Director Todd Douglas Miller does a good job of recapping the narrative: In 1990, representatives of the Black Hills Institute, which was in the fossil reclamation and retail business, were about to end their hunt for the day when they found they had a flat tire. However, there was good news for Sue supporters, paleontologists, dinosaur fans, and Williams. But one crucial bit was missing: the incredibly well-preserved skull was too heavy to put on the body. The three dinosaurs are the central feature at the museum but it was a challenging task to get them settled in. The members of the Black Hills Institute found themselves under investigation by the Department of Justice, which believed that they had stolen the fossil from federal land. In November that year, the Department of Justice brought 39 counts and 153 charges against six members of the Black Hills Institute, including Peter and Neal Larson, business partner Bob Farrar, and Terry Wentz. I may never be able to work with her again," he told the LA Times at the auction. Next, the team had to carefully remove the plaster they'd placed around the bones to keep them safe during transport. The skeleton, which stands 13 feet high and 40 feet long, including the tail, went up for auction at Christie's in New York on 6 October. This pair of dinosaurs locked in combat is among the most important dinosaur finds ever discovered. As long as fossil dealers work in scientifically responsible ways, they have a right to make a living. The agents demanded they turn over Sue, as well as any documents related to it, and any other fossils found on Williams' land. Passing by a cliff, Hendrickson spotted a series of dark shapes in the vertical rock. PBS reported that Bob Farrar was found guilty of two felonies, but his charges were later thrown out. "These are important and iconic Jurassic-era specimens, which science did not even know existed together at the same time, and now they will be going to a final destination where the public will get to enjoy them and where they will be of maximum benefit to science.". Fossil hunting requires a combination of hard-earned instincts, luck, and optimism. As well as captivating visitors, Sue the T-Rex has helped scientists learn more about T-Rex and dinosaurs generally. Sue likely also suffered from a condition many humans are familiar with. This attracted the attention of Vincent Santucci, a paleontologist and geologist for the National Park Service. Likewise her movie. In 1996, he was sentenced to two years in prison, a $5,000 fine, and two years supervised release. Until someone is willing to buy them, the dueling dinosaurs will remain shrouded in mystery. ), Some academics argue that amateur fossil hunters and their sometimes legally questionable fossil-finding practices contribute to our collective scientific knowledge. The fighting pair were bought by an unnamed museum outside the United States. (Deciding to move an ancient fossil is just one of the most idiotic things the FBI has ever done.) Both companies were given replicas of the T-Rex. Guaranteed to fan antigovernment sentiments among its audiences, "Dinosaur 13" is less about paleontology than it is about prosecutorial overreach, political gamesmanship, dinosaur swindlers and true crime—if in fact crimes were even committed, and/or committed by the people accused. The ranch's owner, Maurice Williams, had given them permission to look on his land. There was one clear winner in the case of who owned Sue. Experts got involved on the Institute's behalf, but Acting U.S. Attorney Kevin Schieffer, who had authorized the raid, refused to budge. Now read about the surprising things you can buy a share of. A Harpocrasaurus is a duck-billed dinosaur that lived 75 to 67 million years ago and is almost as big as a Tyrannosaurus rex. If found guilty on all 36 counts, it was estimated that he could have been sentenced to 300 years in prison and $12 million in fines. The specimens were a Diplodocus, measuring 39 feet long from nose to tail, and an Allosaurus, much smaller at 12.5 feet in length. But because it was tribal land, it was held in trust by the Department of the Interior. She has become something of a celebrity in the dinosaur world and even has her own Twitter account @SUEtheTrex, which has almost 70,000 followers. Officially named Specimen FMNH PR 2081 but nicknamed Sue after its discoverer, the T-Rex Hendrickson found that day would turn out to be not only the largest but the most complete T-Rex unearthed so far, with about 250 of 380 known bones. However, his release wasn't entirely a celebration. The New York Times reported that the FBI conducted another raid on the Institute in June 1993. The huge dinosaur was auctioned off at Heritage Auctions for $657,250 in June 2011. But she continued exploring. The National University of Singapore bought the trio from Dinosauria International, the Wyoming-based fossil company that found them for around $8 million, to display in the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum. Apollonia and Prince were adults and measured in at 78 feet and 89 feet respectively from head to tail, while the baby dinosaur Twinky was 39 feet long. He told Roger Ebert.com, "During bad times, there are some wonderful things that happen as well. After three months of extensive excavation, Phipps and his partners were able to determine the nature of their find: a 28-foot-long ceratopsian and a 22-foot-long theropod, which appear to have been fighting when they died. Misty headlined at Summers Place Auctions in the UK in November 2013 and sold for an impressive $518,670. But even the most optimistic fossil hunter wouldn't have dared to dream of discovering what Sue Hendrickson found in the rocks of a South Dakota cliff face one foggy morning in August 1990. In the documentary, Wentz described the moment they were finally safely separated as, "probably the highest point of my life.". Peter Larson later recalled that he tried to argue: Sue was 67 million years old and not easily transportable. However, a number of differences, such as the shape of the pelvis, skull and teeth, mean that it could be a genus of dinosaur that scientists have never seen before. Discovered in Montana in the 1990s, "Freya" was put on display at the Emmen Museum in the Netherlands, where she was given her nickname. The charges included wire fraud, theft of government property, and making false statements to government agencies. An acting U.S. attorney with a political agenda and a porn-star mustache ordered the National Guard into Hill City to seize Sue from the BHI museum. The excavation and restoration of the skeleton took a total of 30,000 hours to complete, after which he was put on a custom mount and displayed to the public on Hill City's Main Street in South Dakota. Yet buying them is no longer solely the realm of museums and research organizations. A 150 million-year-old dinosaur discovered in Wyoming went under the hammer at Aguttes auction house in Paris in June 2018. In 1992, visiting paleontologists began to excavate the bones and realized he was in fact a Tyrannosaurus rex. By the way, despite being named after the woman who discovered her, Sue's sex remains a mystery. According to PBS, while supporters continued their "Free Sue" campaign, Acting U.S. Attorney Kevin Schieffer kicked a criminal investigation of the Institute into high gear. Maurice Williams, the landowner to whom Pete Larson paid $5,000 for Sue, is portrayed as the shiftiest of characters, because as a member of the Sioux tribe he had leased his land to the Interior Department and thus wasn't legally within his rights to sell anything on it. She sold for $123,000 to a private client, exceeding pre-auction estimates of $64,000-$103,000. Returning to the site a month later to excavate, he discovered it wasn't just a pelvis but an entire skeleton – and it wasn't just one dinosaur, but two. There were calls from the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology for the sale to be canceled, so that paleontologists could continue to examine the mystery fossil and work out exactly what type of dinosaur it really is. The lawsuit over who owned Sue was a civil matter. Back in 2009 German paleontologist Raimund Albersdörfer was excavating a quarry in Ten Sleep, Wyoming when he told his sons to go off and explore so he could get on with some work. Now read about the other record-breaking auction sales of 2020, Like us on Facebook to see similar stories, What it's like to travel from the US to Hong Kong amid Covid, Chipotle reveals it killed the free tortilla side because people were ordering too many during the pandemic. All rights reserved, most idiotic things the FBI has ever done, the incredible story of the 1893 World's Fair, bizarre things that really happened at Disney. Located in Hill City, SD, (population 1,028), the Black Hills Institute is a fossil collection, fossil shop, and fossil-preparing workshop founded by brothers Peter and Neal Larson in 1974. He tried to make the best of it. This particular specimen, measuring around 25 feet long and 10 fee high, is virtually complete. But in his eagerness to create a David-and-Goliath story, and with his distractingly pro-BHI bias, Mr. Miller fails to ask a lot of questions. In 1994, United States District Judge Richard Battey ruled that Williams hadn't had the right to sell Sue to the Institute in 1990 because he hadn't requested permission from the federal government, so the $5,000 purchase was void. Peter Larson still visits Sue whenever he's in Chicago. What she discovered—later dubbed Sue, in her honor—turned out to be the most complete T. rex ever unearthed. For those who think there's no place in the movies for females of a certain age, there's "Dinosaur 13," a briskly paced documentary about the discovery, preservation and federal seizure of the 67-or-so-million-year-old dinosaur known as Sue. The dinosaurs made headlines around the world, with fossil sales expert Iacopo Briano commenting, "Dinosaurs have become cool, trendy – real objects of decoration, like paintings", when he spoke to AFP before the auction. They were all related to fossils other than Sue. And at 80% complete, it is one of the most intact skulls ever found. He suspected that Larson hadn't got the permissions he needed to claim Sue — and that Maurice Williams hadn't had the right to sell it. Following a huge dispute over where Sue should be housed, with many worried that she would be bought by a private collector and not be available for research or viewing by the general public, the Field Museum in Chicago began raising funds for Sue. Such is the appetite for these pieces that they sold for more than $1.6 million each, with Hôtel Drouot commenting that it was "exceptional" for dinosaurs to command such a high price. "I have visitation rights," he joked to the Billings Gazette in 2005. Huge crowds showed up at Fair Park in Dallas to catch a glimpse before they were sold off. The BHI principals ultimately faced a 39-count federal indictment. The specimen was discovered by paleontologists Peter Larson and Sue Hendrickson, and so the dinosaur was nicknamed Sue. Larson and his allies lost the original decision over ownership, but as of April 2020, the case was going back to the Montana Supreme Court. The Institute filed a lawsuit against the Department of Justice, the Department of Interior, the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, and the School of Mines and Technology, claiming that Sue was their property. They were first found in June 2006, when rancher and amateur paleontologist Clayton Phipps was digging in Hell Creek, Montana and came across what looked like a dinosaur pelvis. ), This was bad news for the Institute and for the Cheyenne River Sioux. Despite this, Bonhams tried to sell the dinosaurs back in 2013, after receiving a valuation by appraisers of $9 million. Aw. It would eventually stand at 42 feet long — but first, the team had to dig it out of the rock that rose 29 feet above the fossil, in temperatures as high as 120 F. Over the next 17 days, the team carefully excavated the site until they had the complete skeleton, battling through sections of hard rock.

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