EARTH-SHATTERING ANCIENT MYSTERIES IN THE U.S.A. *4 Hour Marathon* | America Unearthed

foreign folks he has some pretty big news for a tiny town in New Hampshire turns out the stone structures on Malcolm Pearson's property down in Salem might be older than people think someone's saying they could be older than Christopher Columbus himself now that would be something but I guess we need to wait and see in sports the Red Sox faced the Yankees last night as Benway in the first of a three-game series okay [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] that we were all taught growing up is wrong my name is Scott Walter 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 going to investigate these artifacts and sites and we're going to get to the truth sometimes history isn't what we've been told [Music] Stonehenge in England is one of the most awe-inspiring ancient sites on Earth even today its origin and purpose remains shrouded in mystery one thing archaeologists know for sure is that its construction took over 2 000 years one thing they don't know is who built it there's no doubt the site originally comprised of some 150 Stones was the work of some Advanced civilization that knew enough about the sun moon and stars to align these stones with the heavens in a very specific way but what if I told you we have our very own Stonehenge in the United States and that it's possible that two sites were built by the same people I'm on my way to investigate it right now America Stonehenge is a prehistoric site in Salem New Hampshire the owner says the stone structures here date back 4 000 years I got a call from his son Kelsey he's discovered a solar alignment an example of archaeoastronomy that he wants me to see so this is the central Observatory and this is what I was telling you about why we call America's Stonehenge [Music] Stonehenge someone placed Standing Stones large vertical rocks in a circle the placement is key when viewed from the center of the site each standing Stone lines up with the sun on important days of the year the solstices the longest and shortest days the equinoxes when the sun is on a level playing with the earth's equator and the cross quarter days which fall midway between them this is the summer solstice Sunrise Stone so the sun basically just Rises right over there wherever the stone just kind of comes out of diagonal and it just kind of tracks across the sky and then on Sunset it just comes right over to right over here so we're supposed to sunsets down there you realize this says an awful lot about your site whoever was here is marking these important dates of the year like many ancient cultures all over the world did I've been seeing this a lot lately it's called archoastronomy it's how ancient cultures use the sun moon stars and planets in their architecture and Design I saw archaeoastronomy in Georgia where it connected Native Americans to the ancient Mayans and I saw it in a cave in Oklahoma were markings that are part of an equinox illumination may have been left by the Celts the ancient practice of archoastronomy seems to tie many highly Advanced cultures together and it also seems to tie them to America [Music] you know I'm looking at that stone and it looks very interesting is there any chance we could go down and take a look at that closer sure [Music] thank you care [Music] well that's pretty interesting can you tell me a little bit specifically what happens with our alignment here sure yeah well basically what happens is on summer solstice the sun will rise right about right about the middle here and just kind of go at almost like a perpendicular to where this where the stone is and just go right across and just kind of rise up the eggs well we think actually originally probably was going to be up here and you know of course some time it probably moved okay well if it moved that's very interesting because over time the Earth's axis does shift right you probably remember the earthquake in Japan recently it was documented that the the axis of the earth actually moved about eight centimeters wow now that may not seem like a lot but over time over thousands of years it adds up so actually to have the alignment move makes a lot of sense and that's important because we can actually use that for dating and so as you know the Earth's axis shifts these alignments do shift and that could indicate a significant length of time well you know we actually had someone come up and check that out really and they uh from how far it's moved they actually dated the site back to about 3 800 years ago 3 800 years okay well I tell you what that's really an important thing because there are many people that think that by using archaeoastronomy that's actually a more accurate way of dating than carbon 14. so if that's the case you've got a pretty ancient site here [Music] clearly this isn't natural a natural position this was placed in the ground it appears to have been quarried it looks to me like it's actually been worked a little bit and all the surfaces are definitely weathered significantly weathered right and uh definitely indicates time this has been here for for a long time well you know also we call this place American Stonehenge obviously because of the standing stones but there's another thing that I found that I think really directly ties aside into Stonehenge in England really yeah well if you've got time I'd love to see it sure let's go [Music] Kelsey let's see what you got here all right well a few months ago I was on Google Earth and uh I was kind of drawing all the lines out on the alignments just basically see where they go as I was drawing one out on the summer solstice Sunrise alignment yeah I kept taking out further and further and uh you know I know someone over Nova Scotia and Newfoundland I'm north kind of a North East direction right yeah and then um as I took it over it also went right over to England and I thought that was kind of interesting so I kept zooming in further and further and it was on it what what it's going all the way over towards Stonehenge not only does it go just through Stonehenge it actually goes right through one of the triathons as Stonehenge wait a minute through one of the trilothons at Stonehenge from America's Stonehenge [Music] Stonehenge is the most well-known megalithic site of all time it's a sacred sight but no one knows who built it or exactly what it was used for but maybe whoever built it built this too that's amazing but I see this line continues off to the east where does that go you're never going to believe where that goes [Music] [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] let me get this straight you're talking about we're starting at America's Stonehenge in New Hampshire and this summer solstice line extends to Stonehenge in England it actually goes right through one of the trilathons [Music] that's amazing but I see this line continues off to the east where does that go you're never going to believe where that goes okay I'm ready so it starts going over towards the Mediterranean yeah you're kidding me yep goes right through Beirut are you sure that's right I double checked it Beirut Lebanon well that's the ancient home of the Phoenicians okay you realize what this means do you think there's a connection here between the Phoenicians and America Stonehenge I think it's definitely possible well I tell you what if you've got a connection here this rewrites a huge chapter of American History this isn't kidding around [Music] the Phoenicians were based along the coastline of the Mediterranean in modern day Lebanon they were an ancient seafaring culture that emerged around 1200 BC they were known for trading with distant lands maybe they even made it to America they're also responsible for inventing the alphabet we use today [Music] so Kelsey how did your family find out about America's Stonehenge well my grandfather I should heard about on the radio letting us get his haircut back in 1955. yeah afterwards he went up and checked the site out he's just so intrigued by it he just had to buy it oh it wasn't always called America's Stonehenge and there was actually a book written back around 1907. it was referred to as uh Patty's caves who's Patty he was one of the first people that was on site in hands he has lived there for the 1700s and into the 1800s oh really yeah well I know you guys think this is an old site but why couldn't he have built it well I can show you [Music] this is it this is where pay his house was right in this area right here yeah there's no way that Patty built this it just reeks of being really old and if it's old it's important some people think that he used the existing stone structures up in that area for animal pens he built those huge massive walls for animals when he's got all these trees and he could have used wood that's that's what they think well I I don't buy that one I mean look at the size of these rocks I wouldn't want to move them what's uh that Big Slab there was that uh was that like a roof you think that was most likely a roof slab for a chamber right there that collapsed you know what's interesting about rocks like that those actually serve as clocks as well and indicate something about the age of a structure this has a genuine feel to it and it's it's amazing I mean look at all this we do have one more thing that ties this side into the Phoenicians it turns out Kelsey's dad has a stone from the site it has a carving on it maybe some kind of ancient message Scott this is the ball Stone was found in 1964. what does it say well this is uh two ball on behalf of the Canaanites this is dedicated the Canaanites from the land of Canaan that's right that's what they used to call themselves but everybody in the region called them the Phoenicians they got all over the uh the known world at that time and many people believe that they made it over here to North America and there are many examples of possible finishing writings all the way from Maine down to Brazil well I tell you what if this is indeed a Phoenician inscription you've really got something important here absolutely I mean together with the alignment that you found you're talking about an incredible sight in incredible Discovery and it really just blasts apart the the history books in places Europeans here in North America around 3 500 years ago before I make any conclusions I need to make sure this inscription is old and that the lines are man-made not natural by using a 3D microscope I can see how deep the grooves go and if the inscription has been weathering for a long time what I want to do is I want to focus on this groove right here which I numbered as number three Groove number three and that corresponds to this groove right here this is about 4 000 microns from the highest point down to the deepest point this one clearly is a man-made groove it looks like it here it looks like it here I can already tell many of these marks that make up the inscription could be sent to result and there's no doubt they were deliberately made because it references the Canaanites I have to consider the Phoenicians but I need to know more is there anything else here that you might have that possibly could tie this side to the Phoenicians well there is one more thing especially up on the site we call it the sacrificial table sacrificial table yes well I'm not going anywhere until I see that thank you foreign [Music] table this do you think there was really human sacrifices here and we believe the sacrificial table could have been used for human or animal sacrifice stone is about nine feet by six feet it's just on four legs weighs about four and a half tons and on top is a rectangular shaped Groove that's about six feet by four feet and the table is tilted towards me so if there was a fluid such as blood on it it would go into the groove and then it would continue in the groove towards this little run all right here and are we going to possibly a little base there is a cut out in a Bedrock where a bass could sit well I see the uh I see the groove and you think this was for channeling blood that's amazing there's something else that I see and you see all this cracking and and this layering here along the entire surface that's uh what we call exfoliation weathering it's kind of like when dead skin peels off your body that's interesting for a couple of reasons first off that indicates a lot of weathering has gone on here this is wetting and drying freezing and thawing and there's been a lot of loss of material on the surface which indicates significant age and I think this could probably be used as a weathering clock yeah they see significant weathering here that appears to be consistent with the astronomical alignments that we saw with the structures that are here which indicate that this is a very old place there's one more secret of the table I'd like to show you [Music] hello Scott Walter so you're the man behind the curtains right that's a funny stuff off so what do we have here let's go are you standing in the Oracle chamber and we call it the Oracle chamber because of this tube here that goes through the wall above six feet from the Oracle chamber where we're standing out to the sacrificial table here we think during a ceremony perhaps people watching above would hear this voice coming out and be like a god or a spirit talking to him and it was probably a priest of Shaman actually shouting through the tube interesting so really what we have is an example of archaeoacoustics Science of where the Ancients would manipulate sound typically in rituals by using something like this tube here to create a pretty scary sound in this case can you imagine somebody sitting on that table about to be sacrificed and hear that voice I mean it must have been really scary I can't help myself do you mind if I give it a try yeah I guess Scott okay all right this is all get off my off my arm [Music] s I'm glad I came to investigate this site I don't know what's more interesting the sacrificial table the ball stone or the summer solstice line that connects America's Stonehenge to the one in England and further east to Beirut Lebanon home of the ancient Phoenicians I plan on coming back for the solstice but right now I'm headed to Mount Holyoke College to talk to an expert on Phoenician culture [Music] he's got Walter mark mcmenamin Mark I just came back from a very interesting place called America's Stonehenge one of the things that I saw that was discovered by Kelsey Stone the son of the owners was a long-range alignment that starts at their site that goes from their site to Stonehenge in England and then extends to Beirut Lebanon which is the ancestral home of the Phoenicians who were the Phoenicians the Phoenicians were a group of Middle Eastern people and their their Center was in modern Lebanon and they developed colonies Westward from there the most important of which was Carthage the carthaginians were Phoenicians on steroids because they were the most powerful Phoenician culture that ever developed also they tended to be very secretive so it's been a challenge to try to figure out exactly what the Phoenicians knew what they were able to do and we're still trying to learn more about them and it's a it's a a difficult task because there's not much evidence the Phoenicians really sort of appear around 1200 000 BC they were trying to build trading centers and colonization centers and they began to move both North and South along the Atlantic coast part of the reason for finishing success as Navigators was the fact that they were able to navigate at night and this is because they knew about Polaris the pole star Polaris is also known as the North Star and if the Phoenicians knew about it chances are they knew about the rest of the sky too the Sun the Stars the moon the planets and that means they would have had enough knowledge of archaeoastronomy to create the summer solstice alignment from America's Stonehenge to Stonehenge in England this proposed alignment at America's Stonehenge is very intriguing and there's a possibility that it will connect to some research that I did in particular a study that I made of a group of Phoenician coins that had been minted in Carthage in 350 BC and that I interpreted as having a map on the reverse of the coin we have a picture of the coin yes this is it this is a picture of the coin this is good okay here here are two images from the British museum you can pick out the islands pretty clearly Sardinia in the center which is the central point in the Mediterranean Basin we've got Sicily there the Triangular Island the boot of Italy coming down Iberian peninsula here this straight line here is probably the North coast of Africa India here and this is America and this almost looks to me like they're giving us the Gulf of Mexico they're in Florida but that could be subject to interpretation well that's fascinating couple thoughts here sure they were they're here they were put there for a reason and I guess until a better thesis comes along I like yours I love yours but well thank you I think that this this gives us an insight into the Phoenician psyche absolutely and remember they're extremely secretive you know and so they're not going to be giving away the store so to speak however there was they had enough ego to want to have some kind of record of what they had done so here on these coins and these tiny little images they they were giving us an extremely condensed phonation geography you know telling a huge story in a in a couple of millimeter space here there's one other thing I'd like to talk about it's this sacrificial table did the Phoenicians practice human sacrifice yes they did and I think the evidence is overwhelming that that they uh they did practice human sacrifice I think there's a lot of sources biblical and otherwise suggesting that this was the case do you think the Phoenicians made it to North America or not they probably went farther than anyone is willing to admit today they had the ships to do so I think the Phoenicians could easily have across the Atlantic their whole history suggests that they would have tried to do this diateras a Greek historian reports that the Phoenicians knew about this gigantic Island out in the Atlantic with navigable Rivers the only place with navigable Rivers once you get past Spain is America when I went to America's Stonehenge I was amazed to learn about a possible connection between that site in New Hampshire and Stonehenge in England Bob Stone purchased America's Stonehenge in 1955 because he believed this ancient Place needed to be preserved years later when his grandson Kelsey mapped the site's Sunrise Solstice line he discovered that line started at America's Stonehenge and went straight to Stonehenge in England and now I'm heading there to see if these two ancient sites with massive standing stones are connected foreign [Music] [Music] I'm here because I'm investigating a megalithic site in New Hampshire called America Stonehenge and there appears to be a connection to Stonehenge here and I'd just like to know a little bit about Stonehenge well stonehengeance is one of the most famous prehistoric monuments but I think a couple of things that people don't always realize about it is that it it took over a thousand years to make what you can see now to construct yeah yeah there's lots of different phases and it gets reinvented through time well you know when people think about Stonehenge they think about what's right here but you're saying that it goes all around us so even Beyond where we are yes yeah I mean they get going back for a couple of thousand years before yeah you've got various monuments in all sorts of different directions and the focus over time becomes these stones Stonehenge is the most well-known megalithic site in the world it consists of 150 enormous Stones the tallest of which Rises 22 feet from the ground but in the beginning around 3100 BC it was just a hinge a ditch a bank and several round pits but even then it was a popular Gathering Place being a geologist I'm very interested in the Rocks the stones tell me a little bit about the stones there's a variation in the geology is that right yeah the two different types the very big Stones uh it's awesome and they come from sort of local area within 20 miles or so all right the blue stains which are the smaller ones they're still very big yeah there you come from South Wales so yeah so how far away is that well it's about 150 miles but if you think actually how they would have transported yeah that's not straight that's a that's a heck of a task 240 miles maybe I mean that's at the heart of it that really uh suggests sophistication and coordination and something at a pretty complicated level I think there's a huge amount of sophistication people do know what they're doing I mean the fact they can build Stonehenge it's about a labor which goes into buildings something like that is incredible and people have estimated 30 million hours or 30 million hours of work how many people say to move one of those stones there's no real way of telling it's something which we continue to think about but the fact they did it I mean it's a massive feat of engineering they're more sophisticated than we thought so might say 600 people but it might have been just a couple the blue stones may not be the biggest Stones here but for me they're the most interesting they're said to have spiritual significance and I think America's Stonehenge has that too the blue stones came from a land that was believed to have healing powers archaeologists think Stonehenge may have been a franchise of sorts a closer version of a far away sacred place there's no doubt these Stones were placed here for a reason and it has everything to do with the sun and the solstice just like it does at Stonehenge in New Hampshire if we think back to ancient times were there rituals going on what were the people doing at this site we could see 70s following on the summer solstice on the day of the solstice people starting the day at the Eastern pit as from here you can observe sun rising on the solstice and then they're following the sun round so basically the actual this long rectangular enclosure is basically just a walkway so you follow around the perimeter following the sun in front of you all the time but it's a bit like a church or a cathedral now you have multiple functions and I think all of those would be happening here why do you think it was so important for these ancient people to track the movements of the celestial bodies the people of farmers they rely on Seasons they rely on understanding they know when to plant across when to harvest them but actually having a sense of how that time develops I think is really important you know the the importance of these these bodies I think is fundamental to Being Human and being Farmers but also something which they celebrate like foreign tell me a little bit about the archaeoastronomy here well this has been again a huge amount of work you'll see there's Stones dotted around the the site I saw a big one well I can see it right here that big standing Stone over there that one is known as the Hailstone now the weird thing about that stone is it's undressed it's un it hasn't been worked like all the other stages I've site but what seems to be important is that stone whenever you look at the center of Stonehenge and line things up and people have done this in the past that's the same which leads you towards the um the the summer solstice Sunrise if you line up the Hillstone with each of those Pits on one side it marks sunrise on the summer solstice and the other one it marks sunset on the summer solstice [Music] I know is that more than coincidence that actually are lining up with two very sort of significant aggressive events I don't think it's a coincidence no I don't [Music] have something I'd like to show you it's a new discovery of archaeoastronomy at America's Stonehenge it's a summer solstice Line running from the site in New Hampshire directly to here my initial reaction would be that that's beyond Beyond possible [Music] [Music] when I was at America Stonehenge a megalithic site in New Hampshire I learned about a new discovery by the owner's son a connection between that site and Stonehenge in England from there the line extends even further to modern day Lebanon which was the home base of the Phoenicians [Music] I want to find out if a Stonehenge expert thinks all three sites could be connected to each other and to that specific ancient culture so here we have the alignment that starts at America's Stonehenge at the center of the observatory and then as you extend a line through and continue that line it comes across the Atlantic and comes right here to Stonehenge when you look here at a close-up you can see that it goes right through that Central trial of thought then if you extend that line it goes to Beirut Lebanon the home of the Phoenicians as incredible as it is it appears to be there what's your reaction I think it's incredible I can't imagine there's a link other than the possibility that people are marking the same sort of alignments and I think also when you extend it onto the The Phoenician worlds their world starts around about 1200 BC um and and this site sort of finished really by about 2000 BC so there's a good 800 years or so difference [Music] interestingly I think Stonehenge has attracted people in pre-history from quite Far Far Away there's there's a burial just over over there there's a couple of barrels from over there one from about 1 400 BC so if people are moving here it's feasible the Phoenicians might have been yeah it is it's not Beyond possibility but they couldn't have been involved in the designer Stonehenge because it's too early I don't think there's any question that this site was an observatory and it was sacred when we had these ancient people going to other places like North America and other continents something that was sacred that was vital to their existence and and their belief system they would build those in other places and could perhaps these sacred sites be connected or or connect these people across the continents I think absolutely right I think these sites are sacred in that in that way and I think possibly people move but also equally maybe just people are so similar in wherever they live on the planet that they all observe the same sorts of things whether or not people actually move or don't move between these places the fact that you have similar sorts of sites all over the planet all respecting the heavenly bodies and so on I think it's just a really nice thing yeah that's that's something about humanity and being human well I think the one thing that we can definitely agree on if nothing else places like Stonehenge and America's Stonehenge prove how important tracking the celestial bodies were to these ancient people [Music] the Phoenicians couldn't have built Stonehenge but the site still might have been a sacred Sanctuary for them I think the fact that this place directly aligns with America's Stonehenge on the summer solstice is no mistake astronomy links many cultures together like the Mayans in Georgia and the Celts in Oklahoma and I think it's also what links the Phoenicians to our very own Stonehenge proof of which I'm about to see with my own eyes they could be the ones who marked an important day the summer solstice with a standing stone at the site over which the sunrise takes place um hey guys good morning Scott hi Dennis good morning Kelsey how you doing good how are you good how did the trip go I had a great trip I've got some really good stuff to share with you but uh I'm excited to see that alignment so sun's coming up should we head out I'm ready let's go we're about to see the sunrise over the solstice Stone to see the alignment Kelsey Stone discovered that links this site to Stonehenge in England if you were to draw a line directly through the Sun as it rises over the stone it would run right through the center trilophon at Stonehenge and then continue on to Lebanon once the center of the Phoenician Empire [Music] to me it's proof of an advanced understanding of archaeoastronomy and of an ancient connection to the United States [Music] what else can you say but wow that's amazing it never gets old tell you what what we're seeing here is an amazingly accurate astronomical calendar there's no accident saw the exact same thing at Stonehenge they use Standing Stones just like this to track the seasons they used it for worship I think they also use it for navigation to come to the New World amongst other places it was absolutely amazing the beginning of Stonehenge predates your site here the later stages do correspond especially with the stone erecting period so there might be a connection there The The Phoenician connection is a little bit tenuous because this actually predates the Phoenicians by a little bit maybe it was a proto-phoenician group we're not sure you know what's great is you've got a sacred site in England you've got a sacred site here and there's no doubt that they're connected whether it was the Phoenicians or not what it tells us is that some highly sophisticated culture probably the elite in that culture came over here and established this incredible site and it's sites like this that connect the new world to the old world foreign family wanted to know if the Phoenicians made their sight it's a question the family has been trying to answer since Bob Stone bought this mysterious site back in 1955. while I can't say for sure the Phoenicians made it there I believe they could easily have made it to the Americas somebody had to assemble those huge Stones someone with a vast knowledge of archaoastronomy I believe archeoastronomy is what links together many Advanced civilizations and is what links some of them to America I believe there was contact between ancient cultures [Music] it may be why America's Stonehenge was built where it was create a place in the new world that lined up with a sacred site in the old world people were connected and were just starting to find out how foreign [Music] [Music] foreign the history that we were all taught growing up is wrong my name is Scott Walter 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 going to investigate these artifacts and sites and we're going to get to the truth sometimes history isn't what we've been told [Music] foreign [Music] many people think they know the story of the Lost Colony of Roanoke but chances are they don't know this 48 Clues to the case that have been sitting untouched for half a century 48 Stones inscribe with messages that could tell us exactly what happened to The Lost Colony of Roanoke they're called the Dare stones allegedly carved by colonists Eleanor dare they were scattered throughout the South a trail of Clues to the Settler's fate all of the stones were found during the Great Depression over a period of just four years the short time frame of Discovery for so many artifacts LED Scholars to declare them fakes but academics have been wrong before and that's why I'm going to study them myself [Music] [Music] this is the original dare Stone found in 1937 Jim this is an amazing Stone can you tell me what does it say it talks about the the difficult times they had for a couple of years or so there was misery and they were attacked by Indians there were a number of people killed wow if one of the stone has a cross at the top and underneath it says ananias dare and Virginia went hence unto heaven 1591. I can read that pretty easily here once you tell it it's right there and then on the bottom any Englishman show John White Governor Virginia John White is Eleanor dare's father and when the colonists had hard times he goes back to England to ask his boss Sir Walter Raleigh for more supplies when white finally returns everyone had disappeared so tell me what is the consensus of opinion is this real or not the general consensus is that this stone is fraudulent if this Stone were considered to be authentic then all the American history textbooks would include this story of what happened to The Lost Colony but they do not well maybe they should that's what I intend to find out [Music] if forensic geology shows significant weather then there's a chance this stone is authentic and that Eleanor dare really did carve this clue my cursory look at this rock it looks like a quartzite yes yes so quartzite's very hard very durable it really doesn't chemically weather it will physically weather but it's really not going to give us a nice linear weathering profile that we might with other rocks what I want to do is generate a three-dimensional image so we can actually look at the profile of This Groove okay so it's a nice rounded Groove and we can add some color and the blue is the lower depths of course and the red is the topographic highs so we can get a nice image here can get some indication of age by looking at what we call Coatings or secondary deposits that get laid down both on the surface and down into the cracks and in between the the crystals if you look you see these red rust areas yes sometimes you'll generate a mineral called pyrite and when it weathers you get rust okay and this is the original exterior surface of the rock but if we look in the grooves it gets lighter more white so you're getting now into the fresh unweathered rock it doesn't have that rust yes so that to me would be consistent with having been in the ground for a while sure I have to say Jim right now I I like the stone number one I'm leaning towards authenticity very good I said in 1979 an interview that I thought there was a 50 50 chance that this Stone was authentic but maybe you've given me a different perspective here even though this dare Stone the first one found looks authentic to me I need to see all the others thank you so you keep your head now foreign level of weathering on the other 47 Stones as I did on the first then they might be legitimate Clues to the Lost Colony and those Clues paint a grisly picture of colonial life sickness misery and finally murder [Music] [Music] well I tell you what one of the things that jumps out at me right away this geology here here and here is different than the other Stone we've already looked at the fact that I'm seeing these different rock types could mean they're more likely to be genuine it makes me think they were carved in the areas where they were found this one here has what looks like some organic material and mud that might have collected over time and it's in the grooves this one also does and I suppose if we look at the others we might see evidence that these things were under water maybe during flood times and you know what I mean that looks weathered I mean just my gut feel it just looks weathered as does this one I mean my God that's weathered like crazy interesting I'll tell you what after looking at these stones in here I'm I'm liking what I'm seeing do we have a map that shows where these artifacts for Palm yes okay there's a map showing the locations here's the original settlement Roanoke and about 60 80 miles away the original Stone was found and then Southwest down to Greenville South Carolina 15 more Stones were found remaining 33 Stones were found north of Atlanta primarily if people questioned why these are spread out over such a large distance people are concerned about the likelihood of this many stones found over such a long distance the counter to that would be here's where they were found something must have compelled them to travel that great distance and you know at that time and place a stranded colony and you can imagine all kinds of things but what's interesting is it seems starting at Roanoke it's almost like we have a breadcrumb trail of these Stones leading to wherever they ended up this is amazing so far I don't see any evidence that the Dare stones are fake I think it might be another case where history has it wrong Stones could spell out where the colonists went and how they died but why would they travel so far inland before I can understand the end of the story I need to travel back to the beginning the place where the colonists were last seen alive foreign [Music] there have got to be Clues here but I have no idea what they are what I do know is that right now I have a puzzle where none of the pieces seem to fit so Rob I just got back from looking at the Dare stones and geologically I really liked what I saw my understanding is most of these Stones were carved by Eleanor dare and on one of the stone she Chronicles the death of her husband and her child Virginia now was it true that Virginia was born at this site that is the case that she was born on Roanoke Island okay so when the colonists first got here what would they have had for resources a lot of Timbers for making ships making houses and furniture and there's also medicinal plants such as that sassafras we see over there at the base of that pine tree okay I thought they used that for root beer but actually you're telling me medicinal purposes okay so there's the big question Rob what happened to the colonists I know there's a lot of theories out there but what do you think if they left here in an organized way eventually they're going to fall prey to an attack by native people to bad weather like a hurricane if they're traveling across the water chances are the survivors would have assimilated into local native tribes so this brings up the whole notion of the Native Americans and the relationship that they had with them was a contentious was it good what do we know about that not a very good relationship they're finding that they're not welcome here in fact if you stray too far away from your group you're going to likely get killed and there was one colonist we know of who did stray away two miles along the shore crabbing and he's found later and he's not alive they would learn the hard way really clearly things didn't go as planned I mean that we could all agree on that I keep looking down the axis of this thing here which when I look at the enclosing walls I think it looks like a defensive posture and maybe a lookout or what do we think this was yes that protrusion that goes out from the rest of the Earthworks is going to be a good place to post someone and keep note of anything that might be worth getting concerned about you know when I look at this structure in these walls this has an interesting almost geometric shape to it so there's a intelligence obviously but a strategy behind the way that they built this fort here's that protrusion that we just talked about there's the gate and you know what there definitely is the geometry here it kind of looks like a diamond wow all right what do we know so far we know that John White went back to Europe and three years later he came back and they were gone what other Clues do we have that tell us anything about the colony that was found here we've got the clues left behind by those colonists evidently large letters c-r-o-a-t-o-a-n along the North Shoreline on a palisade post that surrounded the location of the houses so the word Croatoan was carved into a post here at Roanoke I know Croatoan was the name of a Native American tribe who was friendly to the colonists and it was also a physical place somewhere in North Carolina maybe this is where the colonists went after they left Roanoke one thing is for sure I need to check it out and get some answers my investigation into the Lost Colony of Roanoke began with the Dare stones 48 stones with messages that could be Clues telling us what happened to America's first European settlers some people think the stones were part of an elaborate hoax but the weathering of the inscriptions suggests to me they're genuine another clue to the case cropped up in the opposite direction of where the stones were found the word Croatoan carved in a post I'm on my way to what was once Croatoan Island today known as Hatteras Island [Music] I need to know if the colonists actually came here and if they did how this clue connects with the Dare stones [Music] [Music] how you doing Scott Dawson I put all this together okay there's got questions about it this is a great display here I'm a forensic geologist and I've been investigating the Dare stones and the Lost Colony they mentioned that some Clues might be found here I guess there was a carving left by the colonists sure and the colonists in 1587 carved out the word Croatoan on a palisade and a palisade is a circle of what looks like telephone poles or trees that went around where the settlement was to protect them and so the most obvious place to leave a message would be on the Palisade and that's why they put it there and Croatoan is the name of the island we're on now which is actually where the English had lived and traded now they call it Hatteras right they call it Hatteras now and we've been digging on the Croatoan Village for four years now and but I have some things that I'm probably interested in I would love to see them that'd be awesome these are glass trade beads and they've already making them around 15.50 and we know that the English brought lots and lots of these things over to trade to get deer skins and pearls and tobacco so these are dateable items right these have a dateable range so they're prior to 1650 but we don't know exactly how old they are sure this glass however they quit making this glass in 1600 and you can tell it's been worked and snipped with iron tools napped kind of like an arrowhead right exactly now this type of glass would be in a um in a window it's window glass cool so we have here artifacts that are found in the time period but we don't have anything that is a a dead Lock if you will connection to the Lost Colony that's correct we have not found Virginia dare's pinky ring or anything of that nature but for me the uh the proof is not in the archeology it's common sense they went to Croatoan as they indicated thank you you've got a situation that these colonists are walking into where the Indians on the mainland want to kill them and have attacked and killed them twice and they actually came to this island to get help you don't really think they were lost do you no I I think they were never lost they came to Croatoan the problem with your thesis from my perspective is that we have the bare Stone standing squarely in in the way of that so what that means to me is that you've got a pretty compelling Story You've got documents you've got artifacts and yet we have the Dare stones that stand in conflict with that so to me what seems to be a logical explanation for that is that perhaps well to me that's the logical explanation because that's the one thing that doesn't fit is the stone so all of this is wrong and the stone is correct or all of this is correct there's another explanation they split up we have a strong evidentiary trail that leads to this party splitting up one going west the other coming south that's where I'm at right now don't know much about the stones I don't put a lot of weight into things that come after the fact you can argue that they split up and these different things and all of that is just um speculation but as far as what is written down and what makes logical sense going west does not make sense the only thing that I can do is testify to factual evidence the whole thing about wow you know at that time in 1937 when that stone was found there were all these stories Romanticism all that stuff is irrelevant facts are the things that Kerry know they are relevant in a court of law they're irrelevant and so if the facts stand in the way of speculation the facts win hairstones suggest that somebody including Eleanor dare went west from the Roanoke colony so until we can clear that up we have to investigate foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] hi Honey hi Scotty North Carolina well it's a little overcast right now but uh should be heading out of here coming your way soon I uh I'll tell you what I had a chance to look at the Dare stones and they are amazing I I didn't have high expectations going into it but the geology was varied the weathering of the inscriptions was varied and I have to tell you if I had to make a call today I would say they they look genuine to me really wow that's amazing the downside is I uh it's a little pissed off with one of the guys that I ran into who wouldn't listen to anything I had to say about the Dare stones or the geology he was totally convinced that the Colonists came down South of Roanoke to his area and absolutely was close-minded to any of the geologic works so that was disappointing well I might have another clue for you oh yeah what's that you get my email no I didn't let me just pull up my computer here I just read this in the morning paper it's hot off the press you'll want to see this ancient map could solve Colony Cold Case what's this all about White oh yeah and it's just been sitting in the British museum all this time and someone noticed that there's a patch placed over part of North Carolina a patch yeah it might be hiding something underneath there it says right here this map May hold the answer to one of the most famous mysteries in American history well I tell you what if that's true I need to see it I mean this could be the next clue that I need I guess I'm not coming home right now after all I'm going to England [Music] I'm investigating The Disappearance of the Lost Colony of Roanoke and so far I followed up on two leads first the Dare Stones 48 Stones carved with clues that suggest the colonists abandon their settlement and moved West thank you the second the word Croatoan carved on a post which could mean they went East the opposite direction of the Dare stones now I'm following a new lead my wife Jan had told me about a map drawn by the colonist Governor John White that could turn this whole investigation on its head apparently there's a mysterious patch on a map drawn by John White here in England and I want to know what's underneath it maybe for the last 400 years everyone has been looking for the Lost colonists in the wrong place [Music] so Dr Pratt I've been investigating the lost Roanoke colony and I spent some time looking at the Dare stones there are a bunch of stones that have been found beginning in 1937 up through 1940 up to 48 stones that most of them were carved by Eleanor dare that tell the story of the Lost Colony of Roanoke I've heard about them okay I was looking to see if there was evidence of forgeries many people have claimed and I didn't see that I think you can tell fakes pretty pretty quickly oh yeah you know you can see where things have been added or weathered artificially I really believe it's pretty easy to tell well I know it's easy to tell because I have looked at fakes and The Fakes reveal themselves quickly it's the ones that are real that seem to hang around people never quite get it right but what I want to know today and talk about your area of expertise is about this map that John White made and can you tell me a little bit about that map well it's called the Virginia pars map and I believe that means Virginia country okay translation and it is probably one of the earliest and most accurate for that period they've actually laid a modern day map over the top of it and it's very very similar even with all the shifting of the sand so that's really accurate that that makes the person who made it quite an extraordinary character and that's that's John White and it's probably dated sometime between 1585 and 1590 when it was engraved here we have a copy of the map for us to look at so we can see the whole Coastline starting up here in the Virginia area and coming down into North Carolina this is Albemarle sound and the Shaolin River and then also indicating Roanoke Island Croatoan in red to show that these might be friendly areas where the Indians were more friendly right at the junction of these two rivers yes that's the patch which has recently come to light we've we've looked at that at the British Museum and we also have some details here where you can see through x-ray analysis that there's actually something underneath that patch there is and you know what if I look close on here can see something it looks like a pattern that's right see the X-ray analysis will reveal the drawing underneath which is looks like a sort of a shape of a star shape with four corners you know what I've seen that before I've seen something very similar it was on Roanoke Island now this is my first initial sketch oh that's interesting that's very similar that kind of looks familiar doesn't it this was the entrance back then and there was a push out here they thought was for defense purposes and a lookout type of thing could that have been a fort well that's certainly a possibility certainly looking from an aerial perspective that would follow the shape of the fort but wait a minute here okay so could this map indicate that the colonists moved Inland and did not go down to Croatoan or maybe plan to go there at some point yeah I think that's a reasonable supposition that it makes a lot of sense from a strategic Point as well right now there are a lot of locations with clues about the Lost Colony there are the 48 dare stones found scattered throughout the southeast in North Carolina South Carolina and Georgia then there's the original Fort site on the coast of North Carolina there's Croatoan the island that corresponds with the clue John White found carved on a post and finally further Inland is the spot where the Virginia pars map shows a hidden form [Music] why would it have been covered up because there was huge competition between England and Spain at this time and Spanish ships were in the area looking for English so the idea that the English were getting ahead of the Spanish by making colonies here would have been very dangerous so I think covering up something like a fort would make sense you know Stephanie both the deer stones and this map suggests in my mind that the colonists had to have gone inland if so why did they do that could it have been because of the natives they were in danger from them or could it have been some well laid out plan could it have been John White involved or was it his boss Sir Walter Raleigh well I think that that's plausible and I'm sure he would have plans about how to establish a colony and how to protect it and how to keep it safe but we've learned a little bit about John White but the person I need to find out about now is this Sir Walter Raleigh I need to know more about him thank you thank you I can't help but wonder if Sir Walter Raleigh figures into this mystery somehow he was The Man Behind Rona The Man hand-picked by Queen Elizabeth to establish the first colony in the New World I wonder if he had anything to do with the hidden symbol on the map maybe there were strategic motives in play for moving the colony or even hiding its true location [Music] Mark I'm investigating the Lost Colony of Roanoke and of course the story starts over on this side of the Atlantic in England what I really want to know is more about Sir Walter Raleigh so Walter is not a lazy man everywhere you look Sir Walter's hand is in the action and that I think is what it makes him so interesting so attractive he's a true Renaissance character he's in there at the beginning the first phases of European involvement in what's now North Carolina my understanding is that Sir Walter Raleigh financed this colony is that correct yes we put a lot of money into the adventure yes okay during this period of the latter half of the 16th century there were other people trying to establish colonies in the new world not just Sir Walter Raleigh is that correct yes in fact one of them was from this very College a man called John D Dr John D he wrote advocating the establishment of an English or a British Empire and advocating colonization there were many like him it was in the air at the time so John D was a British expansionist would this have been a forerunner to the Colony one of these arguments was that the the English British had been in North America long before Columbus's for wages and so the British did have a prior claim his argument of the case of course makes it easier for Sir Walter Raleigh Queen Elizabeth the first to claim the new world what were Riley's motives for sending the colony over do you think well for his own personal motives of course it's it's land and property well the land grab is important for Sir Walter he's a younger son and in the way of things the Estates have all gone to older brothers and and he doesn't get anything so now he's a favorite of the queen he wants to make something for himself and for his family from the point of view of the state what he's looking for is a a military base the other thing of course they're looking for is something that the land produces that is worth exploiting back home silver and gold would be ideal but if you can't find those then useful crops useful plants for example sassafras which comes up in the early accounts as a useful plan you know I was just over at the colony site at Roanoke and in the area we saw lots of sassafras so if they're looking for sassafras why well sassafras is a versatile plant it can be used as a food flavoring at the time it is also given a lot of Curative properties for diseases particularly for syphilis I know that syphilis was running rampant in England at that time what a lot of people don't know is that some scientists believe it was a disease introduced to the continent by none other than Christopher Columbus after his voyage to the new world at that time sassafras was considered the only treatment for this new world disease one of the rumors was that the queen had syphilis if that's true obviously this is one way you can please the Queen by treating a condition that she may have had or may not have had yes this rumor comes of course from the idea that Henry VIII her father had it and so passed it on to Elizabeth there is no evidence that the queen suffered from syphilis so do you think that sassafras might have been a motivation for them to move Inland it might have been if you are if it's on the list of Commodities to go and look for then you have to go where the sassafras is I recently looked at a map that John White made and there's an area that's covered up with a patch and looking carefully at underneath that patch it appears to be a symbol of what looks like a fort any thoughts about that are those tantalizing mysterious Clues which effectively we need to work further on you know when I look at that symbol on the map what I think is that this was where John White wanted to build or Sir Walter Raleigh wanted to build a fort we have a lot of Clues here that the colony went Inland and if there's a place where the secret symbol on the map the sassafras and the deer Stone Clues all come together we just might find the lost column [Music] thank you [Music] I'm headed to the place where I think the clues to the Lost Colony all converge it's a golf course called the scotch Hall preserve and it's a place that corresponds with the secret symbol on John White's map [Music] I want to know if there's any evidence the colonists ended up building a fort here and if there's a connection to the Dare stones [Music] yes sir hi Scott Walter Jim Hughes Scott nice to see you say I'm looking into the Lost Colony of Roanoke does that ring a bell at all yes sir that's big news around here the reason I'm here today is I recently looked at a map over in England that led me to here and I'm looking into the possibility that maybe the last Colony came here and I was wondering if I could take a look around or if it would be possible maybe you could show me absolutely [Music] so uh when was this golf course built Golf course opened in 2009 and was recognized as one of the top 10 best new courses in the country so that was just three years ago a lot of earthwork was down here did they ever find any evidence of colonial settlement or maybe the remnants of a fort you know I think they moved over a million cubic yards of dirt they dug like 12 or 13 ponds and and all that no evidence was ever found of a fort or any Colonial settlement nothing at all nothing at all you know I'm not surprised but it doesn't mean that some of the colony didn't make it out here beautiful spot this is the Chowan River and back there is Salmon Creek okay and this leads out to the ocean here right this is the album all sound and if you if you follow it on out you'll hit the Outer Banks okay so this area where the map was repaired and John White Drew what appears to be a symbol representing a fort is covered up that would be here so what do you think was there a fort here there's no evidence of a fort being here Scott I think we would have found some evidence of that or some other Colonial activity but it just hasn't appeared a lot of people have speculated on what this covered up Fort like symbol was or is and to be quite honest with you I think what happened here is that this spot is where John White wanted to put a fort and wanted the colony to be but it never happened however that doesn't mean that some of them didn't get here which brings me to the next man and that's a modern day map and what we have plotted on here is where the Dare Stones were found there were a total of 48 stones found over a 300 Mile Stretch beginning in 1937 up to about 1940. now here's where the first stone was found and the only reference that we have says it was found near a town called Edenton right across there right across the river on the north side oh you got to be kidding me so we're right in the same area my theory is right because I believe Eleanor dare must have known that there was going to be a colony here or a Fortier and so maybe she tried to get back to the one place that she knew her father might look for her wow there's one other thing that came to mind here the sassafras do you have any sassafras around here we have a lot of sassafrases that's another piece to this puzzle the reason that sassafras would have been important to the colonists and to John White specifically is because sassafras was thought to be used for medicinal purposes specifically in treating syphilis I'm sure that had something to do with this whole desire to eventually cultivate and bring back sassafras to England it's a hell of a story after discovering the place where the map the stones and the sassafras all come together my search for The Lost Colony is coming to a close but geology is key to putting this case to bed something I learned in my forensic study of the Dare Stones was that the original Stone found in Edenton was carved on a piece of quartzite and now I need to find out if quartzite is native to the area if Eleanor dare really carved these messages she would have used whatever Stones were nearby [Music] hey how are you doing hi I'm Scott Walter how you doing Paul Walker nice to meet you I'm sorry to bother you here this morning but this may seem like a strange request but I'm interested in your rock garden The Rock specifically what is the origin of these did they come from Edenton here yes he did all the banks of the Jordan River okay is there any place nearby where I could take a look where they're actually coming out of the ground sure right out on the river there you'll see along the banks [Music] Paul can show me some indigenous quartzite it would bring me one step closer to solving this mystery got it yes this is glacial quartzite [Music] finding quartzite along the riverbank in Edenton is like finding the last piece of an elaborate puzzle forensic geology told me that the message on the first dare stone is likely very old the discovery of quartzite is also consistent with the message being carved on Stone local to the area and both those discoveries suggest to me that the first air stone found and maybe the others are genuine I'm convinced that the colonists moved throughout the region and left the stones behind as a breadcrumb trail marking where they've been maybe they did go to Croatoan for a time but the stone suggests they eventually moved inland I believe the Dare Stone should have been taken seriously a long time ago history ignored them because they didn't fit into the story we've been told but now my science tells a new story [Music] [Music] as you can see the opening is not too big thank you foreign weird chamber and it is in the middle of nowhere these things are bagged there approximately 30 inches wide and at least three feet long what in the hell is this this is crazy the history that we were all taught growing up is wrong my name is Scott Walter 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 going to investigate these artifacts and sites and we're going to get to the truth sometimes history isn't what we've been told [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] Scott my buddy Chad and I discovered something weird in the woods near our homes in Western Pennsylvania it's a hidden stone chamber built into the side of a hill looks like somebody went to quite a bit of trouble to build it and to block it off once we crawled into the small entrance we walked for several feet until the entry opened up to a bigger space there we found a natural stream running into a basin on the ground like I said it's really strange and I can't imagine what it was used for it doesn't seem to fit it seems old too we know you investigate unusual places and we thought you should know about this one I've attached some pictures and also shot some video if you've got any questions or want to come see it yourself call me hello Ryan this is Scott Walter I just got your email and those pictures of the chamber are amazing [Music] [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] you must be Scott hey guys Chad Chad Snyder how are you doing sir Ryan nice to meet you Scott I'm anxious to hear more about this uh interesting chamber the strange sight you found we have no idea what this underground chamber could be we kind of figured you were probably the man to talk to we've heard that you spend your life cruising around looking for intriguing sites and I think that's what we've come across I tell you what as I look around here what a beautiful area but it's awful remote how did you guys find this site we were small game hunting and uh we ended up coming across the entrance to to this chamber it was kind of half hidden but but it was exposed enough that you could see it was it was definitely a void wow that must have been pretty surprising huh yeah it was not a surprise as climbing back in there well I saw some of the pictures that you sent and it looks really intriguing we actually took some more pictures for you oh yeah wanted to see what you thought of these is this as you're coming in the entrance this is coming in the passageway on the way in which is about 24 inches wide and this is the first thing you come into before you get into the chamber this is where the spring comes out of the hillside Scott okay snakes around and falls into that Basin so it sort of Curves a little here is the water flowing constantly yes it is okay so it is a natural spring there are certain people who have a reverence for ritual bathing Many religious groups and secret societies have rituals involving sites like this Christians practice ritual bathing it's baptism Jewish people also practice it cleansing impurities from their bodies and souls in baths called mikvahs secret societies like the Knights Templar and the Freemasons would use ritual bathing as part of spiritual ceremonies and that means they could have a connection to this chamber you mentioned that you also took some video were you able to get some yes [Music] all right so this is the entrance here yes this is the hallway that heads back to the main chamber part it's a good probably 20 24 feet back in there before you hit the actual face of the Basin and that's the Basin represents the beginning of the chamber it's big it's not small no there's plenty of room to be comfortable in there I mean those stones are huge well I tell you what I the stonework here is absolutely beautiful I mean whoever did this was very skilled that's why we wanted you to see this and get your opinion on because it's just we've never seen anything like that in construction does anybody have any idea what this could be are there any local Legends or anything like that we've heard everything from it could have been tied into the Underground Railroad to Bootleggers could have used it and we have no idea okay we also thought it might be a root seller but with the water coming in it doesn't seem to make any sense you know there are over 800 Stone sites in the Northeast part of North America these sites stretch from Maine to Virginia and people have reported finding them since colonial times that suggests at least some of them were here even before Christopher Columbus and Native Americans weren't known to build structures like this I've never seen anything that looks like this I mean the stonework is such a high level it's very meticulous the workmanship is really excellent and whoever did this had a purpose and they spent a lot of time and well Scott how would you carve something I think forever wouldn't it well actually it depends on the rock type now this looks like sandstone and the Chamber is is relatively nearby right it is if you guys are interested I did bring my tools along I could show you how they do this absolutely lead the way guys well we're looking for sandstone well that rock is is good this one here is excellent you know those lentil stones on the entrance these slabs here would be perfect for that I'm gonna see if I can split off a piece of The Rock and what I'm going to do is follow the natural fracturing or parting planes in the rock and this would have been basically the same tool kit that was used back a thousand years ago [Music] [Music] 's pretty tough isn't it all right guys there you go work the edges you know you got a nice clean Edge this piece here could have been used right in that wall [Music] you can see that there's a lot of work that goes into this whoever made this chamber put a lot of time this wasn't days this was weeks or months probably at least two or three stone masons working on this and I tell you what I uh I'm dying to take a look at it so what do you say we head out we'd love to be able to take you up there but uh we've been informed the landowner does not want you on their property me specifically yes really what the hell is that they allow public hunting but they didn't want to give permission to you you know this kind of happened to me before and the fact that they won't let me on means either they're hiding something or they're afraid to know what the truth is and you know it's really disappointing um you know places like this they need to be studied not hidden away and I'll tell you what if I can't do it would you mind going back in there and doing some work no I'll tell you exactly what I need to know so that I can get to the bottom of this thing so I can tell you who built it when they built it and why [Music] there are 800 mysterious Stone sites throughout the Northeast but the one I'm investigating in Pennsylvania is one of the most meticulously crafted ones I've ever seen the masonry suggests it was built by expert stone masons and the ritual bath Basin tells me this chamber had a mystical spiritual purpose I have a hunch there's something unique that connects all the chambers in the Northeast one way or another I'm going to get what I need to figure out if I'm right we'd love to take you there but there's a problem with the landowner over there they allow public hunting but they didn't want to give permission to you me specifically yes really well this is more you know I've been through this crap before and you go in and once I get that information I'll tell you who built this thing when they built it and why thank you all right ready to roll huh yes sir well this might not be the type of hunting that you expected but this is really going to be important stuff you're going to do here I need for you to go in and get some really precise Dimensions okay this is really important this is a Brunton Compass it's a very special kind of compass used by geologists the most critical measurement right now for me is going to be the orientation in other words the long axis of the entrance see that little bubble right there okay you want to get that in the middle okay write down that number okay okay so that's the number I need that's your orientation number that's a very important number the other thing I need is I want the angle of the hill where the chamber is if my hunch is right and the measurements that Chad is getting line up I'll be able to see if this water basin feature was used for some sort of ritual on a specific day of the year and if this site is connected to hundreds of other Stone sites in the U.S and even around the world I know my thinking is here this could potentially be a really important pre-columbian site that ritual bathing aspect of that Basin really intrigues me the other possibility to be quite honest with you is it may be modern but the only people that could possibly be associated with something like that in my opinion and that's some sect of Freemasons probably in the late 1700s Freemasonry is a fraternal invite-only society that many people believe evolved from the Knights Templar after the church abolished the order the two groups share the same symbols like the cross of Lorraine and the hook decks they also share ideologies like dualism a belief that unions like male and female in Heaven and Earth have spiritual importance it's up to you next pal all right and here's your brunt don't lose this run Compass check it doesn't look cheap all right tape measure tape measure check good luck Chad thanks [Music] [Music] Scott I sure wish you could you know see this thing it's really disappointing I've had things like this happen before and you know we had a situation down in Georgia where I wanted to go visit this site that was on Federal Land and they wouldn't let me in but you know what Ryan we actually used a plane and we're able to use lidar technology to get the information we needed this is just another way to get the information that we have to have to figure out what's going on here I just don't understand why people don't want to know the truth of well there's a lot of a lot of reasons why people feel that way some people just want to maintain the status quo some people are protecting things the key thing that really intrigues me about this chamber is this spacing why would they want to build up this water this spring water coming out of Mother Earth and what were they doing with it to me the only thing I can think of is some type of ritual bathing and if that's going on that absolutely points to specific groups throughout history [Music] hey Chad hey guys all right how are you how'd it go it went great so do you have the uh I got your measurements for you bud all right there you go this is the magic number right here 300 degrees actually 100 degrees that's perfect that's absolutely perfect you know why have you guys ever heard of arcoastronomy no okay well archeostronomy is something that ancient cultures have been doing for thousands of years basically what they would do is align the structures that they built to align in various ways to capture either the light of the Sun the moon or the planet Venus it was very sacred to these ancient cultures and this use of archaeoastronomy has gone all the way through time into modern Freemasonry I didn't want to say it before because I did I was I wanted to wait and see the numbers but this 300 degrees is going to be about 30 degrees north of West when the sun sets on the summer solstice and if I'm right that long entrance into the chamber will allow the Setting Sun on the solstice the summer solstice to come all the way through into that chamber we have to find out if that light does come through that chamber because it's critical so what we need to do is I have to replicate and and have somebody build a chamber using your dimensions and these numbers look really good I think you got everything didn't you I got everything you asked we are in great shape I wish I could have done it myself but I wish you could have too more than one way to skin a cat and we're gonna skin it [Music] there's a mysterious Stone chamber built into the side of a hill in Western Pennsylvania there's one feature that strikes me a basin that could be used for some sort of bathing ritual but the owners refuse to let me see it I believe it could be part of a network of 800 Stone sites across the U.S some off limits to the public I sent someone else in to get measurements to test the theory I have I think the chamber might light up on the summer solstice evidence of some groups Advance understanding of archaeoastronomy and the movement of the sun across the sky if I'm right the secret chamber could connect us to other early civilizations and I've got a plan to test my theory hey Carrie this is Scott Walter I just found out about a mysterious underground Stone chamber in Pennsylvania and I'm wondering if you could help me out by building a model I wasn't able to go in there and look at it myself but I do have pictures I've got some video and I have Dimensions that were sketched out I also think that there might be a solar illumination going on inside there and that's why your model will really come in handy if we can prove that we've really got something so um you up to the task yeah definitely thank you while Carrie gets to work on the model of the Pennsylvania Chamber I'm going to check out one of the other 800 mysterious Stone sites in the Northeast looking for connections unlike the stone chamber in Pennsylvania the owner of this site isn't denying me access [Music] hey Scott how you doing good Steve so I'm really excited to take a look at this site today well there's about 800 different mysterious sites in New England this is one of the finest examples with stone walls and standing stones and megalithic Chambers I was here a couple years ago unfortunately it was pouring and we got chased out by the weather and so I was really anxious to come back okay great let's get started okay [Music] thank you gungy WAP is a site with 21 stone structures some dating back to 2000 BC long before the first colonists were here some of the structures align with the sun on important days of the year but no one knows who built them but who do you think was here very possibly early Irish Sailors later Irish Vikings they all knew about the area okay so you're saying that this secret Land was known within certain groups and over time different groups came over here just one after the other exactly within a larger group there's always a certain amount of people that were the initiate and these are the people that kind of passed the knowledge from one group to another the calendar chamber is just ahead Dungey WAP is well known for its calendar chamber it's a working calendar like similar structures found all over the world whether they're temples standing stones or Chambers these calendars were used by ancient people to track important astronomical days of the year [Music] this is it this is the calendar chamber they call it that because twice a year it measures the Equinox once in the spring and once in the fall you can see way in the back there there's a hole admitting light and this light Box reflects onto a wall down here so the light would come in here on the Equinox on the fall in the spring which would be an important time to document planting in the spring harvest in the fall so certainly that would be important if not sacred how big is this thing chamber is about 18 feet long about five and a half feet high once you crawl through there you can actually sit up okay let's take a look [Music] [Music] probably comes in and hits this wall right here so there's something going on in here it does that's a big Stone there and that's probably about three and a half four feet you could easily sit in there have you ever seen this alignment here I haven't seen the alignment you have to be here for the Equinox to see that I tell you what do you think we could recreate it all we need is a flashlight I think we could do it what I think might happen in the chamber is the Sun's light will shine through the opening directly into the niche ancient alignments were about marking things like the planting season but were also spiritual in nature maybe the collection of the Sun in this Niche is symbolic of fertilization meant to usher in a prosperous growing season so we need to set up an East-West line for our Equinox line boy that's east west right on I think this is a good line right here but I think you're going to have to hold it up and angle it down there I mean just if you stay lined up with those lines and keep it low I think you should be good right about there give you the okay in just a sec okay if the beam of light at a precise angle hits some sort of stone chamber marker then we know it was probably built with some calendar purpose all right Steve go ahead turn it on here it goes oh holy sh look at that it works cut it works we definitely have the East-West Equinox alignment no question about it we know it's certainly a calendar chamber my number one suspect is that the Irish built it the Irish have been building monuments from 3500 BC the greatest one is still in Ireland Newgrange Newgrange features one of the greatest solar illuminations and examples of archu astronomy in the world the white quartz structure has a light box over a strategically placed doorway when the sun shines through the light box on December 21st the winter solstice it casts a beam of light 90 feet into the structure Illuminating the chamber so you think those people may have come over here and built this I definitely do I definitely think there's an unbroken stream of knowledge that was passed down from 3500 BC all the way to say the Irish monks that came over around 500 600 700 A.D I've heard of The Legend of the famous Irish monk Saint Brendan the Navigator The Story Goes that he sailed to the island of the Blessed what some people think is America in the 6th century well I tell you what if there is a an Irish connection that dates back that far here this is huge I'm not convinced the Pennsylvania and the gunjiwam chambers were built by the same people I need to do more research since the early Irish are candidates for construction I need to learn more about two things Saint Brendan and Newgrange learning more about both will help me determine whether America's mysterious Stone sites in the Northeast are connected to each other to the Irish or to someone else I also need to see the Pennsylvania Chamber model my friend Carrie is making what matters about this model isn't the size it's what the angles reveal and thanks to Chad I have those exact measurements it will help me figure out if the secret room does indeed have a summer solstice illumination and a connection to archaeoastronomy like some of these other chamber sites my theory is coming together I think these sites are connected I think I know who might have built them and even how they did it I still can't explain the ritual Basin in the Pennsylvania Chamber but I know where I might find the answers I need Ireland I'm trying to figure out who built what looks like a ritual bath chamber in the middle of the Pennsylvania woods this site is actually just one of about 800 mysterious Stone sites hidden throughout the Northeast I think there's a solar alignment incorporated into the Pennsylvania Chamber on the summer solstice and I'm having a model built to prove it the use of arcue astronomy would be similar to what I saw in a chamber in Groton Connecticut which people like Steve Sora connect to the Irish [Music] [Music] the ancient Irish were masters of solar alignments but they weren't the only ones if the Irish did come to the new world and help build a network of stone calendar Chambers there's one man who can tell me how the hell they may have gotten there Tim [Music] Scott Walter Tim Severn is an adventure and expert on Ancient nautical voyages I thought why not recreate the sortabouts at the time using the right materials and just see if it could be done because we were trying to test where the Irish monks had actually been able to get to North America we have hundreds of stone sites in the Northeast part of North America that many people believe were built by the Irish could this Saint Brendan and the legend of him be somehow connected to those chambers there was this notion grew up that sent Brendan and his monks had visited the Blessed land in the west I thought let's put this to a practical test and see if the voyage could have been made build a boat to the specifications set out more than three decades ago Tim Severn sailed from Ireland to the new world the way people would have done it in the 6th Century said Brendan's story got written down in a Latin text called the navigation The Voyage of Saint Brendan it really talks about a voyage or voyages taking part in the 500s he's the hero figure and the patron saint of Navigators you know Tim in my research into these mysterious artifacts and sites one of the things I hear all the time from the Skeptics is well they couldn't have got here there's a stepping stone route start from the west coast of Ireland islands of Scotland pharaohs Iceland Greenland and Newland in Newfoundland these people they weren't stupid they were as clever and as Innovative as yourself or myself the boats can make it they don't fall apart that is what we conclusively showed I thought you might like to to see what the conditions were like this gives you some idea how unstable the boat was it's just rocking yeah back and forth I mean all the water that's flying in the whole time these ropes what are the ropes doing they are acting as brakes because when you're in very bad weather you have to just run down wind and if you at the same speed as a wave it would pitchfolio it'll make a somersault so at the end of the day you made it we did okay and what this tells me is that the early Irish could also have made it absolutely no doubt that they had the technical ability to get there they had the C skills and they had the technical skills in that they built boats fully capable of that Journey Tim severn's leather boat isn't proof Saint Brendan and his crew made it to America but it's evidence that they could have and if they made it the Irish could be responsible for the Stone Chambers I'm investigating I'm hoping there are more clues at the ancient stone site called Newgrange Newgrange is a lot bigger than the single Stone chamber in Pennsylvania or the structures at ganjiwan but one thing all three places have in common unique construction to Showcase important days of the year I'm meeting up with Alan Butler an old friend and colleague of mine well stranger how are you doing Mike good to see Alan trying to get to the bottom of who built these 800 mysterious Stone sites in the Northeast part of North America and I think there's a possibility that Irish could be involved so that's why I'm here at Newgrange this place dates back to 3200 BC really which is nearly a thousand years before the pyramids what do you think was its purpose why did they build Newgrange well it's actually called a passage grave or a Passage Tomb by archaeologists but I don't really think to call it a tomb of any kind does it justice I think it would be more likely termed a temple [Music] so Alan who built Newgrange oh it's quite naturally accepted that this place was built by ordinary Irish Farmers very clever ones but that's what they were back in the late Stone Age so is there anybody who thinks that this could be connected to the legend of Saint Brendan the Navigator well there's a big gap in time between the 6th Century 80 and 3200 BC so um at the first sight no but yet there is a connection because Brendan is famous for his Oceanic and see navigation the people who built this place back in the new stone age were great Sailors as well all the Rocks we see around here the bigger some of them are were brought here by water look at those spirals I've seen those before both in Arizona and Georgia I saw spirals exactly like that carved on rock and one of them was in fact a mound that was shaped like a spiral and we know that they they did it at those sites um incorporating archaeostronomy there's got to be a connection here as well who haven't made them had a really good understanding of geometry most experts are pretty sure that spirals have something to do with their comprehension of the passage of time we know now that they measured it by the the moving planets and stars so it amounts to the same thing the passage of time mathematics and all of this is all tied together the early Irish people's understanding of the universe as demonstrated by these spirals is important it's what could connect this sacred place to ganjiwamp to the Pennsylvania Chamber and to other forbidden Stone sites in the United States and the illumination that takes place here on an important day of the year the winter solstice fascinates not just me but tens of thousands of people it's of such massive interest that at least 35 000 people each year would like to view it so they have a lottery and the 100 winning people get to see it so only a hundred out of 35 000 I'm afraid so after walking through the site with Alan I learned that on the winter solstice the Rising Sun enters a light box over a doorway at Newgrange its beam of light runs down a passage and eventually illuminates the floor of the chamber this Solstice event is incredibly precise today the light enters at four minutes after Sunrise five thousand years ago the light would have entered exactly at sunrise it's the same kind of arcue astronomy I think might be in play in Pennsylvania I didn't see it myself but there's a chamber in Pennsylvania that some friends of mine have documented all the dimensions all the parameters of it in detail and I'm going to recreate that chamber the way it's oriented it looks like to me we may have a similar event that happens there on the summer solstice as the sun sets in the west wondering if there could be a connection between this tradition of building these Chambers these ancient sacred sites with the people that built this mysterious chamber in Pennsylvania I came to Ireland to find out if Irish monks could have built some of the 800 mysterious Stone sites in the northeastern corner of the United States after seeing Tim severn's boat and learning about the illumination at Newgrange I have no doubt the early Irish could have made it to America and brought their knowledge of archuastronomy with them and perhaps could be responsible for the chamber I'm investigating in Pennsylvania or some of the other mysterious Stone sites dotting the Northeast Kerry's done with the Pennsylvania Chamber model I think it's going to get me one step closer to figuring out who built that site in the woods and if one or more than one ancient culture with an advanced understanding of the sun and stars are responsible for America's network of mysterious Stone chamber sites what do you think based on the pictures that I've seen and the dimensions everything looks great this is amazing [Music] thank you foreign just got back from Newgrange in Ireland and it was fantastic this illumination events on the solstice and of course that makes me frustrated all over again that I wasn't allowed to go on the property to see the underground chamber in Pennsylvania but since hunting is allowed our friend Chad who told us about the underground chamber he went back got the dimensions and all the data for us how'd that work out for you yeah it worked great this gives you a good idea of a cross section of the hill and what that looks like yes it's beautiful look at that and then I also built this piece so it comes off so you can get a little bit more of like the upper structure took your photos and the specs you gave me and kind of pieced it all together based on the pictures that I've seen and the dimensions everything looks great how long does this take you it probably took like a week it looks beautiful there's over 800 mysterious Stone sites in the Northeast part of the country many people believe that these things might be connected and I'm investigating whether they could be connected who built them and of course why and a lot of people are thinking that the Irish could be involved in these and the Irish do make sense in places like gunjiwa this doesn't seem to be Irish to me because of the involvement of the water I think maybe the Knights Templar would build something like this they were into ritual bathing or it could be somebody more modern somebody like a secret society maybe a Freemason group that was into this ritual bathing type of thing you know the water's the wild card with a chamber like this well speaking of the water check this out look at that the water's coming down and it's flowing into the Basin that's going to fill up and it's going to overflow Chad said it just flows into the ground and then comes out in a ravine farther down the hill I tell you what I'm impressed Well Carrie this looks great but there's one more piece we need to see if the light comes through into the chamber and goes back there because I think it just might what we are going to do is position the light so it exactly matches where the sun would be in the sky outside the chamber on the summer solstice then we're going to move the light to replicate the sun's movement across the sky to see if it illuminates the spring the sun's position is well documented thanks to Chad's precise measurements I Know It lines up with the chamber all right it comes so yeah there okay stop right there there's a beam of light right here so keep going keep going and set it into place so it's moving along the back wall here based on Chad's measurements like the 300 degree orientation he found it's exactly what I expected it goes all the way to the back and it goes back that's where the water comes out of the crack in the ground the spring the light goes all the way back there that's incredible to me what's going on in the chamber is a clear example of dualism and that's the biggest clue to who may have built this particular chamber it's a concept embraced by both the Knights Templar and the Freemasons to represent the spiritual and physical importance of the Union of opposites male female good evil Heaven and Earth in this case we have the Sunbeam an ancient allegorical symbol of the fertilization by the male it pierces Mother Earth the crevice in the Earth where the spring flows from together this Union of the Sun and Earth produces something beautiful and sacred to the ancient architects of this chamber knowing the type of masonry used to build it and figuring in the ritual bathing components I have to think the Freemasons were involved in this chamber which probably dates back to Colonial times even though we weren't inside the Pennsylvania Chamber on the summer solstice it doesn't matter with your model here in this demonstration we've proven what happens on that day I told Chad and Ryan that I believe the model worked and I told them to go back to the chamber on the summer solstice and to document what they saw just like our model the Sun's light goes deep into the chamber Illuminating the exact spot where the water enters there are 800 mysterious Stone sites in the Northeast early Irish may have built some of them and we know they could have made it here long before Columbus as for the secret site hidden in the Pennsylvania Hillside I believe Freemasons deserve credit for that because of the style of masonry and incorporation of dualism into its design [Music] archaeoastronomy ties many cultures together throughout history people like the Mayans the Celts the Irish the Templars and the Freemasons all have mysteries of their own which I'm just now starting to unravel on this special episode of America Unearthed we investigate a controversial theory about the alleged murder of an American icon some images may be disturbing viewer discretion is advised [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign the history that we were all taught growing up is wrong is wrong my name is Scott Walter 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 going to investigate these artifacts and sites and we're going to get to the truth sometimes history isn't what we've been told [Music] he's one of America's most legendary explorers Meriwether Lewis hand-picked by President Thomas Jefferson in 1803 to team up with William Clark to map out the land acquired in the Louisiana Purchase the area was enormous reaching from Louisiana up to what is now Montana Jefferson hoped they'd find a direct water route to the Pacific create a map of the area and catalog new species of plants and animals in the region but there has always been some who believe there was more to their expedition I got a call from a journalist friend who said he had something interesting to show me [Music] we got something I want to show you here take a look at this and I borrowed these books and I want to show them to you what what is this what you're holding there is the first edition of the core of Discovery by Lewis and Clark really yeah wow this is amazing does this Chronicle everything that they saw well see that's the point it may not Chronicle everything what do you mean by that well it means that there are missing pages in Meriwether Lewis's journals do we have any idea what is in those missing pages we don't have any idea of what's in it but he could have known something he could have found something that would be so frightening to that day and age that somebody might want to kill him for it okay I know that he died in 1809 and this would have been about three years after he they came back from the Expedition but I thought it was suicide that's that's what I've always heard the prevailing Theory and that's where the evidence seems to point we do know that Thomas Jefferson tasked the core of Discovery in Lewis and Clark with uh finding out about tribes and the Flora and the fauna in the west but he also tasked them with something very unusual he said I want you to look for any possibility of Welsh settlement in the west pre-columbian Welsh pre-columbian Welsh let's say they found that well if they had that information if Merryweather Lewis possessed that in his journals and it didn't appear it was part of the missing then would take the whole idea of American Colonial history our very Foundation and toss it out the window wow that kind of a discovery could have gotten Lewis killed you know what we call that motive it's a shocking Theory did Thomas Jefferson send Lewis and Clark on a secret mission did the president want them to find out whether the Welsh were here before the original colonists and could whatever Lewis found have led to his murder well this is really a fascinating stuff but I'm a geologist I was looking for a geologist because I think one of the answers rests in a stone and if it's authentic may suggest some evidence of pre-columbian Welsh settlement in the United States it's called the Brandenburg Stone and I'd like you to take a look at that where is the stone in Kentucky [Music] [Music] after talking to Don it seems like there's a lot we actually don't know about America's most well-known Explorer like whether Meriwether Lewis ended his own life or whether someone ended it for him if he found evidence the Welsh were in America in pre-columbian times it could mean they State the prior claim to the land Jefferson just spent 15 million dollars on in a move that would double the size of the United States the missing journal pages could be a clue and so could this Brandenburg Stone a stone inscribed with what could be a land claim and possibly written in Welsh [Music] [Music] [Music] Terry what's been the reaction to the stone some people believe the stone is ancient Welsh some people dismiss it I think it's entirely possible that it's an ancient inscription this is an amazing Stone and this inscription here especially is really amazing you know a couple things just right off the bat this is the first time I've ever looked at this Stone first of all these are limestones probably ulitic limestones and if you look very closely you'll see what looks like little sand grains but they're actually sand of limestone and they're called oolites when I look down into the grooves I can see some of those uids so that's an indication of weathering based on everything I've seen we're not looking at a hoax here does anybody know what this inscription says it's been translated as a property boundary a land claim Stone and if that's the case then certainly this would indicate a possible ancient or prior claim if Lewis found something like this indicating that other people came to North America prior to Columbus prior to this land acquisition if they knew something about what was in Lewis's diary that could have gotten him killed quite possibly where this whole thing started for me a good friend of mine suggested I come and look at the stone after we looked at Meriweather Lewis's Journal oh yeah some of the pages in that journal have gone missing and maybe the reason is because during the Expedition he found something that indicated pre-columbian contact this could actually call into question the whole legitimacy of the United States [Music] I'm investigating whether famed Explorer Meriwether Lewis was murdered one theory is that his killing was motivated by evidence he may have discovered on his expedition evidence about voyages to America by the ancient Welsh it may seem far-fetched but for hundreds of years there have been Legends of Welsh explorers coming to the New World prior to Columbus even intermingling with native tribes some say the Welsh left a land claim behind in the form of an artifact called the Brandenburg Stone I examined this clue and saw evidence of weathering that takes a long time but now I need to see where it came from A Place Called Paradise bottom today Paradise bottom is a quarry the Brandenburg stone is ulitic limestone and that's what I'm looking for here if the stone is really a Welsh land claim whoever carved it would have used local rock I'm meeting with Lee Pennington who knows exactly where the Brandenburg Stone was found and maybe a little something about how it figures into the mystery of Meriwether Lewis's death Stone researching it over the past 20 years so I do know a little bit about it okay I'm also investigating it and it's possible tied to the death of Meriwether Lewis well certainly could have a connection okay my understanding is that the Brandenburg Stone was found somewhere near here where this Quarry is now the Brandenburg Stone evidently rolled down from the top of this Bluff to the edge of the road there I want to see if the stone that I've looked at matches the Rock that's here thank you well you know Lee I wanted to ask you what your thoughts were about pre-columbian Welsh that came to America I think that's the very group that carved the Brandenburg Stone information that I discovered in Wales indicates that in the 6th Century the fleet of 700 ships came to this continent and I think that group of people intermingled with the mandans the Mandan were a Native American tribe who lived along the Missouri River and eventually settled in The Dakotas for hundreds of years some people have remarked that they have European features and that they spoke Welsh what about some hard physical tangible evidence well we got one thing in particular with the man dance where those boats that they had the bull boats are identical with the coracles in Wales both were made with animal hides stretched over wooden frames well that's interestingly maybe all of that stuff proves that there was an early Welsh Vision that came to North America hundreds of years before Columbus well certainly one piece of the puzzle this is what we're looking for it's a very specific Unique Kind of limestone it's an oolitic Limestone and when you look closely on a broken surface you will see little rounded grain all right Lee let's find a match [Music] [Music] I think we got it I can say with reasonable certainty that whoever carved the Brandenburg Stone found a rock in this vicinity and carved it but I tell you what now has suddenly become very important is we really need to understand what that inscription says if everything that you know we've talked about the rock is here the Brandenburg Stone the Welsh if that's all connecting here it's possible that Meriwether Lewis found some of that evidence and if he did could that be a reason why some people perhaps factions within our government would want him murdered well I certainly think it was murder the circumstances surrounding his death is just the farthest thing from suicide from my perspective he was shot twice it's it's difficult for a person committing suicide to shoot himself once and then turn around and shoot himself again with his old guns especially and and there's this business of the missing pages of the Diary if there was something there that he found on that expedition perhaps evidence of the wells wouldn't be a shock to me at all that there were people at the highest levels of our government that could have been behind the murder of one of America's greatest and most beloved Heroes foreign well I tell you what everything's going great here I had a chance to look at the Brandenburg Stone and it's very interesting it does show some evidence of weathering well I tell you what there is um I'm wondering if you can help me figure out what the inscription says I did take some photos and I will send them to you and if you can help me out that'd be great enable you if there's any connection between Meriwether Lewis's death and possible pre-columbian Welsh coming here I'm going to get to the bottom of it I'm investigating the death of famous explorer Meriwether Lewis I've learned that Thomas Jefferson asked Lewis to look for evidence the Welsh made it to America before Columbus I think there's reason to believe Lewis might have found that evidence and wrote about it in his journal pages of which mysteriously disappeared if Lewis did find evidence the Welsh were here it might be motive for his murder because it would call into question the ownership of the early American colonies and the land Jefferson bought in the Louisiana Purchase land that Lewis set out to explore right from this very spot I'm looking into the death of Meriwether Lewis and some people believe that he was murdered others think that he took his own life well you've certainly come to the right place because it was here at the Falls of the Ohio in October of 1803 that Lewis and Clark met to form one of the most famous Partnerships in American history why don't we go on down towards the Falls which sounds good they set off down the Ohio and up to Mississippi eventually in 1804 they went up the Missouri River they wintered with a Mandan Indian and then the next year 1805 they'd go all the way to the Pacific Ocean can you imagine back then what was going through the minds of these guys before they took off I mean for all they knew there was a good chance they were never coming back well they didn't know that they may never come back they were going into the unknown the Wilderness they didn't know what would be around the next Bend of the river over the next mountain and to think that they did come back all except one man and he died of natural causes yeah it's incredible how successful it really was yeah what were some of the motivations in Thomas Jefferson's mind behind the Lewis and Clark expedition well he he very quietly had twenty five hundred dollars appropriated for the Expedition and this was actually before the Louisiana Purchase was made ever since Jefferson was a young man he wanted to know what was out west well it was to that unknown beyond the Mississippi River what were the native peoples like did the native peoples have agriculture better plants that would actually help the American farmers the geography the geology even thoughts of mastodons you know where mastodons extinct and then it actually became National Security and Jefferson had a fear of the British and coming out of Canada and what they might want to do would they hem in this young American Republic and keep them from growing and going all the way to the Pacific Ocean so Jim another thing many people believe that Jefferson told Lewis and Clark to go looking for evidence of Welsh contact amongst the natives did they ever find anything well the legend of the Welsh Indians the Mandan Indians and Lewis and Clark never specifically said that they did find that now when they got further west in the Rocky Mountains among the Flathead Indians some of the men commented that their dialect sounded a lot like the Welsh if Lewis and Clark had found evidence of pre-columbian Welsh contact and we're on the way to bringing that back couldn't that have strengthened the British claim to the western territories and could that also have made Lewis possibly a Target because he had this information in his journal maybe there were people within the uh the U.S government that wouldn't want that to come out what do you think of that it's a conspiracy maybe and that's a theory you know and it should it could or should be investigated I think perhaps there are missing parts of his journal some things that we know he should have been writing about aren't there there's some gaps that just don't seem to hang together that brings another question when I think about his death you know was it murder was it suicide and could what was in those papers have led to his death my own personal opinion is that he had a breakdown and decided to end his own life when he comes back from the Expedition things just don't seem to connect for him he has just kind of a whole cascading number of problems he was drinking too much he was self-medicating with opiates at grinder stand along the Natchez Trace in Tennessee about 70 miles Southwest of Nashville he has his final breakdown [Music] Lewis was shot twice once in the head and once in the body and I've read where part of his skull actually was blown off and if he was shot first in the head I have an awful hard time believing somebody's going to keep going and shoot themselves in the body if their brain's exposed but there are people out there who believe he was murdered who was that the Lewis family [Music] was Meriwether Lewis murdered at an inn on the not just Trace he died in the fall of 1809 just three years after returning from his exploration of the West if he was killed could the motive have been something controversial he found during his expedition I've met people who believed that Lewis did find evidence of pre-columbian Welsh in America and that he wrote about it in his journal pages of which are now missing if he did find evidence like the Brandenburg Stone which some believe is a Welsh land claim it would call into question the ownership of the land the United States was founded on and could provide a motive for murder I've heard that Lewis's own family members insist their famous relative didn't commit suicide but was shot dead by someone else can you tell me how you related to Meriwether Lewis well his sister Jane Lewis was my great great great grandmother so he was my great great great great uncle hope okay I'll keep up with the great something I think I got that though family think about his death pretty much the family thinks that he would have been murdered you don't think he committed suicide no we don't foreign what do you know about some of the circumstances that led up to his death well after he came back from the expedition in 1806 he did get started on trying to publish the journals into a book but he really didn't get that far along with it sure he was carrying his journals and going to Washington which put him on the Natchez Trace he stopped at a place called the grinder stand which was run by the Grinders Mrs grinder gave him a place to stay for the night in the middle of the ninth The Innkeeper heard several shots and found him the next morning dead there were no first-hand witnesses that actually saw the his death or the the shots ring out no she heard his the shots but she did not see them actually occur and so she did not know who actually pulled the trigger so what are the things make you think it wasn't a suicide well one thing there were two shots or or maybe three one was to the head which uh by some accounts partially took his brain off and an abdomen wound which is kind of strange for someone committing suicide he was overheard talking I may have been talking to someone else or maybe he was just practicing what he was going to say when he got to Washington or you know we really don't know exactly what he was saying many people believe that elements at high levels in our government possibly even as high as President Jefferson may have been involved in conspiracy to kill Lewis well it's possible there was political Intrigue some people suggested he found evidence that the Welsh came to America prior to Columbus and placed a land claim that might have been a reason for people to want to silence him if that were the case I could see where that would be a problem for for some people a possible motive has your family done anything to try to get to the bottom of this maybe an autopsy or exhuming his body the family has tried to have the body exhumed the National Park Service is in charge of the land here but to this point they have refused to allow us to exhume the body look at this I see that pillar it's a broken pillar and I'm sure that means something to you well the broken pillar is to represent the life cut short because Lewis's life was definitely cut short was he not also a Freemason yes he was he had joined I think 1796. in fact when he went to St Louis he founded a Mason's Lodge in St Louis the first Lodge in St Louis yes I don't really know that much about the Masonic practices but I understand that his apron is in Helena Montana at the lodge there it's reported that he had it with him at the time of his death and there appear to be blood stains on it that's that's really important because maybe if this thing was tested we might be able to find something out for example if there was a struggle if we could get access to it and test it we could do DNA on it and if we found evidence of another person other than his blood we might be able to get to the bottom of this mystery once and for all foreign [Music] [Music] Gardener hi Reed Grant secretary in the curator of the museum nice to meet you it's got Tom Chisholm Grand Master of masons in Montana so my understanding is Meriweather Lewis was a Mason at the time of the Expedition so would that make him the first Freemason into what is now Montana yes I think that's true they've been recorded that he was initiated in 1796 with his first degree what is the mission of Freemasons in a general sense it's a fraternal organization that first organized modern versions of Freemasonry developed in the late 1700s in England and traveled with the colonial concept and it really took off in the Americas because it fit the designs of the early nation and even the colonies at that time I'm here investigating the death of Meriwether Lewis and I see the painting on the wall there and I understand that his Masonic apron is here yes that's correct why is that significant to a Freemason well the apron is the badge of a Freemason every Mason once he becomes a Master Mason receives a neighbor and much later they may acquire through some means a more decorative apron the one that you're inquiring about that belong Mary Lewis was reportedly folded in in a pocket of Meriweather Lewis when he met his demise and is it true that there's blood stains on it there are amazing isn't it isn't it yeah I mean it's it's really something I've heard so much about it and to see it for the first time it's it's really amazing back in the 70s we did have it tested and at that time they were only able to determine there was human blood and deer blood on it wow this apron represents one of America's greatest Murder Mysteries and what I would really like to be able to do with your permission is to take a sample of this Blood I think we can answer this question about how did this man die uh I'm not I'm not certain that that's a good yeah we are uncomfortable with that you know you can see on the on the left side there when they when they did the testing in the 70s they literally picked up the apron held it over a beaker and poured water through the blood to to collect the sample and you can see that there's the the stain on the side well that was back in the 70s all we need to do is take a very fine swab and barely touch the surface and collect some of the blood yeah but his Grand Master of Mason's in Montana I'm responsible for all of these artifacts in this Museum this is quite an undertaking you're asking of us here yeah we we certainly wouldn't want to send it out either because I mean this is over 200 years old it is extremely fragile and delicate oh I can appreciate that and and believe me I I understand and I respect your concerns this is a critical piece of American History right here if you're willing to grant me permission to test the blood on this apron we finally have a chance to get the history straight about whether or not Meriwether Lewis was murdered foreign that believe that Meriwether Lewis took his own life but there's a lot of evidence that I've seen and people that believe that he may have been murdered and that's the question we're trying to answer here and really the key I think is in the blood this testing I'm talking about is non-invasive all we would do is take a swab and just get a small sample it could get us the answer that we're looking for we're referring to an artifact that is not only Family Heritage a Montana artifact this this is something that belongs to the nation this is a national artifact that you're talking about and I appreciate your point that this is this is an American treasure but I also think it's important for Americans in the world to know what happened to this man and if it was murder why was he murdered and this is a critical test that that we can perform that might be able to help us answer this question testing can be done on site we can do it right here yeah well I think as Grand Master in speaking for everybody in Montana masonry out of the respect it's due to the history of the artifact and more importantly the honor that's due to Meriwether Lewis is a Freemason I'll Grant you permission to take your samples thank you thank you so much this is great with the blood sample from the apron sent off to the lab we finally have a chance to shed more light on Lewis's death if he shot himself it stands to reason only his blood would be on the apron but if he was shot during a struggle someone else's blood might be on there too either way it's a clue to the Mysteries surrounding his death another clue may be the Brandenburg Stone an artifact thought to prove that the ancient Welsh claimed the new world long before Columbus my analysis of the Stone's weathering suggests it could have been carved before 1492 but there's no way to get a more precise date because it was taken out of its original environment and its provenance isn't clear but understanding what the stone says and the language It Was Written in could help me prove whether this was the kind of evidence Jefferson tasked Lewis to discover I've got a lot to tell you I've got a lot to tell you but I want you to go first okay I just got back from Montana where I was able to obtain a sample of blood from Meriwether Lewis's Masonic Abram wow we sent that sample of blood off to the Lakehead paleo DNA lab in Thunder Bay and we're hoping that when those results come back if there's a second person somebody else's blood that is on that Masonic apron it could indicate that there was somebody else in that room the night he died unbelievable I've got the translation of the Stone it says toward strength of promoting Unity divide the land we are spread over purely between Offspring is wisdom divide the land this sounds to me like a land claim doc foreign here's the problem it's not ancient Welsh it's not no it isn't a language called Coburn and it was invented in the 18th century it was invented by a guy named Edward Williams he was a Welsh poet and he also was and you won't like this one of Wales greatest forgers so this is not ancient Welsh well let me add one more point Edward Williams was also a man given to getting high on laudnam and that is basically liquid heroin really this is a crazy story it looks like we can't use this artifact as part of our evidence of this possible Welsh contact just because this does not appear to be authentic doesn't mean the Welsh weren't here because there is other information eyewitness accounts from explorers that ran into Indian nations that had European features light skin light hair sometimes blue eyes particularly the Mandan Nation but let me ask you about this what do you think about the whole Welsh Theory I've been looking at that for quite some time but there's no real way to know for sure because there is not a lot of evidence that exists to this day have you heard of John D absolutely I've heard of John D his name has come up a number of times in my investigation so I know him very well well John D based on the research that I've done may have been responsible for the claim that the Welsh arrived in the new world prior to Columbus's discovery and his motives were primarily political because being from the British Empire he wanted to be able to establish that there was a British claim in the New World before Spain to hear you talk about that doesn't surprise me at all but what we can be very specific about are these DNA results if we get results back that say that there was somebody else's blood on that Masonic apron that could very well mean that someone else was there when Meriwether Lewis died and maybe that's the person that killed him I've talked to some frenzy Pathologists who say that if the sequence of events was a gunshot to the head and that failing to work losing According to some people a portion of his skull exposing his brain and then shooting himself below the sternum a gut shot in other words that that doesn't seem realistic we're never going to be able to know for sure did he shoot himself in the head the stomach we'll never know which came first so that is why these test results on the blood with the DNA are so important it may be the only piece of physical evidence that we're ever going to have to help us try to figure out what happened in the death of one of America's most important Heroes thank you [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] Scott good to see you good to see you too these test results that we're about to get could open the door to a whole host of questions about what happened the night Meriweather Lewis died you brought your family results right yes I was given a copy of the profile okay with family for comparison purposes you realize if these test results come back indicating that the blood is somebody other than your relative that's a big deal either way I think it might raise more questions than the exhuming of the body might be you know the only course left well Steve you're going to look at these results to compare with what you got so you're going to be able to tell us if there's a match with this family yes what I'm looking for is an exact match of DNA profiles well Keith are you ready I'm ready to find out you've got your family record there great I have my results right here of the apron and I'll make a comparison [Music] thank you [Music] so the faces are not a match what this means that the Lewis family member is not related to the profile that we recovered from the apron wait a minute wait a minute so you're saying this is not Meriwether Lewis's blood yes that's correct well we do have more information we analyzed two swabs and on each swab we got different DNA profiles different human different human the first swab contained one individual but the second swab was a mixture meaning there's more than one individual's DNA present what and none of those two profiles were a match to the Lewis family member Keith I don't know it's incredible you didn't expect that did you not really no wow that's that's a big deal the fact that you've got someone else's blood uh possibly two people at least two at least two that to me really only points to the night that he died that there may have been a struggle didn't Mrs grinder say that she heard what she thought was arguing yes she did okay that there may have been some other people there well not necessarily it could be two different individuals blood it could mean that there was some kind of contamination the blood on the apron and somebody else spitting on it could be from a Handler over time anything is possible but the fact is I mean there was a lot of blood on that apron and I don't know how why would he be carrying around a bloody apron that somebody else's blood is on there's no way a Mason would do that a Mason would keep his Masonic apron pristine it's one of the most important things to them and to have it spattered with somebody else's blood it has to mean it had to have happened that night the accepted story here is that Meriwether Lewis took his own life I didn't believe that before I sure as heck don't believe it now right now I would say it looks like murder to me and if so there has to be a motive and one of the motives to me could possibly be something that Meriwether Lewis and William Clark found during their expedition possibly evidence of pre-columbian contact maybe even evidence of an earlier land claim that would certainly have been a motive for him to be killed the families always thought that it's been murder and this could be a critical or crucial Point everybody thought and accepted that it was suicide no way not in my mind it was murder many people believe that the death of famed Explorer Meriwether Lewis has always been an American murder mystery the circumstances of his death over 200 years ago still lead us to question if he actually committed suicide or was murdered Lewis had a presidential mandate to search the American West for evidence of an ancient Welsh presence prior to Columbus along the way there were reports of natives who spoke Welsh and looked European and missing sections of Lewis's journals tell me there is a possible motive I believe that what Lewis discovered on his expedition could have gotten him killed now testing that I've had carried out on the blood that stained Lewis's apron has proven the presence of more than one DNA profile I think someone else had to be there the night Meriwether Lewis died and to me the only reasonable explanation is that he was killed for what he found out I believe my investigation has blown a hole in the history we've all been told about what happened to one of our nation's most pioneering explorers [Music] [Music] thanks [Music] laughs [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] the history that we were all taught growing up is wrong my name is Scott Walter 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 going to investigate these artifacts and sites and we're going to get to the truth sometimes history isn't what we've been told [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] so what are we going to see we're coming up on the Arizona historical society where they have 32 land artifacts transcribed with Latin they were discovered by a man named Charles manaire in 1924 who was out on a Sunday drive just outside of Tucson and apparently they date back to 800 900 A.D this is really an important potentially important group of artifacts if we're able to generate some real hard evidence that proves these things are real I mean this is a huge deal it's incredible [Music] here's a sword sticking on the ground look at it stuck right there yeah right in the hill see that is so perfect fill in the swords no it's across no that's across I think the one I like if you find pictures of that well I think I had some over here the lab room is that what we're calling it or the pizza paddle whatever you want to call it lab room sounds more official we have uh we got to learn more about these two guys right here well they found about 24 pieces 26 something like that Charles Manera found the initial ones then he partnered with Tom band Tom bent was an attorney but they were World War One buddies so who are we meeting today we're meeting Charles Ben Thomas Ben's grandson their grandson okay Ben how you doing I'm just fine it's nice to meet you I'm glad to be here you're a grandson of one of the original discoverers how does this story unfold for you it was kind of secretive secret yeah as I was growing up because they didn't want us to know that we had our artifacts so you did you grow up with these yes in the house in the house wow but um I've been interested in them and I guess because of my grandfather he just wanted to know what they were and how they got there but it was my grandmother to put the kibosh on it she felt that I want to say a waste of time but I think she thought it was a waste of his time he went through great pains to dig these things out document how they were encased where they were found how deep and some of the people say okay you found these that's good however these were planted and he would say why would somebody plant these things thinking some days these are going to be found boy am I going to pull a big hoax I think he did think that okay these are officials you know I dug them out and I know what I went through to get these he just wanted the truth wouldn't you think that these academics that are studying this history have these incredible artifacts that suddenly are just thrusting in front of them here these are the first and only of their kind wouldn't you think they'd be all over it I would think so I think at times they just don't want to rewrite the history you know but you know this whole thing about rewriting history I've had I've heard many people say that well gee this work he did rewrites history you're going to have to rewrite history well you know what my answer is well then rewrite it my honest opinion is that my grandfather knowing him like I did did not plant these or any of this other stuff I think he truly believed that there's something here there's something here that needs to be discovered or needs to be found out I have an idea that will get us to the truth and prove to Chuck that his grandfather wasn't part of a hoax as a geologist this mystery is right up my alley there's a mysterious rock-like residue on the objects by examining that material and visiting the site where the relics were discovered I might be able to tell how long the artifacts were buried you know where the artifacts were found I think so oh okay once I'm there and I see it then I could probably figure out where the Dig was and this is a spot because right there with that water towers that's the old house that's where my grandparents lived the artifacts site should be just right over this hill it's gonna make you walk through bushes yeah this is it this was part of the dig in this section and some of the artifacts like the first one they found was actually sticking out a little ways and that's how they found him the hard part was just figuring them out of that stuff yeah based on those pictures from your grandfather's report they were literally embedded in this caliche caliche is the key to finding the truth it's a type of sedimentary rock deposit formed through the erosion process caliche is a basically what they call Desert cement that's exactly what this looks like here this caliche is really important because this is a process that takes time the important thing about caliche is it's a type of limestone if the Limestone here matches the deposits on the relics then I don't see how they could have been a modern day hoax but questions remain just how long have they been here and who did they belong to there are some tests we can do to verify how long that process takes if these things are real these are huge I want to know more we we got to get to the bottom of this I'm trying to figure out if 32 lead crosses swords and ritual objects on Earth outside of Tucson in 1924 are part of an untold history here in the southwest or part of a modern hoax the grandson of one of the men who discovered the artifacts wants to know the truth and I have every intention of giving it to him so far the geology at this site has me leaning toward authenticity but before I make any conclusions I need to take some caliche samples and test them I'm just going to chop some of this stuff down so just catch it in the bucket I want the gravel and the rocks and everything in the sand this is all caliche right here that's a big rock well it's just a testament this this naturally happens and it's really strong this caliche is really important because this is a process that takes time I'm hopeful to verify how long that process takes so that's it that's all I want [Music] [Music] [Music] caliche is obviously very important because the artifacts were found encased in the caliche grab my backpack should be a bottle inside in the side pocket there anti-acid tablets yep you know what that's made of caliche essentially yes it's calcium carbonate and when you get an acid buildup in your stomach pop a couple of these and it neutralizes the pH we use it all the time so if I get sick I should go in the desert and eat some dirt basically yes they've been using it for 2 000 years or longer so works just as well now well I'll save me some cash [Music] thank you [Music] quite some time since our series [Music] wow this this is wait we got to put gloves on you go you got them Grant yeah but when was the last time you saw these oh let me see many years ago um I think I was maybe in high school look at this one this is odd what the heck so this is what A.D it's right here A D DCCC so that's 800 yeah A.D are they using a d then I don't know if A.D wasn't in use that would be a critical clue suggesting these items were a hoax we gotta check that out because you know what if we don't check it out and somebody else does and says hey Sherlock's that that's important were they using ad regularly in 800 A.D yeah what would have done that what the heck is that looks like something was stabbed at it thank you oh there's a there's an impact there's an impact right here and that's what broke it yeah look at right here there's a Groove that goes in like this and it shows exactly that's exactly what broke it this thing had to be on a hard surface I mean if somebody was holding that that had to be laying down and something hit it from this angle because you can see the rounded little tip going in here and it's not sharp so there's something weird going on here no it'd be from a fight no it's something was happening to these maybe they were broken in some type of ritual that's the only thing that I can think of Grant didn't you translate this one yeah it's definitely Latin it talks about King theodorus and going across the sea to a new secret Land theodorus was a Roman leader he and his brothers were Warrior princes during the time of Charlemagne some believe he Voyage to America in 775 A.D foreign what's on the back of this one we've got something that looks like a brontosaurus or a dinosaur what is that it has a forked tongue that may tell us something but that's a question that we have to investigate look at the green on there yeah and the blue that's malachite and the blue is Azurite and it's gorgeous and there's calcite here and there's sand grains well this is crystalline if that's crystalline that had to have grown in place this is like fibrous growth it's uh a radiating mineral it kind of radiates with needles this could be one of the smoking guns really important smoking guns just like caliche is a clue to how old these relics are so is what I'm seeing here this is like forensic rust it takes hundreds of years to form and if we can take a closer look we'll know whether it really dates to 800 A.D the date and Scribe on one of the crosses getting these relics under a 3D microscope is critical it's the only technology available that can recreate the exact features of the inscribed symbols lines and carvings it's invaluable in the new science of archaeoportography the use of geology to help solve archaeological Mysteries see here's the edge of the metal right here so this is a little recess here all this area here is a depression and this is the high spots here it seems to me what I suspect is is that that grew on the back at the site where they were found and what makes this so important is that that takes time about how long is that um I would say at least decades and more likely hundreds of years now look at that letter is completely obscured with secondary deposits this letter right here oh if I can move this out of the way this is consistent with lengthy deposition of these deposits this takes time all right well let's flip this over and let's take a look I wonder if the deposits are the same what the hell Grand at that and there's another one right there do you know what that is oh my God I can't believe it [Music] [Music] grams look at that and there's another one right there do you know what that is oh my God I can't believe it it's across the Lorraine it's a double barred cross this is the patron symbol to the knights template the Templars were religious Knights who used the cross of Lorraine throughout the Crusades and perhaps even before the double barred cross also represents the dragonfly which is an important symbol to Native Americans in that way it was a symbol both groups shared all right guys let's summarize what we have they're either real or they're not and are there things on here that tip this into the real or not real category I mean that's that's what we have to do the discovery of the artifacts there were people present there were archaeologists that excavated these things no one questions the veracity of the Dig that's a critical point this A.D thing that's hanging out there we got to figure out whether or not that was in use or not and the other thing is what is the deal with that dinosaur I I don't understand all of a sudden that thing shows up every all the other symbolism looks really good but that thing bothers me so we're gonna have to get to the bottom of that I want the answers of what these things are where they came from if they're planted if they're real I need to know I really want to figure this out and I want to do it for your grandfather and for you to get to the truth we have to verify age the minerals are key first there's the caliche this is like desert cement that takes hundreds of years to form then there's the Malachite and Azurite beautiful minerals which grew and crystallized underground while the artifacts were buried they can also take hundreds of years to form and there's another element we can look into the lead itself I really need to try to find a source for this lead is there any place around here that might have a mind that could potentially be a source for the lead to make these artifacts if there's no viable source for lead around here it could cast doubt on their legitimacy there's an old human mind okay that they think that Lynn might have come from and it's near here I know four or five miles I think [Music] you guys all ready hi Chrissy how are you good how about yourselves good good ready to hike [Music] watch the barbed wire so we just kind of work our way up and then that's the actual line if I can find lead at the Yuma mine it tells me that the crosses swords and artifacts could have been made here which makes sense since I don't know if any overseas explorers would have carried these things all the way to the Southwest see there's stuff all along here this whole side here is all or here's another piece here you know it's possible our guys that made those artifacts we're here right here digging out this material it's everywhere [Music] see that fracture running right here yeah so you're gonna have all this ore running in a seam like this and then running off into these fractures on the side how would they have gotten that out well with manual labor they had must have had picks of some kind and and hammers heck they could have even taken heavy stones and just pounded the rock this stuff will break up melt it down and and make the lead it's actually a pretty simple process it's all over the place here it would have been no problem [Music] first of all there's more than enough lead ore here to make the artifacts eight hundred a thousand two thousand years ago the only thing left now is we do need to take that gravel sample go back to the lab and test it but all we need to do is find just a little bit of limestone in there and there's our source of caliche percolates down cements the artifacts if they're real the question is who made them where did they come from and why did they come here [Music] when I left Arizona I promised Chuck bent some answers he deserves to know once and for all if the artifacts his grandfather found are ancient or if his grandfather was part of an elaborate hoax people have been trying to get to the bottom of the mystery for nearly a century but no one's ever used geology to try to solve it I know the tests I'm going to do on the caliche found on the artifacts will tell me how old the cross and artifacts are but those tests can't tell me who made them to figure that out all I have to go on are the symbols symbols like the cross of Lorraine a symbol used by the Knights Templar and possibly other groups [Music] symbols are like trademarks sometimes used by the same groups for centuries and sometimes symbols seem to turn up in the most unlikely places [Music] [Music] foreign hey Bill this is Scott Walter I really need to talk to you I'm looking at the strangest thing we'll build I've been doing this research on the tucson-led artifacts and when I started to investigate them I saw some incredible symbology on here in symbols that looked Masonic to me and I know with your Masonic background that you might be able to help me out this is terrific stuff Scott now here's a couple of uh the artifacts here this is the the first one that was found by a man named Charles manaire and in 1924 over the course of the next several years he and his world war one buddy a man named Thomas Ben found over 30 lead artifacts buried under up to six feet of caliche cemented sand and gravel and when I came across these things I was absolutely fascinated and they're just covered with symbols some of these symbols I do recognize this is a really important symbol this is the cross of Lorraine exactly that's why I was excited to contact you I mean I saw it on these artifacts and then I started to do research and it was I started finding it in all kinds of places I was at the gas station and I looked up at the Exxon sign look at that right there the cross Lorraine was the really the symbol of the medieval Knights Templar order of the first Crusades and it's continued to do this today it's known as the patriarchal cross to the Knights Templar but it's really the cross of Lorraine it's a red double barred cross on a white background with the blue border on the bottom what's going on here well the red and white suggests the the color of the Knights Templar the blue represents possibly the ocean and the notion that the Knights Templar sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to North America and established certain secret sanctuaries the person that designed this was a man named Raymond Lowey who also designed the Studebaker car and the shape of the Coca-Cola bottle this is really interesting Raymond Lowey was rumored to be a Freemason if Loey was a Freemason it would make perfect sense for him to incorporate a Templar symbol into one of his logos people don't realize it but it's accepted as fact that many Freemasons are modern day Knights Templar one organization evolved from the other when the Templar order was banned and the Knights burned at the stake they didn't just disappear they escaped took their ideology with them and started over I want to show you something else I found his notes that he used when he was designing this logo and here you can see this is the one that was accepted but look at some of these others here I mean those are familiar to you the square Encompass which is as you know a huge symbol within Freemasonry well exactly it's the most common symbol of Freemasonry I mean it's basically you take two v's invert one and put them on top of each other but really symbolizes dualism the concept of opposites that keep things in Balance male female Heaven and Earth good bad light dark but there's also a practical side to the compass and the square these are two of the most important building instruments that have been used for Millennia going back as far as we know to build important structures that many cultures aligned with the Stars the moons the planet Venus in what we call archaeoastronomy the fact that the cross of Lorraine appears on the Tucson artifacts suggests to me they are somehow connected to either the Templars or the Freemasons the 800 A.D date inscribed on one of the crosses is about 300 years too early for the Templars but maybe there is still a connection I'm about to do some testing on some caliche sediments that I collected where the Tucson artifacts were found and it's going to help me determine whether these artifacts indeed have been in the ground for a significant length of time and essentially prove their authenticity but on another level the presence of the Cross of Lorraine on these artifacts also is a sign of authenticity [Music] well Grant you ready to test some caliche yes yes the whole point of what we're trying to do here is to see could this caliche have formed naturally in the field where we saw it now it looks obvious but we still have to prove it well this is one of the samples we collected from the site you can see all this white material here that's the caliche we need to make sure that there's a source for the caliche Limestone and if we have that then it makes sense that we have a source that could percolate down and encase the artifacts and the cliche that we saw the artifacts are real the question is are they old once we do the work if we find what we're looking for then this is an amazing discovery [Music] oh figuring out whether or not the Tucson artifacts are authentic relics from 800 A.D all comes down to a single test when Charles manaire and Thomas bent discovered these artifacts in 1924 they were encased in caliche a natural cement type of deposit that can take hundreds of years to form and would be nearly impossible to fake if the caliche on the artifacts is a match to the Rock samples of limestone we took at the site I'll be convinced these artifacts were left by ancient explorers to the Southwest so what we're going to do here is we're going to take all of these bags we're going to individually identify each particle and see if we have a limestone Source we have to have a source for the cliche and it's got to be above the artifact so if we have the Limestone rain water is going to percolate down it's going to dissolve it out bring it down and theoretically cement it into the layer with the artifacts so you'll be able to tell if it's the same stuff that's on the artifacts yes we will if this does all pan out and it shows that it did form naturally there's no evidence that anybody faked anything if we have the source everything else fits game set match [Music] thank you [Music] everything fell into place with the caliche testing we do have the Limestone Source up above it percolated down through this sediment pile and in case the artifacts in caliche no question about it therefore since we have no evidence of fakery or hoaxes at all at this point I'm ready to say without absolute certainty in my mind that these artifacts are absolutely legitimate [Music] now they date to about the 8th and 9th century and in looking at the geologic formation based on what I know about the geology everything fits we still have a few questions hanging out there that need answers one being was the term ad used in the year 800 one of the relics clearly shows a date of 800 A.D I had Grant through the research on this to confirm its legitimacy it does work because during that time they were using A.D and then there's the carving of what looks like a dinosaur I spent a lot of time in the fossil world and I never heard of any dinosaur with a fork tongue that's got to be a lizard and we're in the desert in the southwest lizards all over the place to me that's got to be what it is there's no question we've got a pre-columbian presence here in Southern Arizona in the 8th and 9th century but who could it be the only thing that I can think of personally is a precursor to the Knights Templar I think the cross of Lorraine is the symbol that proves it's possible the Templars ultimately Embrace that symbol so perhaps its appearance here is one of the first times it was used by religious refugees that were part of a larger organization that later spawned the Templars I know the Knights Templar made it to America in 1362. I know this because of my past work studying the Kensington runestone found in Minnesota the Templars left their hook deck symbol on that artifact and maybe another Affiliated group was here in the southwest before them and left the cross of Lorraine symbol behind well one thing I know for sure is Chuck bent is going to be happy that the geologic work we've done here has proven that these things are absolutely real and I can't wait to tell you [Music] hey Chuck come on in great to see you thanks for coming I wouldn't miss this I wanted to tell you in person about the results of the testing this has been something that has been gnawing at me for quite some time let me ask you a question what if it turns out these artifacts are a hoax it's not going to make me feel good but at least I will know and then there won't be this question about what were they planted because if they were I don't think that's because my grandfather planted them he found somebody else's hoax if that's what it turns out right let me tell you a little bit about what we did okay when you took Grant and I out to the site where the artifacts were found we were able to take a sample of the sand and gravel and the caliche that cemented it together that the artifacts were found in in the lab I was able to look at that material and first of all the caliche on the artifacts and at the site is the same the other thing is on the back of the artifacts where we took that sample we also saw the Malachite and the Azurite together with the caliche well after doing my analysis my only conclusion that I could draw is that those minerals in that environment at that place had to have taken hundreds of years to form so that can only mean one thing they're genuine genuine they're genuine your grandfather was telling the truth and there's no way that that could have been faked how old do you think the artifacts are then well one of the artifacts is dated to 800 A.D this would make them 1200 years old and what's nice about the work we did is the geology is consistent with that date one of the questions people asked is was the ad used at that time and it turns out it was I didn't know anything about these artifacts and to walk into this to see the artifacts to be able to test them to meet you and to be able to do this today is really an amazing experience so I'm really excited about that oh I'm sure my grandfather he's hearing all this and I'm sure he's real really happy it feels really good to be able to tell you this but the thing that's that's sitting now in in my head is who were these people who made these artifacts and where did they come from and if you remember when we were together with Grant we were looking at the artifacts do you remember that double barred Cross of Lorraine that we talked about right that's really a very important clue as to who these people are what we know that was used by the Templars and since it was used by the people that made these artifacts they have to be related so they were precursor to the Templars during the research I did there was a precursor to the Knights Templar in southern France at that time at about the eighth and Ninth centuries they were being persecuted According to some Scholars by some Muslim group coming from the Mediterranean region and that seems to be the motivation for them to come over here how would they have gotten over to what's now Arizona they came by ship but the exact route we don't know but make no mistake since the artifacts are here they got here it's like a weight's been taken off I mean all these years not knowing really where they came from if they were real or not to be able to sit here and find out that they are actual relics that my grandfather would be so relieved to know that I think if your grandfather were alive today I think he'd be happy that the truth about the relics is finally out and I'd like to think that he would be happy that modern science was finally able to clear his name the collection of lead crosses and ceremonial objects pulled from the desert cement outside of Tucson in 1924 are some of the most historically significant artifacts I've seen on Earth in America yet just like so many other important finds they were written off by academics who refused to believe in something that goes against the history we've been told I believe it's another case where modern science has Vindicated not just an archaeological find but a man that man was Chuck Vance grandfather Thomas Spence suffered years of attacks from people convinced he perpetrated a hoax these relics could also be connected to the earliest appearance in America of the religious refugees who would ultimately become the Knights Templar whose American exploits I'm just starting to reveal [Music] foreign

Channel: HISTORY

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Keywords: history, history channel, history shows, history channel shows, the history channel, documentary history channel, history documentary, documentary, history channel full episodes, documentaries, history channel documentaries, America, America Unearthed, america unearthed, america unearthed marathon, EARTH-SHATTERING DISCOVERIES MADE IN THE U.S., 4 hour marathon, earth shattering discoveries, discoveries in the usa, usa, shocking discoveries, new discoveries in the us

Id: NxqXyCrOOfM

Length: 215min 24sec (12924 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 05 2023