The Calaveras Skull

A human skull was allegedly discovered in the depths of a mine on Bald Mountain in Calaveras County, California, in July 1866, according to workers there. It was claimed that the skull was 130 feet below the surface, beneath a layer of solidified magma. The skull was given by mine owner James Mattison to a local businessman, who then gave it to a doctor in the area. Finally, it was in the possession of JD Whitney, a professor at Harvard University and the state geologist of California. Even when concerns about the validity of the skull's provenance were raised, Whitney remained convinced that it belonged to a man of the Pliocene era.

Even JD Whitney's successor resisted calling the skull a fake, and it took years before the fraud was finally exposed. The skull was inspected and found to be too contemporary to be from the Pliocene period. Moreover, the dirt that covered it could not have come from the mine, indicating that it had been planted there. After speaking with a local pastor, a San Francisco newspaper deemed the skull to be a fraud as early as 1869. The miners had been joking about planting the skull as a joke on Professor Whitney when the minister overheard them.