Solved! UChicago's Indiana Jones mystery package

Last week, the University of Chicago posted that they had received a curious package addressed to Henry Walton Jones, Jr. A student mail worker recognized that name as belonging to a certain Indiana Jones who, in the film trilogy, was a professor at UChicago. The envelope was packed with Indiana Jones ephemera, including a replica of Abner Ravenwood's journal. The University posted the mystery online and it has now been solved. Turns out, the package was an eBay purchase on its way from a seller named Paul, in Guam, to a buyer in Italy.

According to Paul, this package was en route from him in Guam to his intended recipient IN ITALY (registered mail confirmation attached) when it must have fallen out of the package in Hawaii. 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. From Guam to Hawaii en route to Italy with a stopover in Chicago: truly an adventure befitting Indiana Jones.

"Indiana Jones Mystery Package" Indiana Jones Mystery Package (Thanks, Bob Pescovitz!)

• [jarmstrong]

  Of course it was thrown off the plane in Hawaii. No ticket.

• [Brainspore]

  Q: “Where’s that package I ordered?”
  A: “We have top men working on it. Top. Men.”

• [voiceinthedistance]

  As a resident of Hawaii, I can attest to the fact that quite a lot of things happen to or are inflicted upon mail here.  The Post Office quite often has trappings of an “adventure” theme in how they operate.  Falling out of a registered mail envelope with no signs of the original packaging is almost to be expected.

  • [TheMadLibrarian]

     One suspects that many things are simply attached to passing whales for ‘delivery’.

• [Finnagain]

  The fragile ones go in that bin way over theeeeeeeeere! 3-pointer at the buzzer!

• [chgoliz]

  I love the fact that the creator is allowing UChicago to keep the package and is making a new one for the purchaser, and that the journal is going to be part of a new exhibit at the Oriental Museum about real-life archaeologists.

• [flickerKuu]

  Or its a viral for the upcoming Indiana Jones Movies starting production.

• [bill_mcgonigle]

  Won’t somebody do the Indiana Jones travel map animation?

• [DavidP]

  Upon visiting another lab in the Medical School where I work, as often times can be found in the reception area of the office in many departments, there are quotes from famous scientists. In this case there were three: one from Albert Einstein, one from Mary Curie and another that caught my eye…

  Engraved in the attractive glass door in giant letters it read: 

  “Nothing shocks me. I’m a scientist.” –Indiana Jones