[clang] [theme music] SCOTT WOLTER: The history that
we were all taught growing up is wrong. My name is Scott Wolter, and
I'm a forensic geologist. There's a hidden
history in this country that nobody knows about. There are pyramids here,
chambers, tombs, inscriptions. They're all over this country. We're gonna investigate
these artifacts and sites, and we're gonna to
get to the truth. Sometimes, history isn't
what we've been told. Rockwall, Texas. Population, 38,000. Claim to fame, the mysterious
wall said to snake for miles beneath the city. Three farmers stumbled across
the massive stone wall in 1852. It's rumored to be 20 miles
long and 7 stories deep. And people in
these parts believe it was the work of an
ancient civilization. Rumor has it the wall
used to be above ground, but the wall and the
truth about its origin have been buried over time. I don't know what to think. All I know is I want to
see this thing for myself. You must be Adam. - You must be Scott.
- How you doing? Good.
Good to meet you. Thanks for coming out. Hey, happy to be here. I'm really glad you called
about this rock wall. I must have gotten 50
emails or telephone calls about this
mysterious wall, so I had to come down
and check it out. Yeah, I bet you did. It's pretty popular. Obviously, the town was
named after the wall, so a lot of people
know about it. I brought you here because
there's actually a small piece of the wall that's
been reassembled here on site at the courthouse.
- OK. If you have a minute, I'd
like to take you over and have a look at it.
- Absolutely. I didn't see anything here, but
I figured you had us meet here for a reason.
- The wall is right over here. Let's have a look. You lead the way. So tell me a little bit
about this rock wall. Well, back in the 1850s,
1860s when Rockwall was founded, they kept finding this wall. And they would use pieces of it
for the wells, the wellhouses, and some of the buildings. Matter of fact, if
you have a look, right here we have a restaurant
that was built in 1890. Some of the rocks
used on the side of it were actual rocks
from the wall itself. Oh, so this whole
wall here, this is some of the actual rock-- ADAM: That's exactly it. SCOTT WOLTER: --that
came from the rock wall. ADAM: That's it. Well, I take it that's not
what you wanted to show me, though. That's not exactly what
I wanted to show you. Now, this is an actual piece
of the wall that was removed and then reassembled here by the
Rockwall Historical Foundation. So you can see the rocks
as they were, as best they could be recreated. What do you think? Well, I-- I think it's very interesting. I mean, these are,
like you said, rocks that came from the site. But obviously, this
is man-made mortar. This has been
recently reassembled. I mean, I heard stories
about this thing being seven stories
deep into the ground. And as a geologist,
as far as figuring out if it's man-made or natural,
I really have to see it. ADAM: Sure.
I understand. Well, I brought
some pictures along for you to have a look at.
- OK. ADAM: So look at them, tell
me what you think of these. Sure. Well, look at that. That looks like a man-made wall. ADAM: Doesn't it? Yeah. It looks just like the
man-made wall we have down here that was taken with
the real stones. SCOTT WOLTER: It really does. That looks exactly
like mortar there. You know, as I look
at these edges here, it almost looks like they've
been worked or tooled. You'll find that with a lot
of the stones at the wall. You'll find symmetry
on all four sides. You'll find parallel lines. They don't look like natural
geological formations to most people. Well, those-- those look like
they could very well have been dressed. And there's a big
slab right there. So you don't find a complete
randomness to the structure of the wall itself. You find a lot of uniformity
in certain places. SCOTT WOLTER: OK.
Like it's been man-made. ADAM: That's what
it suggests to me. I'm looking at these
pictures, and, I mean, I had all these people contact
me about this, but before that, I never knew
anything about this. Why is that? I think that there may have
been a little bit of a cover-up over the years, Scott. A cover-up? And, uh, I think there
may have been a little bit of a conspiracy to
kind of hide the, uh-- the nature of the wall. SCOTT WOLTER: What evidence do
you have that there might have been one? ADAM: Well, there have
been some excavations that have ended fairly abruptly. There have even been
some experts that came out and checked out the
wall, gave some opinions, and then when they found out
some of the other evidence about the wall, they
changed their minds and decided they didn't want to
publish any of their findings. Why do you think somebody
would want to hide this? I mean, if it was
man-made, you'd think they'd want
people to know. Some of these
people on this land don't want to have an
archaeological site on their land because then
it can't be developed. So you think people are-- are
worried about the government coming in and taking their land
if this is an archaeological site and they won't
let them develop it. Well, I tell you what,
I need to see this wall. The one problem we have is the
wall's underground right now. OK. Um, aren't there any
open excavations? No open excavations. Over the years, people
have dug up the wall, and then they
always backfill it. I guess they don't want
trespassers on their property. SCOTT WOLTER: OK. You know what? I remember in one
of the emails I got, wasn't there a guy who spent
$80,000 on an excavation? Yeah.
Yeah, he's a friend of mine. His name's Kevin Richeson. He did some excavations
on the wall a while back. I think maybe you
guys need to meet. SCOTT WOLTER: Why would a
guy spend tens of thousands of dollars digging
up a buried wall? Maybe there's something valuable
hidden beneath the wall. Maybe he's looking for fame. Maybe he just really
wants the truth about whether an ancient
civilization, someone other than Native Americans,
could have built this. If this huge wall beneath
Rockwall is man-made, it would rewrite history
in the lone star state. And if it was built by man,
who could be responsible? One possibility is the
Caddo tribe, who lived here since around 800 AD. It could be the Chinese. They started building a
great wall of their own in the 7th century BC and
are rumored to have made it to America before Columbus. Or it could be people from
the very distant past, the ancestors of America's
native population. You must be Kevin. Ah, Scott. SCOTT WOLTER: How you doing? Pleasure meet you, sir.
SCOTT WOLTER: All right. Have a seat. Well, it's great to meet you. I just talked to
Adam, and, uh, he mentioned that you're the guy
to talk to about the wall. Yeah, I know a
little bit about it. Did you really spend 80
grand digging up this wall? 80 grand. I wish it was that
small of an amount. It was a whole lot
more than that. Well, obviously you're
passionate about this wall. I mean, why did you
spend that much money? The question needed
to be answered. Everybody around
here has been talking about this for 150 years. Sooner or later, somebody's
gotta step up and get it done, just find out how old
it is and what it is. SCOTT WOLTER: Well, that
is the big question. I mean, is this man-made,
or is it natural? And I think we-- hopefully, we'll be
able to figure that out. But, um, tell me a
little bit about the dig. What happened when you--
when you did your dig? Well, I brought some
photos over to show you. SCOTT WOLTER: That's
a hell of a deep hole. How far down did you go? Wound up going down 42
feet at the very bottom. SCOTT WOLTER: Wow. We've got another photo here. This is an 11-foot span. SCOTT WOLTER: That's a
beautiful, perfectly straight wall. So what did you hit at the
bottom, and what made you stop? I actually hadn't
hit the bottom yet. But it began to rain, and
it rained for three days. Uh-oh. And then became Lake Rockwall. [laughter] So that was pretty
much it at that point. KEVIN RICHESON: It all fell
into the bottom of the ditch. SCOTT WOLTER: Oh, it did?
OK. KEVIN RICHESON: It fell into
the bottom of the ditch. We pumped it out and filled
it back in with dirt. But the entire wall is laying
in the bottom of the hole. SCOTT WOLTER: OK. So this whole thing
is filled back in. KEVIN RICHESON: Yes. There was a local architect that
lived here that produced a map. And in that map, he
connected all the dots for the outcroppings
of the wall. I don't know if it's
accurate or not. I'm a fact kind of guy. SCOTT WOLTER: Where
does this wall go? How-- how far does it go? They think it's about 3 and
1/2 miles wide by 5.6 miles in kind of a rectangular shape. SCOTT WOLTER: If this wall is
as old, as long, and as tall as people are saying, it
could have taken decades to build without the help
of modern technology. Maybe even more than a century. For comparison, the
Great Wall of China, which stretches 13,000 miles,
took many centuries to build. If workers died, their bodies
were dumped inside the wall, earning the Great Wall the
nickname the "Longest Cemetery in the World." Maybe we'll find
the same thing here. If the Texas rock wall is
really as big as I've been told, it would cover roughly 19 square
miles and be 7 stories tall. You could fit Cowboys
Stadium inside it 169 times. This is a massive undertaking. You realize that? KEVIN RICHESON: Huge. If it's man-made. That's for y'all to decide. SCOTT WOLTER: Well, you know,
all this is great stuff. I love the photos, the map. But I need to see the wall. Is there any place
where it's exposed where I could take a look at it? Well, currently, there's
no place exposed anywhere in Rockwall. It's all, uh, below the grade. But you happen to be in luck. I own an excavation company,
and we can go dig that wall up for you. Well, I love that
idea, but you can't just go dig holes anywhere. I mean, don't you need
a permit to do this? Scott, you're in Texas.
You don't need a permit here. You want to dig a hole? You go dig a hole. So Kevin you really want to
dig this rock wall up again? Sure, what the hell.
Why not? If you're serious about
coming out and helping, we'll get that hole dug. If I get a look at
this wall, I promise you that I will draw a conclusion. I'm gonna tell you if I
think it's man-made or not. Well, that's been the problem
for years and years around. Here nobody will make
a definitive answer if it's man-made or natural. So you're now on the hook
to make that decision. SCOTT WOLTER: No problem. But before we can do that,
I need to see this wall. We need a place to dig. I've got a place we can
go dig the wall up again, the same place I dug before. SCOTT WOLTER: OK. How soon can we get started? We start tomorrow
if you're ready to go. I'm ready to go. Before the town of Rockwall
cropped up in 1850s, this land was home to
the Caddo Indian tribe. They formed an alliance
here and called it Tejas. That's where Texas got its name. It's a mystery who
lived here before that. I want to get to the truth of
who built this ancient rock wall, if indeed anyone
built it at all. I'm on my way to the dig
site to see what I'm in for. Until I see it for
myself, there's no way to know for sure. Hey, Kev.
How you doing? KEVIN RICHESON: Good. You made it. SCOTT WOLTER: So
what's the plan here? Well, this field
right back over here we're going to excavate about
over where that tree line is up the hill here.
SCOTT WOLTER: OK. KEVIN RICHESON: Gonna dig
us a nice big old hole. How do you know we're
gonna hit the wall here? Well, about 12 years ago,
I dug over in this area, so I've got a general idea
of where the wall's at. SCOTT WOLTER: You
think you can find it. I think we can find it. SCOTT WOLTER: OK. You ready to go to work? So is this what
we're digging with? This is one of them. We've got two more
machines coming. Two more?
KEVIN RICHESON: Two more. We've got yours
coming right now. Holy [bleep]. You're gonna teach me
how to use it, right? Absolutely. Can we get one
a little bigger? [laughter] Our first step-- deciding
where to dig tomorrow. We're using a map from Kevin's
last excavation to figure out where to break ground. It's probably trending
right through here. So it's kind of coming off
this way going this direction. Yeah, it goes over this mound. Roughly-- roughly
this direction. So that makes a lot of sense. You should hit it. Tomorrow, we'll start
digging up the wall. Some people think it was
built by an early civilization and buried over time. A wall that's 7 stories
deep and 20 miles long shouldn't be hard to find. So far, the photos I've
seen make a compelling case that ancient people
could be involved. My gut tells me it's not
the work of the Caddo tribe. They weren't known
for building walls. Even if we rule them out, that
still leaves their ancestors, the earliest people to live
in North America, or possibly the Chinese, who are
believed to have made it to America before Columbus. Right now, I'm headed to
the local history museum to find out more. Sheri, I'm anxious to hear about
the history of the rock wall. And my first question is,
when was it first discovered? SHERI FOWLER: Well, the
rock wall was actually discovered in 1852. And a local farmer and
two of his neighbors were digging a water
well, and they dug down and hit a hard type of surface. And when they looked, they said,
that looks like a rock wall. And that was the
original discovery. So do we know when the first
thought was that this could be a man-made wall? Well really, the
original discovery, some of the local
townspeople saw it and said, we believe this was
made by ancient man. So that question has been
burning in people's brains in Rockwall for a long time. Is it man-made or is it natural? It's the huge mystery of
the rock wall, absolutely. This is in 1925. And a gentleman named
Count Byron Khun de Prorok, he did participate in some
digs at Carthage in the 1920s. But he actually wasn't a Count,
nor was he an archaeologist. But he did have a theory
about the rock wall. And he was considered
the original Tomb Raider. He came in, and his
conclusion was that this was made by some prehistoric man. Oh, really? So this was a
man-made conclusion. So long before
we had Lara Croft, we had Count
what's-his-name here. Absolutely. OK. Well, this is all great stuff. Is there anything else I
should know about the wall? Well, actually,
some people believe that giants may have built it. Giants? Giants. [music playing] SCOTT WOLTER: Rockwall, Texas,
is named after an enormous wall said to wind for miles
beneath the city. Ever since its discovery,
the debate has raged. Is the wall natural or man-made? I'm finding out all
I can about the wall, and I was just hit with
an unbelievable theory. Is there anything else I
should know about the wall? Well, actually,
some people believe that giants may have built it. Giants? Giants, like 1,000-pound
people with large skulls. Where would a story
like this come from? Is there any-- any evidence? Well, it originated, the
story did, in late May of 1886. Our local paper was called
the "Rockwell Success" at that time. And this particular
edition had an article that said that the mystery of
the rock wall had been solved, that a local farmer had
been digging and found a giant skull, huge skull,
like a half bushel sized skull. Is there a skull,
a giant skull? Not that I know of anywhere. Well, I have to tell you that,
as silly as this story sounds, I have encountered
giants before. There are too many stories
of giants going back in Native American
cultures to dismiss them. In fact, in Minnesota, I
did a little investigation into some giants that
were believed to be in some Native American mounds. Now, 1,000-pounders,
I don't know, but, uh, I think the idea of big
people in the past is, um-- is a real possibility. And I don't disagree with
that assessment in any way, but I think if we're
relying on these stories to be our proof of that, I don't
think that's the right pathway. But if you see the excavations
and look at the rocks, they're just so
symmetrical, appear to have mortar between them. So they appear, to
the layman's eye, as something that would
have been constructed. OK. Well, as a geologist,
I've got to see the wall. And I think I'm gonna
get an opportunity to do that with Kevin. He's talking about teaching me
how to use some heavy equipment and actually pulling
back some of the earth and looking at this wall. Well, we have a portion of
the rock wall on my family's property.
- You do? We do. And I'd love for you to come
see it if you'd like to. Let's go. I'm eager to see the wall
in Sheri's his backyard. I'm hoping to get to the bottom
of this mystery that's more than a century and a half old. In 1852, three Texas
farmers were digging a well and instead found
a massive wall. I can only imagine the thoughts
that went through their heads. The way I see it, there are
only two possibilities-- the wall is natural or man-made. And if it's man-made,
the next question is, who is responsible? The size and scope
of the wall would make it one of the
greatest gonna structures on American soil. As for giants, I'm still
skeptical about that. What are you gonna show me here? SHERI FOWLER: Well, the rock
wall actually runs underground of this property. But we have several rocks from
a 1976 excavation of the rock wall. In any investigation
that involves rocks, the most important thing, or
one of the most important things you need to know, is
what kind of rock is it. Sandstone and limestone have
been used to build things throughout history. They were relatively
easy to cut and shape. If the wall is made
of either stone, it might support the
case that it's man-made. There's a couple of
things I want to do here. One is a simple
scratch test just to get some idea of
how hard the rock is. A knife has a-- or steel
has a hardness of 5. And so, uh, if it's softer
than that, if it scratches it, that means it has to be softer. If it slides across, then the
rock is harder than the knife. So let's just do that. Well, it scratches the
rock, so it's softer than a hardness of 5. So it's probably in the
neighborhood of 3 to 4. It's relatively soft. And I want to determine
what its chemistry is. One way I can
start to do that is by taking a little
dilute hydrochloric acid, and I'm going to
drop it on here. And if it fizzes, then
it's calcium carbonate. If it doesn't, then
it's something else. It's fizzing.
Do you see how it's bubbling? SHERI FOWLER: Uh-huh, I do. That tells me that this is
more than likely limestone of some kind. SHERI FOWLER: You
can see how people might think it was man-made. You can imagine these rocks
stacked on top of each other with mortar in between. And I have some photos
I'd like to show you. Yeah, let's take a look. SHERI FOWLER: In
Kevin's excavations, he's also found a few things
that he thinks look man-made. This is one of them, like
a window or a porthole. Well, this is certainly
round with small stones in a circular pattern. Could be man-made. And this is another,
like steps going upward. I take it these holes here
is what he's calling the steps. SHERI FOWLER: Mm-hmm. SCOTT WOLTER: These are
spaced 24, 30 inches apart. I guess if you're going to
entertain the idea of giants, this would make some sense. Well, I'm not
sure about giants, but I do think Kevin thinks this
is all evidence for man-made. Well, I can see
why he thinks that. And tomorrow when
we start to dig, we'll get some more answers. Heading to the dig
site, I'm pretty pumped. So far, I've seen
a few things that make me think this
wall could be man-made. Photos show rocks piled atop
of each other that look just like modern masonry. They're connected by what
appears to be mortar. And scientific tests of the
rocks pulled from the site prove they're limestone, rocks
that are easy to cut, shape, and assemble. All this makes me think
the wall could be man-made. But first, we need
to find the wall. How you doing, Kev? KEVIN RICHESON: Hey, Scott. What's going on? What's the plan here today? Well, the plan is
we're gonna go over here, and we're gonna dig from about
that fence line up that hill. We're gonna dig a nice big hole,
and you gotta go find a wall. SCOTT WOLTER: I can't wait to
see the massive wall that's supposedly hidden
underneath this field. Kevin's going to dig in the
spot we decided on yesterday. If the wall is really 7
stories tall and long enough to enclose 19 square miles,
the chance we'll hit it is pretty good. We got a wall, baby! [music playing] We got a wall, baby! You got a wall all right. There's the wall. Well, now we know where it's at. So let me ask you this. What orientation are these? Were they vertical, or were they
laying this way in the hill. They were vertical running
down the length of the wall. OK. So like this, right? KEVIN RICHESON: Yep. OK. Well, here's my next question. What is the orientation? Is the-- is the wall
running roughly this way? It runs basically east-west. OK. During the solstice,
it falls straight in line with the west sun. - Get out of here.
- East-west. It does. I like that. When I was digging it up
before, that's what it was. It was east-werst orientation. Do you think maybe there's
a connection there somehow? Ah, that's for you to decide. It's above my pay grade. SCOTT WOLTER: If this wall were
aligned with the sun's path on the longest day of the
year, that would be important. I've seen solstice
alignments before. I've seen them at
Stonehenge in England, at the Newport Tower in Rhode
Island, and at the Mayan Ruins in Mexico. It's called archaeoastronomy. Many ancient people
constructed their surroundings with the sun and
planets in mind. They didn't have clocks and
calendars the way we do. They needed the sun. And not surprisingly,
in many cases they worshiped the sun too. OK, well if this is
aligned with the solstice, that could be a huge clue
that this is man-made. Let's dig. Let's go get it. All right, let's
drive this sucker. All right. So here's my gas. Here's my brake. Forward, reverse. This tilts the bucket. All right. All you have to do is put it
in forward, and you'll move. All right.
You ready, Kev? I'm ready, brother. Turn to the right a little bit. Yeah, there you go. Spin it around. And then start
straightening this one up. Go ahead and give her gas. Roll the bucket now. Roll, roll. Perfect. Come on. Make your quick turn real quick. Get where you want to dump,
and then straighten it out at the last. - All right.
- Straighten her out. Straighten her out. Up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up. And dump. Perfect. SCOTT WOLTER: This
is quite a hole here. KEVIN RICHESON: Yeah. We're getting it dug. You know what I'd like
to do is just kind of bang on the rocks here a little bit,
get a sense of what's happening here and make sure I understand
what you've-- what you've got here. Is this part of the wall here? KEVIN RICHESON: That's the wall. That was a joint. And that's part of it too? It's pretty hard. I'm getting a sense of
where the wall is here relative to the other rock. But I think I've seen
enough here just to give me a general sense of what's
going on at this level. I want to know what's
going on down there. And we're fixing to find out. We're gonna get you
a big deep hole. SCOTT WOLTER: What I'm not
getting is a sense of whether or not this wall is man-made. I need to see more. I reached out to a
professor, John Geissman at the University of
Texas, about possibly doing some paleomagnetic testing. Tomorrow, what I'd like
to do is bring John here and see if we can get
some more data to try to answer this question. Is this thing a
natural formation, or is it man-made by
some ancient race, who knows, thousands of years ago? I visited with Sheri
Fowler, and she mentioned giants could be involved. What do you know about that? That was a big rumor about
the giants from 150 years ago. But when I excavated
up the hill, uncovered a section of wall
that was about 11 feet tall and had 3 step holds in
it about 33 inches apart. They were clearly a left
foot, right foot, left foot. So it had to be a big
guy to climb out of there. One would think. Do you think the
giants built this wall? That's for you
guys to figure out. I'm just digging a hole. OK. I'm on my way back
to the dig site. Kevin thinks an
early civilization may have built the
wall that lies buried beneath the town of Rockwall. There's a chance the wall may be
an example of archaeoastronomy, how ancient people
oriented their surroundings with the sun, moon, and planets. Before we can tackle the
archaeoastronomy question, we need to figure out if this
wall is man-made or natural. And the testing I'm about
to do with my friend John should give us
a definitive answer. Well, you got a heck of
a pile of dirt there. Yeah. Wait till you see the
hole we got down here. Damn, Kevin. Look at this. You made a lot of progress. KEVIN RICHESON: Yeah, we worked
a few hours get that excavation site that deep. We're down a total
about 20-some feet. But the next dig was about
8 or 10 foot, most of it. SCOTT WOLTER: It sure looks
man-made when you stand right here, doesn't it?
KEVIN RICHESON: Yeah, it does. I don't see the footholds
for the giants yet, but maybe one day. SCOTT WOLTER: Do you see
where the joints are? KEVIN RICHESON: Right. SCOTT WOLTER: And, uh, I mean,
that looks like modern masonry right there. You know, they tooled
the joints, and-- I mean it-- it really does-- I'm sure glad you went ahead
and stepped up and pronounced the wall is man-made. That's not what I said.
[laughter] - Are you sure?
- That's not what I said. I have not--
- You can try again if you want. SCOTT WOLTER: I have not
rendered an opinion yet. We've got more work to do here. Hey, John. How you doing?
- Hi, buddy. Good to see you.
SCOTT WOLTER: Good. Hey, this is my friend Kevin.
This is John. - Pleasure to meet you.
- Pleasure to meet you. SCOTT WOLTER: All right. Well hey, listen, I invited John
to come out here and help us out. JOHN GEISSMAN: So basically
what we're gonna do is measure the magnetism
of these materials. You can think of it as an
arrow, a memory in the rock. It's kind of like measuring the
DNA of a material-- kind of. And if this memory is really
ancient, say at the time this material formed,
then we should be able to very, very
easily test whether or not this is an intact feature,
undisturbed, versus something that was put together as a bunch
of random rocks to make a wall. SCOTT WOLTER:
Paleomagnetism is the study of permanent magnetism in rocks. It's based on the orientation
of the Earth's magnetic field at the time the
rocks were formed. By studying the intensity and
direction of the magnetization, scientists can determine
if the rocks are in their original position
or if they were moved. JOHN GEISSMAN: Basically,
what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna drill cores
in the rocks, a number of different cores. I'm gonna orient the cores so
we know exactly how they sat out here at Rockwall. Then we're gonna take
them back to the lab. We're gonna slice
them into specimens, and then we're gonna measure the
magnetization in the specimens. Then what will
come out of all this? Well, we should be able
to discern whether or not that memory in these
materials, right, is consistent through
the wall or random. If it's random,
one interpretation is that this was put together SCOTT WOLTER: By someone. This was built.
SCOTT WOLTER: By somebody. Exactly. I'll be glad when y'all
make that definitive answer and everybody knows. SCOTT WOLTER: Right
now, that's our plan. But we've got some work to do.
So should we head down? JOHN GEISSMAN:
Let's get to work. KEVIN RICHESON: Let's go. SCOTT WOLTER: John
and I took samples from different parts
of the wall and noted their exact positions. When we get to the lab, we'll be
able to determine the direction of each sample's magnetization. Well guys, I thought
that went pretty well. John, are you happy
with the samples we got? Samples are excellent. SCOTT WOLTER: OK. They're gonna work. They're gonna work. Well Kev, here's
the way I see it. In 1852, when those three
farmers found the rock wall digging the well,
what they found was one of three possibilities. One is that this is an amazing
natural geologic feature. Two, it could be a man-made
wall by some unknown culture in the distant past, perhaps
thousands of years ago. Or a third possibility
is it could be a combination of the two. Some culture built
a man-made wall on top of a pre-existing
geologic feature. People of Rockwall, Texas,
that's all they've been want to know for
the last 150 years. Between you guys, hopefully
we'll get this thing wrapped up and we'll be able to give
everybody a definitive answer on what it is. [music playing] SCOTT WO
up a massive underground wall. It's the reason for the
town's name, Rockwall. Ever since the wall was
discovered back in 1852, people have disagreed
about whether it's natural or man-made. Many people believe it
was once aboveground and was the work of some
early civilization, maybe even giants. If the wall was made
by people, not nature, it could be an example
of archaeoastronomy. Kevin thinks it lines up
with the summer solstice. That's the sort of thing
ancient people regularly did to mark the changing seasons. When I get to John
Geissman's lab at the University
of Texas at Dallas, we'll use a high-tech process
called paleomagnetic analysis to settle the natural or
man-made question once and for all. So John, I don't use
paleomagnetic analysis in my everyday work, so can you
tell me a little bit about it? Sure, Scott. Paleomagnetism is the study
of the fossil magnetism in geologic materials. Basically, by virtue
of the way rocks form, they have the capability of
acquiring a net magnetization that's aligned in the direction
of the Earth's magnetic field. You can think of this net
magnetization as an arrow, simply. SCOTT WOLTER: If the
arrows, the magnetization, point the same way, that
proves the wall is natural. If you were using
rocks to make a wall, you would almost certainly
set them down randomly. So if the arrows point in a
bunch of different directions, that would mean Rockwall's
rock wall is indeed man-made. JOHN GEISSMAN: It should
be a very definitive test. Sounds good to me. Should we do it? Certainly. SCOTT WOLTER: All right, John. The money's on the table. Is this thing a natural geologic
deposit, or is it man-made? What John told me is
something Kevin needs to hear. I'm headed back to the dig
site to deliver the news. I've also invited Adam,
the guy who tipped me off about this amazing wall. Well guys, hey, first
of all, I want to-- I want to start off by thanking
you for sending me an email and getting me tuned in
to this amazing rock wall. So thank you for doing that. My pleasure. I've had a chance to
look at the test results, and it's clear and conclusive. It's a natural geologic feature. It's not man-made. What we found was that
the arrows for the stone are consistent. They're definitely all
pointing pretty much in the same direction. At least we know
the truth now. Yeah. You know, we didn't
know for sure before. Now we know, so-- Yeah. When did the formation-- when was it created? I was talking to
John about that, and we think that this was about
85, 86, 87 million years old. So it's very old. And based on the information
that we know now, it predates humans
being on the planet. Sure. You know, that's another
reason why it really can't be man-made. Well, you're the expert,
and if we were the experts, we wouldn't have called you. So we appreciate you coming out. SCOTT WOLTER: Everything that
you guys have said and thought about this while being so
amazing is still valid. Sometimes, nature plays tricks
and pulls a fast one on us, and this is one of those times.
- Good. Well, it's still a part
of the local heritage. And obviously, the
town was named for it. So it's, uh-- it's good to know
that it is a unique formation, something we can
still be proud of. KEVIN RICHESON: Yep.
SCOTT WOLTER: Absolutely. I mean, it looks
like a man-made wall. It absolutely does. This is the most unusual
geologic phenomena I have probably ever seen. It turns out this geological
formation is a massive sand dike. There are several hundred feet
of clay beneath the surface here. Millions of years ago, that
clay hardened and cracked. Overlying pressure
of the hardened clay forced a juicy mix of
clay, sand, and water up through the fracture. Eventually, it hardened, broke
up naturally into blocks, and became the rock wall. It's totally unique. It's-- it's really
an amazing thing. So nothing to be
disappointed about. It's still an incredible,
unique feature for Rockwall, and they should
still be proud of it. I didn't know what to expect
when I headed to Texas. A lot of people had written
to tell me the same thing-- check out the rock wall
underneath the town of Rockwall and reveal the truth
about its origins. The three farmers who first
unearthed the rock wall back in 1852 may not have
found a man-made wall, but they discovered one of the
most unique natural geologic wonders I've ever seen. They say people do things
big in the lone star state, and the huge hole Kevin
Richeson excavated for me certainly lives up
to that expression. Once the wall was unearthed,
I was able to figure out it's been there for
millions of years, long before humans
ever walked the Earth. The wall wasn't built by
an early civilization. It wasn't built
by giants either. But it's still something
Rockwall residents can be proud of. And now they know the truth.
