone looking at the face would perceive a spectacular series of images that would appear to come from within the skull itself.

Dorland also discovered two holes at the bottom of the skull that are invisible when the skull is positioned upright. The holes allow the skull to be swung without falling over. This was a further indication, along with the detachable jaw, that this skull was not a mere display object but had been created to perform certain functions: to move, if not pretend to speak (via the detachable jaw), and to project certain images to the observer standing in front of it.

In December 1970, Dorland took the skull to the laboratories of Hewlett-Packard in Santa Clara, California, which was at the time one of the world’s most advanced centers for computers and electronics. The lab technicians there were specialists in the production of precision quartz crystals, which were used in various high-tech instruments. They were perfectly suited to figuring out how the skull could have been made. One of their tests revealed that the skull was made out of one piece of quartz—including the detached jawbone. The lab technicians stated that they were unable to create a skull like that with the technology available to them. In 1970.

Their analysis further showed that the skull exhibited three different types of workmanship, and hence they suggested that work on it was carried out over three generations, or a period of 60 to 70 years—about half the time Mitchell-Hedges argued it would have taken to make. The idea that three generations would have worked day in and day out on creating one skull was an unlikely scenario, and thus the skull was proposed to have been created with “unknown technology”—which soon became interpreted as “of alien origin,” or from a previous civilization that was technologically superior to ours, which quickly got linked with Atlantis. This was what Mitchell-Hedges had always
claimed: that this skull was physical evidence of a lost advanced civilization.

Larry LaBarre, one of the testers at Hewlett-Packard, added to his observations a decade after the 1970 tests. He said that the quartz of which the skull was made was very hard, measuring nine out of a possible 10 on Moh’s scale, meaning that only a diamond would be able to cut it. The quartz, though of one piece, was furthermore composed of three or four growth phases, each with a different axis. Cutting it would have been extremely difficult, as hitting upon a new axis might shatter the crystal if the cutter was not careful. In short, whereas it was easy to say it would have taken 60 to 70 years to make, it could only have been made with diamond tools, and the slightest error would have shattered the entire object! That some form of unknown technology was therefore involved in the creation of the Mitchell-Hedges skull was evident.

But one vital question remained: How did Mitchell-Hedges get it? The skull’s owner, English adventurer Frederick A. “Mike” Mitchell-Hedges, writes in his autobiography, “How it came into my possession I have reason for not revealing”—and he never did. But Mike’s secrecy was not shared by his adopted daughter, Anna, who inherited the skull from her father upon his death in 1959. She would state that it was she who found it, in the Mayan city of Lubaantun (in British Honduras/Belize), on the occasion of her 17th birthday, January 1, 1924. If true, it begs the question as to why her father was so reluctant to reveal this rather mundane and innocent discovery.

An analysis of Mitchell-Hedges’ autobiography reveals—very much like a polygraph test—one area of his life about which he lied. He states that in 1913, when working for Mike Meyerowitz, a diamond merchant in New York, he announced that he was leaving for Mexico, and by November 1913, he had made it to a tiny village a few miles inside the Mexican border, where he was taken captive by General Pancho Villa’s troops on
suspicion of espionage and taken to the general himself. This account suggests that Mitchell-Hedges must have been one of the most unfortunate men ever. But his fortune soon changed, for the general believed Mitchell-Hedges when he said he was not a spy. Indeed, soon he became a member of Villa’s army, for a period of 10 months.

Already the story is somewhat unbelievable, but some people do have a run of bad luck, and Mitchell-Hedges may have suffered from a form of Stockholm syndrome. Then again—imagining the impossible—could he have gone to Mexico expressly to be captured and to spend as much time, as closely as possible, with the great Mexican revolutionary? All this theory would require is the acceptance that Mitchell-Hedges was not a man out for adventure—an Indiana Jones—but, instead, a James Bond, sent by his government to provide an insider’s perspective on the Mexican Revolution. Analysts have argued that Mitchell-Hedges lied about this period of his life, and lying is a prime attribute for any intelligence operative. Villa fought 15 battles while Mitchell-Hedges was allegedly with him, yet in
Danger My Ally
not one of these campaigns is mentioned. Why leave out details of events with which his readership would have been more than impressed, especially as it showed how danger truly was his ally?

One author, Sibley S. Morrill, in
Ambrose Bierce, F.A. Mitchell-Hedges, and the Crystal Skull
(1972), has underlined the period of late 1913 to 1914, when Mitchell-Hedges was with Villa, as the likeliest time for him to have acquired the crystal skull. He added, without providing further details, that “some high officials of the Mexican Government are of the unofficial opinion that the skull was acquired by Mitchell-Hedges in Mexico,” and that it was illegally removed from the country. This scenario could explain why Mitchell-Hedges never said how he’d obtained the skull, as well as why his daughter might have felt it prudent to relocate the place of the skull’s discovery to a different country—British Honduras (Belize).

A fact that is rarely discussed is that Mitchell-Hedges wrote a novel,
The White Tiger
, published in 1931, which tackles the subject of crystal skulls. The novel is about “White Tiger,” the leader of the Mexican Indians, who turns out to be an Englishman who was unhappy with his existence in England and immigrated to Mexico. Early on in the novel, the main character argues that he met White Tiger when he had discussions with the Mexican president, at which time the chief left him his diary, which he then published as this novel, while changing certain locations mentioned in the diary.

The most interesting part of the book is when White Tiger recounts how he was elected leader of the Indians—a position that required an initiation involving being shown the lost treasure of the Aztecs in a lost city of pyramids. So White Tiger, now their king, is shown the treasure, which includes “crystal heads”—plural—hidden in an underground cave complex:

As they passed into the temple, the priest impressively led him to one of the massive walls, placing his hand in a certain manner upon what appeared to be a solid block of stone. At his touch it rolled slowly back, disclosing a flight of steps down which they passed.... On and on down countless steps—into the very bowels of the earth until again the priest pressed the apparently solid rock barring their progress. With scarcely a sound the stone block turned as easily as if on oiled hinges and before them yawned a long tunnel. Passing through this they descended another flight of steps. For a third time the priest touched the wall and a huge stone rolled aside. Then in the dim light of the lantern the White Tiger saw that he was in an immense vault cut out of the living rock.

Before him, piled in endless confusion, lay the treasure of the Aztecs. Gold chalices, bowls, jars and other vessels of every size and shape; immense plaques and strange ornaments all glittered dully. Of precious stones there were none, but many rare chalchihuitl (jadeite pendants) [sic]. Masks of obsidian and shells beautifully inlaid were all heaped together with heads carved from solid blocks of crystal. Legend had not exaggerated the treasure of the Aztecs. Almost boundless wealth lay at the disposal of the White Tiger.