“Robert Nolan, Assistant Professor of Archeology. Born, Beverly Hills, Calif., 1944. B.A., M.A., University of California, Berkeley. Ph.D. thesis in preparation. Winner of numerous prizes for originality of theory in the archeology of the Pacific area. Son of a wealthy Los Angeles lawyer.”
As to more personal details regarding the two
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WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE . . .
scholars, I was” able to gain some insight from certain of their former students. This line of research was made necessary because the erudite colleagues of the two men displayed a marked hostility toward any questions. Turner was a tall, leonine individual equipped with a full spade beard and an unkempt shock of equally white hair. In contrast, the much younger Nolan was squat and almost entirely bald. Built from the innocuous base of a common interest in skindiving, the friendship of the two men grew rapidly despite the difference in their respective ages.
In 1966, both men took their sabbatical leaves together. With the money Turner had saved and Nolan’s not inconsiderable resources of prize monies and family accounts, they purchased and outfitted a small, powered schooner and announced their intention to sail to Easter Island and the South American coasts. Turner had always wanted to visit the area, and Nolan was desirous of carrying out some field work of an unspecified nature.
At this juncture information on the professors begins to grow sketchy and unreliable. It is known that they returned to Los Angeles hi September 1966, in excellent health and high good spirits. Surprisingly, both men proceeded to resign their positions with the University. This, to the great consternation of their respective department heads, who were understandably depressed at the prospect of losing two such brilliant members of their faculties, one old and venerable, the other a youngster of exceptional promise. But neither man could be dissuaded, and following the setting in order of certain personal affairs, they announced then-intention to return once again to the area of their former travels. It is also known that they brought back a number of well-preserved and extremely eccentric specimens of carved hieroglyphs and statuettes. These, Nolan maintained, had been found not on Isla de Pas-cua (Easter), but on its smaller and little-visited neighbor to the west, Sala-y-Gomez. It is also reported that they consulted with a number of supposed specialists