{"it":{"id":"W11A37","kind":"artifact","sub":"Hoax or modern","name":"Lolladoff plate","place":"none (no museum identified)","mat":"claimed stone/metal; photo of a painting","dims":"not recorded","loc":"none (no museum identified)","acc":"n/a","find":"Book Sungods in Exile 1978 (D. Agamon = David Gamon); Gamon admitted hoax in Fortean Times","flag":"modern hoax-fabrication","src":[122,78],"tags":["Hoax or modern"],"sum":"The picture shows a stone disc carved with a big-headed, spindly figure, and it has travelled the internet for decades as proof of ancient visitors. Its origin is a 1978 paperback.\n\nSungods in Exile, published by Sphere under the name Karyl Robin-Evans, told the story of a people called the Dropas and printed a photograph of a plate decorated with a saucer shape and a large-headed humanoid.\n\nWhat is hard to explain is not the plate but its staying power. Later writers repeated the story with new details: some said the plate was found in Nepal, others gave its age as 4,000 or 7,000 years, and some placed it in a museum in Berlin. The UFO lecturer Robert Dean cited it in talks (single source).\n\nThere is no real plate to study. In 1992 the book's true author, David A. Gamon, told Fortean Times that Robin-Evans and the Dropas were his inventions, a satire of the gods-were-astronauts industry. The plate was a painting: a friend made it from his sketch and photographed it to look real. So the plate was never lost or locked away: it never existed as an object, and the man who invented it is the one who exposed it.\n\nThe image still turns up, often with the confession left out. Why does a hoax outlive the admission that ended it?","why":"The book's author admitted in 1992 that the plate and its finder were invented.","nfacts":1,"nsrc":2,"yt":"Read the Fortean Times admission.","rel":[],"hook":"The Lolladoff plate was painted by a friend from the author's own sketch."},"S":{"122":["RR0 dossier, Lolladoff plate (cites Fortean Times)","https://rr0.org/science/crypto/archeo/astro/enquete/dossier/Dropas/Lolladoff/index.html"],"78":["Wikipedia Sungods in Exile","https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sungods_in_Exile&oldid=1318045593"]},"rec":{"id":"W11A37","alias":[],"ms":[{"a":"claimed_age","v":"12000","u":"yr","unc":"claim","by":"claimant","yr":"1978","m":"","b":"S","t":"MEASUREMENT","id":"W11M133","s":["W11S83"],"c":"Wikipedia Sungods in Exile","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sungods_in_Exile&oldid=1318045593"}],"lab":[],"eng":[],"ori":[],"gaps":[{"a":"museum_accession","r":"not in staged/legacy artifact record (free sources)"}],"dat":[],"aa":[{"id":"AA190","a":"12,000-yr Dropa/alien disc","who":"Sungods in Exile; later Robert Dean","main":"Gamon confessed authorship and that the plate image was a staged painting (RR0 citing Fortean Times)","ms":"W11S44;W11S83","st":"contradicted","n":"Gamon admission year: Wikipedia says 1995, RR0 cites Fortean Times 62 (1992); unresolved.","nl":"1"}],"ac":[],"me":[],"ci":[],"cq":[],"sd":[],"art":{"claimed_anomaly":"12,000-yr Dropa/alien disc","mainstream_reading":"Gamon confessed authorship and that the plate image was a staged painting (RR0 citing Fortean Times)","provenance_flag":"modern hoax-fabrication","current_location":"none (no museum identified)","find_circumstances":"Book Sungods in Exile 1978 (D. Agamon = David Gamon); Gamon admitted hoax in Fortean Times","claimant":"Sungods in Exile; later Robert Dean","status":"contradicted","dimensions":"not recorded","material":"claimed stone/metal; photo of a painting","date":"","culture":"","museum_accession":"n/a","b":"V","s":["W11S44","W11S83"]},"sub":[],"src":[{"id":"W11S83","t":"Wikipedia Sungods in Exile","u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sungods_in_Exile&oldid=1318045593"},{"id":"W11S44","t":"RR0 dossier, Lolladoff plate (cites Fortean Times)","u":"https://rr0.org/science/crypto/archeo/astro/enquete/dossier/Dropas/Lolladoff/index.html"}],"qs":["The author confessed it was a hoax, yet the image still circulates as proof. Why do debunked artifacts never really die?","A big-headed figure on a disc looked \"right\" to readers in 1978. Where did that image of a visitor come from in the first place?"]},"img":null,"md":{"h":"img/m/W11A37-16x9.webp","w":1600,"hh":900,"alt":"Illustration: setting associated with Lolladoff plate, none (no museum identified)","by":"Illustration made for The Nommo","lic":"","lu":"","p":"","g":true,"ct":false,"cap":"","sec":[]},"hh":[{"v":"not recorded","h":"Recorded dimensions","s":[226]}],"hs":{"226":["RR0 dossier, Lolladoff plate (cites Fortean Times)","https://rr0.org/science/crypto/archeo/astro/enquete/dossier/Dropas/Lolladoff/index.html"]}}