Page 13 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - Febrary/March 2020 Edition

Mitchell-Hedges Crystal Skull Hoax 13

F.A. Mitchell-Hedges

and Daughter Anna’s

Lies Exposed!

Continued from Page 11

Five years later, Mitchell-Hedges died, leaving
no more clues behind. And in subsequent
printings of Danger My Ally, all mentions of the
crystal skull were removed. In fact, the only
source for Anna’s version of events was Anna
herself. Her father wrote a lot about Central
America, and he described the artifacts he found
there in great detail…with the curious exception
of the crystal skull. What was he hiding?

ITEM NO. 54

When actual scientists and historians attempt to
trace the story of the crystal skull, the first
verifiable account of the rock’s association with
the Mitchell-Hedges family doesn’t come until
October 15, 1943, when item no. 54 was put on turn had it from an Englishman in whose in origin that was sold to the British Museum in
the auction block at Sotheby’s in London. Here’s collection it had been also for several years.” 1897. His analysis concluded that the skull was
the listing: The only actual “evidence” that F.A. Mitchell- “probably made in 19th century Europe from a

Hedges had the skull prior to that auction was a lump of poor quality Brazilian crystal.”
A Superb Life-Size Crystal Carving of a Human 1999 report by a British inn owner who said the
Skull, the lower jaw separate, the detail are explorer and his daughter had the skull with MYTHS & FINDINGS
correctly rendered and the carver has given the them when they stayed there in the early 1930s.
orbits, zygomatic arches and mastoid processes After all the conflicting origin stories, it Now that the scientists, historians, and theists
the similitude of their natural forms, glabellar- becomes more and more difficult to say for have had ample opportunity to study the skull,
occipital. certain that the skull is genuine, but that hasn’t here’s some of what they’ve found out.
stopped true believers from saying it is. “While
A receipt reveals that F.A. Mitchell-Hedges it’s history may be somewhat controversial,” Myth: The Mitchell-Hedges crystal skull was
purchased the skull at that auction for 400 says the website CrystalSkulls.com, “the fact polished by hand using sand.
Pounds (nearly $5,000.00 US in today’s money) remains that the Mitchell-Hedges Crystal Skull Findings: It was made by modern jeweler’s
from a London antique dealer named Sydney is a true, ‘out-of-place-artifact’ – meaning that equipment. The obsidian tools the Mayans used
Burney. That would explain why Mitchell- despite the most evolved research, including to make much of their artwork would have left
Hedges never mentioned finding the skull on his extensive laboratory examination by Silicon marks on the quartz crystal that could be
1930s radio show – he hadn’t even bought it yet. Valley’s Hewlett-Packard, no one has been able detected by a microscope, as virtually every
Anna Mitchell-hedges didn’t deny that to prove it is a hoax.” other Mesoamerican artifact does. Tests have
her father had purchased the skull at that
shown that the skull was made using a “wheeled
auction, but she said that he was buying it back. THE LAB CRUSADE instrument” that bore the “tell-tale signature of a
She claimed that years earlier, when her father
metal tool augmented by diamond.”
needed funds to finance an expedition, he gave
“[The skull] is not powerful, not scary, and not
the skull to Burney, a childhood friend, as
at all what it purports to be.” That’s the Myth: The Mitchell-Hedges skull is unique.
collateral for a loan. Instead of giving it back,
conclusion of Jane McLaren Walsh, an Findings: According to Walsh, it’s “a veritable
however, Burney (or his son) tried to sell it to the
anthropologist at the Smithsonian Museum of copy of the British Museum skull, with stylistic
highest bidder. When Mitchell-Hedges got wind
Natural History in Washington, D.C. She’s been and technical flourishes that can only an
of it, He “was so furious that for a while he was
studying Mesoamerican cultures and artifacts accomplished faker would devise.” The only
unable to speak.” He called the auction house
since the early 1990s. In November 2007, after difference between the two is that the eyes and
and told them to call off the sale; they refused,
Anna Mitchell-Hedges died, Walsh was finally teeth of the Mitchell-Hedges skull are more
so he went there and bought it back himself.
able to get a good look at the purported “pre- detailed.
That was Anna’s story, and she stuck to it.
Columbian artifact” (thanks to a loan from skull-
keeper Bill Homann). Working with the British Myth: The skull’s ambient surface temperature
CASTING DOUBT
Museum, Walsh and her fellow scientists threw is a constant 70 degrees Fahrenheit, p[roving
everything they had at the Mitchell-Hedges that is has some kind of internal power source.
Of the numerous scholars, scientists, and skull: electron microscopy, X-ray Findings: It behaves no differently than any
skeptics who question the veracity of Mitchell- crystallography, computerized tomography, other chunk of quartz. Frank Dorland disproved
Hedge’s claims about the skull, the most vocal is ultraviolet light, and more – including pouring that rumor at Hewlett-Packard back in 1970, but
Joe Nickell, a senior research fellow with the through everything they could find that was said it still persists today.
Committee for the Scientific Investigations of or written by F.A. and Anna Mitchell-Hedges. (Continued on Page 14)
Claims of the Paranormal. “It’s clear her father After all was said and done, the scientists
bought it off a collector,” he wrote in the 1988 determined that the skull was “probably made in
book Secrets of the Paranormal. Nickell points Europe in the 20th century.”
to a letter that Sydney Burney had written a Walsh’s findings are similar to those
decade prior to the auction: “The rock-crystal made five years earlier by Professor Ian
skull was for several years in in possession of Freestone of Cardiff University in Wales, who
the collector from whom I bought it, and he in studied another crystal skull, supposedly Aztec