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Was this the plate of brass which the 16th century explorer Sir Francis Drake left on

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the coast of America?

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Was fossil change science's idea of evolution, but was it faked like this?

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Did two schoolboys fool the world with this decorated bone, or is it a masterpiece of

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stone age art?

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Mysteries from the files of Arthur C. Clarke, author of 2001 and inventor of the communications

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satellite. Now in retreat in Sri Lanka, he ponders the riddles of this and other worlds.

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I'm visiting a piece of old England, all the classic ingredients are here, the golf course

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with its sweeping green links, a country club with all the trappings, a red brick post office,

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and an Anglican church. And as in any English sumburb, the houses are built in an eccentric

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mixture of styles, gothic, late Victorian, and even stockbroker Tudor. Yet this isn't

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England, I haven't left Sri Lanka. This is New Relia, a town built as a hilltop health

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resort by the British explorer Sir Samuel Baker in the 19th century. Baker imported almost

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everything except the climate, vegetables, shrubs, sheep, cows, a pack of foxhounds,

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and even a blacksmith. It's a brilliant fake, but it's not intended to fool anybody. It

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is not always so easy to distinguish between a fake and the real thing, as museums all

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over the world have discovered, sometimes to their cost.

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In 1579 Sir Francis Drake was circling the world. He needed to stop to repair his ship.

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His chaplain's account of the voyage says that Drake landed somewhere on the west coast

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of America. In a small bay he came ashore and put up a brass plate claiming the land

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for Queen Elizabeth. He named the place Nova Albion or New Britain. These two men believe

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that they could be standing on the very spot where Drake staked his claim with the brass

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plate. One of them, George Everson, is convinced this is the place. He has spent years trying

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to prove it. The other, Jefferson Graves, could unwittingly once have held the proof

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in his hand. In the early 1930s as a child he came to this spot for a picnic with his

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parents and a friend. He was digging in the soil when something caught his eye.

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All of a sudden I saw something shiny. It ran over and started digging in that place

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and pretty soon this shiny thing was getting bigger and bigger and I started pulling at

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it and I was trying to get it out and I couldn't figure it out and it looked like something

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strange. He says he picked up a rectangular brass

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plate. On the way home in the car Jefferson was examining the strange markings on it.

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Suddenly his friend grabbed the plate and threw it out of the window. The parents drove on

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and that would have been the end.

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But in 1936 the plate turned up again. It was found in Marin County and passed through

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a chain of hands until it came here to the Bancroft Library at Berkeley.

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Historian Dr Herbert Bolton was director of the Bancroft. He was delighted. For years he

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told his students how thrilling it would be if Drake's plate of brass turned up and suddenly

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it had been found and was in his care. He declared it authentic, placed it in his library and paid

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a reward to the finder. Bolton's reputation was so great that no one thought to question his

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declaration but when he died doubts started to creep in. Specialists in Elizabethan English

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were suspicious of the wording. The plate of brass was reexamined. Unfortunately we don't find this

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artifact terribly convincing. There are too many things wrong with it. At first glance the lettering

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is quite peculiar. The way of referring to the Queen for example is odd. It says her Majesty

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Queen Elizabeth of England which is not the way anyone in the 16th century would have

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referred to the monarch. It would have been Elizabeth by the grace of God Queen of England or

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some such formula but certainly not this. The letter forms as well are really quite curious.

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The way an N is made simply as a knot with a diagonal as we would expect but with a bar

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across the top. In context you can see it's an N but it looks for all the world like a Greek pie.

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Once the scholars had voiced their doubts the scientists were called in. Dr. Frank Azzaro

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holds the Nobel Prize for his work in chemistry. In 1977 he was asked to look at the metal from

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which the plate was made. He and his team drilled brass from the side of it and analyzed what they

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found. Our findings do not tell us what the age of the plate is but what we did find out was that

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it was so extremely pure in the extraneous elements that we looked for that it could not have been

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made in Drake's time. The plate of brass is made from copper and zinc. They did not have copper

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of that purity available in Drake's time. Zinc of that purity was not available in Drake's time

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and they did not have the technology to make the composition of the plate of brass at that time.

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Not only was the brass too pure but the plate seemed to have been made using modern techniques.

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In the 16th century brass was hammered into shape but this plate bore all the signs of a 20th

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century rolling mill. It was a standard thickness throughout. The plate of brass is very close to

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an eighth of an inch thick. It's homogeneous to a one one thousandth of an inch. Within our ability

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to measure it corresponds exactly with the specifications for the number eight gauge of the

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American wire gauge standard used in the 1930s. Back at Agart Beach George Epison's faith is

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undaunted by science or scholars. He's sure that the log of Drake's explorations and the description

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of the bay where he came ashore point to this place. With his metal detector he's combed every

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inch of the sand looking for other things Drake may have left. Oh I love detecting down here and I

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kind of hear murmurs out in the ocean like voices and there's a sea dogs that come around

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keeping company. It's sometimes a little spooky but very interesting. I love it. If as he believes

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the plate of brass is genuine then this would indeed be a historic place. He swore never to give

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up his campaign to have it recognized. This is our country's oldest and rarest document even rarer

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than the Constitution of America and it's very historic and should be acknowledged.

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But if he's wrong and the scientists have proved it a fake how could the hoax have happened?

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At Berkeley they think they know. They blame a history professor with a little too much enthusiasm.

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He used to say in class that Drake's plate must be out there waiting to be discovered.

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Well we've always supposed that that would be an invitation to students to get together and produce

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what was wanted and we very much think that that is the most likely explanation of how this came

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into being. Professor Bolton was a very charismatic man. After I read his lectures I wanted to go out

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and find the plate of brass. I can't give you his exact words but the ending of his speech was of

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the order of the plate is there now go out and find it.

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The Natural History Museum in London is home to the world's most famous collection of scientific

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specimens. The material kept here has provided science with the information on which the natural

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history of the planet has been written. Specimens like this fly encased in amber resin which solidified

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40 million years ago. Since it emerged from the collection of the German entomologist Herman Lowe

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in 1850 it's been regarded as a prize exhibit. For the insect inside this amber is a member of the

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housefly family which still exists today. Scientists were amazed to find it had been around so long

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and the natural history of flies was revised to include this rare discovery. Until one day a

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student was hired to classify the museum's amber collection. Andrew Ross was using a lamp at the

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time. I thought well amazing specimen and then suddenly a crack appeared around the fly just

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around here. It's actually caused by a gentle warmth from the microscope lamp that I was using.

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This had me very worried because it's such an important specimen and then the crack suddenly

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appeared around it and I thought oh no now what do I do? And I quickly put it away and hoped no one

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would notice it. But I thought now that's a bit strange it shouldn't be doing that.

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And then I looked at the slide from the side and then everything became clear because someone had

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taken a piece of amber they cut it in half, hollowed a piece out, put a fly in some kind of modern

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resin and glued the two bits back together. The fact that it was a common housefly should have

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alerted the experts. The fly they chose is a species called Fanius Galaris known as the

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latrine fly because it lives around toilets and it's a very advanced fly and 150 years ago there's

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probably hundreds of them flying around and it's probably just the nearest fly to hand, perhaps

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lying on a window sill somewhere. His discovery solved two problems troubling entomologists.

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Why was this the only living species to be found as a fossil and why had no other prehistoric

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latrine flies been found? It's quite satisfying to find that an important specimen is a fake and

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actually this solved a lot of problems because many entomologists have used this particular species

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as an example of how long species of flies can live for and they argued that the fossil record

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of insects was very poor because there's only the one specimen and there should be millions of others

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preserved in resin that are still living today but we now know that the fossil record is much

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better and all the insects preserved in amber are extinct. In science accusations of fraud and

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fakery usually have two results. One is heated argument, the other is a thorough and often

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agonized reassessment of what were thought established facts. This was certainly true in

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1985 when Sir Fred Hoyle and other eminent scientists claimed that one of the most important

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fossils ever discovered was a fake. It's called archaeopteryx and from all the century it had

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been hailed as the vital missing link between dinosaurs and modern birds. Suddenly it looked

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as though all the textbooks on evolution would have to be rewritten.

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Curiously all the archaeopteryx fossils have been found in one small corner of southern Germany

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around this stone quarry at Solmhofen. The story goes that in 1861 the first specimen appeared

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when a quarry workman split a limestone slab. Over the years a handful of other archaeopteryx

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fossils emerged from the rock. From them the experts reconstructed this extraordinary creature.

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Hailed as the missing link between dinosaurs and modern birds it was thought to have flown

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150 million years ago. Fossil hunters believe the bones survive for two reasons. The first was

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that they fell to their deaths in prehistoric slime. 150 million years ago this area here

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was a shallow sea with legumes at their edges. Scientists suppose that archaeopteryx has been

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living nearby on naturally on trees or bushes on land but perhaps by thunderstorms had been driven

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into the sea and was drowned. The fossils were also preserved because the mud solidified to the

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hardest of limestones. Archaeopteryx has been well preserved only here up to now because this stone

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is so hard and has not been attacked by nature. Those who believe that all the archaeopteryx fossils

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of fake point to another characteristic of the stone. It's so finely grained that it produces the

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best lithographic plates. Artists can etch the most detailed pictures on them.

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Hoax theorists argue that a 19th century fossil hunter engraved an archaeopteryx.

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In Canada one investigator believes the essential ingredient for the hoax can be found in anyone's

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back garden. Craig Willis thinks he knows exactly what the 19th century forger did.

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Willis spotted three things that alerted him. The first was about the feathers.

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All of the specimens of the archaeopteryx exhibit impressions of feathers which are typical of

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modern birds that are capable of flight and the feature that stands out the most is the fact that

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they all exhibit this off-centre quill or this asymmetric design which is characteristic of the

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flight feathers of all modern birds. Also the archaeopteryx did not seem to have the bone

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structure of a creature that could fly. Not a single one of these exhibited the characteristic

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breast bone which is the point of attachment for the huge flight muscles required for flapping flight.

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Finally Willis argued that the bones lay flat in the stone. A three-dimensional creature

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should have produced a three-dimensional fossil. To make his fake fossil he needs some

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sawn-hofen limestone and some chemicals. All these were available in the mid-19th century

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when archaeopteryx appeared. First he rubbed a fine powder from the limestone block. He now

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adds sodium silicate. He believes this is the crucial ingredient. It makes the powdered rock

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reset into stone indistinguishable from the original. What I'm going to do basically is make

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an impression of this surface of the feather. A hoaxer would have greased the feather so that no

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traces of down remain to give the game away. And just apply a few drops of the sodium silicate to

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the surface. And I just take the tip of my finger and I make a nice feather-sized puddle. And with

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the powdered limestone which I've already prepared I just add it. I then take the feather and place

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the feather onto the surface of the mixture. Like so. Once the feather is clamped into the

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artificial mud it takes only minutes to set before Willis can check on his work. Now once the feather

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has been actually carefully peeled away from the surface there are a couple of features that are

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striking in terms of the texture and the color of the synthetic stone. It's virtually indistinguishable

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from the background and if you get up very close to it using a good quality magnifier such as a

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jeweler's lens it's quite easy to detect all of the very finest detail of the structure of the

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feathers such as I have been noted by investigators who have actually examined the archaeopteryx

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fossils under scanning electron microscope. Comparison with the archaeopteryx fossil confirms

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Willis's belief. I'm absolutely convinced that all of the archaeopteryx or the alleged

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archaeopteryx fossils were absolutely brilliantly executed forgeries using a process if not identical

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to the one that I've just described and in all its basic features very very similar.

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But back at the Solnhofen quarry they don't believe that Willis and the critics have cracked the case.

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Only two years ago this quarryman discovered the world's seventh archaeopteryx.

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He says it was in a place no forger could have got into deep inside a limestone block.

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I was working away with hammer and chisel but I was throwing away material we couldn't use.

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As I was doing so I realized there was a fossil in this stone. I recognized it as an archaeopteryx

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by the number of its claws. A dinosaur has five claws and an archaeopteryx only three.

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When they're trying to work out whether a find is genuine archaeologists always check to make sure

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that there's nothing suspicious about the circumstances of his discovery. So when in

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1911 two English schoolboys claimed that they'd found a masterpiece of prehistoric art during a

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break from class it's not surprising that at first investigators thought the lads had cooked up

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an elaborate practical joke. The Sherbourne Bone is on its way from London to the MacDonald

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Archaeological Institute in Cambridge. To scientist's amazement it's taken 80 years to

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establish the truth. Its latest investigator is Dr Francesco Derico. I've brought from the

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Natural History Museum the Sherbourne Bone with the engraving of a horse as you can see.

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And please have a look at it. On the bone is a carving of a horse's head. It's been claimed

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that the bone and the carving are as much as 10,000 years old. The story began early this century

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at a boys public school in Dorset. Sherbourne became the unwitting focus for this long-running

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archaeological mystery. The Sherbourne Bone was apparently discovered in a quarry in the school's

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grounds. Retired Sherbourne master Jim Gibb has followed the twists and turns of the controversy.

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In 1911 two new boys went for a walk up to the quarries and found this bone with a horse's

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head scratched on it. They took it to their day room in the house. Older boys rubbish it and

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Cortese, one of the new boys who found it, decided to throw it into the fire. He was stopped by an

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older boy who said give it to the science master. It's probably genuine. The science master did

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indeed wonder if the bone might be genuine. He took it to be examined by experts at the British

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Museum. They declared it was the work of Stone Age man, but not everyone was convinced. 15 years

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after the bone was found the first doubts were emerging when an Oxford scientist Professor

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Solace said he suspected it was a schoolboy hoax after all. The debate has continued over decades.

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Now Dr Robert Krasinski of the Natural History Museum in London

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is hoping for a verdict from Dr Derrico. What do you see? What do you conclude about it?

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Well we have a number of things to look at to try to check the authenticity of the engravings.

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The shape of the engravings and differences in patina. The patina is the surface texture of the

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bone and Dr Derrico knows if the bone and the carving are the same age the patina will be uniform.

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But if the carving is more modern differences will show. The carved lines will be covered in much

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less sediment than the rest of the bone. They don't seem to contain any traces of the sediment.

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You don't see any patina where you have the incised lines? No, the lines seem clear, even quite

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white and the surface of the bone is light brown. So the difference of patina here is not

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indication for the authenticity of the engraving but I think we have to do something more to be sure.

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The bone and the carving are of different ages. The museum turned to Oxford University.

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It has one of the world's leading carbon-14 dating laboratories. Scientists regard this as

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probably the most accurate method available. The bone was sent to Dr Robert Hedges.

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When we were given the Sherbourne bone our aim is to date the time when the animal

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whose bone it was was living. This is the powder that we would take from the bone to begin with

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and that bone powder contains some protein. We can extract the protein to the very tiny amount

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and this very tiny amount of protein contains the original carbon atoms that were part of the

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animal when it was alive and it's in these carbon atoms that we measure how much radiocarbon still

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survives. The amount that survives tells us how old the how long ago the animal lived,

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the longer ago the less the radiocarbon. Well we found that the bone was about 600 years old

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and of course this means it's much too young to have been covered with an engraving made in

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polyolithic times so it must have been done very very much more recently than that.

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At Sherbourne Jim Gibb accepts the verdict of science but he still has faith in the integrity

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of the two boys who found the bone. I think the whole thing was done by older boys probably only

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a year or two older. They knew a bit a bit about polyolithic art because the science master had

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lectured on it and the history of the story I think makes it genuine but of course I was wrong.

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Though museum curators may lose sleep worrying if their exhibits are fakes,

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I think the rest of us secretly enjoy the idea that perhaps we're being conned. That's why some

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artists who fake paintings only become successful when they're caught like the British painter

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Tom Keating whose fraudulent old masters came to be valued almost as highly as the real things

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which all goes to show that the pleasure provided by a truly ingenious hoax can be absolutely genuine.

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you