What are crystal skulls?

and just with a little caveat because it might. I'm sure there's some stuff that sounds stated. It stated right off the bat. We talked about whether the world's gonna end or knowledge it doesn't as well, that's kind of the dead giveaway. There's some dating to it. But yeah, so it's a lost episode. And thanks to whoever it was on Twitter that suggested a Crystal Skulls episode, because that's what started this whole thing in the in the first place. Well you certainly gave them their due, but

calling them whoever it was, thanks whoever? Alright, so cool, So here we go with Crystal Skulls Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from house stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck, Oh my god, everything's coming to it, and Brian that makes this stuff you should know? Right? How you doing? I shouldn't even ask. My life is a little upside down right now. I'll be all right. It's not like it's my in and it's twenty twelve or anything. Well,

we've already done that one. And I guess we know that the the world isn't necessarily gonna end in twenty twelve, so that kind of presupposes how we feel about this podcast. I guess right. That's actually but let me let me give some news first. And you know this because you found this and it's literally today's news. Yeah, that has done often happen. Yeah. Um, but we're talking about crystal skulls. And there was a piece on crystal skull that was

found recently in a home in a Bavarian village. Um and this crystal skull, it weighs I think nine pounds. Um, it's life size. No, it was nearly twenty pounds. It's life size, maybe a little bigger. Uh. It matches the death's head insignia worn by Nazi SS officers UM, which is appropriate because this crystal skull apparently belonged to Heinrich Himmler, that's right, who was the chief of the s S. Yeah, and I wrote an article we should podcast on that

sometime about the Nazis interest in archaeology. They were like all the Indiana Jones stuff was right on the money. They had all sorts of programs, archaeology programs basically to try and prove through historical research that the Aryan race

was superior. Right, Yes, that was behind it all. And supposedly the UM the Nazi Party arose from some sort of kind of like UM good time sex cult that like all of the people who were eventually like the head of the Nazi Party were members of Hitler comes along as like, you guys are freaks, but I'm going to use this to my advantage and bada boomboada being under fere and everything starts to go horribly horribly awry.

But back to UM Today's news, a crystal skull was found, which is a very unusual thing, and it was found hidden on a rafter in the attic of this house. In Bavaria. Um that belonged to a woman who had been married to a high ranking SS officer, and it's now in the possession of Swiss journalist Luke Bergen. Yeah, he makes quite a claim. He claims that quote, I am sure that this is one of the skulls of the Mayans, but we need clarity and all available tests

will be carried out to ascertain authenticity. So what what Luke um Bergen has just said is that he's about to be very very disappointed. It's spoken like a man who just got his first crystal skull. Yeah, exactly, and it's done zero research on it. Basically, Um, the the

prevailing chuck, we should hold on. Let's bring spring sarcasm down. Uh. The the the legend behind the crystal skulls, and anybody who has not seen crystal skulls type them into your favorite search engine and um find an image and you'll

be like, oh, yeah, crystal skull, crystal skull. Um. The there's supposedly thirteen of them that were crafted by the Mayans um and they were scattered throughout the globe and um nine of them were colored to represent the races of man, and then four of them were clear to represent the animals that crawl, walk, slither, slides, and fly, um and you. Basically, the world's supposed to end on

December twenty one at eleven eleven am. And if the these thirteen skulls aren't reunited, discovered and reunited in a specific alignment I would imagine probably at some sort of Mayan temple um, then the world will end. If we can get them aligned in this proper alignment by this time, we can prevent the world from ending. The problem is, though, Josh, there's a lot more than thirteen of these things floating

around the world. Yes, and so there's some doubts as to their legitimacy and if it depending on what this skull looks like. I don't know if the The Daily Mirror was the news source that you got this from. It they're not exactly They're tabloid. There are tabloids tabloid actually, well, I believe that this skull was found, I'm sure, But the picture that they've used, I don't know if that's

the skull that was supposedly found or whatever. But um, there are some telltale signs that a skull might be a fake, that it could be real. Let's start digging in, Chuck, Let's dig into crystal skulls. Uh. Well, they can vary in size and appearance. Some of them are sort of crudely shaped. Some of them are really detailed. Some of them are beautiful and clear. Some of them are hazy and colored. Some of them have detached jaws, some of them do not. Some of them have I sockets, some

of them don't write. That's just a brief off for you. That's there's crystal skulls of the appearance, and some people believe that they are, you know, from the ancient Mayans, descendants of the h what's the underwater Atlantis? Atlantis? Is that where the minds came from? Some people say that, some say they're a direct ascens of of Atlantis, But

I don't know. So this, this whole idea that the the Mayans creating crystal skulls, or that these crystal skulls are of Mayan descent, are based somewhat on fact the Miyands did. Um they do reference crystal skulls in their creation myth. Yeah, So I mean like that's not like somebody's like crystal skull and Maya. There's there's there's definitely

a legitimate connection between the two. But whether the crystal skulls that are in existence right now are Mayan in origin is what what's up for debate and not really up for debate, and whether or not they have they're a rumor to have healing properties. Um, the visions like a crystal ball that you can see into the future, into the past. It's like a crystal ball but cooler. What else is there they say they can do? They make sounds, yes, choir, I think it's mainly healing and visions.

That's pretty good ones enlightenment of some sort. Um. The but the world of crystal skulls that when you start to kind of dig into it is what It doesn't really matter what you believe. It's a really interesting world filled by almost caricatures of people, adventurers and broadsters and bucksters. To talk about him. Yeah, so let's let's start with um, I guess the most famous crystal skull of all the

Mitchell Hedges skull. This one kind of set the tone for most other Basically, the Mitchell Hedges said, this is what Crystal Skull study is going to be all about. We're going to provide all the character for it and everybody else following our footsteps. Okay, that's right. And supposedly it was discovered and we're gonna say allegedly and supposedly a lot because these stories are not verified as fat and out of reverence for a dead one year old

woman who Anna, she's dead now A seven? Really yeah, that's a bummer. Uh yeah. So it was discovered allegedly in the nineteen twenties by who we just referenced, Anna Mitchell Hedges, who is the adopted daughter of F. A. Mitchell Hedges World Adventurer. Yeah and he really was too. Yeah, from the from the sounds of it, he was. Um. She says that she found the skull beneath the Mayan temple at an Altar and uh lu Batan. He pronounced

that that's what I took. Have you seen the pictures of that place, like a ruined Mayan city and believes it's awesome. It's like overgrown temples and stuff like that.

It's very neat, I like the mind temples. So anyway, Anna says that she found this thing near Belize on her seventeenth birthday, and she said that the Mayan's actually told her that it was a skull used to will death so a priest would be too old to continue his priesting and he would lie down and transfer his knowledge to a younger priest via the powers of the skull and then die. Right. So that's her story. That's what the skull was for. That's what she says, um,

and said, sorry, that's right. So the and the Mitchell Hedges skull is like the it's a trendsetting skull in another way in that it's pretty much the pinnacle of craftsmanship of crystal skulls. It's clear courts crystal is very pretty. Um, it's life size, um. It had it's about five inches high, five inches wide, eight inches long, UM. Totally transparent, twelve pounds UM. It's got the the ridges and cheekbones and nose socket and eye sockets that are like very anatomically correct.

And as far as I know, it's the only one that has a detachable jawbone, which is really anatomically correct. Like this is just an amazing work of art, you know, and that's how they should be viewed. Josh, right, did I just ruin it? Do you want to poke some holes in Anna's story? Yeah? Um, First of all, in nineteen thirty six, m a description of this skull was in a British journal called Man, but they said it

was owned by a guy named Sydney. Bernie Anna says, oh no wait, my dad Um f A UM gave it to Sydney and he um auctioned it off to pay a debt in the in the forties and then we bought it from Sotheby's from him to get it back in the family, right like it came down to the wire at the Southebeast all. So basically what you can take from that story is that f A. Mitchell

Hedges acquired this Mitchell Hedges skull at South Beast. That part is completely documentable and um but that they they think that that may be where he got it for the first time, probably because in that nineteen thirty six journal, Um the the author, I guess Bernie UM wrote a letter that was I'm sorry it was quoted later, but but Um Bernie, the guy who actually had that Mitchell Hedges skull before Mitchell Hedges, said that he acquired it from a collector who had it for several years, and

Um that collector bought it from another collector who had it for several years. No mention of F. A. Mitchell, who was not a collector, he was an adventurer. He probably called it the Bernie Skull to Yeah, I'm sure and um so that that that was in nineteen thirty three, which by this time F. A. Mitchell had just supposedly already had it or owned it. Um and then the other well, there's several other weird parts. Uh Mitchell hedges fa we'll just call him or faugh um he he

only wrote about the skull once. This is my favorite part of this article. In the name of his book taken. He wrote a book about his adventures, I guess, some sort of memoir and it was called danger My ally that's the way you say it too. And that was from nine fifty four, I think. And in that book that's the first and only mentioned he makes of the crystal skull. By this time it was in his possession, he owned it. Seems like he would have mentioned it,

yeah prior to this he he um. He says chuck that it dates back at least thirty six hundred years, that it took about a hundred and fifty years to rub down with sand from a single block of courts. So he alleges it was not it was shaped from rubbing sand on it and not actually carved with tools over the period of a hundred and fifty years, which I mean that's a lot of dedicated people, a lot of sand rubbing. Yeah. Um. He never mentions that his

adopted daughter find found it. He actually says that he has reason to not mention how it came in his possession. Yeah. He warns very forebodingly about several people have cynically laughed at it and died. Others have been stricken ill. So he says, how I got it, I have reasons to not tell you. This is a really easy way to get around not telling people. Um, that's what That's what we should say whenever somebody wants to know, like, what's what's your backstory? How did you guys meet? We have

reasons to not tell you. We have very important reason because it's very important. Um. And then also, Chuck, there were two people so f a Mitchell head just did actually go down to lu Batan and he was there in that's documented. There's plenty of photos of the dig two friends who went with them, who later wrote about this. This experience never mentioned Anna being there certainly never mentioned

the crystal skull. Yeah. Lady Richmond Brown and Dr Thomas Gan and then lastly Anna Um in different interviews, gave different dates of when she acquired the skull, never the correct one. So um, there's a lot of holes in her story. Yet up to her deaths she alleged that this was the truth. Um. And she had what I take to be an indomitable spirit, like you could tell her just about anything, but she knew what was right

with the crystal skull. Yeah. And she also claimed um not verified, but claimed that it had been used for healing a number of times and she didn't get very specific with that, and that she hoped one day it would go to an institution where it could be studied and that might happen. Um. If you go on to Mitchell Hedges skull dot com or Mitchell Hedges dot com,

I think there's a hyphen in there, not Benson and Hedges. Um. The The skull is now in the possession of its newest owner, Bill Hollman, who is very dashing guy, likes to wear like in Indiana Jones hat Um. He loves posing with the crystal skull. It's very cool. But his aim is to build a museum for the skull in Sedona, Arizona, so they can be study ead and and basically be available to the public all the time, which is pretty cool. Where he would sell tickets, I don't know. I'm sure

he would. Who knows. There's not a free museum. Actually that's not true. It's plenty of free museums. I take that back completely, okay, but there's plenty that aren't as well. I agree with you. So that's what that's what's going on with the Mitchell Hedges skull right now. Bill Hollman has it here in the US, and there may be Ah well, I don't know if it will be reunited. Surely people who own crystal skulls are going to take

them to Mexico or something in November. See what happens. Right, Um So, Mitchell Heades skull is is the most famous, but it's far from the only one, right, Yeah, there's one another famous one in the British Museum, and I believe they just called this the British Museum skull, right, Yeah, it's kind of let down. They called the Paris skull the Paris skull, and it's also life size. It's not quite as detailed as the Mitchell hedges, and the jaw does detach as you say, and it's cloudy courts. It's

not completely clear. And this was purchased. We know a little bit about the real back story on this one. It was purchased by the museum from Tiffany and Company in supposedly came from Mexico. And here is where we have a guy entered the picture named Eugene Bouban. Yeah, he's kind of an important character as well. Yeah, he's a French art dealer and a lot of these skulls seemed to have passed through his ownership at one point or another, which isn't necessarily fishing in and of itself.

Like a dealer can specialize in something, and Boban specialized in Mayan relics another and the pre Columbian stuff. So yeah, it's not like that makes it hinky. I'm just pointing that out. Then you got the pair of skull and it's a more crude still than the other two and has a hole cut in the top that they think it is supposed to hold across. Yes, and that is in Paris at the a You're gonna pronounce that one for me, the muse de lom okay, the Museum of the Museum of Man. Is that what it is? Do

you speak French? Um, I'm piquito. I used to do that. It took German in high school and then learned just sort of rough Spanish by working in the Mexican restaurants. And I would always mixed German and Spanish up in my college days. I was mixing up a lot back then though, anyway. Uh. And then in this one's a little weird in the Smithsonian received a crystal skull in the mail anonymous Yeah, with an anonymous note that said, hey, this is Aztec. I bought it in nineteen sixty in

Mexico City and do what you will with it. Brought me nothing but bad luck. Yeah, maybe please don't ever try to track me down. And that one is hollow, which is slightly unique as well. Yeah. Um, so here's there's a couple of points that you've just brought up. One Eugene boban remember um um. Secondly, this anonymous skull is thought to be as Tech or was mentioned as Aztec. The British Museum skull is possibly considered as tech possibly, so that kind of knocks the mayan Um legend out

a little bit. Let's do that some more. Okay, um, Well, first let's talk about some more um crystal skulls real quick. There's there's uh again, there's a whole world of crystal skull collectors and some people have a few, some people have one, but all of them are pretty like if you have a crystal skull, like you're a well known individual. Yeah, it's not like a being a commemorative plate collector, right

like Joanne Parks who owns Max the Texas Crystal skull. Um. She apparently got it in the eighties and it's supposed to be from Guatemala, which is my end. Yeah, we've been there. And Jake Jake van Deeton, who suposedly owns a few of them, joke, joke, yoke, what I call him? Jake? Yea? This is she? Okay? Now? She says that her skull et healed her brain tumor. That's right, and that's a pretty cool name for a skull. If you're a skull owner, I would say a movie fan. And then what else

is there? There's Shanna Ra not shann Annah, and it's a big one. It weighs about thirteen pounds, owned by Nick no Serino, and he is a self described expert, which are a favorite kind of experts in crystal skulls, and he claims he found that one in Mexico. And then lastly there's an amethyst goal called amy am I or me if you're speaking French, um, and that is supposedly has a squiggly white line around the circumference of this skull. No idea what that means, and supposedly mine. Yeah.

And then there's a bunch of smaller skulls like little ones um that are about an inch in diameter, have holes drilled through them, and they think that they were ambulance or pendants or some sort of They were worn as necklaces. They were sold at the gift shop, the crystal skull get shop back in the day. So is the deal do all these people think they have one of the thirteen? Is that? Is that pretty much what's

going on here? That's the impression I have, Okay, um, especially if you if you're if you consider your crystal skull is the source of the healing of your brain tumor and chuck, there's it's there's a certain um, there's a certain rationale to the idea that a crystal skull can allow you to see visions, and there's just something more going on there besides it being just a lump of courts. And that actually is um one found in one of the properties of courts, which is piezza electricity.

You want to say, it's kind of Italian pizza electric right, So that is um the property of courts in particular, but generally crystals and ceramics to be able to generate an electrical charge just from pressure from like a what's called um mechanical uh energy stress stress. So basically just rubbing a like a piece of courts crystal skull, you should be able to generate electricity. And the harder you rub,

the more electricity you generate. So that no one's ever been able to say, well, then that's why you would heal your brains from or anything like that. But the fact that courts is piezzo electric is one of the things that people who believe in the healing powers of these crystal skulls point to, and crystals in general. Yeah that you know Little five Points has had that crystal

shop forever, is it's still around. Yeah, I think. So people go in there and they buy their crystal and hanging around their neck, and they believe it has healing properties or energy property, or at the very least it generates a mild electrical current. Yeah. Yeah. Um. Then there's also slightly wilder claims that UM that these these the

Piazzo electricity isn't necessarily for healing. It's to um facilitate time travel or UM it serves as some sort of communication device between UM, the aliens who brought it here or Atlantis. We just haven't figured out how to tap it or unlock it yet. Yeah. What is it they compare it to is like a a computer chip potentially that has all this uh ancient wisdom and facts and knowledge just waiting, just waiting. We just don't know how to access. It's like the lunar doomsday are but in

crystal skull form exactly. So speaking of Mitchell Hedges, which we weren't uh speaking of, but I'm bringing up in anyway, she UM has loaned it out for study a couple of times. Yeah. Some some people who own skulls are cool with them them being studied, But more frequent the ones that are in possession of a biomuseum. Those are

the ones that have been studied. The most uh in vent and art restore named Frank Dorland studied the Mitchell head of skull for six years and he said he heard ringing bells, the sound of choir singing, he saw auras around the skull, and he could see images when gazing into it. Yeah, and this is an art restore. He's not necessarily like a crystal skull devote, right. But he also claimed, on the other hand, that it showed signs of mechanical grinding and holes drilled that we're obviously

using modern techniques of metal drill. So he sort of sort of said it was mystical in some ways, and also said, well, but this thing is an ancient because it was clearly made with you know, modern technology. Um. He also supposedly took it to Hewlett Packard's laboratories. Yeah, I thought this was interesting. He said there that they performed a test on it um to to find out if it was pure courts, and they dropped it in

benzel alcohol and it disappeared. Yes, it vanished because benzo alcohol and courts have the same diffraction coefficient, which means they bend light at the same angle, which means that if you immerse one and the other is going to disappear and turn invisible. Right. Um. The they also found at Hewlett Packer that was carved from a single piece of crystal, and it was carved against the green, which is very unusual. Um. The problem is Helt Packer has

absolutely no record of of these tests being performed. It's possible that that dore Lyn had a friend who you know, said come on buy, we'll have some beers and test your skull, and it wasn't like an official project or he didn't really take it there. This is such a

weird claim. Uh. And on a TV show in the eight and nine Arthur C. Clark had a show called Mysterious World and there was a gem expert name Alan Jobbins who also studied the crystal skull the Till Hedges when and said that he thought that it was from crystal, Brazilian crystal from seventeen hundreds, which would not make it ancient. Right, Um, that's not my skull that they think are as possibly Brazilian. The Paris skull and the British Museum skull they think

are probably Brazilian, no mines in Brazil. And like you said, after the seventeen hundreds, this is post Columbia, not just post contact. This is like there's revolution stirring in America by this time, and these things were made, right, and all all signs start pointing further further back to Jean Boban. Yeah, and they also thought it was they were carved in Germany most of these, yes, which kind of the Himler

thing all of a sudden makes sense apparent. But I would I would venture to guess that Himmler would have never thought that it was made in Germany. I'm sure he thought it was like one of the thirteen Mins skulls. They were very superstitious, those Nazis. Alright, So back to Boban. So, Bob Bonn had his hands on like several of these,

um he uh you mentioned Germany. Um, apparently there's a lot of Brazilian crystal that was being worked in Germany in the seventeen hundreds, right or no, the nineteenth century, eight hundreds, um. And apparently Boban got his hands on these things, sold them. But it's not clear whether he knew that they were frauds or not, because I mean, there was a lot of money to be made during the museum period. There was a big boom in artifacts

and museums and and auctions like this. So you know, obviously if you're claiming it's one of the original things, you're gonna get top dollar for it exactly, which is how the British Museum came about. It's um skull. It was purchased, like you said, in eight from Tiffany and Company, probably the age of the museum when people would pay a pretty penny for these things. But I guess to its credit, the British Museum led the way in proving that these things were fakes. And I just made air

quotes because there's still amazing works of art. They were. They were made by master craftsman in the eight hundreds. Just call it that. That's what I say, what works of art? Yeah, so they can be admired and not and not kind of poked fun at by nonbelievers. Well that's why that school still in the British Museum. They're like, this thing isn't mine, but still check it out exactly, And I'm staring to the aura. Now, the Mitchell Heads of School doesn't fall into that because there's no there's

been no UM, I guess acceptance that it was made recently. Yeah, and she and at one point she kind of withdrew it from further investigation in that, right. Yeah, So the British Museum concluded that there's there's was made um using a jeweler's wheel after the European arrival in the America's uh, it's high polish indicates it was carved using traditional European techniques.

And then in two thousand five, Jane Walsh, who was an anthropologist with the smith Oonian took the Smithsonian skull to the British Museum and said, hey, look look at this one to do an electron microscope, and they did in there like it's the same thing. They may have actually been made by the same craftsman. Yeah, they said that there's you know, there would have been pretty clear evidence that it was made with ancient tools by the fact that wouldn't be nearly a smooth it would be

scratch marks things like that. But it bore none of those, right, And they found, you know, the tell tale signs of modern tool use, right, they didn't. Yeah, they there were no signs of the ancient tool use again if you're a believer in crystal skulls. While these things are they were made over a hundred and fifty years. Of course you're not gonna find as marks or whatever you hack, right, It's a hundred and fifty years of sand rubbin right doing that kind of work. But this is the thing

that I like the most. There are out there very crude um crystal skulls. There are some that don't. They don't look like they were made um from a jeweler's wheel and janney in the nineteenth century. So you're saying those are the ones. Who knows, you know, my favorite

part is danger and my ally stuff. So we have to mention a few pop culture references UM, starting with Stargate SG one, and then it's been in some video games Nancy Drew Legend of the Crystal Skull, Pirates of the Caribbean third greatest selling video Games two thousand six. And then obviously the biggest reference UM would have to be The Abominable and Forgettable. I said it Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. And man, I've never wanted to love a movie so much in my life,

and I've never been as disappointed. And I'm on record, I'm saying this. I know, and I feel bad because you know, I know that it hurts when we're criticized. We're like, we're doing our best. I'm sure that they really wanted to put out a great movie. They were the Mark. Supposedly they're going to do another one, and I heard I think if Steven Spielberg, if you're listening, Mr Lucas, get back to basics, brothers. That's what I say.

Forget all the comparison for can do is on stunts though, forget all the c g I monkeys and uh killer ants and all that silliness. Just get back to basics. Yeah, I agree, go practical And that's that for Chuck. That's it all right? Yes. Uh. If you want to learn more about crystal skulls and see some cool images and crystal skulls, type Crystal skull into the handy search bart how stuff works dot com. Uh. And since I said that, Chuck's got a letter in his hand and that means

it's time for a listener mail. That's right, Josh. A few weeks ago you asked for a call for if you have any ways, you're trying to better humanity. And we got quite a few of these, and so we're gonna read some of them over the next few episodes. This one I'm partial to because i just think it's neat. This from Rachel. She's written in before. I have a

project which I'm attempting to improve humanity. Almost every day for the past three years, I've written a pep talk at my website website either one website daily pep talk from a best Friend dot com. My goal is to improve the reader's self esteem by telling them what their best friend might say in a moment of crisis. Type your issue into the handy dandy search bar, find yourself a pep talk. There's more than eight hundred of these, and I'm pretty sure I've covered whatever has you blue

or befuddled. So if I haven't covered a particular topic, readers can write to me and request at pep talk also do shout outs for anything a reader wants to celebrate. And I have a podcast called your Effing Awesome e F F I n G. That's how I'm trying to improve humanity. If you were to mention this, I would be thrilled. I'm forever looking to share the pep and traffic, like self esteem can always use boost. Uh. And then she gives an example of a pep talk and it's

kind of cool. You know, I showed this stimily. She liked it as well. It's very cool. It's almost like, um, a daily horoscope or fortune cookie, but much better because it's a fortune cookie. Well you know how a fortune cookie it's much less vague. Yeah, I mean it gives you a pep talk. It's you could choose your own adventure fortune cookie. So that's Rachel. The website is daily pep Talk from a best Friend dot com. And it's just it's positive, it's it's neat. I'm glad she's doing it.

That's the bad Boys that has a lot of work. I know, I wouldn't figure it to be a need for more than like six different kinds of pep talks. Yeah, I wonder if it's one of those things where she thought that too, and then started to really think about it and kept going and going, and she went mad along the way and ended up killing housecats and then like coming back from the brink and then had to write pep talks about all those exactly. Yeah, and now

she's done. Okay. If you have something that you need a pep talk on, ask chucking me and if we can't do it, maybe we'll just send you to um what is it daily pep talk from a best friend dot com? Yes? Uh, send us an email. You can address it to Stuff podcast at discovery dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how Stuff works dot com. This episode of Stuff You Should

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