Fake-Fossil News!

Often the authenticity of fossils becomes questioned. Is the specimen genuine and is the narrative concerning it to be believed?

- Allen A. Debus

Yet, don’t we yearn to suspend disbelief—despite our intellect—such that even most curious stories prompted by circumstances of the ‘primeval’ will fascinate, bewilder and charm? Those outrageous claims and yarns about fossils—both real and imagined—are difficult to pull away from sometimes, whether they tell of the extinct … or living variety. Intriguing, no? Accordingly, I proffer two general examples, of contrasting nature, in which fossil foolery was afoot. Here I speak of two very dusty places—Mars and the Old West.

I’ve dabbled in writing a fossil fooler or two myself—yeah, some real knee-slappers! (1) But I’ve moved on from there. It was nearly a quarter of a century ago when NASA scientists dramatically reported discovery of ‘genuine’ Martian fossils, biogeochemical traces of alien biota detected in a meteorite collected on Antarctica. For those of us who truly wished to believe, this was headlining stuff delivered authoritatively by (& pardon me for using a Ghostbusters reference here)—‘Back off, Man!’— scientists. Probably most readers have since forgotten the incident. Regardless, was this merely another case of fake-fossil news?