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FACT: Among many ground mammals, including gophers, voles and squirrels, the endangered Mexican Prairie Dog is common to Las Vegas and Nevada.

FACT: There was an Atmoic Cafe in Nevada, but not situated near Area 51. The sign is from an Idaho diner. At least five other cities had "Atomic Cafes" in the Fifties: Los Angeles; Odessa and Amarillo, Texas; Kennewick, Washington; and Beatty, Nevada. (thanks to Conelrad)

IJATKOTCS: Indiana Jones and the crystal skull begins in 1957 in the Nevada Desert. Jones is hauled from a car boot at a military base believed to be Area 51.

FACT: Area 51 was in operation in 1957 and is in the southwestern portion of southern Nevada in the western United States. It is also known as Watertown, Dreamland, Paradise Ranch, The Farm, The Box, The Directorate for Development Plans Area and Groom Lake. It is used during the development, test and training phases of new aircraft. Once those aircraft have been accepted by the USAF, their operation is shifted to a normal airforce base. Groom is reported to be the permanent home for a small number of aircraft of Soviet design. These are reportedly analysed and used for training purposes. The U.S. Government does not explicitly acknowledge the existence of the Groom Lake facility, nor does it deny it. The area is protected by radar stations and buried movement sensors.

Area 51 at Google Maps

IJATKOTCS: The magnetised crate discovered in the hangar is marked "SWELL, N.M. 7-9-47"

FACT: On 7-7-47 materials were recovered from a crash site in RoSWELL, New Mexico. On 7-8-47, the Roswell Army Air Field stated they had recovered a crashed "flying disc". Later the same day, the Commanding General said it was merely a weather balloon. Thirty years later, Major Jesse Marcel, who was involved with the original recovery of the debris in 1947, came forward and claimed the military had covered up the recovery of an alien spacecraft.

IJATKOTCS: The Russians say they found Indy and Mac in Mexico. In the novelisation of the screenplay, prior to his abduction, Indy is in Yucatan crawling across a Mayan calendar, reading glyphs of the K'iche tribe from Guatemala and quoting the Popul Vuh. He falls through the mouth of a statue of Kukulkan, the feathered serpent.

The Kukulkan Pyramid in Yucatan.

FACT: Yucatán, Mexico was home to the Maya civilization. Their calendar was used for agriculture, sacred rituals and ceremonies. The K'iche' are a Native American people who once ruled large areas of Guatemala and Mexico and subdued other Maya peoples in Pre-Columbian times. Kukulkan is one of the many gods of Maya mythology. The Popol Vuh is a book written in Classical K'iché containing mythological narratives, containing a creation myth, which credits the creation of humans to three water-dwelling feathered serpents.

FACT: The Russian Govt had been interested in testing psychic ability for several years before 1957. Stalin's "favourite" psychic was Wolf Messing, who had predicted Russian tanks rolling through Germany a year before the event. Incidentally, over the last 20 years of the cold war, the US itself spent $20 million investigating extrasensory perception and other "psychic phenomena" in an effort to determine whether these forces of the paranormal world could somehow be put to use by espionage experts in the natural world.

IJATKOTCS: Spalko says she has received the Order of Lenin twice.

FACT: The Order of Lenin is the highest Soviet military decoration awarded to armed forces high command for successful operations resulting in a radical change in favor of the Soviet Armed Forces.

IJATKOTCS: Indy and Dovchenko ride upon a high powered rocket sled (serial: EMC72) from Hangar 51 into the Nevada Desert and pass out.

FACT: Rocket sleds were used to study the human body's ability to withstand the force of gravity acting on a body on Earth at sea level. The early sleds of the 1940's and 1950's were propelled by rocket bottles used to boost heavy aircraft off short runways, and capable of generating 5,000 pounds of thrust apiece. Tests included long tracks, the first having been built during WWII for tests of Nazi V-1 "buzz bombs". During the tests blood would rapidly leave the pilot's (usually John Paul Stapp) eyeballs and pool at the back of his head, resulting in a "white out." When he faced the other way, blood was pushed up against his retinas, causing "red outs" caused by broken capillaries and hemorrhaging. In the later tests the end of the tracks would be flooded with water to stop the sled.

IJATKOTCS: Indy survives a bomb blast in "Doom Town" Nevada, populated by mannequins in 1957 by climbing into a lead-lined, 'King Cool' refrigerator.

FACT: "Survival Town" in the Nevada Desert was peopled by mannequins and "tonnes of food to measure the level of radiation". Nuclear tests from the 1950s into the 1960s caused several evacuations from Area 51. A bomb with the code-name HOOD, part of the 1957 Operation Plumbob, caused substantial damage at Watertown, the code-name for Area 51. And, of course, if the military were attempting to measure levels of radiation in food, they probably wouldn't store it in lead lined fridges.

Watch the construction and destruction of 'Survival Town' (starts at 02:38)

IJATKOTCS: Professor Jones tells his students to read Michelson, chapter five, as he leaves the room to speak with Dean Charles Stanforth. In 1936 (in Radiers), he told his students to read Michelson, chapters four and five as they poured out of his class.

FACT: Truman Michelson was an ethnologist with the Bureau of American Ethnology from 1910 to 1938. His specialty was Algonquian linguistics and culture.

FACT: When Marlon Brando appeared in the 1953 movie "The Wild One", he rode a Speed Twin 650cc Triumph Thunderbird motorcycle and dressed in leather jacket, gloves, cuffed jeans and cap. In the following years sales of black leather motorcycle jackets, jeans, and caps increased in popularity among young men. Mutt is riding a Harley Davidson 'Bobber'. A bobber was a 1950s motorcycle that had been stripped down to reduce weight and had straightened pipes (or 'shotguns') to increase speed and manoeuvrability.

IJATKOTCS: In Arnie's (named for Spielberg's father), Mutt tells Indy that Oxley claims to have found a crystal skull, just like "the Mitchell Hedges guy".

FACT: Anna Le Guillon Mitchell-Hedges, daughter of British adventurer F.A. Mitchell-Hedges, claims she found a crystal skull buried under a collapsed altar inside a temple in Lubaantun, in British Honduras in 1924.

IJATKOTCS: Indy says the Mayans believed if you brought the 13 crystal skulls together they would reveal the secrets of the universe.

FACT: The 13 crystal skulls include 1. The Mitchell-Hedges skull. 2. The British Crystal Skull. 3. The Paris Crystal Skull -both said to have been bought by mercenaries in Mexico in the 1890s. 4. The Amethyst Skull found in Guatemala. 5. Mayan skull found in Mexico. 6. The Texan skull (aka Max). Texas. 7. The ET skull in LA. 8. The Rose Quartz Crystal Skull from Honduras. 9. The Aztec Skull in London. 10. The Aztec Skull in Paris. 11. Sha-Na-ra, 12. Jaguar Man and 13. Rainbow Skull were all found in Mexico.

IJATKOTCS: Oxley's letter send Indy to de Orellana's cradle (The book of the screenplay begins in 1546 with Francisco de Orellana, having murdered his fellow conquistadors and being driven insane by the Crystal Skull, climbing by his fingernails to a clifftop in Peru to look down at the Nazca Lines).

FACT: Francisco de Orellana was a Spanish explorer born in 1511. He was one of Gonzalo Pizarro's lieutenants during his 1541 expedition into the South American interior in search of El Dorado. After this, Orellana returned to Spain to obtain government over the discovered lands (that he named New Andalusia). He intended to explore and settle Amazonian lands with less than 300 men, 100 horses and found two cities. He set sail on May 11, 1545 but only one ship reached the Amazon mouth. Only 44 of the 300 men survived. Orellana was one of the casualties, dying in November 1546 - when the novel of Crystal Skull begins.

IJATKOTCS: Oxley speaks of finding Akator and Indy tells Mutt about the Ugha tribe.

FACT: In 1972, an Indian named Tatunca Nara told a German photojournalist named Karl Brugger that he belonged to a tribe called the Ugha Mongulala who lived in an underground city located in an unexplored region of the Amazon. Tatunca said the Ugha were chosen by the gods to be record-keepers of the planet after the gods sudden departure in 10,481 BC. The gods built a highly protected underground fortress in an inaccessible locale. The Ugha were given special stones which told of the gods arrival, great wars, the building of the Akakorian empire, the departure of the gods, the birth of the Incas, the construction of great cities and the coming of the Spanish. The gods left one of their flying disks as credentials for the Ugha. Tatunca also claims that there are four of the gods reamining in stone columns in the deep inner recesses of the temple. Brugger surmised that they are mummified or in some kind of suspended animation. Reportedly they look just like us except they have six fingers on each hand. The Akakorian priests prophesized that the white barbarians will eventually discover Akakor and there they will find in it their own mirror image, thus the circle will be closedâ. Brugger published his findings in 1972 and was planning a trip to Akakor at the time of his murder.

IJATKOTCS: Indy suggests his student read Vere Gordon Childe when Mutt's bike slides to a halt in the library.

FACT: Vere Gordon Childe was an an Australian archaeologist who excavated Skara Brae in Orkney - which Indy is discussing to his pupils at Marshall College when Jim Broadbent interrupts.

IJATKOTCS: Indy translates Oxley's letter written in Koihoma using Heyerdahl's Treatise on MesoAmerican Languages.

FACT: Thor Heyerdahl was a Norwegian adventurer with a background in zoology. He set out to prove ancient South American cultures migrated to the Polynesian islands - including Rapa Nui - when he noticed similarities in the cultures. He also noted both Mayan and Egypt nations used hieroglyphics as a writing system. Koihoma is an extinct language belonging to the Witotoan family of northeastern Peru, southwestern Colombia, and western Brazil.

IJATKOTCS: Indy shows Mutt the Nazca Lines in a book called 'Mirror of the Gods: Ancient Astronomy and Celestial Navigation'.

FACT: The Nazca Lines are large etchings carved into the ground of the Nazca Desert, which itself lies in a system of valleys on the southern coast of Peru. The Nazca culture that flourished in the area between 300BC and AD800 are believed responsible. Because of their size, they can only be seen in their entirety from several hundred feet in the air leading many to suggest either the Indians could fly or were visited regularly by visitors who could.

IJATKOTCS: Indy and Mutt fly to Peru in The Antonov An-12.

FACT: The Antonov An-12 is a four-engined turboprop transport aircraft. The first prototype flew in March 1957 - the year in which Crystal Skull is set.

IJATKOTCS: Indy speaks Quechua once in Peru.

FACT: Quechua is an Amerind language spoken by about 8,000,000 people in Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Argentina. Quechua was the language of the Inca Empire, destroyed by the Spanish in the 16th century.

IJATKOTCS: Indy says he was kidnapped and then rode with Pancho Villa, and fought Victoriano Huerta.

FACT: Pancho Villa was a general of the Mexican Revolution who led peasant armies to victory over the corrupt regime of Porfirio Diaz. Victoriano Huerta later held the majority of military power in Mexico and made himself dictator. Villa joined the rebellion against Huerta, crossing the Rio Grande with eight men, two pounds of coffee, two pounds of sugar, and 500 rounds of rifle ammunition. Villa forced Huerta from office on July 15, 1914.

IJATKOTCS: Oxley's cell is in the St. Anthony of Padua Sanitorium.

FACT: Anthony of Padua was born at Lisbon, the capital of Portugal in 1195. His father was Martin Bouillon, descendant of the renowned Godfrey de Bouillon, commander of the First Crusade. He is the patron of lost things. Among many miracles, it's said Anthony made an amputated foot hole and refilled an empty wine barrel. Both Jesus and St Francis are said to have appeared to him.

IJATKOTCS: Indy and Mutt come across a dome shaped skull which Indy explains is the result of Nazca head binding.

FACT: The Nazca applied pressure to the heads of infants, using boards or cord wrappings to reshape their heads as an indication of social status among the elite, according to Peter Kvietok of the American Museum of Natural History.

IJATKOTCS: Indy and Mutt wrestle with the 'living dead' at Chauchilla Cemetary.

FACT: Chauchilla Cemetary is a pre Inca Cemetery on the South Pan American Highway. Several hundreds of graves have been raided by grave robbers, leaving the aged bones and corpses exposed. Some bodies from the ancient Nasca people have been preserved by natural mummification in the arid climate. It isn't however precariously hanging above the Nazca Lines as in the film

IJATKOTCS: Indy tells Mutt with scorpions, the bigger the better.

FACT: Scorpions with over-developed claws have evolved these pincers as weapons and so have no need for venom, unlike the smaller of the species.

IJATKOTCS: As Indy discovers Francisco de Orellana's golden body armour, he tells Mutt they used to call de Orellana 'The Gilded Man'.

FACT:In fact, it is El Dorado that was called 'The Gilded Man'. From A. F. Bandelier's 1893 book 'The Gilded Man'; "A story was current among these Indians of a tribe dwelling in the mountains to the south with whom gold was abundant that they powdered the whole body of their chief with it. This was the legend of "the gilded man" - el hombre dorado, or, more briefly, el dorado, "the gilded." "

IJATKOTCS: Spalko says the Russian military have already performed autopsies upon two bodies similar to that found in Area 51. In the novelisation, she explains both were found in Tunguska.

FACT: In Russia in 1908, near the Tunguska River, a violent explosion flattened trees for a radius of over 2,150 square kilometres. It was not investigated for 20 years because of the remoteness of the area. It has never been completely explained, but was most likely caused by a meteor impacting and exploding.

IJATKOTCS: Indy translates Oxley's Mayan ideogramatic directions which consist of wavelines, a closed eye, a sun with an arc, a horizon and a snake. Which he translates as water, sleep, a span of time, vastness and a river.

FACT: That's pretty accurate according to recent advances in the decipherment of the Maya writing system.

FACT: The Sono is located in the right margin of the Tocantins-Araguaia river system, which rises in the highlands of Goiás and Mato Grosso states and discharges into the Pará River just south of the Amazon delta.

IJATKOTCS: Indy and Marion sink in a dry sandpit. Indy explains it is not quicksand and that movement makes space in which they'll fall. He says they will be ok if there are no void collapses.

FACT: Sand is usually able to support weight by relying on internal force chains. Quicksand, however, is a mixture with force chains that are substantially weaker. Detlef Lohse at the University of Twente created ‘dry quicksand’ by filling a container with very fine grain sand. He dropped a pingpong ball filled with tiny bronze balls into the sand and without any effort, it moved through the sand.

IJATKOTCS: Mutt throws Indy a rat snake to pull him out of the pit. Indy says rat snakes aren't that big.

FACT: Rat snakes are a large group of snakes. They are aggressive, though harmless. There is considerable variation between different types of rat snake but most are medium to large, rodent eating snakes.

IJATKOTCS: Indy is hooked up to an EEG and forced to look into the eyes of the crystal skull.

FACT: An EEG or electroencephalogram is a recording of the brain's electrical activity. In specific regions of the brain small electrical signals are produced. When the EEG leads are placed on the scalp over these regions, the EEG machine is able to pick up and reproduce the electricity as a record on paper.

IJATKOTCS: The Russians romp through the Amazon in a military jungle cutter and amphibious vehicles called 'Ducks'.

FACT: DUKWs were originally built by General Motors in 1942 and consisted of a truck enclosed in a water-tight shell. DUKW is a military acronym indicating the vehicles were designed in 1942 (D), for utility/amphibious purposes (U), with front wheel drive (K), and two rear driving axles (W). The Soviet version in the film is the Gaz 46.

IJATKOTCS: Mac reminds Indy they were double agents in Berlin. In the novel and the DK Ultimate Guide, it explains George 'Mac;' McHale worked for MI6 while Indy worked for the Office of Strategic Services. The pair are said to have masqueraded as Nazis in an attempt to steal the cipher machine responsible for generating Germany's Enigma codes.

FACT: The Enigma Machine was adopted by military and governmental services of many nations — most famously the Nazis during World War II. Allied cryptologists were able to decrypt a large number of messages that had been enciphered on the machine because in mid-1939 decryption methods were delivered from Poland to Britain and France. The intelligence gained through this source - codenamed ULTRA - was a significant aid to the Allied war effort. The end of the European war was said to have been hastened by two years because of the decryption of German ciphers. Thanks Indy!

IJATKOTCS: Indy and cohorts encounter fire ants in the Amazon when a vehicle slams into a large anthill. Indy mutters, "Siafu".

FACT: Fire ant colonies produce large mounds and feed on plants, seeds, and sometimes crickets. Fire ants attack small animals and can kill them. Fire ants only bite to get a grip and then sting from the abdomen to inject a toxic alkaloid venom called Solenopsin. The sting burns, hence the name 'fire ant'. Siafu, or Dorylus, are found primarily in central and east Africa through to Asia. There have been reported cases of people being killed and eventually consumed by them, often dying of asphyxiation.

FACT: Spetsnaz refers to the elite, special purpose units under the Internal Troops of Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs and the military intelligence service. The Spetsnaz have a fierce reputation as one of the best special forces in the world today due to the very harsh standards of their training. The Soviet Naval Spetsnaz came in to being in 1957 - they year Crystal Skull takes place. The existence of these special forces units was not known to the general public during the Soviet era.

IJATKOTS: Inside the Ugha temple, Indy describes the wall paintings - "Somebody came".

FACT: Certain primitive cave paintings are interpreted as resembling aliens, astronauts and spacecraft. Erich von Daniken popularised the theory with his book, 'Chariots of the Gods'. It suggests ancient astronauts landed on Earth in its infancy, seeded the first humans and imparted them with skills. Daniken has cited cave paintings drawn by primitive man as evidence. For example, ones found in the Spanish caverns of Ojo Guarea and Altamira, as well as Val Camonica in Italy, depict figures in astronaut-type suits and headgear.

IJATKOTS: In the novelisation, Indy, Mutt, Marion, Mac and Oxley enter a chamber which reminds Mutt of Picasso's Guernica. The wall paintings speak of suffering, bloodshed, atrocities and the raw brutality of man. Here are women holding bleeding babies aloft, men impaled on spikes, corpses piled atop one another and remains hanging from ropes. Indy says "The conquistadores came looking for El Dorado. They looted the city. Took whatever they could, including the skull.

FACT: When the Spanish conquistadores conquered America, it seemed to be at the cost of the Icnan and Andean people. Many paintings and carvings depict torture of the native people at Spanish hands.

IJATKOTS: Oxley says the creatures came from another dimension - "The space between spaces". In the novelisation, he cites 'Thorne's post inflation bubbles'.

FACT: Inflationary Universe Theory suggests reality is a supersaturated steam full of liquid bubbles. Our universe is only a small part of a single bubble. There are an infinity of bubbles and an infinity of universes like ours on a single bubble. However, it is said the size of 'post-inflation bubbles' are finite so can't contain infinite possibilities.

For those intending to read the novel, probably best avoid this part as it refers to the very ending which is markedly different from the film.

IJATKOTS: In the novelisation, Spalko's gift from the inter-dimensional beings is knowledge, the power to see. As the beings psychically transmit all their knowledge to her, an instantaneous evolution is triggered within her brain. It seems crystal is perfect for conducting synaptic currents, and rivulets of crystalline fingers form and etch into Spalko's Occipital Lobes (the back bit). As crysal tracts reach deeper into her brain, folds unfold, organic matter becomes mineralised and less porous, pressing fluid to the walls of her skull. Spalko senses her life is ebbing away. She realises she is having an out of body experience and floats above the awesome and awful sight. Gazing down, she watches herself dying. She screams that she does not want to see anymore. It is when the crystal reaches the frontal lobes, behind her pupils and reflects the beams of white hot psychic power back through her sockets, (thus incinerating her eyeballs), that Spalko finally dies. As the vortex above pulls the ragged, charred corpse toward the ceiling, the disembodied spirit of Spalko stares horrified at her lifeless remains floating slowly toward her, reaching out dead arms for a loving embrace.