BS: Smithsonian Institute

Subject: Smithsonian Institute
From: Davey
Date: 10 Nov 99 - 09:27 AM

Here we are at mid week, and I thought I'd lighten your day.

The story behind the letter below is that there is this nutball in Newport, RI named Scott Williams who digs things out of his back yard and sends the stuff he finds to the Smithsonian Institution, labeling them with his own scientific names, insisting that they are actual archaeological finds. This guy really exists and does this in his spare time!
Anyway...
here's the actual response from the Smithsonian.

Those of us who are challenged to respond to difficult situations in writing, should aspire to be as eloquent as Mr. Rowe....
__________________________________________________
Smithsonian Institution
207 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20078

Dear Mr. Williams,

Thank you for your latest submission to the Institute, labeled "93211-D, layer seven, next to the clothesline post...Hominid skull." We have given this specimen a careful and detailed examination, and regret to inform you that we disagree with your theory that it represents conclusive proof of the presence of Early Man in Charleston County two million years ago.
Rather it appears that what you have found is the head of a Barbie doll, of the variety that one of our staff, who has small children, believes to be "Malibu Barbie."

It is evident that you have given a great deal of thought to the analysis of this specimen, and you may be quite certain that those of us who are familiar with your prior work in the field were loathe to come to contradiction with your findings. However, we do feel that there are a number of physical attributes of the specimen which might have tipped you off to its modern origin :

1. The material is molded plastic. Ancient hominid remains are typically fossilized bone.

2. The cranial capacity of the specimen is approximately 9 cubic centimeters,well below the threshold of even the earliest identified proto-homonids.

3. The dentition pattern evident on the skull is more consistent with the teeth-marks of the common domesticated dog than it is with the ravenous man-eating Pliocene - clams you speculate roamed the wetlands during that time.
This latter finding is certainly one of the most intriguing hypotheses you have submitted in your history with this institution, but the evidence seems to weigh rather heavily against it. Without going into too much detail, let us say that:

A. The specimen looks like the head of a Barbie doll that a dog has chewed on.

B. Clams don't have teeth. It is with feelings tinged with melancholy that we must deny your request to have the specimen carbon-dated. This is partially due to the heavy load our lab must bear in its normal operation and partly due to carbon-dating's notorious inaccuracy in fossils of recent geologic record.

To the best of our knowledge, no Barbie dolls were produced prior to 1956AD, and carbon-dating is likely to produce wildly inaccurate results.

Sadly, we must also deny your request that we approach the National Science Foundation Phylogeny Department with the concept of assigning your specimen the scientific name Australopithecus spiff-arino. Speaking personally, I, for one, fought tenaciously for the acceptance of your proposed taxonomy, but was ultimately voted down because the species name you selected was hyphenated, and didn't really sound like it might be Latin.

However, we gladly accept your generous donation of this fascinating specimen to the museum. While it is undoubtedly not a Hominid fossil, it is, nonetheless, yet another riveting example of the great body of work you seem to accumulate here so effortlessly. You should know that our Director has reserved a special shelf in his own office for the display of the specimens you have previously submitted to the Institution, and the entire staff speculates daily on what you will happen upon next in your digs at the site you have discovered in your Newport back yard.

We eagerly anticipate your trip to our nation's capital that you proposed in your last letter, and several of us are pressing the Director to pay for it. We are particularly interested in hearing you expand on your theories surrounding the 'trans-positating fillifitation of ferrous ions in a structural matrix' that makes the excellent juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex femur you recently discovered take on the deceptive appearance of a rusty 9-mm Sears Craftsman automotive crescent wrench.

Yours in Science,

Harvey Rowe
Chief Curator- Antiquities

____________
Davey... (:>)

Subject: RE: BS: Smithsonian Institute
From: Allan C.
Date: 10 Nov 99 - 09:58 AM

Wonderful!! Thanks, Davey!

Subject: RE: BS: Smithsonian Institute
From: Fortunato
Date: 10 Nov 99 - 10:01 AM

Now THAT was funny.

Subject: RE: BS: Smithsonian Institute
From: Neil Lowe
Date: 10 Nov 99 - 10:27 AM

My company paid to have someone teach employees how to write letters of regret (the "regret to inform you" types like the one Mr. Rowe wrote here) that deny the reader's original request with the least amount of feather ruffling. I wish Mr. Rowe had taught it - he obviously has an exceptional talent for it.

Great read!! Thanks, Davey.

Subject: RE: BS: Smithsonian Institute
From: catspaw49
Date: 10 Nov 99 - 10:53 AM

I'll be happy to type more but I'm truly laughing so hard I can't.......What a piece of work!!!!!!!!!!

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Smithsonian Institute
From: Jon W.
Date: 10 Nov 99 - 10:56 AM

The guy may be a nutball but I bet the Smithsonian scientists eagerly await his next submissions. My congratulations to Mr. Williams, Mr. Rowe, and Davey for lightening up my day.

Any bets as to whether, in the next 20 years or so, the Smithsonian does put Mr. William's submissions, along with Mr. Rowe's replys, on exhibit under the "humor" category?

Subject: RE: BS: Smithsonian Institute
From: MTM
Date: 10 Nov 99 - 11:07 AM

That is a gas! But I don't whether to be frigthened at how time is spent at the Smithsonian or go out back and start diggin for Barbies.

Subject: RE: BS: Smithsonian Institute
From: kendall
Date: 10 Nov 99 - 11:17 AM

This guy is not threaded all the way on!! I hope they will consider putting HIM in a glass display case when he packs it in.

Subject: RE: BS: Smithsonian Institute
From: MMario
Date: 10 Nov 99 - 11:29 AM

A little web research done on this revealed that this letter has been floating around the internet since early '98; and though well crafted, is a hoax. too bad, because I would actually like to believe it was real.

Subject: RE: BS: Smithsonian Institute
From: catspaw49
Date: 10 Nov 99 - 12:50 PM

Hoax or not, it cracked me up...and I wrote a few real ones in a similar vein to a couple of people who blamed the company I worked for because they couldn't use the equipment correctly.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Smithsonian Institute
From: Jeri
Date: 10 Nov 99 - 06:06 PM

I once sent off a specimen (insect larva) to an entomologist for identification. Something to the effect "Warning - DO NOT DRINK - the substance in the specimen container is not tequila! The specimen was submerged in several changes of anhydrous alcohol, which it appeared to enjoy, before being sealed and shipped," and went on to ask for identification. The reply - "You were right, it didn't taste at all like tequila..."

Subject: RE: BS: Smithsonian Institute
From: BK
Date: 10 Nov 99 - 10:13 PM

Yup! Seen it before.. still funny.. Did my Forensic Osteology Course at the Smithsonian, & those guys might actually get a chuckle from this sort of stuff.. (Scientists need a sense of humor too.. If for nothing else but to deal w/the fact that nature often seems to be laughing up it's sleeve at us poor hominids..)

Cheers, BK

Subject: RE: BS: Smithsonian Institute
From:
Date: 10 Nov 99 - 10:57 PM

While I enjoy the Mudcat Forum very much, I do not appreciate being labeled a hoax. It is especially galling when one considers that my specimens 91368-A, 91369-C and 92111-F#, provided incontrovertible proof of the existence of folk music in the Pleistocene Age. For the esteemed Mr. Rowe to call them, respectively, "a plastic guitar pick," "a bodhran stick snapped in half, probably in anger", and "a moldy copy of Rise Up Singing" was, I am sure you will agree, the height of arrogance. But while I have learned to expect such treatment from the government, I was surprised and disturbed to be cast off thus discourteously by musicians and scholars such as yourselves. Be ashamed, O Mudcat!

Scott Williams
Newport, RI

Subject: RE: BS: Smithsonian Institute
From: thosp
Date: 10 Nov 99 - 11:30 PM

thanks for the laugh-- i love it !!!

Subject: RE: BS: Smithsonian Institute
From: Les B
Date: 10 Nov 99 - 11:44 PM

Reminds me of the story about the fellow who sent off a specimen of his new micro-brewed beer to the state lab for analysis. Back came the reply "Dear Sir, we regret to inform you, your horse has diabetes."

Subject: RE: BS: Smithsonian Institute
From: Charlie Baum
Date: 11 Nov 99 - 10:01 AM

There is also the wonderful essay, some 30 or 40 years old, "Digging the Weans" by Robert Nathan, which takes archeoogical evidence dug up in a place called the US (or the WE), and then proceeds to misinterpret every item, with hilarious results.

--Charlie Baum

Subject: RE: BS: Smithsonian Institute
From: Margo
Date: 11 Nov 99 - 10:48 AM

FUNNY! Sounds like Scott Williams is eight years old....