Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions - James Randi [67]
When I visited the city of Cuenca high in the mountains of Ecuador to see the venerated Father Crespi, expectations of wonders were high. Various magazine articles had touted the golden objects to be seen in his museum, and I knew from research that the Cuenca area, besides producing great quantities of marble and artifacts made from the native stone, was also a major gold-producing center for the Incas. In fact, I was told that there was hardly a stream in the territory that would not produce at least a trace of gold, and I proved it to myself by panning a few flakes locally. But the value was not great enough to justify the time involved, and I abandoned all hopes of a gold rush.
Contrary to von Daniken's statement that Crespi is reluctant to show off his wares, I found that he was eager to do so. He took me through the paintings, stone carvings, and wooden items quickly, and we went finally into the Third Room. 1was speechless: not for the same reason as von Daniken, however. The collection was a total, unmitigated fraud from wall to wall. Scraps of tin cans, brass sheets, and copper strips abounded, mixed with piles of rusted chain, shards of armor, and bits of miscellaneous machinery. Some of the brass sheets were embossed and scratched with everything from elephants to dinosaurs. Crude and rather poor designs were plentiful in the margins and backgrounds, and there were more representations of pyramids than I could count. The terrible truth began to dawn on me immediately.
There was one piece of gold, of a purity I could not determine. Now, I have handled a lot of Peruvian and Ecuadorian gold in my day. I have some of it in my home. There is something about its texture and particularly its weight that gives it away. And it evokes a strange flush of the body and quickness of breath that has been aptly described as "gold fever." It is intoxicating to have in your hands the one substance that has been pursued with more diligence than any other. One begins to entertain ideas of murder and flight (Father Crespi looked very vulnerable to me at that moment).
But it was shocking to see what I held in my hand. It was quite obviously a scrap of gold from a larger artifact, chopped out of the original and reworked by modern hands. I would identify it as a piece of a breastplate of some kind, now reduced to a piece about five inches square with a triangle and some crude snakes upon it, rudely embossed and fitting the irregular scrap right out to the margins. Only a few weeks before, I had been told in Guayaquil about a tragic act of vandalism involving a finely worked gold mask from the Esmeraldas area on the Ecuadorian coast. Two American gold hunters had found it, then gotten into a dispute. Their solution was like Solomon's: They sliced the mask in two, destroying its artistic, archaeological, and aesthetic value, and each departed with a certain weight of gold sheet.
I had learned that gold artifacts were often melted down—for safety reasons. It is against the law in Ecuador to possess antique gold artifacts; all such objects are the property of the government and must be surrendered. But raw or lump gold is okay. Thus the artifacts are often destroyed and sold for the value of the basic metal. What treasures are lost this way! But in questioning Father Crespi, I learned why he had so many "antediluvian" artifacts on display, in stone and metal. It developed that he provided small sums of money, clothing, and indulgences in return for artifacts. And he made it quite clear to all that he preferred pieces which would prove his theory that the Egyptians and Babylonians populated South America, particularly Ecuador! He