Original subtitles

This is reportedly something that has great power.

Legend was it was the skull of doom.

Look at that.

Hedges found the magnificent city.

They found many artifacts that were pre-mayan.

Do you believe you can find this thing?

I know it's there, and I'm going to find it.

Gates: A perfect match.

[bleep] oh.

Bill!

Bill, I got a hit.

That is it.

Look at that.

♪

I used to have a poster in my bedroom that read,

"if adventure has a name, it must be indiana jones,"

but my childhood whip-cracking hero

was inspired by a daring real-world

archaeologist whose own search for fortune and glory

is more thrilling than any movie.

It turns out adventure has another name, mitchell-hedges.

In the early 20th century,

frederick albert mitchell-hedges

macheted his way through the jungles of central america.

If his weathered autobiography is to be believed,

he evaded cannibal tribes, battled giant sea creatures,

and uncovered a lost city in the jungles of belize.

But one artifact from his travels

has inspired more debate than any other,

the contested 1924 discovery of the crystal skull of doom.

To believers, the skull is a supernatural maya artifact

capable of miraculous healing

but also able to kill those who meddle with its powers.

To many others, it was a self-promoting hoax,

the boldest of hedges' tall tales.

Either way, the skull has become famous the world over,

even serving as the inspiration for

the fourth "indiana jones" film, the one we don't talk about.

Today, a man named bill homann

is the steward of the iconic skull.

Several studies of the object have produced varying outcomes,

but I'm hoping to convince him to submit it

to a definitive scientific test.

Can we settle the case of the crystal skull once and for all?

We're about to find out as we separate man from myth

following in the footsteps of the real indiana jones.

♪

my name is josh gates...

Look! [ laughs ]

...Explorer, adventurer...

That is it!

...And a guy who ends up in some very strange situations.

Ah, ah, aah, haa!

With a degree in archaeology

and a passion for the unexplained,

I travel to the ends of the earth,

investigating the greatest legends in history.

Okay, let's punch it.

This is "expedition unknown."

-- captions by vitac -- www.Vitac.Com

captions paid for by discovery communications

♪

welcome to belize and the rio grande river.

These waters start up in the maya mountains,

and they eventually cascade out into the caribbean sea.

This is the exact same waterway

that once ferried an enigmatic explorer

on a quest to find a lost city.

His own journey begins oceans away

from the jungles of central america.

Gates: Frederick albert mitchell-hedges

was born into a wealthy family in london in 1882.

His father pushed him to become a stock broker,

so at the age of 18,

hedges left England to work for a large bank on wall street.

But in the pages of the pulp magazines and novels of his day,

he developed an obsession with adventure

and finding lost civilizations.

So he used his salary and knack for gambling to save up

for his own expedition into the heart of belize,

which at the time was a barely-explored frontier

known as british honduras.

But imagine being one of the first outsiders here.

Imagine navigating this river with no map,

not to mention unknown tribes and mosquitoes

carrying tropical diseases.

Say what you will about hedges.

The man was fearless.

Gates: With funding from a british aristocrat

named lady richmond brown,

hedges mounted an expedition into honduras

where he'd heard about a lost maya city hidden in the jungle.

He and a companion, thomas gann,

took a canoe to find the unknown.

Hedges and gann had heard vague rumors

about large stones and ancient structures

buried deep in the jungle interior.

They struggled in the wilderness and eventually were lucky enough

to encounter a tribe of maya kekchi,

the descendants of the once great civilization

that ruled this land.

Gates: The ancient maya civilization had collapsed 1,000 years

before hedges arrived,

but the villagers had an idea of what he was seeking,

and they agreed to ferry him through the jungle

to look for the ruins.

And this is what hedges discovered,

a place later christened as lubaantun,

or the city of fallen stones.

Gates: The site is monumental with countless abandoned

stone structures that rise up against the jungle canopy,

but it's not truly empty.

There's at least one other person here.

I'm meeting bill homann,

current owner of the famed crystal skull of doom

which was supposedly found at these very ruins.

This place, I take it, looks a lot different

from when mitchell-hedges was here.

This was jungle.

What they did is they cut and cut,

and it took years of cutting... -Right.

...To finally open up the jungle a little bit.

Then they lit the whole thing on fire.

Gates: Hedges was bold, but he doesn't win many points

with modern archaeologists.

Basically, his team and the local maya chopped back

as many vines as they could before standing back

and lighting the whole site on fire.

As the flames died down, 11 massive limestone pyramids,

vast plazas, and ancient ball courts were revealed.

This was a full-fledged maya city,

and the temple platforms suggest that it was also home

to sacred religious ceremonies.

Gates: Bill, I want to talk about the most famous relic

that was supposedly found here, the crystal skull.

Actually, we're standing very close

to the spot where it was found.

The skull was found by a girl named anna.

Anna was the adopted daughter of f.A. Mitchell-hedges.

Gates: According to legend, anna was exploring the pyramids

on one of hedges' later visits to the site

when she saw something glimmering through the stone.

Hedges had his crew move away the heavy rocks,

and there atop an old altar was a breathtaking crystal skull.

Legend says the skull was an ancient artifact

used by maya priests to inflict death,

but it has also been said that the skull has the ability

to heal those who believe in its powers.

Mitchell-hedges lived to the ripe age of 76

and wrote very little about the skull's true origins.

Rumors swirled that the skull was a fake.

There are stories that hedges

had purchased the skull at auction

from a london art dealer named sydney burney.

Hedges insisted, though, that the skull was a product

of a highly advanced civilization

that long predated the maya, never wavering until his death

when he bequeathed the skull to his daughter, anna.

And how did the skull come to be in your possession?

The last 8 years of anna's life, we became really good friends,

and when she passed away, she passed it on to me,

and I've been trying to take good care of it ever since.

Many people have come forward and proclaimed the skull

as a fake, so the skull has,

though, been tested scientifically several times,

once in the '70s by hewlett-packard

and later by the smithsonian, right?

That's correct.

Gates: The testing by hewlett-packard

couldn't establish the skull's age,

but the smithsonian determined that the skull was crafted

with modern, advanced tools to produce a machined polish.

This would seem to debunk hedges except that hedges,

and now bill, believe the civilization

that made the skull was centuries ahead of its time

and possessed sophisticated carving techniques.

Let me ask you this.

If you're so confident that it's real,

and you don't believe in the veracity of the previous tests,

why not subject it to a definitive scientific test?

Have you ever considered that?

If I twist your arm hard enough, maybe you'll test it.

I would consider it.

Yeah, maybe. -Okay. All right.

I'm going to keep working on this.

Gates: Bill won't 100% agree to a definitive test just yet,

but he's betting he won't need one.

He's come to central america

because he's recently made a discovery in hedges' archives,

a treasure trove of pictures and documents that could prove

that hedges was right, and the crystal skull is real.

Look at this suitcase.

What is this?

I came across mitchell-hedges' original...

-This is his? -This is his, yeah.

Get out of here. Can I open it?

Is it possible? -You can open it.

Sure. -Come on.

This is like christmas morning.

Gates: I'm in lubaantun, a once lost maya city uncovered

by the adventurer f.A. Mitchell-hedges

who claimed to find the controversial

crystal skull of doom amidst the ruins.

Now researcher bill homann has just revealed

a cache of new material from the hedges' archive,

which might prove the explorer's wildest claim --

that an advanced ancient civilization

crafted the crystal skull and more.

Look at all this stuff.

So this is the man himself right here in his later years.

Yep, with his pipe, yep.

With his pipe, he always has this pipe.

-Yeah. -I love this.

Yeah, these are the original glass slides here.

They're from the '20s and '30s.

From his photographs.

Right.

This looks like him here at lubaantun,

overgrown ruins right where we're sitting basically.

Is that pretty wild, yeah?

This is a treasure trove of materials,

and along with the slides here at lubaantun,

there seems to be another location somewhere on the coast.

That's the bay islands.

That's off of honduras.

-The bay islands... -Yeah, and that's where

mitchell-hedges spent a lot of time,

and he found a lot of the old artifacts there.

That's where the ones that were pre-mayan.

So some sort of ancient civilization.

Gates: Pre-maya civilizations were hedges' obsession,

and the bay islands were where he was convinced

that he would find evidence

that they were a highly advanced culture.

In the process, he did discover hundreds of pre-maya relics.

One letter from the smithsonian

verifies the value of the artifacts.

"'this find,' said george c. Heye,

director of the museum of the american indian,

heye foundation,

'is one of the most important in a decade in central america.'"

hundreds of hedges' finds from the pre-maya people

are still held and displayed by the smithsonian,

but there was one thing hedges

claimed to find in the bay islands

that never made it to any museum,

a secret he almost took with him to his grave.

When anna was getting ready to pass away,

she revealed to me that her and mitchell-hedges

had found this crystal deity.

Crystal deity.

Gates: According to anna who only told the story to bill

on her death bed, when she and hedges

were exploring the bay islands,

they discovered another crystal artifact,

this one the statue of what they thought was a god.

But unlike the skull, the so-called crystal deity

never made it back from central america.

Hedges was worried authorities would confiscate his find

if he tried to leave the country,

so he and anna buried the crystal deity

either in or around the cave where they found it.

Their plan was to return later to retrieve it,

but the expedition never happened,

and its exact location has never been rediscovered.

Is there evidence aside from anna's story

that this thing is really down there?

Well, I have all these papers here.

Each one of them is like a piece of a puzzle,

so you look at this one, and you learn something,

and when you put them together,

the story is right in front of your face.

"she is planning an expedition to find.

She even believes she knows where it is."

clearly he was finding something out on these islands.

"there are other facts in connection with this

that I have never made public to the world."

gates: I quickly find that the stories in hedges' books

were only the beginning.

So there's a lot of really compelling stuff in here.

I mean, there's no question that they were finding

things out in these bay islands,

and it does appear that they found something,

so do you think with the clues contained here,

you could find this place?

I know I could find it, and I'm ready to go,

and I'm getting a 4x4 tonight.

-You're going. -I'm going.

Yeah, I'm ready. You want to go?

Hell yeah, I want to go.

Let's have an adventure.

Let's have an adventure.

Let's have an adventure.

Gates: We're about to follow in the footsteps

of f.A. Mitchell-hedges traveling from lubaantun

to the bay islands in honduras to locate the mysterious island

where the crystal deity was supposedly discovered,

and what we find there may define his legacy.

My vintage off-roader may be a little out-of-date,

but it's my kind of ride.

Indy has his whip.

I have mine.

I don't know what we're going to find, bill,

but we got the right hats on.

Yeah.

Gates: Our journey following hedges' path

will take us through three countries.

We drive from lubaantun

to the belize port of punta gorda

to take a boat, which will sail to guatemala.

This guy is hauling.

They don't like to slow down.

You know why? -Why?

Because there's pirates in this area.

-I'm sorry, pirates? -Pirates, yeah.

You can go faster if you want, fast as you can.

Gates: After crossing the border,

another 4x4 is waiting for our trip to honduras.

♪

♪

at the end of a brutal day, we crash.

Well, not literally... We go to sleep.

The next day, bill brings me to a nearby archaeological site

that hedges himself once visited

where there may be clues about the society

that he thinks created the crystal skull,

a place where the maya once reigned supreme.

♪

♪

copan was occupied for over 2,000 years

until the 9th century a.D. In the 20th century,

the discovery of copan inspired f.A. Mitchell-hedges

to go trekking in search of other lost maya cities.

At the top of a structure here called temple 22,

the maya used skull imagery

to express their obsession with death.

Hedges, though, believed his skull long predated these maya.

Could this earlier civilization

have influenced the builders of copan,

and were any of the ancient cultures here

even capable of crafting a crystal skull?

To find out, we're meeting

one of the site's head archaeologists, jorge ramos.

-It's an incredible site. -I know.

When was it first founded?

426.

-426 a.D. -A.D., yes.

Hedges was kind of obsessed with this idea

that there must have been significant cultures

here before the maya.

-Mm-hmm. -Was he on to something?

-So before this was all built... -Yeah.

...There was something else here.

Gates: These pre-maya groups are some of the least well-studied

in pre-colombian american archaeology.

Hedges may have been more adventurer than scientist,

but his many finds were among the earliest

to shed light on this very real civilization.

So let's talk about the crystal skull for a moment.

This is the crystal skull's owner here.

And look, one of the big questions about the skull

is, this is quartz crystal,

so first of all, did any of these ancient cultures

ever carve out of this type of material?

Gates: The aztecs, who reigned in what is now mexico,

did use quartz like this to carve skull imagery,

so could they have inherited the tradition

from an earlier civilization as hedges and bill believe?

They are the ones that could have carved

a lot of these stones.

There's possibility they could be the ones

that have carved the crystal skull

or other objects like that.

Gates: Jorge has confirmed that it is possible

that some of the ancient civilizations in this region

had the skills to build the crystal skull,

but what we still don't know is if they did.

The best way to confirm that the crystal skull

and the culture that created it are real

is to find more evidence.

We need to find the crystal deity in the bay islands.

Okay, bill, what's the plan?

I made a few phone calls,

and I found some guys that are going to give us a lift.

Is that a military plane?

Gates: The hedges name and legend

still carry a lot of weight in this area,

so bill was able to arrange some impressive transport

to bring us to the bay islands --

an aging c-23 sherpa now serving in the honduran military.

Hola.

[ speaking spanish ]

nice to meet you, gentlemen.

We are ready to go to the bay islands.

We're all ready to go to the bay islands.

-Let's go. -We're ready, too.

Let's do it. Come on.

In we go.

♪

♪

gates: In a honduran military plane over the caribbean sea,

researcher bill homann and I

are on our way to the bay islands

where famed explorer f.A. Mitchell-hedges

and his daughter anna claimed to have found

and buried a priceless relic known as the crystal deity.

♪

we land on the island of roatan, but we're only halfway there.

We charter a boat and make our way out to sea.

Okay, here we go.

♪

-waited a long time for this. -Well, today is the day.

Homann: Today is the day. Let's do it.

Let's do it.

Gates: The island with the cave can only be located

using the nearby islands as landmarks,

then following the directions

that anna mitchell-hedges gave to bill.

We're headed to an island known as morgan's cay

which should point us to our next target.

We know that if you go one island over,

that should be cay comfort.

So that little island right there.

That should be cay comfort, yes.

Gates: Cay comfort is where

hedges built an island compound long since destroyed.

We're navigating along the same route

hedges himself took over 80 years ago.

And you got the old photos of it, right?

-I do here, right here. -Let's take a look.

♪

-a perfect match, -that's cay comfort.

Anna told me that, before she passed,

that there's a narrow channel.

If you go through that channel, you'll see some mangrove swamps,

and the island should be on your right.

Okay. Here we go.

Gates: We motor around the island.

Before long, we see just what anna described.

This must be the channel.

Yeah. Travis, take us in right here.

Travis: You got it.

Gates: We're about to find out if we're chasing an adventurous fantasy

or one of the greatest archaeological finds

of the 20th century.

Homann: I think some of the mitchell-hedges' photos

show these mangroves.

Look at that.

I'd say that's a pretty good match, wouldn't you?

I think that's it. I think we're there.

I mean, it certainly looks like the exact same type of landscape

we're seeing here. I mean, look at that.

Does that look like this channel, or what?

-We're right there, yep. -It's amazing.

Okay. We're in the right spot.

Now we just got to get on this island.

♪

what about here?

Do you want to try to get in here?

Yep.

Gates: We find a place to beach the boat

and climb out into the swamps.

♪

real slippery, bill. Be careful.

Gates: This is some of the most impenetrable land

I've ever had to hike through.

We're not even walking on the ground.

We're walking on roots above the ground.

Homann: Try to stay on the wood if you can, right?

Yeah.

You've heard of quicksand.

This is quick mud.

One false move in here,

you could be up to your waist in this.

Luckily, I was raised in the circus.

Oh, this is nasty.

Damn it. Bill.

-Yeah. Here you go. -Give me a hand.

Yeah. Okay.

I'm going to lose my boot.

-Got it? -Hold it.

-Nope, not yet. -Okay, take your time.

Take your time. I got you.

Ugh. Oh, that was almost it.

-Do not step here. -Do not step on that.

Do not step here or here or basically anywhere.

Okay.

Gates: Eventually, we make it through the swamps

and on to something resembling solid ground,

which means we might be one step closer to finding

hedges' crystal deity.

Made it through the mud.

Now we just got to find this cave,

so the best photo of it is really from

hedges' book which is here, right?

So a cave where sammy or anna found a rock crystal figure

of an anthropomorphic deity,

so it doesn't tell us where, but we think it's this island,

so we're looking for this general formation.

We got palms in front of it here,

and I mean, that's really all we have to go on.

I think what we're seeing here is limestone,

so I think we need to find some limestone

formations on the island,

and hopefully we'll find the cave.

All right. Let's do it.

You ready? -Yep.

All right. Let's get in to it. Come on.

♪

gates: If hedges was trying to hide something on this island,

it's easy to see why it stayed hidden.

The mud may be far behind us,

but that doesn't mean we can take our footing for granted.

-Bill! You okay? -Okay, just a second,

just a second. -You okay?

-Yeah, I'm fine. -Up, you want to come up?

Yeah. Yeah, get me up. Okay. Hold it.

Okay. Hold it just a second.

-You okay? -Yeah.

You scared [bleep] out of me. Here, let me get your hat.

Hold on a second. -Okay.

-Okay. Here you go. -Okay.

-You all right? -Let's do that again.

Okay, come on. Geez, don't do that to me, bill.

Gates: Bill might have taken a nasty fall,

but he's as tough as hedges,

and nothing is going to stop him from the mission at hand.

♪

we keep hiking until bill spots

something important between the trees.

Hey, josh, look at that.

Limestone, we got limestone. Come on.

Let's see if we can find a cave.

Gates: We follow the wall of limestone

through the jungle interior for mile after mile.

♪

bill, stop.

That's a cave, right?

-I see it, yeah. -Hold on a second.

Yeah, hold on a second. I think that could be it.

Right there. -Yep.

Lookit. That looks stalagmite and stalactite

there that are connected. -Right.

And then you look a little further in.

You see that piece hanging down

and how it's all raised up like that?

-That's it right there. -I mean, that's it.

-That's it right there. -That's it. Hey, good job.

That is it.

Look at that!

Gates: On a deserted island off the coast of honduras,

bill homann is attempting to locate a crystal statue

discovered by the late explorer

f.A. Mitchell-hedges that could prove the existence

of an advanced pre-maya civilization.

Now we're at the mouth of what may be the cave

where hedges originally found the deity.

-That's it right there. -I mean, that's it.

-That's it right there. -That's it. Hey, good job.

That is it.

Look at that!

Okay. Let's get inside of it.

-Let's go. -Come on.

Holy [bleep].

Gates: We rush to the cave.

While the exterior seems largely unchanged

since hedges' time, the interior quickly narrows.

Definitely goes back, I can't tell how far.

-You need a light? -Yeah, give me a light.

Thanks.

Gates: Infill and collapses through the past 80 years

have filled the entrance with sand and debris.

If the deity is in this section of the cave, we can't get to it.

According to anna,

hedges buried the deity near or in the mouth of the cave,

so bill and I begin by breaking out metal detectors

to sweep the exterior.

♪

♪

gates: Bill, I got a hit, hit right here.

Come here. -Let me try it.

[ beeping ]

yeah, very strong right here.

-Right in front of the cave. -Right.

Literally in front of the cave. All right.

Let me get the shovel and see what's down here.

We got a hit. We got a hit.

♪

♪

bingo.

Nail, old, really old.

I mean, this could easily be from the '20s or '30s,

looks like it might have been handmade here on the ends.

What do you think? Could this be from an old box?

Absolutely, got to be something here, so...

-Totally, let's keep searching. -Let's keep searching.

Yeah, come on. Let's do it.

Gates: We scan the rest of the clearing,

but after looking for hours, we still haven't found it,

but what if hedges buried the artifact

inside the blocked cave?

♪

gates: Let's see if we can go up and over,

maybe find another way to punch in up here.

Come down through the top.

Yeah.

Gates: Our only hope now is that the cave system

has another opening nearby.

We scramble up the mountain of limestone until...

Gates: Bill, we got an entrance.

-All right. -Look at this.

We got an entrance. All right.

Now we just got to get down inside it.

-Right. -All right.

Here we go. Let's grab some rope.

Gates: To get into the cave, we need to do a short rappel

through the vertical entrance.

Good news is this limestone is real sharp,

so lots of good footholds, but be real careful.

You fall here, bill, it's going to be bad news.

Okay, you ready? -Let's go.

Gates: We anchor a rope and prepare to head down.

♪

come down.

All right. Good.

-I'm down. -Good, man.

Okay. Let's see what's in here.

-Whoa. -Oh, my word.

Look at this place.

♪

first of all, look at this.

Some of the pieces have broken off.

Bill, look what's inside of them, pure crystal.

-Pure crystal, wow. -Look at that.

So the idea of something being down here

carved of crystal, totally possible.

The source material is right here.

Okay.

Let's see where it leads.

Oh, my god. It just keeps going and going.

This is extraordinary.

Okay.

Yeah, tarantulas.

Sammy said that where the crystal deity was,

it was full of tarantulas.

Gates: In case you're wondering if the honduran curlyhair tarantula

is poisonous...

Yes, yes, it is.

I wish you told me that part of the story earlier, bill.

♪

this place is huge, keeps going.

I got another chamber over here, bill.

♪

oh, my god. Get a camera down here.

Come here. Look at this.

I mean, unbelievable, just a beautiful

almost intact piece of pottery. And look at it, bill.

Look what this is. -Yeah.

Look at this little stippling here, these little indentations.

You can see it was all hand painted.

This is history right here.

Look at that in place right where somebody left it.

I mean, this is a ritual offering of some kind

that has been down here for hundreds

and hundreds of years undisturbed.

The first people to see this, us, you,

to lay eyes on this thing since it was set here.

This right here, this is discovery, bill.

Nice work.

Gates: This pottery is a remarkable find

and likely predates the maya culture,

making it thousands of years old.

In short, this is evidence of that lost pre-maya civilization

that hedges was pursuing.

So now I know what hedges felt like when he came down here,

and he was finding things.

Oh. Absolutely.

Seeing stuff like this out in the bay islands

for the first time must have been incredible.

Yeah, before him, no one knew about any culture out here.

Yeah, look at this.

Still things to be found today.

This goes to show you

how much work there is left to be done out here.

We have astounding artifacts down here.

Right.

And we've got crystal, but no crystal artifacts.

Not yet, no.

Haven't found the crystal deity, but the crystal skull,

on the other hand, we know where that is.

It's in your possession,

so I'm going to bug you about this again.

Would you consider submitting that

to a definitive scientific test so we can understand it?

Well, you've been bugging me and bugging me and bugging me, josh.

Every chance I get.

Every chance you get is right, so, but you know what?

I'll do it. -You will.

-I'll do it. -I got your word.

You got my word.

All right. Good.

Bill, thank you for bringing me out here, man.

Was this an adventure?

Oh, one for the books, one for the books.

All right.

Gates: Bill and I return to the surface

where we do what indiana jones would have wanted.

We alert the local museum to the cave's location.

In the weeks that follow, the governor of the bay islands

confirms the importance of the find

and that a full-scale excavation of the cave

will commence in the future,

and I also acquired something else important

in the bay islands, a promise from bill homann

to definitively test the crystal skull.

Bill flies to his vault to retrieve the skull

while I leave honduras and travel

2,300 miles away to los angeles.

And where better to meet back up than the mineral room

of the famed museum of natural history?

-So today is the day. -Today is the day.

We talked about this, and I want to show you something.

This is the mitchell-hedges skull.

Are you ready for this? -I'm ready.

That is it right under here.

-Right here. -Okay.

Here we go. -Okay?

Yeah, I'm ready.

Wow.

Look at that.

Gates: The name f.A. Mitchell-hedges is synonymous with adventure,

but were his swashbuckling expeditions epic or exaggerated?

Take for example his journey to the maya city of lubaantun.

There are basically two versions of this story,

and they're both told by mitchell-hedges.

Hedges wrote two autobiographies,

the first a book called the "land of wonder and fear"

which he published in 1931 just after his time here,

the other toward the end of his life in the 1950s,

the much more famous "danger, my ally."

and in each book, he describes this event.

Gates: In the earlier book,

hedges is led to the lost city by natives

who basically present it to him on a silver platter.

Twenty years later, though, the story changes,

and he is the one who discovers

lubaantun using his wits and a machete.

In the first version, hedges is a traveler.

In the second, he's the hero.

Gates: Two versions of one adventure,

and like all things associated with mitchell-hedges,

the truth lies somewhere in the unknown.

Gates: I'm in the los angeles county museum of natural history

with bill homann who has agreed to submit

the infamous crystal skull of doom to rigorous testing.

This is the mitchell-hedges skull.

Are you ready for this?

Yeah, I'm ready.

Wow.

Look at that.

It really does feel like it pulls you inside.

You can see a photo of it, and that's one thing,

but when you see it in person,

it's a whole different thing, isn't it?

It really is, and the way the light refracts in it

is kind of dizzying.

Gates: Bill and I take the skull in to the museum's lab

where mineralogist and geochemist

dr. Aaron celestian is waiting to receive us.

This is bill homann.

Bill, this is dr. Aaron celestian.

He's going to be helping us out today.

-Definitely. -Where do we start?

We start right over here with that microscope.

Please, lead the way.

Mm-hmm.

If you can, can you slide that underneath the microscope?

Sure.

Okay, one of the things I was looking to find out about --

is it made from a single piece of crystal?

I would say yes, it is made from a single piece of crystal.

If I just shine the laser at this piece of paper or this box,

I just see a single spot. -Right.

But when the laser interacts with the crystal,

especially a crystal of quartz, that spot should split into two.

This is telling me that this is a single block of crystal.

If it was multiple crystal, you would not see

the splaying of light in this direction.

So this was made from a single piece.

Yes.

Gates: So far, hedges' story that the skull was forged

from a single piece of crystal stands up,

but to find out when the skull was made,

dr. Celestian wants to dig deeper.

If this was made by the maya or pre-maya,

we would expect that it was made using stone tools.

If it was made in the early 20th century,

as some people have suggested, we might find modern toolmarks

or evidence of modern abrasives, right?

It is possible, yes.

Gates: We take the crystal mandible and bring it

to an x-ray fluorescence microscope

while the rest of the skull is run

through a spectroscopy machine.

The results should tell us every element present

in and on the crystal.

Vast majority of what is present is silicon.

We're also seeing traces of other elements like calcium.

Calcium is coming from probably from the teeth, strong teeth.

We're not on the teeth right now, but...

That was my attempt at a mineral joke, aaron.

That's all I had.

Gates: The elements in the scan show that the skull's origins may be

in central or south america which may fit hedges' claims,

but there's nothing on here to definitively date it.

The only thing left to do

is look at the markings on the skull itself.

What jumps out at me is that the striations

and the scratching are all unbelievably parallel.

They're all going in the same direction.

This is telling me that it wasn't a rag or something

that somebody was just polishing like you polish a car.

Here, they're always going in one direction.

My analysis of the marks means that it was polished

using a unidirectional technique

like a polishing wheel of some kind

and also machine polished by humans.

So in your mind, no doubt,

there's a machine polish happening here.

There's some sort of uniform polishing.

-That's correct. -Right.

If it was hand polished,

it would have a different signature.

That's right.

Gates: Since the maya and other pre-colombian civilizations

before them lacked the wheel,

uniform polishing marks like this

would seem to be direct evidence that the skull was made

in modern times by a high-speed machine,

likely one with high-grade diamond-coated bits,

but whether this scientific evidence convinces bill

is less certain.

Does seeing this sway you at all to believe

it was made in the 20th century?

-No. -It doesn't.

Not even one bit, no.

I believe it was made by someone

that had a higher level of technology

than we have today, yes.

Which is a great idea,

but the problem, of course, with that

is we don't really have evidence of that technology.

Yeah, well, the thing is it doesn't really matter

because one person has their opinion,

and this one has that one.

Sometimes with science, though,

you have to listen to the monitor

over there that's hooked up to the laser, don't you?

Well, it's telling me exactly what I believe.

I believe that it wasn't some mayan

sitting there polishing by hand.

It had to be brought there by a civilization

that had advanced technology.

Even though we have no evidence for that technology...

A lot of it's being hidden, but yes.

When you see the skull, and you're with the skull,

and you feel that energy, it's a gift.

It's a blessing. It's a wonderful thing.

That's what matters.

Gates: I admire bill's spirit,

but I also believe his unwavering focus

on the more fantastic parts of hedges' journey overshadows,

I believe, hedges' true legacy.

He bravely traveled deep into the jungles of honduras,

exposing vast maya ruins

and sailed into the uncharted bay islands,

uncovering exquisite pottery and relics

that alerted the world to a barely known culture

that predated the maya.

In our own journey, we, too,

uncovered evidence that this ancient culture

is still largely forgotten with a treasure trove of history

waiting to be shared with the modern world.

But hedges became obsessed that this civilization

was advanced beyond reason,

and the skull has become the embodiment of that idea.

Like that old poster in my bedroom read,

"if adventure has a name, it must be indiana jones,"

or f.A. Mitchell-hedges, a man of daring adventure

and, yes, tall tales.

As for the skull of doom,

bill says one look into its eyes will reveal its true power.

Care to give it a try?