Dillman Bullock, was born in Michigan, US in 1878, and died in Angol, Chile in 1971. He was a Methodist missionary, and a scholar and scientist (he was also an agronomist).
Bullock lived in Chile for over 60 years, publishing books on agronomy and anthropology. He founded a museum in El Vergel, Angol, that is named after him.
We have mentioned him in a previous post (two headed patagonian giant) and in our book comment about his theory of a small sized race that lived in Chile before the Mapuche arrived, the Kofkeche.
He found many objects and put them in his museum, he described them in papers printed in reputable journals. One of them, was titled "Un objeto curioso y raro encontrado en Mulchen." Bullock, Dillman S. Santiago, 1965. Universidad Catolica de Chile. pp. 271-275. Año L-LI. Fasc. 2 ("A curious and strange object found in Mulchen.") The paper deals with a really strange stone statue, pictured below.
The object is a stone that has been shaped to look like a bearded man. It is made of andesite, a very hard and fine-grained extrusive igneous rock, the sculpture is rod-shaped, and measures 12.2 cm long (5 in.) and has a diamter of 31 mm (1.25 in.) at its widest part. It weighs 159 g (5.6 oz.)
It has a rough finish, and the stone contains mica that reflect light, and that was how a man, who was plowing a field in Mulchen, Chile, spotted it: it reflected sunlight. A few years later he gave it to Bullock.
Bullock saw that it depicted a human head, with a man's face sporting a moustache and a beard. The hair was covered with some kind of cap. It definitely has a Caucasian look to it.
It is very different from Mapuche rock art. It also has two holes on both sides of the head, on the lower corner of the jaw, suggesting it could have been used as a necklace.
In his paper Bullock wrote that "in the month of November of 1964, a man who was visiting the Museum, approached him and said: 'I have a small stone I want to show you.' He took a stone out of his pocket. Remarking that it was found around ten years before, plowing a field with black soil rich in organic matter, located ten kilometers inland from Mulchén.".
Bullock sent photos of it to scholars around the globe, but nobody managed to explain it, other than it was a modern artifact that had somehoiw reached Chile after the Spanish conquest and probably belonged to some sailor of the 16th to 18th centuries. But, how did it reach Mulchen? A mystery that remains unsolved. (See Mulchen in Google maps).
Another website provides additional information, it states that the object is stored in the Museum under the number 66-2 and that it was found by a farmer of German descent, Francisco von Plate. It mentions that the back side of the object has a "turquoise inlaid like in the small Inca sculptures."
In my opinion it is too big to be a necklace pendant, it was probably set in some kind of holder. But I can't fathom what its purpose was, perhaps the tip or head of a walking cane?
Of course, some have imagined that Vikings explored Chile and one of them left this stone effigy behind.
Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025by Austin Whittall ©
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