Hans Staker from Geneva, Switzerland has researched the Navidson-match question. By carefully analyzing one black white print which briefly appears after the flare vignettes, Staker managed to magnify the matchbook just visible in the lower left hand corner. Navidson's thumb obscures most of the design but the Latin words Fuit Ilium can still be made out along with the English words Thanks To These Puppies.

Based on this scant evidence, Staker successfully determined that the matches came from of all places a pub outside of Oxford, England, run by a former classics professor and amateur phillumenist by the name of Eagley "Egg" Learned who, as it turned out, had designed the matchbook himself.

"Most British septuagenarians have their gardens to putter about in. I have my pub," Learned told Staker in an interview. "I tinker constantly with my ale selection the way the incontinent fret about their tulips. The matches came out of that sort of tinkering. There's actually a factory not too far from here. I merely applied twenty years of Latin to come up with the cover. Call it an old man's hat tip to anarchy. A touch more incendiary than the old Swan Vestas, I think. Designed to keep the goraks away." ^L

Staker goes on to trace how the matchbook got from Learned's pub to Navidson's steady hands. Learned actually stopped ordering the matches back in '85 which was right after Navidson visited England and presumably the pub.

It is highly unlikely Navidson ever intended to use a book of ten year old matches on a journey as important as this one. In fact, he packed several boxes of recently purchased matches which he lost along with the trailer and bike. Probably some private history caused him to carry the matchbook on him.

To Learned's credit, they are good matches. The heads ignite easily and the staffs burn evenly. Staker located one of these matchbooks and after recreating the conditions in the house (namely the temperature) found that each match burned an average of 12.1 seconds. With