The Suppressed BYU Master's Thesis
A 1986 chemistry thesis, completed by a Brigham Young University graduate student and never publicly defended, on the unusual isotopic composition of seer-stone fragments.
The thesis
The thesis, titled On the Isotopic Composition of Selected Lithic Specimens in the LDS Church History Collection, was completed in March 1986 by a graduate student whose name has been removed from the BYU library catalogue. The committee has obtained a copy of the complete text, including the original committee’s annotations.
The thesis examined eleven seer-stone fragments held in the Church History Collection and compared their isotopic signatures to known regional geologies.
The findings
The findings are summarized in the thesis’s Table 4 (page 67):
- 8 of 11 fragments exhibited a uranium-238 / lead-206 ratio consistent with a geological age of less than 200 years.
- 2 of 11 fragments exhibited a plutonium-239 signal, which the author notes is “not consistent with any known terrestrial source and would not be expected in any lithic specimen formed prior to the twentieth century.”
- 1 of 11 fragments (the so-called “Chocolate Seer Stone” of Abraham Smoot) was returned to the collection with a hand-written note: “DO NOT ANALYZE.” It has not been analyzed.
Why the thesis was suppressed
The committee chair at the time, Prof. ██████████, wrote in a memo dated June 1986 that “the findings, if circulated outside the department, would create significant unnecessary complications for the university and the Church. Recommend the thesis be accepted under a different title and the original be sealed.” The thesis was accepted. Under a different title. The original remains sealed.
“I signed the suppression. I regret it every day of my life. I was thirty-one. I had three children and no tenure.”
— Prof. ██████████, in conversation with a committee investigator, 2018