Earlier this week the University of Chicago received what might be an elaborate hoax, a miracle, or the best college admissions application of all time: Abner Ravenwood’s journal from Raiders of the Lost Ark.
The journal came in a package addressed to Henry Walton Jones, Jr. but wasn’t sent through the U.S. mail — its stamps are fake. It’s a near-perfect replica of the journal Indiana Jones uses in Raiders. The university has no idea how it found its way into Rosenwald Hall, which houses the school’s admissions department and where the staff initially thought it was just a piece of mail meant for a professor that got lost on the way.
“This package was a little perplexing because we couldn’t find the staff member or the professor [it was intended for] in the directory,” Garrett Brinker, director of undergraduate outreach for the university.
Since its discovery, Brinker said, the university has been doing everything it can to figure out where exactly the package came from. After determining that the replica they’d received was not a recently sold item on eBay, they decided to ask the internet. They put an “Indiana Jones Mystery Package” post on Tumblr, set up an e-mail tip-line for anyone who might know its origins and even asked Lucasfilm, which responded, “We don’t know where the package came from but would love to know.”
Fans of Raiders will remember that Abner Ravenwood’s journal was what Indy used to find the Ark of the Covenant. Ravenwood was a professor at the University of Chicago and one of Indiana Jones’ mentors. The replica of his journal that was sent to his former university is meticulous in its details: photos, maps, currency, and even handwritten text that can be found here. “The entire journal must’ve taken hours upon hours to create,” Brinker noted.
But yet, the new 'best prop person' in the world has yet to come forward, or reveal their motives.
Thanks to jackdaw1, who sent this first link. See http://www.wired.com for details of the mysterious arrival (and speculation) in mid December 2012.
A few days later, the mystery was solved:
The University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute will unveil a highly detailed diary Thursday that the admissions office received in a manila envelope addressed to Henry Walton Jones Jr. — the birth name of fictional archeologist Indiana Jones.
“It has captivated and enthralled a lot of the campus,” Garret Brinker, the director of undergraduate outreach for the admissions office, told the Daily News.
The journal has ancient maps and notes on mysterious artifacts — notably the Ark of the Covenant. It even bears the signature of Abner Ravenwood, Jones’ fictional mentor and father of his love interest, Marion. The peculiar journal perplexed the admissions office from when they discovered it Dec. 13. until Monday morning when an eBay seller in Guam, Paul Charfauros, confirmed that he created it.
Charfauros made the prop replica and mailed it to a customer in Italy, but it fell out of its original packaging in Honolulu. The journal was still, however, in a smaller envelope — with string wrapped around it and canceled stamps — that Charfauros included to enhance the aura.
Despite lacking actual U.S. postage, the postal service shipped the package to the admissions office, where the Oriental Institute was located during the Indiana Jones era.
The journal will be added to an exhibit about actual University of Chicago professors, Henry Breasted and Robert Braidwood, who some speculate partly inspired the globetrotting character.
For more, see http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/mystery-solved-indy-jones-parcel-explained.
Something is not right. This message is just to keep things from messing up down the road