F. A. Mitchell-Hedges

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F.A. Mitchell-Hedges (22 October 1882 - June 1959) was an English adventurer, traveler, and writer. The "F.A." stood for either "Frederick Arthur" or " Frederick Albert", depending on source. He sometimes went by the name "Mike Hedges".

Mitchell-Hedges had a talent for telling colorful stories. The veracity of much of his autobiographic writings is in question. He has been compared to Baron Munchhausen.

Mitchell-Hedges spent some years alternating between Central America, the Caribbean, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Some sources say he was a mercenary, others that he was a British government spy, and others that he was independently wealthy and traveling for diversion. Some of his "expeditions" to Central America were financed by well-to-do British socialites. For a time he was sponsored by the Daily Mail.

Mitchell-Hedges repeatedly made claims of having "discovered" Indian tribes and "lost cities" that had already been documented years, sometimes centuries, before.

He claimed he discovered "the cradle of civilisation" in the Mosquito Coast of Nicaragua, and that the Bay Islands of Honduras were remnants of the lost civilisation of Atlantis.

Today Mitchell-Hedges is best known for his connection to a famous crystal skull now in the possession of his adopted daughter. He claimed to have discovered what he termed "The Skull of Doom" at the Maya ruin of Lubaantun (which he also claimed to have discovered) in British Honduras in the 1920s. However Mitchell-Hedges published no mention of the skull until the late 1940s, not long after a crystal skull was auctioned off at Sotheby's in 1943. Some think that Mitchell-Hedges crystal skull is actually the one from Sotheby's.

For a time in the 1930s he had a weekly radio show out of New York City on Sunday evenings. Talking over a background of "jungle drums", Mitchell-Hedges would tell dramatic tales of his adventures, usually including narrow escapes from death at the hands of "savages" or from jungle animals ranging from a jaguar to a vicious attacking iguana (!).

Mitchell-Hedges' books include "Battles With Giant Fish", "Danger, My Ally" and "Land of Wonder and Fear".

Concerning the last title, prominent Maya archeologist J. Eric S. Thompson commented that "to me the wonder was how he could write such nonsense and the fear how much taller the next yarn would be".

In an interview in 1999 Mrs Patsy Wilcox, owner of the guest house "The Watchers" [1] in Polperro Cornwall, stated that she remembers that in the early 1930’s a man named Mitchell-Hedges and his Daughter stayed at the house for several months and in their possession was a most unusual crystal skull, which they kept in a cupboard in one of the rooms they rented. This lends veracity to Anna Mitchell-Hedges [2] claim that it was in fact herself that discovered it in Belize.