August 1957 — Indy and his former WWII intelligence partner George “Mac” McHale head for one of Indy’s favorite places to do archaeology work — the central coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. They spend several weeks exploring Mayan ruins and gathering artifacts.[1]
August 30, 1957 — Indy and Mac are abducted by Soviet KGB agents in southern Mexico. The abduction team is headed by Dr. Irina Spalko, a Ukrainian scientist and specialist in psychic research.[1]
Indiana Jones, 1957
August 31, 1957 — After almost two days of travel (part of which was spent locked in the trunk of a car), Indy and Mac arrive with their Soviet captors at the U.S. Air Force’s Nevada Test and Training Range, better known as “Area 51.” The Soviets infiltrate the base, and knowing Indy was on the analytic team that worked on the Roswell UFO crash, force him to locate the case containing the heavily-magnetized mummified alien body. Mac suddenly reveals that gambling debts have forced him to work for the Soviets. As Indy manages his escape, Spalko and Mac make off with the alien remains. (In eluding his Russian pursuers, Indy inadvertently cracks open the crate containing the Ark of the Covenant.) Indy gets clear of the area on a rocket sled, which blasts him for several miles down a track at fantastic speed, causing him to pass out from the g-forces.[2]
September 1, 1957 — Indy is lost and disoriented, wandering through the Nevada desert. He comes upon a town that is mysteriously deserted. It turns out to be a model town designed to test the results of an atomic explosion — which is about to be detonated. Indy seeks shelter in a lead-lined refrigerator in one of the model homes. He survives the blast, and is apprehended by the FBI, who decontaminate him and subject him to a hostile interrogation regarding his “assistance” to the KGB. He is released on the orders of General Robert Ross, who knows Indy from his OSS days in World War II, and assures the FBI he is not working with the KGB. The FBI warns Indy he is now a “person of interest.”[2]
September 20, 1957 — Indy is back at his teaching position three weeks after the incident in Nevada[1]. The Dean of Students, Charles Stanforth, pulls Indy from his classroom and says the FBI came in with search warrants and went through his office. The Board of Regents instructs Stanforth to place Indy on “indefinite leave,” essentially firing him. Stanforth resigns in protest. Not wasting time, Indy plans on leaving the country that very day, taking the train to New York and getting an overnight flight to London, and from there possibly to Leipzig University in Germany where he is “owed a favor.” As his train pulls out of the station, he is convinced to hop off by a young leather-jacketed motorcyclist, Mutt Williams. At the local diner, Mutt tells Indy that Indy’s old friend Harold Oxley had found a crystal skull in Peru, suffered a mental breakdown, and was later kidnapped. Indy relates that crystal skulls are associated with the lost city of Akator. Mutt gives Indy a letter from his mother, who was another friend of Oxley’s…and is now a fellow prisoner. (Oxley had looked after and Mutt and his mother after her husband was killed in World War II.) The letter says Indy is the only one who can help her and Oxley, and contains a riddle written by Oxley in an ancient South American language. At this point, KGB agents attempt to capture them, but Indy and Mutt evade them on a motorcycle. [2]
September 21-23, 1957 — Indy and Mutt travel to Cusco, Peru, by way of Havana and Mexico City. [2]
September 25, 1957 — After some time trying to pick up Oxley’s trail in Cusco, Indy and Mutt find out he has recently stayed in the local psychiatric hospital. Oxley’s scribbles on the walls and floor of his cell lead them to the grave of Francisco de Orellana, a 16th century conquistador who has searched for Akator. They discover the skull at the grave, with Indy reasoning that Oxley had returned it there after failing to get it back to Akator. [2]
September 26, 1957 — As the sun rises over the Peruvian graveyard, Indy and Mutt are captured by Mac and a group of Soviets. They are taken by air and river to the KGB camp deep in the Amazon jungle late that night, where they find Oxley, and Mutt’s mother, who turns out to be Marion Ravenwood. Dr. Spalko believes that the crystal skull belongs to an alien life form and holds great psychic power, and that finding more skulls in Akator will grant the Soviets the advantage of psychic warfare. Spalko uses the skull on Jones to enable him to understand Oxley’s ravings and identify a route to the lost city. Indy, Mutt, Marion, and Oxley escape with the skull, but Marion and Indy get trapped in a dry sandpit, and are recaptured by the Soviets. In the midst of all this, Marion reveals that Mutt is actually Indy’s son — born Henry Jones III, later becoming Henry Williams after her marriage to Colin Williams.[2]
September 27, 1957 — On their way to Akator, Mac tells Indy he is a CIA double-agent to regain Indy’s trust, and Indy’s group once again fights its way out of the Soviet captivity. Indy and company survive three waterfalls in an amphibious vehicle, while many of the Soviets fall from a cliff while trying to pursue them. Mac had lied about being a double-agent and has been dropping transceivers to allow the surviving Soviets to track them. The adventurers gain access to the temple, and find it filled with artifacts from many ancient civilizations, identifying the aliens as extra-dimensional “archaeologists” studying the different cultures of Earth. They find and enter a chamber containing the crystal skeletons of thirteen alien beings, one missing its skull. Spalko arrives and presents the skull to its skeleton, whereupon the aliens reanimate and telepathically offer a reward in ancient Mayan through Oxley. A portal to their dimension becomes activated, and Spalko demands knowledge equal to the aliens’. The thirteen beings fuse into one, and in the process of receiving the overwhelming knowledge, Spalko is disintegrated and sucked into the portal. [2]
September 28, 1957– Indy, Marion, Mutt, and Oxley — who regained his sanity once the skull was replaced — escape, while the remaining Soviets are also drawn into the portal. Mac is caught in the vortex while trying to scrounge some of the treasure, and even though Indy offers him his whip to pull him to safety, he willingly lets go and is sucked in. Indy and the others escape and watch as the temple walls crumble, revealing a flying saucer rising from the debris and vanishing, while the hollow in the valley floor left by its departure is flooded by the waters of the Amazon. [2]
Early October, 1957 — Indy is reinstated at the college, and promoted to associate dean. Charles Stanforth withdraws his resignation. [2]
October 18, 1957 — Indiana Jones marries Marion Ravenwood at the college chapel.[2]
Late 1957 – ? — A return to a quieter life, but we’ve been promised one more adventure…
THIS SPACE WILL BE UPDATED WITH THE EVENTS OF INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY IN THE NEAR FUTURE
(I’ve seen it in the theater, but will need to re-watch it a few times to nail the chronological details, so expect an update not longer after its debut on home media.)
Indiana Jones, 1969
APPENDIX A: Indiana Jones — Archaeologist
What are some details about how Dr. Jones practiced his trade?
Indy’s archaeological specialty is epigraphy — the study of written inscriptions and engravings.
The titles of any archaeological books or papers he has written over the course of his career are unknown, but he did write his memoirs at some point.[3] It seems he did not receive tenure until the early 1950s, probably as a result of his frequent absences from campus — which are grudgingly overlooked due to the amount of grant money and donors his notoriety brings to Barnett College[4] (and the fact that his classes are often covered by the capable and popular Marcus Brody.)
He speaks around thirty languages, including Spanish, French, German, Italian, Latin, Greek (modern and ancient), Anglo-Saxon, Swedish, Russian, Hungarian, Turkish, Hebrew, Arabic, Hindi, and several Meso- and South American native dialects (excluding Hovito, of course.) His Chinese and Vietnamese are basic but serviceable, but he only knows a few phrases in Japanese. He can read Sanskrit and most Egyptian hieroglyphs, and can use American Sign Language. Welsh and Icelandic have totally eluded him.
His expertise covers a wide range of historical eras and geographic regions, but his focus tends to be on the pre-Columbian societies of the American southwest, Mayan and pre-Mayan cultures of Mesoamerica, and the Inca and related tribes of South America. He is also quite knowledgeable about ancient Greece, the ancient Near East (including Egypt), and the Indian subcontinent. His heart really wasn’t in his first teaching position — Celtic archaeology in the British Isles — but he came to appreciate it. His interest can be piqued by compelling stories and artifacts from the Nordic regions or the Far East, but those areas seem to be secondary.
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Holy Bee of Ephesus 