# Strange Things Found in Coal Deposits **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 4, 2005, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-things-found-in-coal-deposits/297625 "2005-04-04T06:13:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-things-found-in-coal-deposits/297625/1 "2005-04-04T06:13:33Z")
Okay, I’ve heard stories that people have found things like sparkplugs, bracelets, and other manmade things in lumps of coal. While I _seriously_ doubt that these stories are true, I’m wondering what the origin of them are. Anyone know? ---
**Author:** ![nonacetone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nonacetone/32/2819_2.png) [@nonacetone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nonacetone)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-things-found-in-coal-deposits/297625/2 "2005-04-04T06:19:28Z")
I’ve never heard of that! I have seen many fossils found in coal chunks. If you get a chunk of coal, and split it open, which is very easy to do, you can sometimes find fossils of plants in there! It’s really cool stuff! ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-things-found-in-coal-deposits/297625/3 "2005-04-04T07:45:08Z")
CBS’ two all-time most popular radio shows, _The Shadow_ and _Suspense_, were sponsored by Blue Coal® (America’s _Finest_ Anthracite!) and Autolite® spark plugs, respectively. It must mean _something_. (If only that I’ve caught a pretty good buzz and obsess over old entertainment a bit too much.) ---
**Author:** ![CynicalGabe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@CynicalGabe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CynicalGabe)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 9:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-things-found-in-coal-deposits/297625/4 "2005-04-04T09:17:42Z")
One time I cut one open, y’know what I found? Three phillipino fishermen. Still in their boat! ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-things-found-in-coal-deposits/297625/5 "2005-04-04T10:47:22Z")
> [@nonacetone](#): > > I’ve never heard of that! I have seen many fossils found in coal chunks. If you get a chunk of coal, and split it open, which is very easy to do, you can sometimes find fossils of plants in there! It’s really cool stuff! Coal _is_ fossil plants, so this is actually very very likely indeed. You probably meant _recognisable_ fossils of plants - and you’re right - as a child I used to play on (highly dangerous) coal mining slag heaps (when we visited my mother’s home town near Newcastle) - we would often find recognisable fronds and plant structures. There are some types of mineral growths that are found associated with coal deposits that _look like_ fern fronds but are in fact nothing of the sort, however, the stuff we found was very recognisable as being of plant origin - branch-like sections with bark that looked like snakeskin, flattened horsetail-things with segmented stems, even some sort of bud/fruit-type structures that looked a bit like oval pine cones. There is not one single reliable report of artifacts such as spark plugs being found in a mineral matrix that is positively identified as being very old - there are a number of such artifacts being paraded by creationists - the spark plug one is actually quite amusing because some creationists are insisting that it is evidence of a technological society (with internal combustion engines) existing before Noah’s flood - that the brand and model of the spark plug has been identified as modern doesn’t seem to faze (some of)them a bit. There are a number of ways in which artifacts can be quite quickly encrusted with mineral deposits or otherwise ‘petrified’ and this is often used (again by creationists, and often as a fallback position when their ‘ancient spark plug’ is shown to be modern) as an argument that the whole of the fossil record/geologic column is recent, but all of these artifacts (excluding those that are obvious hoaxes and/or will not be released for open scrutiny) are easy to distinguish from ancient rocks. And then there are a bunch of reports about _live_ animals emerging from cavities in broken rocks etc - the vast majority of these (in one case, the animal was alleged to be a pterodactly) are probably hoaxes (indeed reliable reports about any such incident are almost entirely absent), the very small remainder are most likely honest misinterpretation - for example: -A rock is smashed open and is observed to be hollow; at the same time, a frog is seen hopping away : 2 + 2 = 5 : the frog _must have_ been inside the hollow rock, mustn’t it? -A hollow rock is smashed open and a live (or mummified, but recently-dead) animal is found in the cavity, but the rock may have been hollow but not entirely closed (and the animal crawled in through a crack). Don’t want to appear too negative, of course, but _too strange to be true_ usually just means _not true_. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-things-found-in-coal-deposits/297625/6 "2005-04-04T10:56:05Z")
[Talk Origins](http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/coso.html) thoroughly dismantles the spark-plug issue, concluding: > [@](#): > > The Coso Artifact was indeed a remarkable device. It was a 1920s-era Champion spark plug that likely powered a Ford Model T or Model A engine, modified to possibly serve mining operations in the Coso mountain range of California. To suggest that it was a device belonging to an advanced ancient civilization of the past could be interpreted as true, but is an exaggeration of several thousand years. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-things-found-in-coal-deposits/297625/7 "2005-04-04T12:27:28Z")
> [@Larry Mudd](#): > > CBS’ two all-time most popular radio shows, _The Shadow_ and _Suspense_, were sponsored by Blue Coal® (America’s _Finest_ Anthracite!) and Autolite® spark plugs, respectively. > > It must mean _something_. (If only that I’ve caught a pretty good buzz and obsess over old entertainment a bit too much.) [Spooky voice-over] Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of America’s finest coal? [/SVO] ---
**Author:** ![Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-things-found-in-coal-deposits/297625/8 "2005-04-04T13:11:15Z")
_Chariots of the Gods_ mentions embedded artifacts as proof of extra-terrestrial aliens, but I think von Danken likes to stretch the truth just a wee bit. ---
**Author:** ![saluki\_fan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b2d939/32.png) [@saluki\_fan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saluki_fan)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-things-found-in-coal-deposits/297625/9 "2005-04-04T16:39:34Z")
I worked in a coal mine for a summer and I never heard any strange or unusual stories like that. The closest thing I’ve ever heard of was some pots and crude tools. there used to be a website with the article, but now I can’t find it. Anyway, the craziest thing I ever saw come out of coal was some massive chunks of petrified wood. The coolest thing I ever saw was was the ceiling had fallen in and once we had the miner go through and eat what had fallen a person could look up and see a massive amount of roots just haning there. It was like a thousands of little veigns were coming down from the ceiling. I always wanted to find the tree the roots belonged to, but never have. Perhaps one day I’ll get out there… ---
**Author:** ![Papermache\_Prince](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f05b48/32.png) [@Papermache\_Prince](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Papermache_Prince)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-things-found-in-coal-deposits/297625/10 "2005-04-04T16:53:00Z")
No one has mentioned Mr. Ed [“Mans as Old as Coal”](http://www.edconrad.com/) Conrad yet? He claims science is afraid of his theories and evidence and used to hang out at the newsgroup talk.origins. I don’t think he’s been there much lately. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-things-found-in-coal-deposits/297625/11 "2005-04-04T21:15:23Z")
> [@](#): > > [Spooky voice-over] > Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of America’s finest coal? > [/SVO] Oh, that’s easy. She’s the Unholy Queen of the Lesbian Vampire Army of the Night. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-things-found-in-coal-deposits/297625/12 "2005-04-04T21:52:25Z")
What is the origin of those “pyrite sun” things found in coal mines?They look like golden discs, about 2-3 inches in diameter. They are found in coal mines…but how does the iron sulphide crystallize within the coal? ---
**Author:** ![NinjaChick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@NinjaChick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinjaChick)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-things-found-in-coal-deposits/297625/13 "2005-04-04T22:05:42Z")
Cool thing on a now-defunct coal mine: [Centralia, PA](http://www.offroaders.com/album/centralia/centralia.htm). Strange thing in the coal deposit there: fire. ---
**Author:** ![daffyduck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ec9cab/32.png) [@daffyduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/daffyduck)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-things-found-in-coal-deposits/297625/14 "2005-04-04T22:43:56Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > What is the origin of those “pyrite sun” things found in coal mines?They look like golden discs, about 2-3 inches in diameter. They are found in coal mines…but how does the iron sulphide crystallize within the coal? They form in seams, not in the coal matrix itself. [http://bedrockfossils.com/pysuonsh.html](http://bedrockfossils.com/pysuonsh.html) ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-things-found-in-coal-deposits/297625/15 "2005-04-04T23:05:01Z")
> [@Papermache Prince](#): > > No one has mentioned Mr. Ed [“Mans as Old as Coal”](http://www.edconrad.com/) Conrad yet? He claims science is afraid of his theories and evidence and used to hang out at the newsgroup talk.origins. I don’t think he’s been there much lately. Ed Conrad is also trolling in alt.fan.cecil-adams, as I recall, but he crossposts so damned much it’s pointless to list all the froups his junk is broadcast into. Kind of interesting to read the first few times, then you get your plonk button ready for the next hundred spiels. Anyway, Mr. Conrad proves you can find body parts in a coal matrix: It’s apparently where he got his brain.