Charles La Trobe, Superintendent of the Port Phillip District and a keen amateur geologist, was examining marine deposits revealed by excavations associated with lime production in the area.
[2] McIntyre has connected the discovery of the Geelong Keys with the presence of the so-called Mahogany Ship, further west on Victoria's Shipwreck Coast, claiming that it could be another possible relic of early Portuguese exploration.
Ronald Gunn, a friend of La Trobe, told the Royal Society of Victoria in September 1849 that he had gone to Geelong to investigate the discovery.
Research in the 1980s by geologist Edmund Gill, and engineer and historian Peter Alsop, showed the age of the deposit in which the keys were supposedly found was between 2330 and 2800 years.
The stories were so popular in Ingpen's hometown, Geelong, that a fountain and an annual Poppykettle Festival celebrate the mythical landing of the "hairy Peruvians".