Mysterious Package Addressed to Indiana Jones Arrives at UChicago

Grab hold of your thinking fedoras, everyone -- it's mystery solving time.

The University of Chicago received a bizarre package on Tuesday (pictured above) addressed to a " Henry Walton Jones, Jr ." At first, nobody thought twice about it. Whatever , they figured, we get the wrong mail all the time .

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But then it clicked. This wasn't just any "Jones" the sender was hoping to reach. This was the whip-snapping, Nazi-fighting, Holy Grail-hunting legend of a professor himself: the Indiana Jones .

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"It's finals week around here and everyone's in a bit of a haze," said Grace Chapin, a senior admissions counselor at the university. "Once we realized it was addressed to Indiana Jones we opened it up immediately -- and it got a lot weirder."

Inside was an elaborately detailed replica of a journal entry from Abner Ravenwood , a University of Chicago professor that Jones studied under in the films. The journal was well-replicated, Chopin said, with pictures, maps and information about the Ark of the Covenant from the Raiders of the Lost Ark film.

According to the University's Tumblr page :

The book itself is a bit dusty, and the cover is teal fabric with a red velvet spine, with weathered inserts and many postcards/pictures of Marion Ravenwood (and some cool old replica money) included. It s clear that it is mostly, but not completely handmade, as although the included paper is weathered all of the handwriting and calligraphy lacks the telltale pressure marks of actual handwriting

The university set up a special email account -- indianajonesjournal@uchicago.edu -- for anyone to write to with information about the package. So far, they've received more than 40 emails.

"Some think it was a promotional stunt; others think it might be the beginning of a vast alternate reality game," Chopin said. "Really, we don't have a clue."

In the films, Jones was a student and professor at the University of Chicago. Chopin said the university's current admissions office, where the package was received, used to house the geography and geology departments -- Jones' area of study.

As of this writing, the Ark-sized mystery remains unsolved. What do you think? Publicity stunt? Finals week prank? Or awesome, fiction-turns-into-reality phenomenon?

Image courtesy University of Chicago

This story originally published on Mashable here .

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