Friday, July 18th 2008:
So I've finally arrived in Montana, and am on my way to the "Museum of the Rockies", which is found in Bozeman. In case you're wondering what drives me here (figuratively speaking), there's a simple answer to that: Dinosaurs.
Admitted, there are other such museums in Europe as well, though all of them have been imported there from here, the US. It's one thing to see a fossil, it's another to see where they've been found, or how they're being treated. In fact, from what I heard about this museum, we (the visitors) get to see how these fossils are being put together, I might see the digging site where they were found, and with a little luck I may see them actually digging one up. Also, recently a new fossil was found, which I'm eager to see with my own eyes, rather than seeing some picture in the paper, or some of the things that reporters shot.
If you want to know, my trip here wasn't all that pleasant, as there were some kids who kept singing these songs, of which I'm not proud to know that they were of that Montana person. It's not because her last name is Montana (if it's at all her real name) that she's actually from Montana. I tried telling those kids exactly that. I had to move away so they would stop bugging me.
Anyway, when I arrived here, the museum was already closed, but now I'm on my way to see more. I know that the museum goes about more than just dinosaurs, but unfortunately it is my only real interest here. Who knows what I might come across.
Well, I must say this has been quite an interesting day. I've learned more about dinosaurs, and paleontology, than I ever could imagine. But my guess is you want to hear all the highlights.
In total, there are only three complete Tyrannosaurus skeletons found, and this museum has one of them. Seeing it like this, I can only imagine how scary it must've looked when it was alive. Same goes to other fossils I saw. It was mentioned that this one skeleton, though found here in Montana, it's in the London Museum. That's why all they had from that one specimen were pictures. On the pictures, there were scratch-marks on the T-rex's skull, which proves that it was scratched in the head before. Although, those scratches weren't the creature's cause of death. As a young paleontologist had pointed out, years before, the skull also shows scorch-marks, as if it was on fire. Died in a forest fire? Likely, except that if so, the marks would be on more random spots, all over the skeleton, but there were only marks on the skull, at very precise spots. Too precise to have been just a coincidence. And I bother mentioning this, why? Well, that would bring us to the next highlight.
The one discovery I spoke of earlier was the fossil of what scientists believe to have been a dragon, from long before the KT-event (that's how they call the (first) event that a meteor crashed on Earth, creating such a mass-extinction). I've seen the remains of two dragons, a few years back, when I visited the London Museum, but those were recent specimens (they were alive when humans already existed), so I was curious about how one from much longer ago looked like. In any case, not like the one that all the myths spoke of, as this one was bipedal, so counting the wings it would have had four limbs altogether. Unlike the one in London, which had six, again counting the wings.
Another interesting thing to mention was the museum's "Hall of the Weird". The hall in question didn't seem much weird, as all we saw were more fossils. Or were they? When I took a closer look, they looked very white, as though they were really stripped to the bones and cleaned afterwards. Even stranger, while they resemble dinosaurs, they didn't look like any fossil I've ever seen. I'm not going to pretend to know much about paleontology, but this much I do know. It wasn't until I read more about this that I also noticed other weird things. Every fossil that was ever found bears some markings that these things were ever alive. I mean, bones could have been broken, and healed (or not at all), these creatures could have scratched each other, or even been eaten up. Not one of these skeletons had any of these things. The weirder part is that carbon-dating has dated these things to be only a few decades old. To the scientists around here, it's like somebody just constructed these things, then later buried them for paleontologists to find. This may be the only rational explanation, indeed, but this still raises tons of others. Who would do this? Why? Even worse, how did he or she do this? How did someone just make these things then buried them?
I only just left the building, and witnessed how a group of people were arrested for breaking the peace around here. Their reason to break the peace also forms the very answer to my earlier question.
I left the building, only to see these two people, one older guy and one younger girl (not even older than me) who were having some kind of dispute over whether this museum should or should not be here. The guy was called Edward, while the girl... well, I didn't get her name, but her T-shirt read "GO GREEN", so I'll be calling her the Go Green Girl, or G3. From what they were saying, I could tell that Edward was a devout Catholic, while G3 was an atheist. Edward believed that this museum is full of people who do all the unnecessary tests on these fossils, as the simple truth is that God has just put these things down to test our faith. G3, on the other hand, knew that these fossils are too detailed and too complex. Why would anyone go through all that trouble to make these things if they were just to test faith? To be more clear, I might want to make the following distinction: fossils are the ones who are thousands if not millions of years old, and the skeletons are the weird ones.
They are both right and they are both wrong. About the skeletons, I have no doubt that indeed God just put those down. In that sense, Edward was right, and in that sense G3 was wrong, as these skeletons weren't detailed at all, unlike the fossils. But then, G3 is also right to question the following. God already has devout believers, so why does he need to test them? He doesn't, of course, so why bother? Come to think of it, I can only think of one other person who would do such a thing: Adenoid Hynkel. Since he was to take over the world during World War II, I can imagine he wanted to be sure that his followers would stay loyal to him, so he'd test their loyalty whenever he pleases. God and Hynkel, not such a bad comparison if you ask me.
I'm starting to feel a headache coming up, so I'd better keep this writing on hold for a while.