Doing a little digging of my own it does turn out that Mulhattan was indeed sent to an insane asylum ( can't help but think of "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" and where they wanted to place Philip K. Dick and H.P. Lovecraft) HOWEVER he was released in March of 1901 so I ask why would the editor of any paper in the world let alone in his backyard print a story 8 years later from what was supposedly a notorious and confirmed tall tale teller and ex asylum resident ?



And in my correspondence with The Smithsonian none of this was ever mentioned as all they claimed was that it was an April Fool's Joke.

Sounds like revisionism to me. Is there a statement form the editor of The Phoenix Gazette confirming where the story came from ? I doubt it for I am sure The Smithsonian would have been explaining that to people for the last 114 years.

db

"There is nothing as impenetrable as a closed mind"
and ..." if everything is a coincidence what is the point of studying or measuring or analyzing anything ?" db