Is This Really A 100-million-year-old Fossilized Human Finger?
Carl Baugh of Glen Rose, Texas, who was well-known for his numerous claims about alleged out-of-place fossils and artifacts, acquired a supposedly fossilized human finger in the middle of the 1980s. He began displaying it as an alleged out-of-place fossil shortly thereafter in his "Creation Evidence Museum" in Glen Rose, Texas.
At the time, Baugh let me look at the "finger" and told me that it was in a pile of loose gravel north of Glen Rose. The "finger" was "found by a landowner where road gravel was being quarried from the Cretaceous Walnut Formation of the Commanche Peak Formation," according to Baugh's website.
Because fossils are mashed flat by pressure from layers above them, some argued that it could not be a finger that had been fossilized. In most cases, this is true; however, not in the Glen Rose Formation.
Numerous locations present thousands of perfectly three-dimensional fossilized worms. Worms are not flattened, but if they were, they would be. To clearly preserve such amazing detail, very rapid lithification is necessary.
"It's just a rock," will be the first response from those who claim to be scientists. No matter how much it resembles a finger, they "know" that humans did not live alongside dinosaurs.
Science moves in a different direction. Real scientists carry out experiments to validate their findings. We sectioned this fossil to see if any internal structure was preserved, which would help us identify whether it was a strange-looking rock or a fossil finger.
After the fossil had been sectioned, I was privileged to view it once more several years later. At the time, I noticed that the fossil's density and coloration were not uniform or haphazard. The fossil's internal appearance was identical to that of a human finger when sectioned.
The subcutaneous tissue and skin margins were clearly defined. There were characteristics consistent with flexor and extensor tendons, and the bone matrix was clearly defined.
The individuals making the claims bear the burden of proof, not those questioning them, as is the case with all extraordinary claims. The "fossilized finger"'s proponents, including Baugh, have not proved conclusively that it is a genuine fossil. They also haven't shown a clear connection to an old structure, which undermines its potential value as an out-of-place object. The object is not a reliable out-of-place fossil, but rather merely a curiosity in the absence of this evidence.