hey all,
did’ya watch the “documentary” about the 13 Crystals Skulls? It made a brief mention of BSG’s 13 tribes of mankind being an actual Native American belief? I don’t know if it’s all true. 
But I read on wiki that the fictional Indiana Jones character was actually based on the guy who found the first Crystal skull in Belize.
Back when BSG:TOS was created the 12 colonies plus the 13th “lost” colony came from the 12 tribes of Israel plus the 13th “lost” tribe that forms part of the basis for Mormanism. Ron Moore has pretty much taken all of that out of the current version.
I hadn’t heard anything about Indiana Jones being based on the guy who found the original crystal skull, but I did see an article recently where it appears that the skulls may be modern forgeries.
I was under the impression that the number of crystal skulls in existence is unverified. Many have been discovered but there are supposed to be many more still to discover. The truly faithful believers say that when they’re all found, something amazing will happen, but these people are borderline whack-jobs too: the kind who’ll believe anything and have no capacity for creativity because they can’t distinguish real from fantasy.
Here is a link to an episode of “The Skeptics Guide to the Universe” where they discuss the history of the of the crystal skulls at the 39:40 mark, although you should listen to the whole episode.
http://www.theskepticsguide.org/skepticsguide/podcastinfo.asp?pid=152
A better researched podcast is:
I’m well aware of Glen Larsen’s Mormon roots and inspiration. I’mma just wondering if he had the Native American legend in mind as well, being an American.
Anyway, here are some websites of these “whack jobs”; they do sound interesting though…