In 1969, Erle Stanley Gardner (of Perry Mason fame) published a book titled ‘The Host with the Big Hat’, which is mainly about a train trip Gardner took through Mexico.

Unexpectedly, a large part of Gardner’s travel narrative is devoted to the story of the Acámaro figurines and how he came to be connected to them.

The story, as Gardner tells it, began in 1951 when the Los Angeles Times ran an article about a series of mysterious figurines that had been discovered around the town of Acámbaro in Northern Mexico.

Amazingly, the subject matter of this collection of figurines seemed to be focused entirely on dinosaurs.

The article attracted the attention of a mysterious ‘foundation’ an unnamed private organisation with an interest in such things and apparently a lot of money.

Sufficiently intrigued, this unnamed foundation sent archaeologist Gustav Regler down to Mexico to investigate.

egler returned from Mexico “with his eyes bulging.”

He must have made a good report back to the foundation, though, because they next contacted Professor Charles Hapgood, a historian and authority on ancient civilisations.

Hapgood was a good choice for the task.

Gardner describes him as a “historical detective” who was “fair” and “cautious.”

Hapgood was also unorthodox and open-minded and had greatly upset the establishment already with his theories of crustal displacement and pole shift.

He also believed that civilised man had been on Earth far longer than traditional orthodoxy maintained.

Hapgood had survived the tarnishing of his reputation more times than he could count, and another attempt wouldn’t hurt.

Hapgood’s first task was to discover the figurines’ provenance and then to prove their authenticity – or not.

If there was fraud, Hapgood felt it would be easy to prove it.

Hapgood met with the owner of the collection, Waldemar Julsrud. Julsrud was a German businessman who had gained archaeological fame for discovering the man businessman who had gained archaeological fame for discovering the relics of the Chupicuaro culture which had existed in that part of Mexico around 500 BCE.

Julsrud often went horse-riding and would take note of the potsherds and artefacts poking out from the sides of hills – sometimes the artefacts would be pieces of broken bowls, and sometimes they would be parts of bodies, like little arms and legs.

Julsrud realised that these little arms and legs were not relics of the Chupicuaro culture but something different and much older.