Message #193295

[Silas]

The idol is a fake, pure and simple. Whoever created it and passed it off on Haggard is unknown. They could have had no idea it would land on such fertile ground as Percy Fawcett, inspiring him to undertake his doomed search for Atlantis in Brazil. A believer himself, he was easily taken in, both by the object and the charlatan of a psychometrist. As a word of caution to Brad Pitt, the psychometrist told Fawcett "it is a maleficient possession to those not in affinity with it, and I should say it is dangerous to laugh at it..."

http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/hoaxes/fawcett_idol.html