Rob removed the tarpaulin from the site and they set about expanding the ledge to allow proper recording and reference sectioning of the artifacts. The team initially dedicated a few hours to fine clean and record some of the tracks already uncovered. Mike’s surprisingly careful work from two days ago simplified the task for all but two concretions that could wait until the rest of the track segment was cleared. The hard concretions lay on the surface of the fossil layer and were most likely part of the original seabed. Mike knew they might be nothing more than a few pieces of shell or rock saturated with the mud and sand then hardened by the ages. They could also contain whole seashells, ammonites or a geode-like hollow where once the soft tissue of an animal existed to form a perfect mold of some forgotten species. The concretions would have to wait until more time could be dedicated to their careful extraction. Then Leo would carefully open each using fine pick-like dental tools and a toothbrush. Most likely, they contained nothing more than fossil seashells that had been lying on the shallow tidal basin but like a wrapped birthday present, you never know.
They took the time to arrange the reference stakes and markers. The team slowly and carefully began moving the rest of the sandy cover layers from around the artifacts. The artifact trail extended onward into the hillside as Mike had hoped. As he had noticed, the tracks converged to one spot about ten feet in from the edge of the rock shelf. The scene suggested that the animals violently thrashed around a small area as though they had excitedly cornered an animal, darting in and out from some point further inside the ground covering. Working deeper into the top rubble, a set of raptor tracks turned to race off on a single direction as though fleeing or pursuing some unseen objective.
When the tracks first converged, the central point of the raptors attention had focused on an area that was covered by a hard object or small mound. The mound consisted of small block of stone or a large concretion for it was obviously composed of the same material as the surrounding Cretaceous bed. Leo offered to open the block. Carefully working with jewelers tools and a small hammer he removed about a quarter of an inch of material when a piece stuck solid without flaking or crumbling. A slightly more forceful tap on the piece resulted in a shiny scratch mark where the tool had slit across the stone. Leo, experienced as he was felt his own excitement rising and he forced himself to calm down and slowly worked an oval metallic ring from the softer stone surrounding it.
‘Is this some kind of joke?’ Rob turned to Mike but he knew in his heart that it would have to be a very elaborate joke. The site was clearly undisturbed. They took more photos and slowly began clearing the rest of the rock matrix from around the artifact. With painful slowness and care, three links of a half-inch thick chain of some metallic silver composition emerged from the rock where it had been lying at the center of the raptor tracks.
At this point Rob called a halt and sat back. He was visibly disturbed as he took a drink from his canteen. ‘We seem to have found an out-of-sequence artifact. Some fossil sites, when damaged by natural actions such as floods or geologic upheaval, will have their strata mixed. The mixing process contaminates the fossil record by allowing layers, that should have been above or below the strata’s geologic placement, to coexist as though they were part of the same geologic record. That is, the strata from one era mixes others that form earlier or later confusing the fossil record. Fossils appearing in the wrong strata are considered out-of-sequence and can lead to unexpected and erroneous conclusions. We can’t always explain what shows up at a dig like this.’
‘In 1968 a human footprint was discovered in an Ordovician fossil bed in Antelope Springs Nevada. The unexplained footprint caused quite a stir because it appeared to the print of a human sandal or shoe sole. Beneath the print were the fossil remains of two Trilobites, one only partially crushed as though the wearer of the sandals trod over the Trilobites. There exists more than two dozen cases of human footprints, finger parts, skulls or other jawbones found around the world in strata where they should not be because they predate the existence of our well-researched human record. The scientific community relegates some of the imprints to a case of mistaken identification. Speculation follows that the footprints of smaller dinosaurs, such as our theropod here, are distorted by mud or the wear of time and the elements to look vaguely human. These artifacts all have one common element. The finders did not properly document their placement in the fossil layer. Amateurs found several of the suspicious artifacts in loose rocks gathered from the dig site only to be opened and discovered years later.’
‘Having said this, we have a bit of a problem. Even though we carefully conducted and recorded our excavations, we cannot explain the presence of this chain in what appears to be an undisturbed fossil record. You do realize that if we publish the finding of a man-made chain integrated with these tracks then this could really hurt our careers?’
Jan, who had been very quiet up until this point, voiced the real fears of the find. ‘This is bad. Not only is it obviously out of the fossil sequence but it is an intact metal chain without any signs of corrosion. If the chain is indeed iron based, it implies the links were sealed from oxygen and the elements ever since it was covered. A similar find occurred near hear in London Texas. The discovery was from this same Cretaceous era strata and the analysis published in the Ancient American magazine. In 1934, amateur fossil hunters picked up a block of stone from the area. The collector picked it up because a piece of coal seemed to be stuck in the limestone matrix. This rock lay in the collector’s cellar until 1946 when the finder’s son was amazed to discover an iron hammer embedded in its center. The hammer had a wooden handle that was partially fossilized into coal near the surface of the stone. I researched this incident because of the unusual characteristics of the iron head.’
‘The tool was obviously a hammer designed for a special application. One tip is shaped into the form of a plus sign and the other supports a section extruded to a small dimple on its face. To add to the unusual nature of the find, Iron hammers produced today all contain levels of carbon heated and diffused into the iron matrix. The carbon adds strength to the tool and the amount added during the smelting process is carefully controlled for if too much is added the iron becomes brittle. Oddly enough, the London Hammer artifact, as it’s now known, contained over 96% iron with near 3% Chlorine and some trace Sulfur. The metal contained no Carbon. One more interesting point, the high chlorine alloy composition could not be created under today’s current atmospheric pressure levels. Either the atmosphere had to be significantly different than what we have today or the hammer was created in a high-technology controlled chamber.’
‘If you don’t have a furnace capable of heating the iron ore above 700 degrees you would not be able to add the carbon. So let’s assume it was poured into a mold. X-ray analysis shows the hammer’s composition is uniform; no bubbles from molding. The metal exhibits no bubbles at all! We can’t do this with current casting techniques. The X-ray analysis also discovered that the density of the hammer’s surface is significantly greater than you find in its interior. This suggests work hardening or beating of the surface to harden it. However, the hammer has none of the telltale signs of such a process. One final mystery is that, like our chain links, the hammer exhibited no rust for reasons unknown.’
‘In past discoveries, findings like these are quickly debunked by the scientific community. At the same time, Creationists embrace the findings because they want to prove the flood account of the Bible. The discoveries are taken as Creationist proof that man co-existed with Trilobites and Dinosaurs. The hammer currently is in a private, Creationist owned collection.’
‘I’m really torn by this discovery. The track bed we found here is significant and deserves a chance to be a valued contribution to our knowledge of the Cretaceous life. If we want to publish this discovery, as we should without modification, we may never get out of the publication’s peer review. We will be accused of poor technique, site contamination, fabrication or even w
orse, fraud.’
‘Let’s not get too excited about this yet’ cautioned Rob. ‘Leo still hasn’t cleared the entire rock and I’m sure an explanation will follow. I expect we’ll see more footprints as we get below the encrustation and down to the fossil level. Most likely the chain fell from some settler’s wagon and the area was again covered by sand from the river.’
Leo’s work slowed even more as he cleared the intricate workings of the rock-encrusted chain with even greater caution. Imprints beneath the chain would clearly show the concretion to be a latter addition to the site thus providing a solution to their problem.
‘Holy mackerel, look at this!’ Leo suddenly cried out. There, near the bottom of the rock face the chain link was broken with a bent half-link still locked in the stone matrix. The suspense grew as Jan again began recounting the citations brought out in her “Bad Archeology” class segment that reviewed other artifacts such as a small Brass Bell found in a lump of West Virginia coal in 1944. Again, a careful scientific excavation did not discover the bell. It was found by a ten year old boy in a basement coal bin. Although totally enclosed in the single piece of 300 million year old coal the details of its discovery are unknown.
In 1912 a Municipal Electric Plant employee from Thomas Oklahoma entered a sworn affidavit of a similar out-of-sequence find. He encountered a coal lump that was too large to use in the furnace and broke it with a sledgehammer. He found a small cast iron pot with fluted pour spouts in the center of the rock. The coal was from the Wilburton Oklahoma Mines and was assigned an evolutionary date of Mid Pennsylvanian or about 295 million years ago.
As Jan recounted these finds Leo had excavated down to the fossil level of the rock strata. ‘I don’t see any indication of prints under this rock. Some of the chain in fact extends down into the lower rock. If I could just pry beneath this larger piece …’ and the rock broke loose flaking from a smooth surface clearly showing a small raptors killing claw broken at its base. Leo paled and could not bring himself to touch it for the fossil was clearly embedded in a link of the chain.
Rob silently stared at the artifact. In his mind swelled conflicting thoughts of a loss of reputation and his responsibility to his graduate students. Students who would soon be publishing and defending their doctoral thesis. He clearly knew this track sequence should be the find of his career. However, if he published the discovery, would it be the end of their careers?
References
http://www.texas-geology.com/Texas%20Cretaceous%20Hill%20Country%20and%20P%20Lakes.html
http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/publications/pwdpubs/media/pwd_br_p4502_0094.pdf
http://www.badarchaeology.net/data/ooparts/antelope.php
Mike’s raptor-chain artifact discovery is of course fictional. However, the existence of out-of-sequence (OOS) artifacts is a real and somewhat common occurrence in archeology and paleontology. The reader will notice however that you do not see many, if any, peered publications in this topic. Nor will the researcher find any published books. Why? Mostly because none of the recovered artifacts, so far, are from a site where there has been a properly conducted excavation.
The dinosaur discovery expeditions of the 1800’s were often violent and highly competitive. Hunters like O.C. Marsh and Edward Driker Cope competed with each other to find the most spectacular of each new specimen and the museums of the Victorian era bought them as quickly as they could. Skeletons were ripped from the ground in the collectors haste to collect on the best findings.
The Brontosaurus is the primary example of the losses inflicted upon us by these collectors. In 1879 Marsh dug up the skeleton of what was then the largest dinosaur to be found. It was complete in every respect except one, it didn't have a head. Never one to get hung up on details, Marsh scoured their collection until he found a couple skulls that looked like they might fit and shipped the skeleton to the metropolitan museum as a Brontosaurus.
The Brontosaurus head Marsh found lay near the skeletons of another type of dinosaur called the Camarasaurus, and in fact looked an awful lot like Camarasaurus skulls. Today the Brontosaurus, with a proper skull, is known as an Apatasaurus.
Every epoch has at least two OOS artifacts that have plagued the scientific community. Most are distortions like footprints that could be those of a human or perhaps a three-toed predator. Other human footprints and tooth samples have been larger than life-size and would have to have belonged to a 20 to 25 foot tall human.
The examples cited in this story are examples of two that may be most credible. The trilobite crushed footprint, called the Meister Print, is clearly the proper size and shape for a human print. This 500 million year old print is clear enough that sandal details are discernable. Unfortunately, an amateur casually picked up the block without a properly documented excavation of the surrounding strata. The artifact is a solitary print, not part of a track sequence.
Glen Kuban examined this specimen and drew the following conclusions. ‘The specimen does contain several real trilobites, but the "print" itself is questionable on several accounts. Upon closer inspection the overall shape is seen to consist of a spall pattern in a concretion-like slab, similar to others in the area. There is no evidence that it was ever part of a striding sequence, nor evidence that it was ever on an exposed bedding plane. The "print" is very shallow and shows no sign of pressure deformation nor foot movement at its margin. The supposed "heel" demarcation is actually a crack that runs across the entire slab, beyond the boundary of the supposed print. The slight relief difference at this point is due to slight movement along the crack line (Conrad, 1981; Stokes, 1986).’
Glen Kuban also examined the “London Creek” or “Texas Hammer” artifact that plays a strong part is this recording. Kuban basically states that the absence of carbon in the iron would not be surprising if an early ironsmith could not obtain the high temperatures needed for carbon diffusion. Again this is an artifact found by amateurs but not properly documented in-situ, and has not been reliably associated with any specific host formation. The owners claimed to have found it in Cretaceous or Ordovician or Silurian one rock formations, depending on the account given. The current owners of the hammer have not allowed the handle to be C14 dated except for an unverified account of an 1990’s C14 dating attempt that produced inconclusive evidence on the age of the handle. As with all extraordinary claims, the burden of proof is on those making the claims, not on those questioning them.
The OOS finds are all poorly documented and do not stand up to the intense scrutiny necessary for scientific discovery. Creationist collectors such as Carl E. Baugh have been the primary supporters of these artifacts. Their goal is to submit the finds as proof of a strict Biblical account for the creation of the world. Glen Kuban holds a BA in Biology from Ohio State.
The quotation for this prolog is from that awesome physicist, Stephen Hawking. It leads the inquisitive mind to a logical conclusion. Where are all the time travelers if time travel is possible? For that matter, where are all the visitors from other stellar civilizations? We do not see them in daily life, therefore they don’t exist! Certainly, in the case of interstellar travel, a probability analysis says they must exist. Maybe they are just too far away to visit. How about travel through time? Why haven’t we seen the time travelers among us?
The one explanation that all analysis seems to ignore is the theory presented here. Could the artifacts, loosely strewn through our long history, be truly out of sequence? Out of sequence in that they were placed there not by indigenous residents of the age but by travelers through time?
We will have to wait for a properly documented scientific excavation of an OOS artifact before their true existence can be confirmed. However, like the fictional scientists of the first prolog, would any sane paleontologist want to stand up to the ridicule and scrutiny that the scientific community of his peers would level at any such discovery?
I want to stress as strongly as possible that the raptor-chain artifact discovery never happened and the characters h
ere are purely fictional.
Chapter 1: The Jovian Portal
"There are worlds within worlds. Atoms beget protons and electrons. Soon there be quarks galore with leptons and fermions arising. Even the humble electrons knowingly exhibit spin and photon absorption. All unexplained particle characteristics for the electron until we discovered microleptons. It was the humble electron subparticle structure that provided our key to gravitonics and set man’s path to the stars."
Mark Francis Nolen
Like a swarm of bees, they dive, turn, fall and climb. They rip in a charged maelstrom around the magnetic poles to scream and fluoresce into a photon cloud casting hot sheets of undulating rainbows. Again swarming, flying to the equator along the field lines of the dynamo where they climb to the very speed of the photon itself. Only to be cast far out from the planet. Some rip into the thin atmosphere of Io to glow and collide with the plumes of volcanic vaporized basalt. Others climb even higher and faster to the very orbit of Europa searing through the moon’s tenuous atmosphere to rip more oxygen from the frozen sea-surface of the satellite and fluoresce in even brighter undulating sheets of color and rabid energy. Particles so much smaller than the eye can see, the deadly electrons of Jupiter kill the unwary traveler and yet bring the very basics of oxygen and water to men far from home.
‘Strange how most times you don’t hear the breeze. With the environment tuned to early spring, the sound of the low winds through the young virtual leaves should be soothing, comforting and audible. Of course, the distraction is the view that pulls the mind to watch the colors dancing across the darkened sky. Please bear with me and come over to this wall-section Sara.’
‘This is my favorite wing of the station because of the windows. They are actually a real-time surface imaged display set to mimic the scene outside using tunneling photon imaging. Even the strongest glass could not survive the harsh conditions outside. This display uses the same root technology as our camouflage folds but in this window we shift and compress wavelengths of the natural photon ray bundle to enhance the view. You are seeing a broader spectrum and brighter image than you could with normal eyesight.’
Nodal Convergence (Cretaceous Station Book 1) Page 2