Case file · Folklore / legend
The Kinderhook plates
In April 1843 six small bell-shaped brass plates covered in strange characters were 'dug up' from a mound near Kinderhook, Illinois, and taken to Joseph Smith at Nauvoo.
1843 CE · 39.70, -91.15 · status: hoax
The account
A journal attributed to Smith says he translated part of one. In 1879 one of the men involved said the plates had been etched with acid as a prank.
The sceptical view
In 1980 a surviving plate was examined and found to be a 19th-century fake made with acid and tools of the period.