Sealand Skull Update

This is a good follow-up on the Sealand Skull report.  It includes additional photographs and what is shown is at the least an excellent sculpture if the hoax conjecture is to hold up.

Certainly the first item confirms that the tale of its discovery holds up, but then that would be the best way to introduce a hoax with a crowd of dupes available to act as eye witnesses.  After all it worked very well for Piltdown man.

We do not know how the skull was cleaned up and all that can leave a whole range of spurious effects in the images.

The claim is made that the skull was sampled and tested for carbon 14 testing and that we have a date of approximately 900 years old.  That report is badly needed here because it will have been just about impossible to fabricate that evidence without outright falsification through substitution.

My point is that this object has already been in capable hands who would not be fooled by a sculpture for a minute.  My fingernail would clarify a lot of the issues.  Unless those witnesses have been simply faked, the argument for a hoax is pretty shaky.  This is because the hoax argument runs into the problem on rapidly expanding complexity.  Eventually you end up needing hundreds of co conspirators.

It appears to be well cleaned up for display purposes.  It may also not hold color as well as a human skull because it is significantly denser as is true for the known Starchild Skull.

One comment though.  The teeth are unusual but may actually be an example of deliberate improvement.  Our own dentation is problematic and in terms of making improvements to the human design, it is just about the first thing we would fix.  Thus the teeth may in fact be a simple design improvement.

Otherwise there is plenty of other variation in fine detail to make the genius sculptor conjecture touchy.

Again a handful of experienced experts could determine almost immediately if this was fabricated by simple inspection and confirm it with simple tests.

 "Dear Mr. Toke Hanson,

You may on behalf of me post the following at Unsolved-Mysteries.com

Dear all at Unsolved Mysteries,

Via my Danish publisher I have from Toke Hanson received a request to try and answer some questions regarding the so-called Sealand skull. In return, I asked him to forward you this message on my behalf.

To do my utmost to understand your debate, I have carefully read Anton Spangenberg’s article and all the (58) comments posted under it. It is beyond my powers to answer all these controversial questions, but I can help with these:

1. The persistant rumours about l’Ordre Lux Pégasos was among the main sources for my awarded 2009 novelette The Manuduction, and it remains a fact that even if the order as such is non-extant (today), rumors on it can be tracked far back in time.

2. I have not read the alleged article in the Danish newspaper Politiken, but I do have seen a notice about the radio carbon dating – either in MetroXpress or Urban, both are newspapers to take for free in the Copenhagen area’s public transportation systems. Being used to research I know that it's easy to miss articles on issues we're looking for (we can't read all the magazines and newspapers) and it's often a bit of a nightmare to re-find old articles. So I see no reason to doubt that Toke Hanson is correct when claiming that Danish newspapers brought one or more articles about the skull in the period late summer 2007 till spring 2008.

3. Not only do I have family in the area where tales on the secret order are told, in the very town of Ølstykke where the skull was found. My father as well as my older brother have at the time of its uncovery seen it with their own eyes, and they described its eye sockets as grapefruit sized and it's teeth somewhere between human and those of a dog. Therefore, I am certain that the skull exists.

4. Finally, during an interview in front of audience at Fantasticon 2009 in Denmark, organizer Flemming Rasch displayed a whole series of photos showing the skull from various angles, its underside included. I was myself present and saw them all. Although I cannot guarantee that these pictures were not brought forth using photoshop, they indeed matched the descriptions by my family and other witnesses living in Ølstykke. Thus, to the best of my knowledge, the picture published by Unexplained Mysteries is cut in the top and bottom, but is otherwise not manipulated with photoshop or other means.

I am, however, unable to verify the connection between l’Ordre Lux Pégasos and the Sealand skull. About the nature and origin of the skull, I can also say nothing. These questions are for experts to solve.

In the hope that you came closer to solve the mystery -- best wishes to all of you,

el midgetron Posted 15 September 2010 - 10:03 PM

Well, I did a critique of the first two photos posted by Toke (thanks for digging these up btw). However, by the time I was done Toke had long since posted two more, which in my opinion clearly depict a sculpted model and this critique becomes something of a pointless exercise. 

Let me perface this by saying whoever sculpted this skull has a lot of talent, it might not be perfect enough to pass off as legit but its far better than most artist hopefuls could hope to do. As well, some of the points I make deal with anatomical comparisons to human anatomy. Obviously, if this was a real alien skull it would be reasonable to credit it with its own properties removed from human anatomy. None the less, human anatomy is the only bar we have by which to measure this skull, even more so considering how hominoid it is.

Anyway with out further adieu, heres my bloated critique....

(1) This might be the most telling sign of an artists hand. One challenge artists face depicting realism is the conflict of how things look vs how we think things should look. We think eye sockets should be darker, this is due to how lighting interacts with recessed areas. However, the reality is that the eye socket would develope the same patina as the exterior of the skull unless the conditions (for example, buried in soil) were different between the two areas. In small cracks and tight areas we might expect deeper (thicker) patina but considering the size of those eye sockets the patina should atleast follow the rules observed in human anatomy. In the top photo its clear the inside of the eye sockets are not entirely shaded as we might expect under other lighting conditions (by the tell tale reflection of light), yet even in the illuminated areas they are still a much darker patina than the extreior of the skull.

(2) These areas of the skull are problematic in my opinion. The rear teeth do not reflect actual anatomy. They aren't bad sculptures but aren't realistic. In the bottom photo they even appear to be a single form rather than independent of each other. As well they largely share the same patina as the rest of the bone of the skull (see photo 2). This is problematic because (in human anatomy) teeth are covered with enamel which should dictact different patina properties. The area in the skull which around the gum-line shows unsatisfactory sculpting of ridging around the roots of the teeth. As well, in the sceond photo the line of bone that meets the teeth is very symmetrical, or in other words its a straight line that the teeth come out of (but hey maybe thats how alien skulls are..).

(3) The "fangs" are very curious. They seem strangely juxaposed against the other teeth, which appear to be only useful for chewing. One possible answer to this is that aliens are vampires and only need fangs for deep punctures. However, realisticly speaking, the discrepancy between the fangs and the rest of the well rounded, almost dull, teeth is hard to believe. Its also curious how the fangs seem to be missing any patina where they meet the gum-line. In both photos this area is almost white, maybe a shade of clay or plaster? Either way, I can think of no reason why the massive eye sockets would be a darker patina yet these areas of both fangs seem to have no patina.

(4) This part of the skull's jaw bone has very sharp edges. Even more so considering they are the "ball" part of the socket joint. Maybe alien anatomy is really freaky, or maybe it just helps the model fit together better........ I cant imagine how these drastic edges could facilitate the function of a socket.

(5) Granted, there are a million patinas and a billion lighting scenerios but this just looks like the reflectivness of ceramics to me.

(6) (7) The skull plate cracks (sorry I don't know the proper terms) really looks painted on. As the skull grows the seperate regions of the skull fuse together. The division of the regions face of the adult human skull are much less noticeable than the larger plates of the cranium. Yet, here they seem to share equal clarity. The one in the second photo running from the nasal cavity to gum-line is (dare I say) never noticeable in adult human skulls. One last observation, if you follow the crack above the nasal cavity as in goes down and curves into the eye socket (in second photo) at the lowest point, following up to the right (and zooming in), it looks like it breaks into two lines.

In conclusion, my observations are unchanged from the original photo posted, this is a sculpted "model". I think its sweet but its not real.

This post has been edited by el midgetron: 15 September 2010 - 10:18 PM