Responding to my post on finding a mysterious plaster footprint cast in our garden, Root Simple reader Peter sent a hilarious link to what I’ve since learned is an early viral internet meme, the so-called “Smithsonian Barbie” letter.
Paleoanthropology Division
Smithsonian Institute
207 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20078Dear Sir:
Thank you for your latest submission to the Institute, labeled “211-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 one of our staff, who has small children, believes to be the “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 it’s 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-hominids.
- 3. The dentition pattern evident on the “skull” is more consistent with 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 it’s 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 1956 AD, and carbon dating is likely to produce wildly inaccurate results. Sadly, we must also deny your request that we approach the National Science Foundation’s 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 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
Curator, Antiquities
I did a little Googling and kept finding this letter on old web 1.0 pages only to discover via the always party pooping Snopes that this bit of genius is a creative writing effort from 1994. The real Harvey Rowe does not work for the Smithsonian but was, in fact, a bored medical student at the Medical University of South Carolina. Rowe was interviewed in 1998 about how his fake letter went viral. He described himself in that interview as a, “42 year old Emergency Room physician turned computer nerd. I’m widowed with two boys, aged 8 and 10. I apparently have the power to cloud minds.”
As the old saying goes, “if it be not true at least it is well invented.” If there’s one thing I despise it’s debunker/skeptic types who run around ruining a perfectly good story. If anything we need a few more good tall tales to counter the bad ones.
There’s a story about Mark Twain showing up at a news event and being disappointing to find other journalists since that meant he couldn’t make up a more interesting story. I obviously missed an opportunity in my plaster foot post to be the next Harvey Rowe. At least you can review my new non-profit on Yelp.
Speaking of old internet memes it’s the 50th anniversary of the exploding whale video which the folks at KATU have thoughtfully remastered for us, though I’m a bit nostalgic for the original glitched VHS original. One Jungian synchronicity uncovered by researchers at the Center for Land Use Interpretation is that the car destroyed by falling whale blubber had been purchased that very day at a car dealership that advertised a, “whale of a deal.”
I’ll leave you all with a Twitter post from today that deserves to go viral:
Found this master suite in an otherwise normal house and I gotta say, this is my kind of nightmare pic.twitter.com/1E2HAOflCW
— shadowfax 🐴 (@whyangelinawhy) November 15, 2020
