Woman Checked Human Skull in Airplane Luggage: "It's For Halloween!"

1. red
   October 9th, 2008 at 6:59 pm

   jebus, disrespect human remains much?

2. corinne
   October 9th, 2008 at 8:48 pm

   I know a guy who collects human skulls. They're not hard to legally obtain. I don't know why the fact that she was carrying it was a big deal. I mean, the skull could be the remnants of a crime, but so could a hundred things in anyone's luggage. A skull is just a curiosity for people who don't get out. You can buy skulls on ebay, folks.

3. fractal
   October 10th, 2008 at 12:04 am

   I've flown with a human skull in my carry on. They're 100% legal as long as there isn't any tissue remaining. I didn't have time to get to a post office to ship it home, so traveling with it was the only option.

   Strange thing though was that I wasn't pulled aside and searched, but my ex-husband ahead of me in line was for his camera bag. Strange system.

4. Larfin Jackarse
   October 10th, 2008 at 2:44 am

   @fractal

   1: where did you legally obtain a human skull?

   2: what will you do with it?

   I saw an article on a bloke who acquired a human skull and turned it into a bong. Sorry, maybe I am a sook, but I think that that is just wrong.

5. Tweeker
   October 10th, 2008 at 3:08 am

   I would love to will my skull as part of my estate, and explicitly allow its use as paraphernalia.

6. Lasse
   October 10th, 2008 at 5:28 am

   Physiotherapists use parts of the human skeleton for studying. As far as i know you can buy replicas, but i think there is also a possibility to get bones from people who donated (or even sold?) their bones. So there probably is a legal market.

   When i studied 10 years ago, there was a girl living across the hallway who studyed to become a physiotherapist. She had a human hand/ underarm lying on her desk.

7. Ray
   October 10th, 2008 at 6:20 am

   After creamtion, the "ashes" are mostly ground-up bone fragments. People lug "cremains" around all the time for dispersal. Can't see much difference between that and a skull. And why would security care? It's neither illegal, nor threatening.

8. Scotchdrnkr
   October 10th, 2008 at 7:02 am

   You can buy human skulls. Heck you can buy full skeletons if you have the $. Neither one is cheap. I collect all kinds of skulls. I haven't bought a human one yet because they are so expensive. I don't like the fact that this guy just took a skull from someplace. But I have no problem with people buying them from a legitimate dealer.
   As far as TSA doing their jobs I'm surprised they even checked out the thing. Most would have figured it was a Halloween prop and ignored it.

9. Scotchdrnkr
   October 10th, 2008 at 7:04 am

   Oh ad if you are interested you can buy them here.
   http://www.skullsunlimited.com/humanskullsnb.htm

10. Max Power
    October 10th, 2008 at 7:35 am

    Errrr the first 9 replies are honestly of people claiming they'd also collect skulls? Really? :S

11. corinne
    October 10th, 2008 at 7:36 am

    Also, you can buy human skulls at http://www.boneroom.com
    It's actually a pretty neat website.

12. exhtmn
    October 10th, 2008 at 1:38 pm

    Sorry, but that is not a human skull.Looks like a chimp's skull.

13. ShapeShifter
    October 10th, 2008 at 3:37 pm

    exhtmn, have you ever seen a chimp skull before?
    http://staffwww.fullcoll.edu/jmcdermott/Chimp%20skull.jpg
    I'm pretty sure humans don't have sagittal crest or a face that sticks out.

14. exhtmn
    October 10th, 2008 at 7:20 pm

    Well,it isn't human,look at the indentions behind the eye sockets.

15. Larfin Jackarse
    October 10th, 2008 at 9:26 pm

    @Max Power
    No. Not really. Go back and reread.

16. Ali S.
    October 11th, 2008 at 2:49 pm

    I think the reason she got stopped was mainly because in the past murderers did some really stupid things like carry around body parts and bones in their luggage. Maybe they thought this was one of them?

17. fractal
    October 11th, 2008 at 3:33 pm

    @Larfin Jackarse - I forget the name of the shop, but it was in NYC. There are plenty of suppliers out there though. Some suppliers off the top of my head are The Bone Room in Berkley, SkullsUnlimited.com, Necromance in Los Angeles, Evolution in NYC (although that was not where I purchased mine). They can be a bit pricey, I believe mine was around $400, and that was a fairly good deal.

    I collect anthropological specimens, and also use them as props for photography.

18. Tom Mc
    November 7th, 2008 at 2:10 am

    Could this be an artifact from WWII? Estimated Japanese military and civilian deaths exceeded 270,000. There are caves all over the island with human remains. The caves are supposed to off-limits but people still explore them at their own peril. You might compare the picture with the skulls at my site. We have human and primate skull replicas at http://www.skullarama.com. These are affordable museum-quality products for display or educational purposes.

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