Author: Tom Shipley
Exposé #2: The Smithsonian Institution, and Charles DiPeso
In Exposé #1, we looked at the attempt by prominent atheist Richard Dawkins to censor, slander and blacklist agnostic science journalist Richard Milton. Moreover, we noted Milton’s citation of the widespread occurrence of such activities by prominent evolutionists, being exemplified by 1) the repression of Melvin Cook’s detailed manuscript regarding atmospheric helium which was a follow up to a 1957 article in the journal, “Nature,” (and yielded results indicative of a young age of the earth); 2) the (sadly) successful blacklisting of biologist Warwick Collins by evolutionist Maynard Smith; 3) the attempt to block publications by science journalist Forrest Mims by Jonathan Piel, New York editor of the Scientific American; and here in Exposé #2 we turn the spotlight upon two parties: an icon of evolution, the Smithsonian Institution, and Charles DiPeso.
I have a question: if we were to find artifacts made by the people of ancient cultures who produced figurines, drawings, pottery, rock and stone engravings, etc., depicting realistic images of dinosaurs and other extinct animals, including anatomical features of the skin only discovered by modern archaeologists in the last 25 years, would this or would this not constitute very powerful evidence that those ancient peoples actually saw the dinosaurs depicted, and that those dinosaurs therefore lived in relatively recent times?
Such evidence actually does exist. Not only does it exist but it exists in abundance, and it exists all over the world. One such storehouse of evidence, and my focus in this article, is about 2,600 dinosaur figurines, part of the Waldemar Julsrud collection unearthed in the 1940’s and 1950’s in Acámbaro, Mexico. This was meticulously researched on site by Professor Charles H. Hapgood and documented in his book, “Mystery in Acámbaro,” which includes a lengthy introduction by David Hatcher Childress. Charles Hapgood was a Harvard University graduate and Professor of history and anthropology at Keene State College of the University of New Hampshire.
Hapgood’s “Mystery in Acámbaro” is the end product of 18 years of personal, firsthand research and investigation of the Acámbaro figurines, including his own excavations unearthing the figurines. Hapgood’s research on this subject is authoritative and unimpeachable. Let it be noted that Hapgood was an evolutionist and initially a skeptic about the figurines but came to believe in their authenticity after he did his own firsthand research. Hapgood concluded from his investigation of the Acámbaro figurines that the dinosaurs depicted did not die out 65 million years ago but persisted to recent times and were in fact seen alive by the people of the Chupicuaro culture who fashioned their likenesses in clay.
Charles Hapgood was not by any stretch of the imagination the only believer in the authenticity of the Acámbaro figurines. Hapgood also introduced the famous District Attorney-turned-novelist-and-television-writer, Earle Stanley Gardner to the figurines. Gardner was an attorney, and former District Attorney for Ventura County, California. Gardner is most famous as the author of the Perry Mason novels. Gardner also came to believe in the authenticity of the figurines after also personally investigating them. Gardner documented this in his book, “Host with the Big Hat.”
Hapgood also introduced Ivan T. Sanderson to the figurines. Sanderson was a famous zoologist who was a frequent guest on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show during the 1960’s. Let it be stressed for emphasis that BOTH Sanderson and Gardner concluded that the figurines were authentic artifacts of the native, ice-age Chupicuaro culture as a result of their firsthand, eyewitness participation in the investigation of the figurines.
Another believer in the genuineness of the Acámbaro figurines as products of the ancient Chupicuaro culture was researcher John H. Tierney, who lectured for decades about the figurines. Tierney wrote about the figurines in an article titled “Pseudoscientific Attacks on Acámbaro Artifacts: The Ceramic Technology of Intellectual Suppression,” which article appeared in “World Explorer” magazine (Volume 1, No. 4, pg. 52 – 61). In the article, Tierney also levels blistering condemnation of the Smithsonian Institution and the Smithsonian’s hatchet-man, Charles DiPeso, who was solicited by the Smithsonian to conduct a disinformation campaign. (I would highly recommend to anyone interested in this case to obtain a copy of Tierney’s article.)
The Great Darwinian Propaganda Machine of our educational, media and government elite (of which the Smithsonian Institution is certainly at or near the top), predictably, are not very interested in spreading the word about these artifacts. In fact, it seems self-evident to me when you investigate the Smithsonian’s activities over the years that they have routinely suppressed and censored such information from public view to the best of their ability and carried on multiple campaigns of disinformation in the attempt to discredit the authenticity of the evidence–which evidence, in the Julsrud/Acámbaro case, under any other similar circumstances would be accepted at face value as the productions of the civilization being researched. But, No, say the evolutionists, the depictions are of dinosaurs and therefore the figurines MUST be frauds.
The ONLY reason the authenticity of this evidence is disputed by evolutionists is precisely because of the nature of the depictions. Tierney notes in his article, “(T)he evidence is all in favor of the authenticity of the collection,” (pg. 56). One of the most compelling facts is that many of the dinosaurs depicted are of sauropods (like the famous brontosaurus) with dermal frills running down their backs. Now this is a most interesting detail because until 1992 sauropod dinosaurs were thought by paleontologists to be smooth-backed until Stephen Czerkas discovered fossilized skin impressions clearly revealing dermal frills. If the Acámbaro figurines are frauds, how did the perpetrators know 40 years in advance of these discoveries the correct anatomy of the dinosaurs depicted? I do not know of any evolutionist who has given any answer to that question with even a semblance of sanity.
This present article is not about this evidence per se, which is worthy of a study in its own right, but about the attempt of the Great Darwinian Propaganda Machine to suppress this evidence and perpetrate misinformation.
Exposé #2: The Smithsonian Institution, and Charles DiPeso
Background:
The small town of Acámbaro, Mexico, in the State of Guanajuato, 175 miles northwest of Mexico City, is the site of the ancient Chupicuaro culture. In 1944, Waldemar Julsrud, a German merchant and trained archaeologist who lived in Acámbaro, was riding on horseback on the outskirts of the town at the base of a mountain called El Toro when he came upon some figurines sticking out of an irrigation ditch. Julsrud excavated the figurines, and continued to excavate and collect the figurines for many years, and eventually amassed a staggering collection of over 33,500 artifacts of various styles and materials. The artifacts are obviously the work of many different people. Some 2,600 or so of the figurines collected are very clearly of dinosaurs, many of them depicting interaction with humans!
On a subject such as this, a picture is worth 10,000 words, and I strongly urge the reader to investigate the visual media documenting these finds. One of the best video presentations about the Acámbaro figurines is this one by geologist, Dr. Don Patton, who conducted his own extensive research of the figurines, and this site documenting the Acámbaro evidence and witnesses as to its authenticity, including the Mexican authorities. Patton has concluded, after his research and investigation, including personally examining the figurines, that the figurines are genuine.
Needless to say, many of Charles Hapgood’s fellow evolutionists cannot accept this conclusion. From the evolutionists’ perspective, the discovery of the existence of “living fossils” such as coelacanths swimming around in the Indian Ocean was bad enough. But dinosaurs 3,000 – 4,000 years ago in close contact with humans? No way!
According to Childress:
“Archaeological investigator John H. Tierney says Julsrud was discredited from the important 1923 discovery by a rival Acámbaro collector, who also tried to discredit the 1944 find. He apparently fed an American archaeologist named Charles DiPeso the story that an unlocatable family of peons had hoaxed Julsrud with the controversial artifacts…DiPeso claimed to have minutely examined the then 32,000 pieces within not more than four hours spent at the home of Julsrud. Tierney, who has lectured on the case for decades, points out that DiPeso would have had to inspect 133 pieces per minute steadily for four hours…(I)t would have required weeks merely to separate the massive jumble of exhibits and arrange them properly for a valid evaluation.” –pg. 15, Mystery in Acámbaro, emph. supp.
Charles DiPeso is the “authority” to whom the evolutionists routinely turn to debunk the Acámbaro finds. Yet DiPeso’s claims and argumentation are patently suspicious in multiple ways and full of holes. This is well-documented in the book, “The Dinosaur Delusion,” by Eric Lyons and Kyle Butt (see pages 77-98).
Moreover, Tierney notes in his World Explorer article:
“Although hoaxers have never been named or located by those who have mounted or supported claims to this effect, (and this includes a very sizeable number of leading archaeologists who have thus violated their professional codes of standards) the debunkers have been unrelenting in their hostility for a half a century” (pg. 53, emph. supp.).
Tierney notes Charles Dipeso and Frederick A. Peterson as making the most prominent claims of a hoax.
According to Childress:
“Tierney, who collaborated with the late Professor Hapgood, the late William N. Russell and others in the investigation, charges that the Smithsonian Institution and other archaeological authorities conducted a campaign of disinformation against the discoveries. The Smithsonian early in the controversy dismissed the entire Acámbaro collection as an elaborate hoax. Utilizing Freedom of Information Act approaches, Tierney discovered that practically the entirety of the Smithsonian’s Julsrud files are missing”!!!—pg. 16-17, Mystery in Acámbaro, emph. supp.
Yes. They would be missing, wouldn’t they? Having “lost” their files (!!!), the Smithsonian is in no position of authority to dismiss anything as a hoax. It seems rather clear to me, even if it is not clear to evolutionists, that the reason the Julsrud files are missing from the Smithsonian Institution is because, as Childress says,
“The very existence of the figurines threatens the ivory tower of the current paradigm of history,” (pg. 20)
and so, rather than allow the information to go public, officers at the Smithsonian made sure the information disappeared. Why else would they hide or destroy the Julsrud files? Do not expect me to be naïve enough for even one second to believe that such files were lost or misplaced. This ought to be our operating assumption in this case unless and until the Smithsonian produces the long-missing files and proves otherwise. Tierney asserts in his “World Explorer” magazine article that the Smithsonian’s Julsrud files were “funneled” to DiPeso, which is illegal. (The Smithsonian, do not forget, is a federal government institution.) There may very well have been felonies committed by Smithsonian Institution officers in the Acámbaro/Julsrud case.
Tierney writes:
“Logic suggests that the protectors of orthodoxy in this instance were consciously or subconsciously simply utilizing damage control methods that had succeeded in the past…
“(I)n their spin-doctoring of the Acámbaro mystery the professional ‘experts’ have been blithely conducting an intellectual con comparable to a sidewalk shell game” (pg. 52).
In our next article, we shall examine a particularly egregious case of information repression on the part of evolutionists, regarding Carbon-14 dating of dinosaur remains
