Author: Hank Nuwer

Monday, Feb. 23, 2009
The Skull & Bones Society
By M.J. Stephey

On Feb. 17, the 100th anniversary of Geronimo’s death, descendants of the Apache warrior filed a federal lawsuit against the secretive Skull and Bones society of Yale University demanding that the group — which it claims is in possession of Geronimo’s remains — return them to his family. “I believe strongly from my heart that his spirt was never released,” Geronimo’s great-grandson Haryln Geronimo, 61, told the National Press Club.

According to a nearly 100-year-old legend, Prescott S. Bush — the father of President George H.W. Bush and grandfather to President George W. Bush — dug up Geronimo’s grave with the help of several other “Bonesmen,” as members of the society are known, and stole the warrior’s skull, two bones and some riding gear from his grave at Fort Sill, Okla. The society allegedly put the remains on display at the “The Tomb,” an imposing, windowless crypt near Yale’s campus that has served as the group’s headquarters since its founding in 1832.

Conspiracy theories about the Skull & Bones Society are almost as old as the society itself. The group has been blamed for everything from the creation of the nuclear bomb to the Kennedy assassination. It’s been aped in bad teen horror films and satirized, along with fellow conspiracy-group targets the Freemasons and the Illuminati, in The Simpsons. Even CNN has done a segment on the Prescott grave-robbery saga.

A young Yale junior named William Russell founded the group after spending a year abroad in Germany among members of some of the most mystical and elite clubs in the world, including organizations that mimicked the Enlightenment-era Illuminati. Russell returned to the U.S. determined to found a secret society of his own and tapped Alfonso Taft, whose son would later become President William H. Taft, to be among the first members of “The Brotherhood of Death,” or as it was more formally known, “The Order of the Skull and Bones.” Members worshipped Eulogia, a fake goddess of eloquence, glorified pirates and reportedly hatched schemes of world domination at the “Tomb” — which is rumored to have a landing pad on the roof for the society’s private helicopter.

Skull and Bones formed at Yale University, the third-oldest school in the U.S. and an institution “known for its strange, Gothic elitism and its rigid devotion to the past,” according to journalist (and Yale secret society alumnae) Alexandra Robbins. Skull and Bones is not the only secret society at the school either: others include the Scroll and Key, Wolf’s Head, Berzelius and Book and Snake, all of which like keeping tabs on one another, some in the form of dossiers that include “reliability ratings.” Each group picks its members in a highly confidential manner and subjects them to rounds of occult hazing rituals — what pledging a fraternity might be like, perhaps, at Hogwarts.

But given the secrecy of the groups, whether a young Henry Luce (founder of Time magazine) really laid naked in a coffin and told the tales of his early sex life during his Skull and Bones initiation, or if William F. Buckley jumped into a mud pie as part of his hazing, or whether any of the three Bush Bonesman (Prescott, H.W., and W.) actually received a gift of $15,000 and the guarantee of a lifetime of financial security upon being “tapped” — all these rumors, publicized over the years by Esquire, The Atlantic Monthly, the New York Times and numerous independent book authors, might never be known.

Minus the trappings of wealth, privilege and power, Skull and Bones could be a laughably juvenile club for Dungeons-and-Dragon geeks. But its rumored alumni have made up a disproportionately large percentage of the world’s most powerful leaders. (One historian has likened the society’s powers to that of an “international mafia,” for as another writer put it, “the mafia is, after all, the most secret of societies.”) Bonesmen have, at one time, controlled the fortunes of the Carnegie, Rockefeller and Ford families, as well as posts in the Central Intelligance Agency, the American Psychological Association, the Council on Foreign Relations and some of the most powerful law firms in the world.

During the 2004 presidential election, the Republican and Democratic candidates were both former Bonesmen, though neither would say much about the subject. “It’s a secret,” John Kerry said when asked about his membership; “So secret, I can’t say anything more,” George W. Bush wrote in his autobiography, as if to complete Kerry’s sentence.

The group has remained silent about the lawsuit from Geronimo’s descendants. But in a time when the Internet is opening up previously private information to the world and even Swiss banks are spilling their secrets, the activities of the Skull & Bones society might not be able to stay so clandestine for long.

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TEMPE – Arizona State University officials have put an end to the school’s men’s lacrosse season.

Lacrosse Magazine reports the suspension is the result of a hazing incident a few weeks ago. It was reportedly a party off campus where there was a lot of underage drinking going on.

3TV reached out to a number of people associated with the lacrosse team but so far no one is commenting.

The team’s coach is quoted in Lacrosse Magazine saying, “He was stunned by the school’s decision to suspend his 34-man team.”

The magazine also quotes Coach Chris Malone saying, “The players understand they did something wrong. They made a mistake but I’m not sure if the punishment fits this situation.”

The team cannot play and cannot practice until August. Then they will be on a two-year-probation period. It has been a club sport at ASU for 40 years and last season was their best ever.