Wapello County Man Admits

     Faking Viking Rune Stone:

     Noted Archeologist Exposes Fiberglass Fake

Wapello County: Chester Irkingham retracted his claim about the object known as The Rune Stone of Munterville during an August 1st press conference. Irkingham, 39, an unemployed bulldozer operator and mechanic, admitted that the purported Viking rune stone discovered in his backyard in September, 1995 was in fact nothing more than a cleverly carved blob of autobody fiberglass.

     The alledged runestone created controversy at its discovery when international experts determined from photos, as well as an iron broad sword purportedly unearthed from the site, that the stone's symbols indicated that Viking attacks on northern England originated in near Ottumwa and not Norway.

     But in July, Irkingham's story began unraveling. Third Eye Over Iowa reporters uncovered the fact that when Irkingham made his discovery, Munterville's Town Council was so desperate for a tourist draw that they backed him without a second glance. When Irkingham furnished a list of experts who had already examined the stone, the council applied for a National Endowment for the Humanities Grant for Historic Preservation.

     Soon enough, the veracity of the experts' opinions crumbled when it became widely known that one alledged expert from the University of Oxford, England, was actually a men'sroom attendant at rugby games and that another one from Harvard was in fact an infamous Des Moines derelict named Sam Fitzal.

     Early this month, Irkingham's claims were publicly disproved by University of Emmetsburg Archeologist, Dr. Wesley Abingdon-Hyde when he was allowed to examine the site on the NEH's behalf. According to Abingdon-Hyde, the first thing that struck him was "it looked like someone had just chiseled the runes and merely rubbed them with mud and charcoal. The bondo-putty underneath was obvious and the runes spelled out some ridiculous verse in modern Norwegian. It was a pathetic little display."

     Dr. Abingdon-Hyde also confirmed that a barrow mound artifact had been stolen from central Norway and that Irkingham had not only recently visited relatives there, but probably looted the mound during a family outing.

     The Norwegian government has filed extradition papers on Irkingham.