Last week the Internet was abuzz with the news that a mystery package addressed to Indiana Jones had landed in the mailbox of the University of Chicago admissions office. Was it some Internet weirdo being weird and Internetty? Was it a piece of some enterprising prospective student’s show-offy application? Part of a viral marketing scheme for an upcoming Indiana Jones release?
Sadly, it was none of these things. The admissions office reports on its Tumblr that the package, containing an incredibly detailed replica of a journal kept by U. Chicago professor Abner Ravenwood in Raiders of the Lost Ark, was created by a man named Paul in Guam. Paul makes Indiana Jones artifacts and sells them on eBay (which, okay, is slightly weird and Internetty).
Somehow while en route from Guam to Hawaii to its purchaser in Italy, the package slipped out of its official mailing envelope:
Our address had originally been put on the manila wrapping of the journal just for cosmetic effect. We believe that the post office wrote on our Zip code on the outside of the package and, believing the Egyptian postage was real, sent it our way.
Paul told the University of Chicago that they can keep their copy, and he’ll make a new replica for the Italian buyer, who by now is undoubtedly wondering why the hell eBay shipping takes so long. The university intends to put the journal in a museum, to forever immortalize the magic of Internet mysteries.
