A closer look
Nothing fuels pseudo-archaeology quite like a vaguely inscribed rock. The Bat Creek Stone, excavated in Tennessee in 1889, was hailed as definitive proof that ancient Hebrews had sailed to the Americas, thanks to a supposed Paleo-Hebrew inscription meaning "For Judea." The mystical community lost their collective minds over this undeniable geographic anomaly. There was just one tiny problem: researchers later realized the inscription was a near-perfect tracing of an illustration from an 1870 Masonic encyclopedia. The "ancient" artifact was a complete fraud perpetrated by a Smithsonian assistant looking for a promotion.
