The Barbie fossil

[Stormlight]

The Barbie fossil (http://www.strangeplaces.net/weirdthings/barbie.html)

Great stuff. :lol:

There's this nutball who digs things out of his back yard and sends the stuff he finds to the Smithsonian Institute, labelling them with scientific names, insisting that they are actual archaeological finds. The really weird thing about these letters is that this guy really exists and does this in his spare time! Anyway... here's a letter from the Smithsonian Institute to this man who sent the Institute one of his 'major finds'.

[Veritas]

I love it when someone takes the piss and the other person responds in equal good humour; I love that letter. :rofl:

[livius drusus]

But it says at the top it's an urban legend, so presumably those letters aren't real. :wha:

ETA: Snopes knows all (http://www.snopes.com/humor/letters/smithson.htm).

There is a Harvey Rowe, but not of the Smithsonian. In the spring of 1994 and while a graduate student at MUSC in Charleston, South Carolina, he wrote what has become known as the Smithsonian Barbie letter. In a fit of creativity, he tossed off this mythical response to a backyard digger, then shared his writing effort with a small circle of friends. One of those friends sent the piece to others, and thus Smithsonian Barbie entered into the world of e-lore.

[quiet bear]

That head wasn't chewed on when I sent it.

[Dingfod]

The sabre-toothed clams down at the post office did the chewing.

[The Lone Ranger]

Yeah, that one gets sent around to everyone in the Biology Department every other year or so. Never fails to get a laugh.

Cheers,

Michael