The Infamous "Australopithecus spiff-arino" Letter

Factual Questions
1

Has any one ever seen this?

Yes, I know it’s not real. That’s not what I’m asking. What I am trying to figure out is how old it is. It first crossed my inbox back in 1997. The oldest record in Google is from a post to alt.fans.dave_barry Dated 22 May 1995. You can see at the bottom of the post, that it had been emailed to the poster.

Any how, does anyone know where this came from?

2

According to this site it originated with the said Harvey Rowe in 1994, who was at the time a graduate student in South Carolina, rather than “Curator of Antiquities” at the Smithsonion “Institute.”

3

Snopes concurs with Colibri.