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Review of America Unearthed S01E12 "America's Oldest Secret"

3/9/2013

192 Comments

 
As with last week, a historical review is necessary to understand where America Unearthed went so terribly wrong. If you know the history of the Newport Tower, you can skip to the episode review, but I recommend reading since there are some interesting tidbits below that even I didn’t know until I started researching the Tower.

The Newport Tower is more famous as a ruin than it ever was as a working building. A nearly-circular tower supported on eight not-quite equal arches, the ruins of the tower site in a park in Newport, Rhode Island, where they failed to much excite anyone’s attention from the time of the building’s construction down to 1839 when the first “alternative” theories emerged. The known facts about the Newport Tower can be summarized rather simply.

The first record of the tower comes in the will of Gov. Benedict Arnold, colonial governor of Rhode Island in the mid-seventeenth century, just four decades after the settlement of Rhode Island, previously inhabited by Native Americans. On December 24, 1677, he described it in his will as marking the place where he wished to be buried, on a “parcel of land containing three rods square on or near the line or path from my dwelling house leading to my stone built windmill in ye town of Newport.” He died the next spring, on June 19. His will remained public record (escaping British destruction of Newport’s records in 1779) and was widely consulted by antiquarians down the centuries.

Arnold left the mill to his daughter, Freelove Arnold Pelham, along with warehouses, a mansion, and a farm. Freelove tried to bequeath the land to her children, but her brother successfully sued for control in 1730, arguing that a woman was not allowed to decide how to dispose of real estate under English law. At no time did anyone mention, describe, or refer to the stone wind mill as anything else, and neither child of Arnold expressed the least doubt that the mill had been built by their father. It continued to be described as a windmill throughout the eighteenth century in colonial and early Republican documents.

In 1836, a magazine called Penny Magazine from Britain included an illustration of the Chesterton Windmill, a 1632 stone-built windmill in Chesterton, England, that is remarkably similar to the Newport Tower in size, shape, and design. It was located close to where some of the colonists at Newport had once lived in England, including George Lawton. This Lawton lived less than twenty miles from the Chesterton mill before coming to the colony, where he became the go-to man for designing windmills. In fact, tower-shaped windmills had increased markedly in popularity in England between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries; when the colonists came to Rhode Island in the years after 1638, it only made sense that their mill would take the form of the latest (and therefore best) in English style.

Picture
The Newport Tower
Picture
The Chesterton Windmill
Between the 1630s and the 1730s, no one doubted that the Newport Tower was exactly what everyone could see it was: A functioning windmill. Things began to change when it was used as a powder magazine and subsequently fell into disrepair. Left as a ruin, it sparked the romantic interest of local residents, who saw in it an analog to the romantic stone ruins of Europe, then a popular subject in engravings and paintings. America, having few ruins of its own, had to make do with what it had; in 1777, the Tower featured in a quite romantic pastoral painting, serving the same purpose as a castle keep in European art.

Nevertheless, down to 1838, no one batted an eye at the idea that this building—which had been functional in living memory—was a windmill. This is especially surprising, for had it truly been a Pre-Columbian, Continental European church, as later claimed, it would have been a great piece of propaganda during the Revolution, a symbol tying the new United States to its greatest ally, France—the very home of the Knights Templar—and cutting at Britain’s legal and moral right to sovereignty. And yet the Freemasons in the new American government—those supposed heir to the Templars—said nothing about it.

Archaeologists have conducted several excavations around the tower (notably in 1948 and 2006-2008) and have found no artifacts predating the seventeenth century. In 1848, an analysis of the mortar found that it matched other mortars from area buildings of the 1640s. In 1984, radiocarbon testing tied the Tower to the seventeenth century.

So where did the alternative view come from?

I’m glad you asked.

In 1820s, the Danish antiquarian Carl Christian Rafn became convinced, based on his readings of medieval literature, that the Norse had crossed the Atlantic and that the Vinland of the Norse sagas had been a real place. This inspiration was in fact true, as the 1960 excavation of L’anse-aux-Meadows in Newfoundland would prove, but it was still a contested idea in the 1820s. To prove his case, Rafn decided to gather together every possible scrap of evidence that the Norse had been in the Americas. But he didn’t know about climate change or that Newfoundland had once been warm enough to grow grapes—the vín or “wine” in Vinland—during what we now call the Medieval Warm Period. So he aimed too far south and assumed the Vikings had colonized what is now New England, the northernmost place known in those days to be capable of sustaining viniculture. To that end, he tried to assemble the best available evidence of Viking occupation in 1831 in the Antiquitates Americanae, a monumental book written in Latin. Some of it would turn out to be right, and a lot of it would be wrong; among the wrong material were ambiguous petroglyphs (like the Dighton Rock) he thought were Norse runes.

Americans devoured the book and went looking for “proof” of Norsemen in America. No “hooked-x” rune stones were known in those days, despite every effort to find Norse runes in America. This is a pretty good indication that many of the so-called “rune stones” were fabricated much later.

Rafn’s enthusiasm had gotten the better of him. He began corresponding with New England antiquarian societies for information about “Norse” artifacts. In May of 1839, Thomas H. Webb, M.D. wrote to Rafn with exciting new information. Webb, an ardent bibliophile and one of the founders of MIT’s library, wondered whether the Newport Tower was not what all agreed it was—a mill—but something else. He based this on his own erroneous belief that no round windmill had ever been built of stone, and therefore a stone building of that size and shape had to be something more important. As we have seen, stone mills of this type were well known in England. Webb made a description of the tower and asked Frederick Catherwood, the artist best known for his romantic images of the Maya ruins, to draw some images of it to send to Rafn. These images were highly romantic, and they made the Tower look much more regular and finished than the actual rough-hewn building really is. “The drawings sent may be relied upon as accurate in all essential particulars,” Webb told Rafn.

From that false assertion and the romantic imagery, Rafn spun a fantastic tale. He compared the shape of the Tower to Cistercian baptisteries, and he suggested that the arches were Romanesque and therefore medieval. Since he had never been to America, his evidence was nothing more than a superficial similarity between Catherwood’s romanticized drawing of the Tower and selected elements of Northern European architecture. There was nothing more to it than that. He published his ideas in an English-language Supplement to the Antiquitates Americanae in 1839.

(I have published Rafn’s entire text here, its first republication since 1839. That’s because, unlike America Unearthed, I want you to read the primary sources.)

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow as impressed, including the Norse origin of the Tower in the “Skeleton in Armor.” Articles and books for and against the Norse hypothesis proliferated in the late nineteenth century, with historians often expressing bafflement at the diffusionists who insisted that a windmill was a church or a lookout tower. In 1942, the archaeologist Philip Ainsworth Means, working backward from the conclusion, tried to “prove” that the tower was of Norse origin, though his evidence was faulty.

But in time the Norse were no longer interesting enough. Several people tried to claim that the Tower was built by the Portuguese, but on no better evidence. Gavin Menzies claimed that the Chinese built it, but his claim that the tower matched Chinese architecture of the fifteenth century held no water. Finally, Andrew Sinclair decided in 1992’s The Sword and the Grail that the Tower must have been built by Henry Sinclair at the head of a voyage to America by medieval Scottish Knights Templar. But his evidence was nothing of the sort. The claim derives from the infamous Zeno map and narrative—a fifteenth century hoax that claimed that Venetians had discovered a series of unexplored but occupied lands in the North Atlantic in the 1380s.

In the story, the Zeno brothers of Venice meet a mysterious king of an Atlantic island, and his name was Zichmni. Zichmni eventually founds a colony in Greenland. In 1780 John Reinhold Forster speculated that Zichmni was a corruption of “Sinclair,” and because Zichmni had defeated Norway in 1380 while Sinclair had won a battle and had Norway make him an earl that year, they had to be one and the same. No one in Forster’s day thought much of the theory, and the exposure of the Zeno Map as a hoax in the 1890s sealed its fate, at least until the modern era when any half-formed “fact” from the nineteenth century could be passed off as “suppressed” truth from a heroic generation of Victorian scholars. 

(I've posted the whole of the Zeno narrative here so you can judge for yourself.)

Andrew Sinclair picked up Forster’s admitted speculation, ran with it as truth, and declared the Tower to be Templar. And the entire thing started because Carl Rafn had a good idea, pursued it beyond the facts, and speculated without warrant from Catherwood’s romanticized drawing about superficial similarities.

And that’s how we come to this episode of America Unearthed, which demonstrates far less understanding of the source material than the brief sketch I just provided, but is much more confident in its ignorant assessment than either Webb, Rafn, or Forster ever were.

The Episode

America Unearthed S01E12 “America’s Oldest Secret” begins with a summary of last week’s episode before opening with a staged scene of show host Scott Wolter dramatically peering over Gerardus Mercator’s 1569 world map with a large magnifying glass intercut with shots of the Newport Tower digitally altered in post production with a teal filter. The camera focuses in on the word “Norombega,” better known as Norumbega, a legendary settlement in New England, first recorded in the sixteenth century, but which is widely believed to be a figment of European geographical imagination, like Antillia and Brasilia.

In 1542, French explorer Jean Allefonsce found what he described as the inhabitants of Norumbega:

The river is more than 40 leagues wide at its entrance and retains its width some thirty or forty leagues. It is full of Islands, which stretch some ten or twelve leagues into the sea. ... Fifteen leagues within this river there is a town called Norombega, with clever inhabitants, who trade in furs of all sorts; the town folk are dressed in furs, wearing sable. ... The people use many words which sound like Latin. They worship the sun. They are tall and handsome in form. The land of Norombega lie high and is well situated. (trans. B. F. Decosta)

As with the case of the “Welsh” Indians, this report appears to be a case where a European explorer, unable to speak a Native tongue, heard in it what he wanted to hear, just as the Greeks misunderstood the Median word yazona to be a reference to their hero Jason (Iason). In fact, Norumbega, originally Oranbega, is an Algonquian word referring to quiet waters. Only much later, in the nineteenth century, did this geographical anomaly become tied to the Vikings, after Rafn’s claims, and for the same reason: ignorance of the Medieval Warm Period led to placing Vinland far too far to the south on the assumption grapes could only grow in lower latitudes.

Oddly, Wolter ignores Norumbega all together and never mentions it once in the episode.

After the credits, we travel to the Newport Tower in Rhode Island, which Wolter called one of America’s “biggest mysteries.” He asserts that the Tower is constructed of “thousands of intricately placed stones,” though this is highly deceptive since any stone construction of the seventeenth century also features “intricately placed stones,” a prerequisite for creating a stable stone structure. He also asserts that “nobody knows who built” the Tower, “or when, or why,” though as described above, this is only the case if one discounts the entire historical and archaeological record from Gov. Benedict Arnold down to the 2008 excavations, which, of course, Wolter does. He never mentions any of the historical record in the episode, another instance of failing to play fair with the facts.

Wolter asserts that the Tower cannot be a windmill because he believes that it looks nothing like “colonial architecture,” again discounting the clear analog with the Chesterton windmill, as well as other stone-built colonial structures. That said, he also failed to recognize stone-built spring houses as colonial, so it is entirely possible that he has no knowledge of colonial buildings. At no point in the episode is even a hint of the known historical record of the Tower mentioned.

Over some previously-filmed footage of recreations of the Knights Templar, Wolter summarizes their history and his idea that the Holy Grail came to America with the Templars after their order was suppressed following the French raid of 1307. Interestingly, while the previous episode made the Grail into the Bloodline of Christ, in this episode it is reintroduced only as the Cup of Christ from the Last Supper, with only a hint that it may have “symbolized” something more.

Once again, Wolter offers a scoffing reference to “academics” who are butting heads with Our Hero in his quest to find the Holy Grail. He meets with one such academic, Jim Egan, the curator of the Newport Tower Museum. Egan does not believe that the tower was a windmill; instead, he thinks it is the first English structure in Rhode Island, built just before 1600 and later converted into a windmill, based, again, on the fact that it simply doesn’t look like a windmill to him. He believes that Dr. John Dee planned a secret colony for Rhode Island, that the Tower was its first building, and that the colony failed, leaving behind, conveniently, no trace of its existence archaeologically or historically. In fact, Egan produced a video naming the tower the “John Dee Tower of 1583,” for which there is not the slightest hint of solid evidence. However, he is certain that it is not medieval in date.

Wolter asserts that the Newport Tower is “exactly identical to what they built in the twelfth century” because of the “equally spaced” pillars, round centerpiece, and (missing) “ambulatory.” The pillars are not equally spaced but are in fact irregular. There is no evidence of a stone ambulatory as shown in the computer reconstruction (though some possible post holes uncovered in 2008 suggest there may have been a wooden structure around the tower at some point). Worse, there is nothing “exactly identical” to the Tower among the medieval churches of Europe. Even Carl Christian Rafn, the very first to make this connection, could turn up none that exactly matched; he could only talk of how elements of the Tower resembled elements from various medieval buildings. He compared the arches from Romanesque churches, but the round shape of various churches without arches; none had all of the elements in the tower in the same organization and order. The closest he could come was an octagonal structure at Mellifont Abbey in Ireland, but which is significantly different in construction, ornamentation, and design. The only European building that is almost “exactly identical” is the Chesterton windmill. Wolter, however, merely asserts that “identical” European churches existed, but in his very next sentence backtracks and instead suggests only that such churches merely “incorporate” “elements” also found in the Newport Tower, contradicting his own assertion (and computer reconstruction) of ten seconds previous.

It becomes very obvious his material is derived from secondhand summaries of Rafn’s 1839 speculation when he cites Mellifont Abbey and the Danish round churches of Bornholm, both key pieces of Rafn’s evidence. They don’t look the same, or even close. He claims that the Tower is an “exact duplicate” of Cambridge Round Church, which it is not. Cambridge Round Church has a stone ambulatory, and the Tower does not. Cambridge Round Church has an arched clerestory triforium, and the Tower does not. The Church has ornately carved capitals on its columns, and the Tower has no capitals. During the period when the Templars supposedly came to America to build the Tower, the Round Church had already been significantly altered from its original design, having had a chancel and aisle added, a full century earlier. (The Church as seen today was rebuilt in the 1840s based on assumptions at that time about its original design—that’s why in 1839 Rafn didn’t think anything of it.) The Tower has no evidence of an aisle. In sum, the resemblances are entirely superficial.

Wolter next asserts that Geradus Mercator’s 1569 world map depicts the Newport Tower. What we see is nothing of the sort. We see Norumbega and Mercator’s symbol for a settlement, a pair of towers connected by a wall, the small number of towers representing the small size of the settlement, as reported by Allefonsce. It is no different than the symbols for other settlements around the world, all drawn in the same Renaissance style no matter the culture or age, or actual architecture. Here, for example, are even closer approximations of the Tower, only these represent cities on the edge of the Sahara desert in Western Africa—a place where no such European-style round tower ever existed.

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Alleged "Newport Tower" on the Mercator map. Note name of "Norombega."
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Similar "tower" icons representing West African cities, including Timbuktu, on the Mercator map.
It’s just Mercator’s map symbol, not a secret drawing spirited back from America by the Templars. There is therefore no evidence that Mercator depicted the Tower, and an edited sound byte from Egan shows that Egan recognizes that this is but a map symbol. A huge problem with this segment is that Wolter never discusses the myth of Norumbega, clearly referenced on the map, making it seem unclear to viewers why Mercator would have a settlement in Rhode Island at such an early date.

Wolter next asserts that his special training in geology gives him an advantage because “I know rocks.” But he uses none of that knowledge of geology, instead saying that the shape of the rocks was symbolically important, a question of history, not geology.

Egan and Wolter both claim that the Tower has significant astronomical alignments because on the winter solstice, at an unspecified time during the day, the sun shines through the west “window” and illuminates a stone on the opposite wall, which Egan thinks is important because the “Mesopotamian” symbol for Easter was the “egg,” the shape of the rock hit by the sun. Of course, the rock isn’t really egg-shaped—it’s only very roughly egg shaped, with many irregular edges—nor is the winter solstice associated with Easter or its predecessors, the spring festivals. It’s also unclear to me how this “alignment” would have been visible when the Tower was a complete “church” with a presumably finished interior. (The windmill would have had a floor that would have almost certainly blocked the sunlight from reaching the egg stone.)

Wolter also believes that the structure has an alignment to Venus. En route we get a call back to last week’s episode where Wolter gawked at Paul Roberti’s magnetic rock called cumberlandite when Wolter finds that a local magnetic rock was incorporated into the Tower! Big deal. The Tower was built out of local rocks. What a shock. An irrelevant search for more cumberlandite in the wild follows. Wolter asserts that cumberlandite is known as the “Stone of Venus,” but I can find no evidence that anyone other than Wolter uses that term to describe it. In Greek and Roman times the emerald was the Stone of Venus, and in Kabala it is the amethyst. The only other reference I could find was to old claims that the magnetic iron stone at the corner of the Kaaba in Mecca, believed to be meteorite, used to be called the Stone of Venus in pagan times. But for Wolter, his assertion that the cumberlandite was known as the Stone of Venus is proof that it is tied to Cistercian and Templar symbolism of the divine female in the heavens, symbolized by the planet Venus. This claim appears only with Alan Bulter (remember him?), who recently asserted that the Templars and Cistercians worshiped the “sacred feminine” by secretly perpetuating an ancient goddess-based religion. There is no earlier connection to Venus in the literature, so far as I was able to tell, outside of ancient astronaut, diffusionist, and Holy Bloodline writers.

Wolter next confuses the Templars and the Cathars. The Templars were never accused of believing in the equality of men and women; that was the Cathars, a completely different group of medieval heretics, persecuted from 1208 to 1325. The all-male Templars were actually accused of being homosexuals who worshiped a demon named Baphomet. Alternative writers have drawn connections between the two groups, but the only proof is an alleged document claiming that the Templars gave refuge to Cathar refugees. This paper is conveniently gone, supposedly lost in World War II before anyone other than an alternative writer had ever seen it. Historians recognize no connection between the two groups.

There is no evidence that the Templars recognized anything special about Venus, nor is the presence of Venus alignments in the Tower proof of Templar influence. (Why not, say, Venus-worshiping Romans?) There is no reference to Venus in any reference book on the Templars I consulted, and it only appears in the alternative history literature in conjunction with goddess conspiracies. There is no evidence of such Venus alignments in any Templar or Cistercian buildings of the era in Europe. Nevertheless, Wolter believes that the light of Venus could be focused through the Newport Tower’s second story window and “captured” by niche on the opposite wall to bring “the goddess”—the Templars are pagans now?—into the Tower. Last week the Templars were “pure” Christians with the “truth” about Christ; this week they’re pre-Christian goddess-worshipers.

Wolter tries to explain that the light from Venus was captured by the niches in the tower, but I have problems with this. If the windows at the very top of the tower (the third story in American usage, or second story in British usage) were meant, as Wolter says, for “observations,” then Venus would need to be visible from ground level, but it is not. The “alignment” could only be seen from halfway up the Tower, at the “niche,” and no light would ever actually shine from the planet into the Tower itself. (Starlight or planet light isn’t bright enough to create a focused beam through an aperture as big as a window; if that were the case, then your home telescope would be shooting lasers into your eyes.) Wolter also fails to state what time during the night this alignment should occur, nor what the azimuth of Venus would be; Venus “appearing” at 22 degrees is not enough information. The angle needs to be measured from a given point, and Wolter won’t say whether that point is at ground level, up in the sky, or what. He thinks that two such alignments together create an “x” like the fictitious Templar “hooked x.”

Wolter next states that the engineering of the Tower was “very precise,” but again I must point to the fact that (a) the Tower not perfectly round, (b) its pillars are unevenly spaced, and (c) its arches are of different widths. Engineers who were supposedly so precise that they encoded Venus alignments to an incredibly small angle were also incapable of building a regular structure?

“Nobody but the Templars would have designed this into a structure like this!” Wolter screams as he views a laser reconstruction of the Venus “X.” Never mind, of course, that the “X” would never have been visible (since Venus cannot be in two places simultaneously), that the Templars have no connection to Venus, and that when Scott Wolter came to the Newport Tower in 2007 to look for Venus (as reported in Epigraphic Society Occasional Papers 26, no. 1 [2010] and Ancient American 12 [Feb. 2008]), he found that there “was not a visible opening to allow Venus to be seen” as an evening star. At the time, he blamed the failure to see Venus on (a) clouds and (b) reconstruction work on the Tower after 1780 that may have altered the position of the windows. Given that the Tower’s uppermost three feet have been rebuilt, there is no way to know what the original “alignment” would have been. (Other alternative believers have just as little evidence that the true “alignment” was to Sirius and/or the North Star on various days.)

Wolter tries to test his idea by looking for Venus atop a ladder placed inside the Tower. Neither Wolter nor Egan seems aware that it is possible to calculate the position of Venus at any given time; it is not a miracle that requires speculation. Are we to assume that the Templars stood on stilts to see Venus? Fortunately for Wolter, the weather prevented him from “proving” where Venus was in the sky, despite, again, the fact that astronomers are able to determine such positioning with great accuracy. Wolter is disappointed that Venus fails to hit the niche, and he rationalizes that “maybe in the past” the niche aligned with Venus, when the earth’s axis was in a different position (!) and before earthquakes (!!) had misaligned the Tower! This is post-hoc rationalization at its worst. Again, as a geologist he should be able to find evidence if these alleged monument-moving earthquakes had occurred—is the Tower’s foundation damaged? And astronomers can tell you exactly where Venus was on any given night, except that they are “academics” and so in on the conspiracy.

But only seconds later, Wolter then trumpets a solar alignment that hits a keystone at an unspecified point during the morning around the solstice. But I thought he just said earthquakes moved the Tower out of alignment. Which is it?

The sun is seen quite high in the sky, so the “fertilization” of the keystone “egg” isn’t happening at dawn, the actual sacred moment in ancient religion, but rather by chance sometime later in the day.

“The academic community has dropped the ball,” Wolter says. “Not just with the Newport Tower but with many of these ancient sites and artifacts that indicate that people have been coming to what is now America for thousands of years.” Wolter fails to tell viewers that the “academic community” has been studying the Newport Tower since the 1840s, and the results of architectural, archaeological, radiocarbon, and other studies are always the same: All signs point to the mid-1600s (see above). He is being highly dishonest in ignoring actual archaeological and academic work on the site in order to claim that none exists.

“I truly believe that the society that the Templars envisioned was eventually laid out by modern Freemasons over a period of centuries, and those symbols, the signs, they’re all around us, hidden in plain sight.” Thus, America is actually the culmination of sacred goddess worship, the joint inheritance of the Templars and Masons: “These two orders were responsible for founding our United States itself.”

Wolter sees that one of the Newport Tower’s keystones is very roughly shaped like a Masonic keystone (like the one used in Pennsylvania road signs—it’s the keystone state), but seriously it is so roughly shaped like one that it’s hard to attribute intentional symbolic design to the rock rather than the necessity to support the circular stone placed by design directly above with a flat support that juts up above the rest of the arch. So much for pecision engineering. Wolter sees this stone as a “Mark Master Mason’s Keystone,” but such a stone is a modern invention. As recently as the nineteenth century, the mark master mason’s keystone was smooth (un-notched), with a circle inscribed within. It may be possible, I suppose, that the circle above the Tower keystone was meant to represent this, but Wolter isn’t aware of the fact. I think that the rock was irregular and shaped as best as possible to fit into the available space in the arch.

Instead, Wolter takes a helicopter to look at the Statue of Liberty, a statue created in France, who holds a tablet that has two notches at the top. Although the tablet is rectangular (with parallel sides) and therefore could not possibly serve as a keystone—which by definition must taper in a wedge shape to fit into and support an arch—Wolter screams and hoots that he found a hidden Mason’s symbol. In fact, the sculptor intended the tablet to be a tabula ansata, an imperial Roman tablet with dovetailed (notched) ends used for votive inscriptions. Such tablets also appear in Renaissance European art from the same ancient sources.

The show concludes with Wolter expressing his certainty that the Templars gave rise to the United States and its “religious freedom” and “determined the very destiny of our nation.”

This episode was originally scheduled to be the season finale, and it plays like one, summing up the series’ clear aim of providing an ancient (or at least medieval) rationalization for American values, continuing the project started with the mound builder myth several centuries ago of giving non-Native Americans—immigrants all—deeper connections to the land and a fictive, mythic history sufficient to assuage any doubts about who really belongs in America, and also who does not belong in America as a true member of our society.

192 Comments
Lynn Brant link
3/9/2013 05:12:10 am

I think you and Scott are wrong about the Newport Tower by about the same magnitude, but in different directions. A nice set of extremes to chart a reasonable course between. The NT is not a colonial windmill, and it isn't any of that Masonic Templar crap, either.

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Ron
3/9/2013 06:27:30 am

Lynn, then what is it? Jason; The SyFy channel is now showing wrestling, ghost hunting, and the like so we do need someplace for science fiction/fantasy! Maybe ESPN can take over actual science programming?

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Lynn Brant link
3/9/2013 07:05:38 am

I don't know who built the Newport Tower or why. I do believe that, out of the many theories, the colonial windmill theory is the least plausible. There is really no evidence supporting it at all. I'm all in favor of bashing the Templar stuff, but don't do it by advocating the Arnold theory because sadly, even the Templar story is more likely.

I could give you the whole case against the colonial theory, but it would be too many pages and I don't feel like typing it in here.

Graham
3/9/2013 11:04:21 am

Lynn, is your case written up somewhere and if so, why not link to it?

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Gareth
3/9/2013 12:37:57 pm

Yes, I'd like to see a convincing refutation of the Colonial theory written up too. I bet it relies on hoary old chestnuts to do with fireplaces never being used in windmills, Chesterton windmill not having been used as such until after Governor Arnold's time, stone tower mills being unknown before the 18th century, and a whole host of other "objections" that have no basis in provable fact.

Jason Colavito link
3/10/2013 01:31:14 am

You called it, Gareth. Lynn's list of rebuttal points (posted below) does in fact include (a) fireplaces, (b) the Chesterton windmill not being a windmill, (c) unknown stone windmills, (d) and the accusation that skeptics must prove that the facts are in fact actually facts.

J
3/9/2013 06:06:54 pm

Oh geez, Lynn, you're one of them old bags, eh? You think you're so clever, trying to give us YET another theory without actually giving your idea as to what it is = which is basically the same as Wolter misleading everybody on the show. Brilliant.

It's a windmill. Nothing to see here. Move along.

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Phil
3/11/2013 06:27:34 am

Lynn, take another bong hit and a shot of booze you are spot on as you too can offer alternitive explination9s) for this w/o any documented back up. I really do not waste my time watching this stupid show but I think Jason has done a very good job explaining himself w/o stating that there is not time to waste typing it in. Please at least offer some substance or links to support your analysis? You make Scott look like a research genius!

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John J. McKay link
3/11/2013 05:16:03 pm

J and Phil,
If Lynn's ideas are bad, and they are, argue with those. The sexism and cheap shots have no place here.

JAM
10/9/2013 06:12:38 am

Just looking at the two windmills side by side should be enough to end the discussion! Converting wind energy was an essential technology that, like now, was a form of power and an advantage for the owners. The only mystery is what it was used for or did it have multiple uses? Look up uses for windmills, particularly in that era. Plus, the missing dome was a technological advantage as well! Imagine the time period and what the Native Americans might have thought witnessing the Mill in its full capacity. Is it a leap to think that people in the 1600's where any less excited about technology than we are today? Probably not, especially when it cuts down on labor! This is not a mystery.

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CFC
3/9/2013 05:53:57 am

This was another superb review, well researched and hitting all the main points. I especially appreciated the detailed history with references. Thank you!!!

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J. Adamson
3/9/2013 06:04:24 am

"Eagan and Wolter both claim that the Tower has significant astronomical alignments because on the winter solstice, at an unspecified time during the day, the sun shines through the west “window” and illuminates a stone on the opposite wall, which Eagan thinks is important because the “Mesopotamian” symbol for Easter was the “egg,” the shape of the rock hit by the sun. Of course, the rock isn’t really egg-shaped—it’s only very roughly egg shapped, with many irregular edges—nor is the winter solstice associated with Easter or its predecessors, the spring festivals. It’s also unclear to me how this “alignment” would have been visible when the Tower was a complete “church” with a presumably finished interior."


Oddly enough, Scott Wolter mentions the problem of a floor blocking the solar alignment with the egg shaped stone in his book. The following gives a pretty interesting insight into how diffusionists deal with these types of problems:

"The Hooked X" pg. 197:

"After the symposium, one of the issues discussed was if the wooden floor in the tower would have prevented the light from hitting the keystone. The conversation then evolved to how the builders would have accessed the first floor that was probably about ten to twelve feet above the ground. Most of us agreed that access was likely by ladder through an opening in the floor. The obvious problem with the floor was it would have prevented sunlight from hitting the keystone. We then discussed if the illuminating keystone was a sacred as we thought, the access opening in the floor was likely constructed to allow a clear path for the sunlight to hit the keystone at the time of the winter solstice. We all agreed that, if the builders wanted the winter solstice sunlight to hit the keystone, they would have found a way to do it"

So their answer to the problem is basically " They would have found a way"

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William M Smith
3/9/2013 09:15:12 am

Your points about the wood floor and how did they access the second floor is a good one. I have posted a link to my research of the tower and it will explain a likely answer to your questions. As a retired engineer I feel their has to be logic behind all mysterious artifacts. The tower is not a fake like many might point out if they have no vision or connections. The tower is located on a natural hill with the Bay on one side and the Ocean on the other. About two blocks toward the bay is spring street, a source of fresh water. In the ocean their is still the large stone V structures to catch cod fish at low tide. The mass number of cod fish bones (specifically the large vertibra bone) are in boxes in the Godfrey artifacts dug in 1947. The logic as to why only the large vertibra bone is because they inserted a rod into the fish at this point for smoking. When they removed the rod from the meat the large bone was detached. When you are at the tower and view all the inside nooks and pockets you will see that the door to get to the second floor ran from north to south and was two parts which opened not only for access but also functioned as air dampers to allow air into the second story smok room. The doors were operational from the inside of the tower or the outside of the tower. Above the doors about 4 feet was a wooden beam which could be rotated from standing on the atrium roof on the north outside of the tower or from a platform and steps on the north inside wall of the tower. By turning the beam ropes would move the doors open or close. Each door would have been about 8 feet long and 2 feet wide and open in opposite directions to allow circular air movement in the smoking area.
William M Smith

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J Adamson
3/9/2013 10:30:51 am

I think you missed the point. They make a big deal out of sunlight coming in through a window and shining on the egg shaped stone. However when given the fact that a floor in the structure would not let that happen their response was to make something up out of thin air.

J
3/9/2013 06:13:18 pm

Ummmm.... yeah...... so if you are an engineer, you must be good at maths? So why not show us the exact angles of the sun on the solstices and where they would hit inside the tower, and then show us where the floor(s) would have been with openings for ladders from the ground, as well as pillars inside that must have held the windmill's spinner shaft, and how those things must have been perfectly out of the way for the sun to shine through to that keystone?

The show doesn't even show the geography of the landscape, which way the openings are faced, where the sun rises and sets on those days, or any of that sort of useful stuff.
So why can anybody ever even trust the show at all? It doesn't even try to prove any of its theories with science or facts!

Marco
3/9/2013 06:29:16 am

I too had a chuckle when Wolter got his Cathars and Templars all mixed up. He also claimed that St. Bernard of Clairvaux was a founding Templar. He wasn't. His uncle was one of the original 9, as I recall, and Bernard did take part in the Council of Troyes where the Order's rules were drafted. He also corresponded with Hugh de Payens, who was one of the founding Templars and their first Grand Master.He was also usefully employed as the pope's recruiting sergeant. If he couldn't that basic bit of history right, what does that say about the rest of the programme? There's another "new" episode on next Friday but I won't be watching. I've wasted enough time with this drivel already.

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RLewis
3/9/2013 07:49:39 am

I loved Wolter's Jedi mind trick - "Some people call cumberlandite the Stone of Venus" to "cumberlandite is sometimes called the Stone of Venus" to "cumberlandite is also known as the Stone of Venus". Must be a fact.
Also, is a square book in a nineteenth-century French statue the closest example he could find to his mythical special keystone? I would think there are hundreds of actual keystones that would more closely match in many, many colonial structures (which would seem to better support his case).

The History Channel - Making Up History Every Day

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D.K.
3/9/2013 08:54:04 am

RLewis, they should have came to Philadelpia, there are hundreds of keystones here. As Jason mentioned, this is the Keystone state afterall and it's not too far from the Statue of Liberty.

Jason, I had a question since I forgot to dvr the show to check myself. I believe both Scott and Mr. Eagen said that cumberlandite was only found in the area around Cumberland, RI. If that is true, how were the Templars calling it the Stone of Venus if they weren't here until after they supposedly left France in the 1300's, after they were disbanded? I have no background in anything related to these matters, but I find your blog very entertaining and informative. I like watching AU for the chuckles. However, as some have mentioned, the show does provide some interesting areas of the US and artifacts I would not have known about before.

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Jason Colavito link
3/9/2013 09:07:16 am

You are correct. Cumberlandite is an ancient volcanic rock that is found only around Narragansett Bay. It is rich in iron (which is why it is magnetic) and titanium, and it was used by early colonists for cannons and farm tools, neither of which is associated with the sacred feminine and Venus. The Templars could not have known of its existence to give it symbolic name before coming to America unless you are like Scott Wolter and think that Europeans had been traveling back and forth for centuries making reports about weird rocks.

As I said in the review above, I can't figure out who calls it the Stone of Venus. The best I can figure is that Wolter is confusing it with old NASA reports about stones on the planet Venus that may have similar chemical compositions: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc1985/pdf/1135.pdf

But I just don't know; the only references to it online or in library databases as the stone of Venus are in Wolter's own work.

B L
3/9/2013 10:37:37 am

Great catch on the Cumberlandite. It is true that the rock is ONLY found in Rhode Island. Even if the Templars were coming to America their order and traditions would have been long established well before they would have known of this mineral's existence. "Stone of Venus" indeed! You know who calls Cumberlandite the "Stone of Venus"? Scott Wolter, and NO ONE. This was an outright lie. Up to this point one could make the claim that Wolter was just a harmless idiot not willing to do real research. Last night was a new low for the show.

Historian
12/8/2014 09:26:33 am

Cumberlandite only outcrops on Iron Mine Hill in Cumberland. The last glacier scraped up pieces and when it melted, dumped chunks of the rock in a do called "glacial boulder train" as far south as Martha's Vineyard and extending along the west shore of Narragansett Bay northward. Interestingly, a small sample of Cumberlandite was found in the course of the Tower excavation conducted in 2006, and was misidentified as a meteorite at the time. The lab at Arizona State University could not ID it, ruled out meteorite. I told the people who had hired the excavation team that the chemical report indicating Ti proved it had to be Cumberlandite.

Phillip
3/9/2013 03:51:04 pm

@RLewis,
"Some people call cumberlandite the Stone of Venus" to "cumberlandite is sometimes called the Stone of Venus" to "cumberlandite is also known as the Stone of Venus".

The only thing you left out was the leap....

......"The Templars revered cumberlandite because it was the stone of Venus" Scott then goes on to say he can pull these clues together if more cumberlandite can be found in a different pretty area to film. When He does we have the smoking gun. The Templars revered cumberlandite because it is the stone of the goddess, or Venus, and placed it strategically on that column to show they consider women equal to men...... Anyone else find this highly unlikely? and thats the nice way of saying what I wanted to say.

I am ashamed of myself for watching it again. Its like watching a trainwreck with a conductor speaking nonsense about how the train is fine. And when it crashes the nonsense conductor will point out that mangle tracks look like a hooked X.

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William M Smith
3/9/2013 08:08:56 am

I felt the show did a good job of leaving a lot of people on the edge of their seats looking for facts, however people that have studied the tower may not agree that all the findings were presented. One main example could be the builders mark at the top of the tower located 17 degrees west of true north. The critics would say, how could they have located the Triangle builders stone in that specific location. They could have used a lodestone compass. The evidence of this is the 17 degrees was the magnetic declination of the tower in 1472. Other support for this is the compass needle and cover glass found in the 1947 Godfrey dig and the magnetic stone found in 2008 in a hole 2 feet below surface which was studied by
the University of Arizona. The following paper in Migration and Diffusion will provide an explanation for every nook and cranny of the tower as well as the surrounding area. You do not have to agree with the facts, however you do need to see and place all of them in their proper place and time.
Summary:
This report is an engineer's explanation of the five Ws of the Newport Tower located in Touro Park in Newport, Rhode Island, USA.

Who -It was likely built by the Portuguese (Goths) and Dutch (Norwegians), many of which were skilled Masons or member of The Knights of Christ. Led by (Joao Vaz Corte Real).

Where - It was built on the 41.30 latitude north and 71.20 longitude west or the east coast of Vin-Land. Today known as Touro Park, off Bellevue Avenue in Newport Rhode Island.Thanks to the City of Newport and the Newport Historical Society we are able to enjoy the beauty and mystery of this ancient structure.

What - It was constructed using materials from the local area which consisted of stone, wood and mortar made of sea shell sand and oil mix. It was constructed with proven technology and alignment skills understood by the builders. It would require 17 men working 78 days to complete the structure. It was built using the Scottish Ell (37.25in./unit).

When - It was likely built in 1472 at the same time the builders were making land claim identified in the (Regal Treaty) to their new discovered Vin-Land. This land claim was identified as all the unclaimed land as far as the eye could see (90 degrees west of Segres, Portugal).

Why - To provide living quarters for the fisherman in the cod fishing industry as well as processing fish, telling time of day, function as a calendar, predict the tides, base station for a lunar compass, light house and even shows evidence of making clay pipes and drying tobacco.
Download: Smith Tower Teil 1.pdf (4.30 MB)
For photos of many artifacts and the complete story use (Migration and Diffusion) in your Google search bar, click on authors then click on my name, at the bottom of the summary page their is a link to the complete story.
William M Smith

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Lynn Brant link
3/9/2013 08:42:14 am

This ^^^^^ is also more plausible than the colonial theory.

Speaking of theories, my short fiction statement on the Kensington Rune Stone published yesterday and is free on my website at LynnBrant.com and also available at smashwords and amazon. This will be more to the liking of the skeptics out there.

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Max Newman
12/8/2014 06:53:14 am

The problem with this pre-colonial date is that excavations have been done and nothing has been found from pre-colonial times. Are you adding in an assumption that after they were done using this structure that they carefully excavated and cleaned everything up from many years of use?

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Historian
12/8/2014 09:41:22 am

The "magnetic stone" you referred to was studied at ASU, not Univ. of Az. At any rate, it was found to be a sample of Cumberlandite. When the last glacier melted, pieces of Cumberlandite the glacier had scraped off and picked up at Iron Mine Hill in Cumberland were dropped out as the ice melted, creating a Cumberlandite boulder train all the way back to Iron Mine Hill. Newport is included in that boulder train zone, and that is how it got to the tower. Of course it could have been transported there by natives, but it was only a tiny fragment.

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William M Smith
3/9/2013 08:48:34 am


The following link will give you a computer program that will allow you to view the outside of the Newport Tower. When it opens you are looking at the north surface of the tower. If you use your cursor and turn the tower to the west window you will see this window has an archway above it. This archway structure is a way to transmit the upper load to the sides of the window frame. This was needed because of the wooden yard arm that protruded from the tower at the small hole directly above this window. This yard arm lift aid also extended out od the tower on the North east to aid in lifting fire wood into a ground pit that supplied central heating to the structure. When you rotate the tower to look for the north east hole you will see it has a large stone at the top side to counter the unloading of barrels of cod fish through the west window. (http://www.photospherix.com/flash_client.asp?id=np_0000_out )
William M Smith

Lynn - I never thought you would agree on anything I said.

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Johnson
3/9/2013 09:05:25 am

Firstly, it's Egan, not Eagan. Secondly, this has to be the most far fetched episode yet. Magnetic rocks, bogus Venus alignments, fake mid-air X symbol, and a crappy keystone by "master" masons. Did you notice he made no attempt to date the mortar even though he proclaims himself to be the world's expert? He obviously knows it dates more recently and it blows away his Templar theory. I hate people like him.

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William M Smith
3/9/2013 09:24:19 am

Johnson - the mortar has been dated with 6 samples showing an early date of 1450s and a later date showing 1700s. Wolter took a sample he stated and never posted the results. Their are lots of material that could be dated if you look at the Godfrey artifacts gathered in the 1947 dig. Cod fish bones, clay pipes, green glass. Other items from Jan Barstads dig in 2008, wooden post holes, fire pit wood in the outside fire pit.

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Jason Colavito link
3/9/2013 09:42:18 am

The radiocarbon dates actually confirm a mid-1600s date. Alternative writers have expressed reservations about the dates and have tried to find methodological errors to support an earlier date. The researchers involved, however, confirmed a 1600s date.

Jason Colavito link
3/9/2013 09:39:37 am

Spelling corrected.

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Matthew Dentith link
3/9/2013 09:26:35 am

Another great review, Jason.

I just want to add my two cents to the discussion by asking what Wolter thought his experiment would really show? Even if he had got the result he was looking for, how would that show the Templars built the tower in the first instance?

For example, if Egan is correct (we were only offered two hypotheses on the show) and we buy into the occultist beliefs of John Dee, why couldn't Dee have designed the structure to mark the Winter Solstice? Nothing about the experiment Wolter designed decides between the two theories unless you make radical and totally implausible claims about how certain architectural alignments really are the sole domain of one particular group. We see this kind of reasoning when it comes to the various Celtic theories in the Pacific; if you find a spiral pattern in the local artwork, it must be Celtic because spirals are (apparenly) solely a Celtic symbol.

I can imagine the Knights Templar legal department drafting up letters: "Dear so-and-so. We notice that you are using the Summer Solstice as a guide for the planting of crops. Please be aware that the use of architectural elements in buildings to mark the Solstices belongs to the Knights Templar."

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Jason Colavito link
3/9/2013 09:44:36 am

Ha! That's what the Kensington Rune Stone "code" really says: Dear Native Americans, stop using astronomy!

You're right that the experiment proves nothing and could prove nothing unless one already believes that the Templars used "X's" as their secret code--but this Venus "X" isn't a "hooked X" so it doesn't even make sense if we accept everything at face value!

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Matthew Dentith link
3/9/2013 10:02:05 am

Precisely. Indeed, the whole "science" of symbology seems predicated on the rather dangerous assumption that a) all symbols have discreet meanings, b) particular symbols are the sole domain of one group and b) if it looks like a symbol, it was placed there intentionally.

Take, for example, Wolter's cornerstone thesis; I've seen representations of cornerstones like the one he sees at the Windmill and on the Statue of Liberty in apartment buildings in Auckland, built in the 1930s and 40s. Are the Templars/Freemasons responsible for these structures? Should I be checking them for alignments with the solstices?

phillip
3/9/2013 04:13:08 pm

This was AU's worst effort. I was disappointed, as lousy as it is, I like seeing Scott get all duded up to get "the truth" out! This episode gave me the impression that he felt beaten. He did not even try to fib to me intellectually, When the AU nonsense is no longer humorous, I guess I have to move on . Maybe I can send Scott an email claiming Ive seen Bigfoot, Thats History right? Ancient Aliens has already warmed up the car for me.

SEASON TWO: America Unearthed: The Bigfoot/Templar Connection.
Who was here first? and if it was Bigfoot, was he white?

Lynn Brant link
3/9/2013 10:13:14 am

Professor Andre J. de Bethune, Pro essor of Chemistry at Boston College, in a 1998 ar icle appearing in Journal of the Newport
Historical Society, made a strong argument (backed up by some painstaking physical chemistry calculations) that the penetration
of air CO2 over time into the mortar, even several inches into the mortar was likely, and hat the quantitative contribution of that
“fresh” 14 C renewal by ion exchange (error no. 5) would have to be significant , and in fact the most important . He was willing to
assume that for particles as fine as .0005 inch there was little chance of poor furnace work and that Heinemeier and Jungner’s
sample preparation lowered the remaining errors to relative negligibility. The particles in the sample that would be least apt to be affected by carbon exchange error would be the largest particles which would be represented in the second CO2 fraction collected.
Basically, he said that atmospheric CO2 would penetrate the larger diameter particles less completely, and so their dates would
be closer to actual (but still not correct). His final conclusion: Tower already standing 1440-1480.

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Lynn Brant link
3/9/2013 10:14:18 am

Sorry that's so hard to read ^^^

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Jason Colavito link
3/9/2013 11:11:59 am

As I said above, some have raised objections to the original radiocarbon dating, which was to the mid-1600s. However, even J Huston McCulloch, a staunch defender of diffusionism, in reviewing the objections to the 1600s carbon date could only conclude that the radiocarbon results were "inconclusive," not that they proved a pre-colonial date. http://www.econ.ohio-state.edu/jhm/arch/vinland/newport.htm

The remainder of the evidence from historical records and archaeology continues to favor a colonial date.

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Jason Colavito link
3/9/2013 11:23:16 am

Also, the peer reviewed article by J. Heinemeier and H. Junger (2000) rebuts de Bethune and excludes a pre-Columbian date.

http://pure.au.dk/portal/en/publications/a-precolumbian-origin-for-the-newport-tower-can-still-almost-certainly-be-excluded-a-reply-to-professor-andre-j-de-bethune(ec21cce0-7ba5-11db-bee9-02004c4f4f50).html

J
3/9/2013 06:16:25 pm

What a load of codswallop.

Tower was NOT standing 1440-1480.

Carbon date the fish bones and the smoke, dummy. If the thing was built to use as for smoking fish, the soot would be on the walls.

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William M Smith
3/10/2013 11:25:21 am

Mr J, first understand I am not hiding behind a letter which represents my name as you are. It is ok to ask questions, however do not expect answers by being critical of people that attempt to provide facts to the interested researchers.
If I had to guess I would say the tower is rotated 3 degrees counterclockwise to allow the mid-day sun light to enter the south window on the second floor and shine through the double length trap door in the floor when the doors are open onto the ground of the first floor. On the summer solstice this light is a small east west line the width of the window in the center of the tower. On the winter solstice this light is 9 feet to the north of the outside of the tower. Each day of the year the light on the floor will move 1.2 in. north or south. (192 in. / 182.5 days = 1.052 in. per day movement). This is the daily calendar that works every day the sun shines just as it did 500 years ago. The time during the day was determined by the position of the sunlight on the second floor as it made a large U path during the day on the north wall. The inside east west diameter is larger than the north south diameter on the second floor, however the first floor is walls are thicker on the east - west walls in order to support the 3 beams that support the floor planks. The reason for the increase in diameter east and west on the second floor is because on the 41 degree latitude north the days are about 14 minutes longer than at the equator. I speculate that the original roof before the early colonial blew it off in a powder explosion (south 2 ft. of the wall only) that the roof had 15 trusses which produced 30 windows for observing the position of the moon in order to determine when the 2 foot tide in the Atlantic was at it's lowest point for tending the stone V shaped fish traps that caught the cod fish during their movement in the area, Cod fish mate for life and are bottom feeders. They also are a school fish and their oil was used for paint, sail coating, medicine and as a protective coating for sealing meat. Did you know that the smallest state in the USA is R.I. and it has 50% of all fish traps in the USA.

Gareth
3/10/2013 12:01:53 pm

William
Has anyone done any research into the date of these fish traps? If they don't date from the mid 1400s then your theory goes even further out of the window.
Then you say the tower tower is rotated 3 degrees to allow the sun to shine through double-length trapdoors. Do you have any evidence that these double length trapdoors existed at the Newport Tower? No you don't, you've made them up to support your theory.
It's interesting that they should even be required for practical purposes, since you've also invented an external hoist that serves one of the windows so the duplication of effort in providing both, even if one accpets your theory, is nonsensical.
It is, according to you, a combined fish smoke house and sundial and observatory, a building type that is utterly unknown anywhere else in the world, and even more absurd for a small group of would-be colonists who then vanish without trace to have constructed.
Perhaps you could also comment on the fact that your own dimensions do not support the use of the Ell in construction, as I examined below?

Kent
2/24/2023 09:01:55 pm

Mr. Smith:

You're not the stupidest person ever to post here, and if that sounds like damning with faint praise, it's meant to.

"cod fish mate for life" For reals?

a. I say they don't. Prove me wrong.
b. How would anyone know?

Ten years late I know but I'm gambling on the e-mail notification feature.

Jason D.
11/30/2013 11:03:23 am

If CO2 (essentially air) can disprove carbon dating in this case, wouldn't that disprove all carbon dating? What is special about the Newport Tower that CO2 penetrates it more than any other carbon dated item? Seems like just another way to explain away hard evidence that doesn't fit someone's pet theory. Since when does true science try to explain away evidence instead of changing the hypothesis to support the evidence at hand?

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Johnson
3/9/2013 10:23:58 am

The floor between the first and second story would block the view of Venus from the niches, so this Templar theory is busted. I bet Egan mentioned that but this of course was edited out. The niches were most likely used to hold firewood and had no other purpose.

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B L link
3/9/2013 10:43:16 am

Everyone drop what you're doing right now and go rent the movie Strange Wilderness. The movie stinks, but the main character played by Steve Zahn is to wildlife as Scott Wolter is to archeology. Keeping this in mind you might die of laughter as you watch.

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CFC
3/9/2013 10:50:56 am

The Venus allignment failed so what do they do but create a diversion and fly to the Statue of Liberty. I nearly died laughing.

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Tripps
3/9/2013 11:11:51 am

Has anyone located norumbega and done real research comparing to real geography? Sure looks a bit lie Narraganset bay or even up in Maine

There are not infinite places to match this in the northeast corridor

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Jason Colavito link
3/9/2013 11:15:30 am

The land labeled as Norumbega on Mercator's map was Narragansett Bay; however, there was never a European colony by that name. The term was applied to many different locations between Rhode Island and Maine and was a figment of geographical imagination. Mercator happened to locate it in Rhode Island, but other maps chose different locations.

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Tripps
3/9/2013 12:34:55 pm

Jason do we know why Mercator chose RI?? Because he determined it to be in RI what knowledge or legends was he privy to?

Yes anyone can do 5 mins of dd like i did see others in MA claim it

Mercator is a pretty big deal in the map world should we distrust him?

Interesting there is a Newport tower type tower in Camden ME west of Arcadia and the Rockefeller owned Mt Desert Island land

Hmmm

Jason Colavito link
3/9/2013 12:40:18 pm

I don't know for sure, but if I had to guess, it's probably because Giovanni da Verrazano put it at about that location in his 1529 map, and Verrazano is known to have visited Narragansett Bay.

Tripps
3/9/2013 01:17:13 pm

Interesting Jason are you saying like others that Verrazano was checking in on Newport secret settlement or at least aware of it as significant in the new world??

After all Newport means new port
There must be a backstory to why rich elites built 10000 sf summer cottages there as well and why Americas Cup originated there

Apparently Templars were great sailors too amongst other things

Verrazano one of them?

Helen
1/13/2018 06:30:50 pm

@tripps

Hey there! Just coming in to this conversation five years late, I’ll make a longer post after finishing this joke of a series.

Felt the need to add to your comment about the origins of the name Newport. These a whole bunch of places named Newport in the UK. But this probably derived from the Welsh town just outside Cardiff.

Richard Rush
3/9/2013 11:19:39 am

i have extensive and indisputable proof that the Tower is the ignition pit for interplanetary rockets to Mars. Analog - the launch-pad rings for the Saturn V rockets in Florida.

But it would be too many pages, and I don't feel like typing it in here.

Whee!

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B L
3/9/2013 11:32:06 am

Was that the season finale the? I'm gonna miss this blog if it was!

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Jason Colavito link
3/9/2013 11:43:44 am

There's one more episode next week, and then it's off for a few months before the next season launches.

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N L
3/9/2013 01:06:53 pm

Jason, I'm throwing a wrench in the works here....Plowden's New Albion Petition to King Charles I in 1632. Collections of New-York Historical Society, 1869. *This is a British public document written in 1632. Many scholars theorize that the mention of a round stone tower in this document is proof of the Old Stone Mill's existence before 1640. The item in the collection of the New-York Historical Society is an 1869 copy. If the structure was called old and stone in 1632 it would imply the plaster had already fallen away and that the structure was a ruin. Could Arnold have retrofitted a pre-existing structure to make his windmill?

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Gareth
3/9/2013 01:16:15 pm

See here, pp19-22. What the Plowden petition actually describes isn't the Newport Tower
http://www.academia.edu/1335526/THE_NEWPORT_TOWER_AND_THE_PLOWDEN_PETITION

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Gareth
3/9/2013 01:16:21 pm

See here, pp19-22. What the Plowden petition actually describes isn't the Newport Tower
http://www.academia.edu/1335526/THE_NEWPORT_TOWER_AND_THE_PLOWDEN_PETITION

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Gareth
3/9/2013 01:16:30 pm

See here, pp19-22. What the Plowden petition actually describes isn't the Newport Tower
http://www.academia.edu/1335526/THE_NEWPORT_TOWER_AND_THE_PLOWDEN_PETITION

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Gareth
3/9/2013 01:16:36 pm

See here, pp19-22. What the Plowden petition actually describes isn't the Newport Tower
http://www.academia.edu/1335526/THE_NEWPORT_TOWER_AND_THE_PLOWDEN_PETITION

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Gareth
3/9/2013 01:17:06 pm

See here, pp19-22. What the Plowden petition actually describes isn't the Newport Tower
http://www.academia.edu/1335526/THE_NEWPORT_TOWER_AND_THE_PLOWDEN_PETITION

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N L
3/9/2013 01:38:18 pm

Thanks Gareth. I was not aware of that analysis. Very informative.

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Gareth
3/9/2013 01:18:03 pm

Apologies, that was only supposed to post once.

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Lynn Brant link
3/9/2013 01:21:31 pm

How many other stone buildings were in Newport in 1675? Answer - zero. How many other stone windmills were in New England? Zero. How much mention did this fantastic structure get when it was being built, in newspapers, letters, anywhere? Zero. I could go on and on. In fact tomorrow, I will.

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Gareth
3/9/2013 01:26:11 pm

Oh, please do. It's clear, just from those three statements, that you don't understand the subject at all.

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J Adamson
3/9/2013 01:32:53 pm

Why exactly would building a windmill be so fantastic that it would deserve to be mentioned in letters, newspapers, etc?

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Gareth
3/9/2013 01:44:07 pm

The likes of Lynn Brant assume that there is something specially unusual about the Newport Tower as a windmill (because it's stone, and because its unusual design echoes that of a windmill built in central England in 1632 well within sight of what was then a main southwest - northeast route across the English midlands), so much so that (according to them) it can't have been one, since if it had, some lucky chance would have led to its actual construction (rather than just its existence a few years after it was built) being recorded on a piece of paper that survived 300 years of wars, accidents and general tidy-ups.
There were about 30,000 colonists in New England in the 1650s (Source, Ernest Flagg, Genealogical Notes on the Founding of New England, 1926). Modern estimates for Europe suggest a ratio of 1 mill for every thousand inhabitants. But there aren't records of even 30 mills in New England at that period, even though they must have existed.

Kent
2/24/2023 09:36:44 pm

@Lynn Brant:

"How many other stone buildings were in Newport in 1675? Answer - zero."
Prove it.

"How many other stone windmills were in New England? Zero."
Prove it.

"How much mention did this fantastic structure get when it was being built, in newspapers, letters, anywhere? Zero."
Prove it.

Let me point out again, for the nth time, that there's no written record of the first Newport settlers saying "Hey, there's a bitchin' tower already here!" to use your phrase, "in newspapers, letters, anywhere".

A search at archive.org show that Lynn Brant's website was shut down in 2018 for selling counterfeit merchandise.
https://web.archive.org/web/20180307082106/http://lynnbrant.com/

Ten years too late but I'm depending on the e-mail notification feature.

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Gareth
3/9/2013 01:30:15 pm

Just to take the last of those three, how many buildings (of any material) were there in New England in 1675? a reasonable estimate must be thousands. And how many of them had their construction recorded in the relatively small percentage of the total number of documents of the period that have survived to the present day? a tiny proportion. How many are described as "my stone built windmill" in one of those few surviving documents? One - The Newport Tower.

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Gareth
3/9/2013 01:52:06 pm

However...
How much evidence (documentary, archaeological, or other), when you look at the primary sources, is there that the Newport Tower was built at any time before the mid-1600s, that it ever formed part of a larger complex of buildings (as it would have to do in order to fit most of the alternative hypotheses), that there was any settlement of any sort near it before the 17th century, that Vikings, Chinese, Portuguese or any other group settled in the area or were responsible for its construction, or that it was anything other than a windmill built by Governor Arnold?
To all those questions, the answer is a very big Zero indeed.

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N L
3/9/2013 02:00:25 pm

Gareth, you seem to be the most knowledgable guy on the subject in the forum. What are your thoughts on the strange placements and sizes of the windows at the NT? The Chesterton mill has four windows of traditional size and placement. One window int the NT would be 2 ft from the floor while another would have been 6 feet from the floor. Seems like these strange placements would have had a purpose.

Tripps
3/9/2013 02:10:15 pm

Hmmmmm so RI's first governor just happens to own the Viking tower land???
Of all the places to settle he gets the one with questionable tower roots
Was he rich already? Connected? He becomes a governor it wasn't for anyone back then

Tripps
3/9/2013 02:15:59 pm

Very interesting that RIs first govenor claims the Viking Templar tower land and decades later a relative Benedict Arnold a war hero and navy man tragically becomes an infamous traitor!!

A big hmmm to possible brotherhood loyalties

Gareth
3/9/2013 02:16:32 pm

Here's a redrawing of Philip Means' internal elevation of the NT
http://www.chronognostic.org/pdf/means_elevation.pdf
I'd agree that the window placings are a bit of a mess in comparison to Chesterton, though even Chesrton is not as regular in its window sizing and placement as might at first be thought.
(I don't think anyone's claiming it's a direct, accurate copy, but that having seen Chesterton from a distance someone in the colony, some years later, decided to model the windmill on their memory of it)
On Means' drawing, all the windows are quite reasonably placed if one understands the NT as a working windmill, with two floor levels above the arched section, with a staircase between the two levels and some sort of timber structure containing a staircase from the ground level up (as there was at Chesterton until the 1920s) I don't believe anyone has ever excavated properly *within the footprint of the tower* to establish whether any evidence for such a structure remains (though I'm happy to be proved wrong on that either way)

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N L link
3/9/2013 02:19:04 pm

Thanks again.

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Gareth
3/9/2013 02:42:26 pm

Here are some archive photos and a short description of Chesterton (including dimensions, which match the NT very closely)
http://www.search.windowsonwarwickshire.org.uk/engine/resource/exhibition/standard/default.asp?txtKeywords=&lstContext=&lstResourceType=&lstExhibitionType=&chkPurchaseVisible=&txtDateFrom=&txtDateTo=&x1=&y1=&x2=&y2=&scale=&theme=&album=&viewpage=%2Fengine%2Fresource%2Fexhibition%2Fstandard%2Fchild%2Easp&originator=&page=&records=&direction=&pointer=&text=&resource=758&offset=0

And some more recent views here, which include a cross-section showing how the machinery is arranged within the two upper floor levels
http://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/web/corporate/pages.nsf/Links/A5ADF4870024B9D38025710200562DF1

noriko artero
3/1/2016 12:39:06 pm

Could you tell Scott to contact me.I have the "BLACK HAT"his looking for! (805)491-3782

Gareth
3/9/2013 02:20:46 pm

Tripps: "Hmmmmm so RI's first governor just happens to own the Viking tower land???"

No, the whole point is that it's not a Viking or Templar tower, all that it later BS made up first by the 19th century inhabitants of Newport who wanted a nice old ruin with a romantic history, and then picked up and run with by charlatans who make a lot of money selling exciting but fictional books and TV shows to the gullible. It didn't exist until after Benedict Arnold built it.

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Tripps
3/10/2013 08:44:51 am

Garret ri was formed in early 1600s where is the proof he built it? If you guys are gonna use strict logic then we can use it against your dismissals as well

Fact is not just anyone became governor 100 years before the us was formed back then

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Sean
3/9/2013 04:39:39 pm

While narrowing the search to Newport, Rhode Island naturally produces few results examples of seventeenth century colonial stone, brick, and mortar construction are abundant.

St. Luke's Church, Smithfield, VA, (1632)
Henry Whitfield House, Guilford, CT , (1639)
Jamestown Church, Jamestown, VA, (1639)
Bronck House, Coxsackie, NY, (1663)
Castillo de San Marcos, St. Augustine, FL, (1672-95).

These few examples were built for a variety of purposes. The techniques and materials used continued to be employed through the nineteenth century to build private residences, military posts, churches, and municipal buildings across the country.

Tower mills such as Chesterton Windmill in England, and likely the Newport Tower, had been in frequent use in Europe since the twelfth century. This wasn’t technology that would’ve warranted great fanfare. Especially given that colonists frequently utilized local materials and culturally influenced architectural styles for structures of myriad purposes.

Given the archeological evidence gathered and analyzed, the scientific evidence such as the mortar dating and the legitimate historical record this seems to be a very straightforward case.
History can’t always give us every detail of everything that happened at a particular place but all the evidence from multiple disciplines points to a definite time period that this structure came into existence.

Although it will remain a place of great local interest and historical value it just isn’t a clue in an Indiana Jones or Robert Langdon adventure. Real History and Science are far more fascinating than fiction could ever hope to be.

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mj
3/16/2013 06:20:50 am

While admitting my observations are cursory, and don't include entire buildings, I must say that looking at the foundations of early colonial era Newport homes (especially those nearer the water) display techniques not dissimilar to the body of the tower.

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William M Smith
3/9/2013 05:55:20 pm

As an engineer who has studied the Newport Tower as well as the artifacts from the 1947 Godfrey dig at the tower, I assure you it it not a windmill. All of the measurements of the tower indicate the Dutch or Scottish Ell was used in construction. (37.25 in. in a yard or the length from your nose to the end of your finger). The tower was built as a smoke house to process cod fish. If you went to the links I posted earlier you will get an answer to your questions as it relates to each window and other parts of the tower that is special to its purpose. It is not a mill because their is no bearing supports in the walls or openings that are constructed to handle the horizontal shaft at the correct elevation required. Their is also no ground evidence that support a bearing stone for the vertical shaft of a mill.

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J
3/9/2013 06:19:35 pm

Where's the soot on the inside walls then? Stop making shit up.

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J
3/9/2013 06:20:31 pm

And you're not very smart if you can't distinguish between THERE and THEIR grammatically.

N L
3/10/2013 03:48:04 am

There couldn't be any soot on the inside if the tower to test because any soot residue would have settled on the layer of plaster that covered the entire tower. This plaster has long since deteriorated and only small patches remain.

I tend to think the structure was a windmill, but what's wrong with hearing other theories? If these theories accomplish nothing other than teaching us aspects of the structure we didn't know before (like the fact the tower was covered with plaster) then aren't they worth hearing.

If you want to debate an issue then I suggest you become the authority on that issue rather that relying on curse words most adults lost interest in by the 5th grade. The road you are on does not add strength or credibility to you argument.

Come back to the forum sometime after you learn the elements of civil discussion.

William M Smith
3/10/2013 08:53:18 am

Most of the wall plaster is gone except for the boxes in the local Historical Society museum. This is where you may find the soot from the smoking process. The ground floor area inside the tower is likely to show little smoke in the mortar because it was likely heated from a outside fire pit located in 2008 which would make the structure with a central heating system. This heating system has been reported in ancient castle and churches. I will say I am a poor speller, however I do hope you understand the message rather than shoot the messenger.

Gareth
3/10/2013 04:44:06 am

OK William, Here's the cross section of Chesterton Windmill again:
http://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/web/corporate/pages.nsf/Links/A5ADF4870024B9D38025710200562DF1
The bearings you speak of are all housed in the timber structures which are now missing from Newport.
Can you point to single example of a circular, stone-built, arcaded fish smoke house?

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William M Smith
3/10/2013 08:35:13 am

Gareth - First I want to thank you for taking the time to read my paper on the tower in Migration and Diffusion. To answer your question (Can I point to a circular, stone-built arcaded fish smoke house) The answer is N0 not exactly. Their are two round smoke houses in France that have the walls finished with a plaster to improve air flow in the building and make it more sanitary, Their is a stone light house about 5 miles south of the Newport Tower that is made in the similar stone mortar as the Tower. Their is report of an ancient site built by the Bask fisherman that had an atrium with central heating. Sue Carolson of NEAR gave a good report on some round buildings attached to ancient churches that had the double flu fire places on the second floor. Their are wood carvings dating in the 14th century showing the processing of fish. I have a soil sample that Michigan State confirmed the difference in the soil at the barrel unload west window, which is likely the area on the ground where the fresh water was added to seal the barrels of smoked cod fish. Most of my research is in the paper which is in Migration and Diffusion. The process of smoking is clearly stated. Also understand this report is about 4 years old and new information is being accumulated that add additional support. Example: The grove in the south wall just to the right of the south window is said to hold a table likely and the nitch in the center was for a table support. The south window sides are relieved to allow max. light into the working area. This table was the likely location where the fish were removed from their hanging rod and packed into barrels for shipment. These barrels of fish were moved out the west window with a lift aid and placed on the ground 12 to 14 ft from the tower. This is where they were filled with water from the spring on Spring Street until the top sealed. The cod liver oil that soaked into the soil at this sealing station worked like (salt be gone) and is similar to the same liquid we use today to remove salt in our yard at the street. The most important work going on currently is proving the use of the lodestone compass at the tower for confirming the triangle stone at 17 degrees west of true north on the upper outer edge of the tower. Note: This location was 17 degrees magnetic variance in 1472. It is 14 degrees west today. At the 41 degree latitude this change is on an average of 50 miles per 100 years. Today the 17 degree magnetic declination is about 250 miles east of the tower. Note: This same process may have been used to locate the Kensington Rune Stone on the argon line in 1472 or in 1362, 110 years earlier 65 miles west of its present location. Also keep in mind the over 60 native American skeleton's were studied for the presence of the pneumonia virus and it's first appearance was at Narragessit Bay and western Wisconsin that in late 1400's killed over 80% of the Indians in the area's. Sorry for the long talk but I have many hours of study at the Newport Tower. I also agree with the two engineers that were the only engineers to report on the Scottish Ell for the standard dimensions of the tower. I also assure you, that many reported measurements are not correct. Their are reported alignment marks in the upper surface of the south window. I hope to confirm these marks and show how they were used to locate the builders stone on the north side. I wish I had someone close to the tower that could help because the drive from Ohio is costly.

Gareth
3/10/2013 08:58:13 am

William, I have indeed read your paper. I can only say it was hard going and the strain you were involved in - in trying to force a "fish smoking house" explanation out of a building that very clearly was not built, or ever used, for that purpose - is obvious. It is one of the most contrived explanations for the Tower I have seen.
Suzanne Carlson's paper for NEARA draws a lot of parallels with other structures (anything as long as it's not a windmill, it seems), but every one of her comparisons has no validity at all as each example exists in a cultural, documentary and archaeological context which, if the comparisons with Newport Tower were worthwhile, would also be present there. They are not. It's all very well for Carlson to say, for example, "the NT looks like this mediaeval baptistery", but she ignores the fact that the Newport Tower is not surrounded by even the slightest remnants of a mediaeval monastery.
I will take up one point about the Ell measurements. You give the tower diameter as 24.5 feet (with the caveat that this varies by "about a foot"), and give a tower circumference of 76.93 feet. pi x 24.5 is actually 76.979 feet. You then say that 76.93 feet is 25 Ells. 76.93 feet is 923.16 inches, which is 24.7828andsome Ells. The difference of 0.22 Ells is more than 8 inches. This is not meaningful accuracy in any sense, and gives no support whatever to the Ell as a unit of maesurement used in the tower's construction.
I suggest you come over to England sometime and have a look over Chesterton windmill with me. It needs much less forcing of the imagination to fit that to the NT than to fit a fish smokehouse to it.
Far too much importance has been attached in the recent theories to Chronognostic's shamefully undated post holes (there was charcoal in them, but no samples were taken for dating, not an archaeologist's usual response to such an important find). Extrapolating from two post holes, which may or may not have some connection to the Tower at some point in its life, into a timber ambulatory or atrium (of a sort, incidentally, completely unknown in any of the contexts suggested as alternative purposes of the Tower) goes far beyond what the evidence will allow.

Marco
3/10/2013 05:06:09 am

That's an interesting theory. As for the soot remarks made by others, I thought the colonists dried and salted cod, in which case, no smoke would be used. I think your use of the words "smoke house" might be misplaced and taken literally by others. Just a thought.

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William M Smith
3/10/2013 04:43:45 pm

Marco - You may be correct on the process used by the colonists to dry and salt their fish. Most of us have had smoked preserved ham from the modern day commercial smoke house. To dry fish takes much of the flavor out and it is almost impossible to remove the salty taste. The key to making a good fish product to sell on the European market and allow the time to get the fish to market is to clean the fish by removing its head and inner parts leaving a butterfly fillet which would be placed on a rod with about 5 other fish. This rod of fish would be dipped into a hot pot of water and cod liver oil. When the fish was removed from the pot the oil would coat the fish. The rods of fish would be placed about two feet above the second floor in the smoking room. One end of the rod would go into the groves on the north or south wall. The other end would be supported with a rack off the floor leaving walking room between the rods. The mortar finished walls made the smoking room more sanitary by sealing the small holes in the rocks and mortar. This smooth surface was also an aid to the air flow in a circular pattern as it smoked the fish. The cod liver oil coating on the fish would solidify sealing the meat from the open air. They also used this oil on their sails to make them stiff. After about 8 hours the fish would be stripped from the rods and placed in wooden barrels. They would be brought to the ground as described before and sealed by filling the barrel with water. I am not sure if salt was needed in the water, however a salt pond was near by and a bronze Portuguese canon was found at this location. The barrels of fish would make the trip to the fish markets in Europe. The consumer would purchase the fish and place it in boiling fresh water which removed all the coating of cod liver oil and allowed the user fresh fish without a salty taste.

Gareth
3/10/2013 06:03:45 am

Published dimensions of the tower
Height
28 feet = 336 inches = 9.0201 etc Ells
Internal diameter
E-W 18ft4in = 220 inches 5.906 etc Ells
N-S 18ft9in = 225 inches = 6.0403 Ells
External diameter
SE-NW 22ft2in = 266 inches = 7.141 Ells
E-W 23ft3in – 279 inches = 7.490 Ells

The measurements in Ells have been rounded to 3 decimal places as the actual figures are lengthy and meaningless below that scale. However, the results are sufficient to show that the tower is not built in them.

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D.K.
3/10/2013 06:48:14 am

You forgot one vital piece of information. The earthquakes that plague New England obviously shifted the stones and therefore they are not in exact Ells units of measurement.

Kate
3/10/2013 10:54:24 am

Earthquakes that plague New England? Seriously? Let's go state by state for largest earthquakes (Richter scale) in New England:
Vermont, 1962, 4.2;
New Hampshire, 1940, 5.5;
Maine, 1904, 5.1;
Connecticut, 1791, ~5.0 (derived from the Mercalli scale damage);
Massachusetts, ~6.0, 1755 (this is also derived from the Mercalli scale);
Rhode Island, 1976, 3.5.
Let's throw in New York for good measure: 1944, 5.8

These magnitudes of earthquakes mean localized damage, especially in New England. Because of the type of bedrock in New England, the energy travels throughout the area easily, but it dissipates significantly with distance from the epicenter. The frequency of the "large" earthquakes is not all that often. The colonials were fairly good in recording earthquakes and their devestation, even if by just making a lithograph. Look at CT: the largest earthquake on record for that state is 1791, previously it was 1568 and about a 4.5 magnitude. Two hundred years. I wouldn't consider that to be a "plague" of earthquakes on New England.

Gareth
3/10/2013 11:05:33 am

I think D K was joking. The thing about an earthquake powerful enough to skew the measurements that much (if it didn't actually destroy the tower) is that it would also have upset the supposedly precise but actually accidental astronomical alignments that some people attach such unwarranted importance to.

D.K.
3/10/2013 11:11:06 am

Kate, thank you for that information, but I believe my attempt at humor eluded you. Not sure if you saw this episode, but Scott Wolter attempted to blame the misalignment of the Venus light in the niche on earthquakes moving the tower. I know New England does not have 'plagues' of earthquakes (I have family and friends in Mass). I hope you didn't go through too much effort providing the historical info.

Kate
3/10/2013 11:15:35 am

I hope you're right, Gareth, but this is not the first time I've heard this argument. And even if he is joking, I'm sure there are others that might jump at the idea of this as a possibility.

Kate
3/10/2013 11:21:48 am

Yes, D.K., I did see this episode. And as a geologist, I hope you understand my frustration. This show is undermining my field to the general public. As far as finding the historical data, it takes thirty seconds to find it, as any respectable geologist would be able to do.

Gareth
3/10/2013 12:31:37 pm

I should say that these calculations use William's alleged Ell of 37.25 inches, which is not the Scottish Ell (as standardised in 1661, so too late for William's theory in any case) of 37.059 inches, nor does it seem to be any recognised former Ell as used by the Vikings (c.18 inches), the Dutch (approx 27 inches), the French (approx 54 inches), the English (45 inches) or any other variants.
But it's the measurment William himself quoted both here and in his paper.

phillip
3/9/2013 06:57:13 pm

A simple glance a Wikipedia will show you half a dozen other "wild" Alternative Theories about the structure. ALL OF THEM more plausible then Templar Grail Nonsense

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Gareth
3/10/2013 05:15:50 am

And NONE OF THEM supported by a shred of evidence in the real world, except the 17th century windmill one, which is amply documented.

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cora
3/9/2013 07:14:53 pm

Jason,
Thanks for another great, informative review.

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Lynn Brant link
3/10/2013 01:27:20 am

A few observations on why the NT cannot possibly be a colonial windmill are at http://lynnbrant.com/html/newport_tower.html

I've shoved these down Gareth's throat before, and he is apparently still butt-hurt about it :)

(This is no longer a fit and civil place to carry on a conversation. Jason, you should be ashamed of yourself)

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Jason Colavito link
3/10/2013 01:36:30 am

I'm a bit confused. Against the archaeological and documentary facts you have astronomical alignments and assumptions about architecture that were rebutted back in the 1940s?

I'm also confused about why I should be ashamed. What precise level of control do you expect me to assert over what people choose to write in the comments? I've asked people to be civil and to avoid direct personal attacks, but beyond this, my choices are limited: let everyone post and get accused of hosting a "hostile" site; delete some posts and get accused of "censoring" alternative views; or close comments altogether and tell you all to go discuss it somewhere else.

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Gareth
3/10/2013 05:13:56 am

Sigh, "There's none so blind as those that *won't* see"
your assumed points:
1. The Indian War was not "devastating" in the way you are assuming
2. The building accounts for Chesterton survive and show that it was a built as a windmill in 1632-3
3.An examination of the records show that other buildings of similar complexity existed in Newport from the era, therefore the craftsmen existed to build it. You also make some assumptions about what "Puritan" means in terms of style which are not correct.
4. The exact same principle applies to Chesterton, which worked as a windmill from 1633 to about 1915
5. This simply isn't true
6. Fireplaces are common in windmills. The fire risk from milling at this scale and intensity is exaggerated, based on the amount of dust produced by modern high-speed roller mlling, not by stone grinding.
7. The wall-flue is the only way to accommodate a chimney in a working mill that would not be an impediment to the turning cap and sails
8.The double-splayed windows are commonly found in stone structures of all purposes, including windmills. Niches were fitted as cupboards or allowed pieces of machinery to be fitted
9. Coincidence. It happens, for example, that the setting sun first shines through the front bedroom window of my own house on my parents' wedding anniversary. Woooo, spooky.
10. Based on a number of suppositions, therefore coincidental
11. The structure is not "decidedly out of round", the difference has no practical effect on turning the top of the mill to face the wind, as it would have run on a timber track on top of the masonry.
12 & 13. There are no paintings of the period showing the tower at all, the first is a rather dubious one showing it already ruined 100 years later. There's little or no documentary evidence for the construction of most of the buildings that we know must have existed in Newport at the time, so this is irrelevant
14. There are no documentary or cartographical references to the tower before the late 1600s. All the examples that are quoted to the contrary turn out on inspection to be no such thing.
15. The post holes are evidence, only, that at some point before 2008, two posts were sunk a shallow depth into the ground near the mill, and that they happened to align with two of the pillars. Early photographs show a very sturdy wooden fence at this position. At least two possible windmill-related explanations are possible, one being to support a scaffold or stage round the mill from which the sails were adjusted (this is in my view unlikely), the other being posts to which the end of the tailpole by which the cap might have been turned (in common with most other windmills in the northeastern US) was anchored via a winch while turning it.
16. The measurements given for the tower vary from source to source, withing small margins but sufficiently to make it impossible to state with any certainty that the Ell was used in its construction. In any case, buildings are only very rarely erected to exact measurements of the sort you are supposing would be obvious if the foot was used.
17. Rubble stone buildings of all dates, by their nature, show similar features. It is just ignorance and wishful thinking to argue that they are somehow "special" to one particular period or culture.

I too could go on, but I know you are too deluded to understand any of the quite straightforward rebuttals of every point that you have chosen to imagine as demolishing the known facts and the clear and logical inference to be drawn from them, that the Newport Tower is a late 17th century windmill. A remarkably interesting one for its date and location, but that's what it is. Any other explanation streches credulity to breaking point.
It's such a shame that gullibility has replaced logical thought in the fields of history and science. And it's a dangerous shame, too.

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CFC
3/10/2013 01:57:49 am

What attracts me to this blog is this: Jason demonstrates an understanding and appreciation for the scientific method, provides proper referencing, is diplomatic and fair and promptly admits if he’s not correct.

If there are some additional references that can be provided with regard to the history or some analysis published somewhere that adds value to the discussion about this Newport Tower episode, then I hope those participating can either produce it or direct us to it.

No drama please!

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Bill
3/10/2013 09:57:11 am

What always amazes me is that throughout the series Wolter doesn't even know that Mexico is part of North America, at least it was when I went to school.

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Jason Colavito link
3/10/2013 10:04:35 am

I'm not sure America Unearthed would even count Canada--you know, the place where actual Europeans really did land in North America before Columbus.

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J.
3/11/2013 07:30:58 pm

Up until the Mexican-American War (1846-48), Mexico stretched all the way up to Utah and California. I wonder how that would affect his English in Arizona theory.

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Lisa C
3/10/2013 12:43:29 pm

Jason - Any chance you would consider banning whoever goes by "J"? You have to type your email addy in, so you must be able to track his/her posts somehow. This is a quote from J earlier in the thread, aimed at Lynn "I am going to fuck you up. Stop spreading lies. You're no better than Wolter, so I am going to fuck you up so you'll stop living in fantasy land, you condescending little bitch."

Although I don't agree with everything you post, you are obviously an intelligent person. I get the whole free speech thing, but is this the image you are trying to form?

To everyone else - I have no idea what the tower is, but let's just pretend that it is pre-Columbian for a second. If you carbon date the smoke and fish bones that proves nothing. Someone could have come along later and used the tower for that purpose because it was convenient. Also, if you carbon date the mortar, that means nothing. It could have been added at a later time to fortify the structure. They do it in New England all the time with one stone and brick buildings. It's called repointing. I wish I had a theory to present, instead of just criticisms, but those tests would yield useless results.

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Lisa C
3/10/2013 12:46:11 pm

Also, repointing MIGHT explain the wooden posts found around the site, as you would need to create some sort of support to hold the structure in place while re-mortaring it. I don't know where the posts are placed, so I wouldn't put money on that. Just a thought.

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William M Smith
3/10/2013 05:29:27 pm

The two wooden post holes and outside fire pit were discovered by Jan Barstad in 2008. The post were 14 in. in diameter and 4 Ells from the column post. (12 ft. 5 in.). The fire pit was outside and between the two columns to the north east. My report on Migration and Diffusion shows the calculated living area of the tower. Each of the eight sections of the outer atrium would provide living quarters for a large group of people, however the fire pit section would not be included but only to supply central heating to the other seven units. If you look at the flat stones located at equal heights (about 7 ft. ) from ground on each column they would support a beam from one column to the next then a beam on top of this beam to each post. When the roof or floor was placed on these beams about 3 inches of the stone arch would be open. This unique design was likely to allow smoke removal from the living area at each of the seven atrium sections. I feel the true dating and history of the tower may be located outside of the stone structure between the fence and tower at the living quarters before all the wood disappeared.

Gareth
3/10/2013 11:12:00 pm

William - 4 of your imaginary 37.25 inch Ells is 12 feet exactly, not 12.5 feet.
There is no evidence to extrapolate two post holes into an "outer atrium" and it is disingenuous to do so. The slightly projecting flat stones at the top of the columns are too shallow to provide as secure and reliable bearing for any sort of permanent roof structure.
Your paper does not explain (nor could it) how a (supposed) "fire pit" could provide "central heating" to seven units in your hypothetical "atrium", and there is no evidence for any means of conveying heat from one side of the building to the other.
I'm sorry, but I hate to see presumably intelligent people wasting their time on this nonsense, especially when they present their "results" as an inconsistent mish-mash of wishful thinking and outright error.

Kent
2/24/2023 10:51:44 pm

@gareth: "William - 4 of your imaginary 37.25 inch Ells is 12 feet exactly, not 12.5 feet."

You're both wrong. It's 12'5".

Jason Colavito link
3/10/2013 12:49:10 pm

Sigh. I try to monitor abusive posts, but this morning there were more than 50 new posts, and I just don't have the ability to monitor all of them. Weebly also doesn't give me the ability to ban IP addressses; I can only delete individual posts.

I've gone through and deleted "J.'s" abusive posts, and I'll try to do a better job of monitoring posts for abusive language. Sometimes, though, it takes me a while to get through all the posts!

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Lisa C
3/10/2013 01:46:37 pm

It's alright. I understand. I LOVE to disagree with people. That's how you learn - by being presented with new information from discerning individuals. But, there are right ways to do it, and wrong ways to do it. = )

Although I am not sure I buy into much of what Wolter presented in this episode, I would also like to point out that stone tower windmills have been being built since the 13th century. So, if someone did come over here earlier than Columbus, they could have had the technology to build one.

Also, the Chesterton Windmill (that is similar to the Newport Tower) is much more "polished" looking. It was built in the 1630s, so possibly around the same time or even earlier than the Newport Tower. Shouldn't the Newport Tower look a little more "professional", considering many of the other structures built at the time. The Newport Tower looks like a child did it (in comparison with certain other structures). I don't think the Templars or Freemasons would admit to making a structure with uneven columns and irregular keystones. They were so exacting. And Sir Edwards (who built the Chesterton one) was a mathematician and astronomer, which is right up the alley for those Templars and other secret societies. Maybe someone was just copying something they saw someone much more competent do.

Jason Colavito link
3/10/2013 01:50:01 pm

Not necessarily. The houses the colonists built were much cruder and less polished than their European counterparts, even the early mansions. Compare a colonial mansion to an English stately home and you'll see the differences. You do the best you can with the materials and craftsmen at hand. Plus, the Newport Tower was meant to be coated in plaster, which would have masked the rough stonework.

William M Smith
3/10/2013 03:13:36 pm

Jason - Thank you for allowing the people that are searching for the truth in hopes of solving some of our mysterious sites and artifacts in an open forum. Their are critics like J in all fields of our life. I have even been one a time or two. In most cases these people make profound claims which can be tested. I have watched all of the H2 shows and agree with your detail recap of each. I have known Scott Wolter since 2006 and conversed with him on many occasions. Keep up the good work.

J.
3/11/2013 07:33:38 pm

Aw, dammit... I use the same initial and try to differentiate with a period. (I know, ingenious.) But I'm not sending out any abuse. Should I pick a new moniker?

William M Smith
3/10/2013 05:02:32 pm

Lisa C - your points of dating the artifacts from the Godfrey dig could be questioned. If the cod fish bone dated to have ended life in 1480 would be significant. About two years I think at Cambridge University they were collecting cod fish bones from castles in Europe in order to identify what cod fish school the bones came from as well as the date of the fish. I do not think they have dated any Newport Tower bones. Their is an ox bone in the Godfrey artifacts that was dated, however it was only 100 years old. I would also feel the clay pipes could be dated. As for dating the tower, one thing can not be wrong. The 17 degrees west of true north position of the triangle stone that marks the magnetic declination at the towers location shows a late 1400s date. The only tool available to measure true north and magnetic north at the same time was a lodestone compass. This has a sun dial for true north and a magnetic needle for magnetic north all incorporated into one tool. Parts of the lodestone compass are in the Godfrey artifacts.

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Lisa C
3/11/2013 01:00:27 am

I guess I wasn't clear on that point. I should have said that if someone dated the smoke, bones, and pipe to a date in the 1600s, then it wouldn't be significant because people could have come along and used the site for convenience. However, if the items dated much earlier, then of course, they would be highly significant - indicating that the structure may have been there the whole time. My first statement was in response to one I read above about using the dated items to prove a connection to the 17th century.
Also - although I would indeed like to believe that the tower is older than most people think, because that would be cool - the simple act of using a magnetic stone for that purpose doesn't necessarily mean anything either. As you stated, that started being done in the 1400s. However, I could go out and make a stone tower right this moment using that technique. I know the technique is out there, so why not? You can always use antiquated techniques at any time in history. That suggests a certain type of architecture, it doesn't prove the time in which it was built. Having limited resources in a new area might lead one to use antiquated techniques from a simpler time. A personal example of this would be when I have a hyperthermic patient. Hospitals have cooling blankets for this problem, but a simple solution (when Tylenol doesn't work) is to put ice packs in the axilla and groin and cover the patient with a wet sheet. Water conducts heat much faster than air, and it works most of the time (assuming the temp isn't neuro related). It is an old technique that I use all the time.
Also, if John Dee did create the thing, he was into geometry, mathematics, and astronomy - just like the guy who built the Chesterton windmill. Maybe they were both Templars or Freemasons (secretly). Even if they weren't, having a working knowledge of those subject matters could lead two different people in two different areas to create two similar structures. Just like any ancient people who had knowledge of astronomy used swirls to indicate certain types of celestial bodies. They didn't have contact with each other, but understood the same basic principles and therefore created similar symbols.
What I don't understand is why Wolter completely left out Penhallow's discoveries of the astronomical significance of the site. Maybe he wanted to present the theory as his own original thought, but it has been thought of before, and might have strengthened his argument.

Kent
2/24/2023 11:09:28 pm

@ "William M Smith": "The only tool available to measure true north and magnetic north at the same time was a lodestone compass."

Yet another wrong statement.

William M Smith
3/10/2013 02:58:08 pm

In the oldest drawing of the Newport Tower, I think about 1650 the tower looks like it stands today. In that photo one is looking to the south west according to the two small openings on the north side. The ships are to the west or in the Bay. If you look beyond the tower you will see a round roof barn and a very large house on the east side of the photo. It does not show the Atlantic which is less than 1/4 mile east. In all the items from the Godfrey dig inside the tower only about 10 square nails were found. Their were no two alike. When I took the 100 plus photos of the artifacts and placed them in one of 4 structures (church, mill, smoke house, water tower) I found that the smoke house for commercial fish processing and tobacco and pipe manufacturing would only all fit the smoke house use. If you remove the smoke house theory you must explain the 5 bone handled knifes, the hand held iron barrel stay tool, the fish hooks, the meat cleaver, the cod fish bones, the broken clay pipe bowls with no stain, in one of the remaining choices. Each of the three main second floor windows have different construction to fit its function. The east window just north of the two flu fire place could be for adding wood chips to the shallow fire place which is above the floor. The groves in the sill could be for sliding doors to regulate air. The south window is tapered on its outer edges to allow maximum light into the structure and the packing area to the west of this window. This window is also to the east in order to maintain a north south alignment with the east edge ot the north tower leg. The west window is also tapered on the outside to allow maximum light. It has a archway upper sill to aid in supporting the load generated from the lift aid yard arm directly above this window. I would not be to shocked to find blue prints of this structure in the Azores or Portugal.

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Gareth
3/10/2013 11:04:22 pm

But they're 17th century (and later) fish hooks, clay pipes, etc. None of them is 15th century. How do the numbers of these items found relate to the numbers found at other digs of 17th century domestic / industrial sites in or near Newport? I'd like to suggest they aren't remarkable (and bear in mind that the city authorities, in landscaping the park in the late 19th century, moved soil (and associated artefacts) round in large quantities, bringing material in from elsewhere.

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Gareth
3/10/2013 11:24:28 pm

I assume you must mean this painting:
http://www.chronognostic.org/pdf/Tower_painting_1777x.pdf
Which is attributed to c.1770, not 1650. (In artistic terms, it's actually likely to be quite a bit later than that.)
It certainly is not (in fact, on grounds of artistic technique, details of the costumes, etc etc, cannot possibly be) anywhere near as early as you are claiming.

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William M Smith
3/11/2013 04:35:39 am

Gareth - Thanks for posting the picture and date. If it was 1770 or any other date it seems to be the oldest drawing of the structure. It also brings up many other questions which makes one wonder if the story of solders staying in the tower and powder being stored during the revolution war. I see no evidence of a roof or atrium in the drawing which one would think would be present if it was used for living quarters.
The builders triangle stone at the top of the tower 17 degrees west of true north would have been covered with exterior plaster, however pieces of this plaster indicate it was no more than 0ne in. thick (Measured on inside plaster on north west wall on 1st. floor). This indicates that it is totally conceivable that all the important stones the builder wanted to show could have been left plaster free. Their are about 8 white stones in the tower, however they seem to have no significant location. I can say that the triangle stone which I find as significant was placed at its location before the stones were placed on each side because of the practice of laying stones in a specific order. I do not have a drawing of the reported marks in the lower sill of the south window, however other researchers have told me they look like alignment marks. This may confirm or dismiss the builders alignment mark. I would be glad to work with someone to obtain a photo of the lower sill in the south window.

Lisa C
3/11/2013 01:25:36 am

Jason,

In response to your post about the various types of homes built at the time, please remember that in the 1630s the homes in the New World were not as provincial as you would think. As a matter of fact, at that exact same time, very "modern" all brick homes were being built in Jamestowne, VA - not all that far away.
In Old San Juan, PR (which I have recently visited), the buildings date to the 1530s (100 years earlier than Newport) and are spectacular. In St. Augustine, FL (which I visited last year) the houses date to the 1560s, and are also quite amazing.
Where I currently am in MA, they are many houses in good condition dating to the 1600s. And they are all throughout New England. Actually, see for yourself. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_oldest_buildings_in_the_United_States
As I stated in my last comment, you can use antiquated building techniques at any time in history, so having nicer houses in the New World doesn't necessarily mean anything; but at the time, the Tower would have looked quite provincial in comparison with nearby structures.
To make a more closely comparable comparison (I love alliteration) here is a house in Dedham, MA (further inland and less settled at the time that Newport was first inhabited). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fairbanks_house_dedham.jpg
It was built in the 1630s. Look at the stone work in the chimney. They were already making and using bricks in the colonies at the time. The quality of work that could be had was must higher than the Tower would suggest. I still hold to my statement about it looking much older, considering the advances of the times. Either that, or someone using older techniques did it. But, lack of resources of that type wouldn't have been a problem. Just FYI.

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Gareth
3/11/2013 01:34:19 am

The tower was plastered, externally as well as internally. So its appearance when complete would have been much more regular and "smart" than it looks today.

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Lisa C.
3/11/2013 02:22:14 am

If that is true (and I'm not saying it is/isn't), then would the "magnetic north" stone have been covered? I'm trying to determine if I think that stone is significant or coincidence.

Jason Colavito link
3/11/2013 02:23:07 am

As Gareth said, the Tower was originally plastered. As a general rule, but especially for utilitarian structures, you don't put too much time into making beautiful parts not meant to be seen.

That said, the peoples of the Middle Ages were fully capable of beautiful stonework, too, so ugly masonry doesn't automatically indicate anything medieval.

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T.
3/11/2013 03:27:45 pm

There's nothing significant about the cumberlandite, or the "egg shaped" stone or the notches in the keystone, nor connections to Templars or the statue of liberty or freemasons or Christianity or astronomical alignments. Use your heads, people. For all the cod fish bones and ells and all the other crap that can be thrown out and rebutted for no reason IT'S A WINDMILL,STUPID!

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B L
3/11/2013 03:20:42 am

The Cumberlandite and the egg stone both would have been covered by plaster. The Cumberlandite has to be coincidence, right? Even Scott Wolter wasn't able to put forth any ideas as to why it was placed in that particular spot or what it would have been used for. This in spite of the mineral being supremely important (in his imagination) to the supposed builders.

I'm sure if a stone structure were built in the same time period in Hawaii we would find a few volcanic rocks in the walls.

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Christopher Randolph
3/11/2013 03:57:40 am

I didn't see this episode yet. We don't need to get past the title "America's Oldest Secret" to realize that the assumption is that nobody and nothing of note was on the continent worthy of study before Europeans got here. You'd think America's oldest secret might have been generated by people who were on the continent several thousands of years earlier... unless of course they simply aren't 'people.'

I asked a question in a previous thread that Jason has also asked - are these mysterious remnants of ancient Europeans also all over Canada? They seem to cluster in God's Chosen America. It's amazing how before there was a border, the Templars and such just knew which side of the Minnesota border would be favored by the Lord...

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The Other J.
3/11/2013 07:45:57 pm

Re. Canada: That's a really good question. The only such mystery I know of off the top of my woolly head is the Oak Island mystery of Nova Scotia. It's sort of a bottomless mine that no one knows who built or what for. It's about 300 years old (or far older, if you swing that way), is linked to pirates and Freemasons, there are stone tablets drug out of the pit with coded symbols on them (which should make it a perfect Wolter job), and it's even been featured on Ancient Aliens.

I don't know enough to give you much more, but it's at least one for the Canadia Unearthed sister show.

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Gunn Sinclair link
3/11/2013 05:11:39 am

Mr. Smith, I visited the tower last summer and took many, many photos from all angles. After posting this comment, I will go back and reduce down some of them and build a new tower page. Wait at least a few hours. www.hallmarkemporium.com I took photos with a telephoto lens and even have closeups of two sets of initials carved into the tower...one set of initials appear to be quite aged.

Christopher, some people think it is possible that a group would want to begin a new settlement (or nation) from the center of a newly-discovered continent, rather than from a particular shore. It looks to me like a people with exactitude in mind may have wanted to settle into the very heart of North America...which just barely excluded Canada. Did Templars try to create a new nation from within, and fail, but then their heirs-apparent succeed a few hundred years later? Freemasons on the East Coast...Jefferson, Washington, Franklin, etc.? Maybe. Maybe not, but it is a legitimate consideration, considering the Kensington Runestone and the abundance of evidences to be found in areas of MN and SD. Scandinavians in SD is also a good explanation for the later Mandans in ND.

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Christopher Randolph
3/11/2013 05:38:07 am

"some people think"

Translation: you think.

"that a group would want to begin a new settlement (or nation) from the center of a newly-discovered continent, rather than from a particular shore"

That's just mind-bogglingly stupid at a number of levels. Aside from practical difficulties, you'd need to explain how anyone would know where the middle of the continent was.

Plus we know that Vikings DID settle on the coast and Wolter and others DO claim that Templars et al. were on the coasts. You're just making things up as you go along, and with a memory for your own claims too poor to be up to the task.

More likely you're seeing ancient artifacts where you live because you really want to believe in ancient artifacts (just so long as they aren't Native American we understand, phooey!) and... that's where you live.

" It looks to me like a people with exactitude in mind may have wanted to settle into the very heart of North America...which just barely excluded Canada."

The geographical center of N America is at Rugby, ND which is less than 50 miles from the Canadian border. Yet somehow magically all of the Christian and/or Nordic settlers are ending up on this side of said border. Amazing.

The question to ask is why Canadians don't seem all pumped up to find "Canada Unearthed." That has everything to do with national mythology and nothing to do with what actually happened.

"Did Templars try to create a new nation from within, and fail, but then their heirs-apparent succeed a few hundred years later?"

No.

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John J. McKay link
3/11/2013 06:20:20 pm

To start with, let me offer my "here, here" to Christopher Randolph's question of your use of "some people think." Who? Name names. How hard is that? Let us check your sources. This is the core of real history.

Assume there was a group that wanted to colonize the continent from the center. Unless they had towers on the north, south, and west sides of the continent how would they know where the center was? How did they even know where to put their towers? If they only wanted to be away from the coast and didn't care about exactitude, why did they care about the first tower?

Do you know anything about the Freemasonry of the founding father's generation? It's an easy deus ex machina behind which to hide many conspiracy theories, but do you know anything about what they really believed? Do you know anything at all about Masonic beliefs, rituals, and history?

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Gunn Sinclair link
3/11/2013 08:56:41 am

William M. Smith, I published my photos of Newport Tower at www.hallmarkemporium.com. I believe you may find the opening you are looking for in one of the photos. That one set of initials looks quite old...its on the inside, quite far up. As a return favor, perhaps you wouldn't mind explaining to Opher how 14th century explorers went about finding pretty close to the center of North America.

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Kevin C.
3/11/2013 10:59:07 am

I watch this show out of what I can only figure is intellectual masochism, and it's obvious that we have a first-class fraud and huckster on our hands. I get furious every time I hear one of Wolter's 'straw man' statements about academics or unreferenced passive tense assertions (this stone was called the 'stone of Venus', etc- by whom?!). What's worse, he's a bully as well.. he has less tolerance for other people's research than the boogey-man academics he's constantly referencing. Thank you for this blog, I was beginning to think I was the only person out there infuriated by Mr. Wolter's pseudo-archeology.

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The Other J.
3/11/2013 07:54:50 pm

"I watch this show out of what I can only figure is intellectual masochism."

Yes! I'm nearly positive that's why I watch it as well -- intellectual masochists tuning in to an intellectual sadist for a weird fix. But there's one redeeming thing to be taken from the show: It's an exercise in dissecting and deciphering bad arguments and faulty logic.

I'm considering writing Wolter with information about the porthole window in my last apartment's bathroom. Turns out you can see Venus from it. In fact, Venus will reflect off the vanity mirror, and if you open it to a 33 degree angle, that reflection will bounce off the main mirror and shine into the shower -- where I did my ritual cleansing. What's more, it's just below Monticello, where Thomas Jefferson lived, so it can't be a coincidence.

I want definitive archaeoastronomical proof that Templars built my apartment. Or at least my bathroom.

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Sean
3/12/2013 04:10:49 am

Well played. You should be getting the call about appearing on season 2 any minute now.

Americanegro
12/30/2016 08:19:16 pm

Kevin C.,

Having read many if not most of the Comments sections on Wolter's site I think your assessment of him as a bully is spot-on. He thinks up is down and black is white and if you disagree with him (really I mean "point out he is wrong") then suddenly you're part of the vast academia conspiracy that is constantly operating against him. If I were a praying person I would pray for him to die in a car crash. He's that disagreeable. I have a theory about why he's wound so tight, but I'll just leave it in the closet and keep it on the downlow for now.

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RLewis
3/11/2013 02:13:34 pm

Jason, I have a general question that relates to several episodes. Why would any early explorers - having survived an incredible journey across a vast ocean (or at least far from their homeland) - immediately continue their trek deep into the unknown territory to establish settlements in mid-America (Oklahoma, Minnesota, etc)? Would they not first try to settle the coasts? It took the colonists decades to venture more than a few hundred miles from the shore.
When the first explorers found Iceland and Greenland, are there any examples of them setting up house in the middle of the country before the more obvious coastline?

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John J. McKay link
3/11/2013 04:13:53 pm

You make an excellent point. It makes no sense to say the colonists would have bypassed so many good places to settle. As far as I know there is no precedent for it. And it would have been very difficult to do.

Take the example of the chiseled marks in Colorado that Wolter claims are Celtic Ogham runes. To get from the British Isles, the settlers would have had to cross the North Atlantic; sail around Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and Cape Cod; cruise down the East Coast of the US; round Florida; sail west across the Gulf Coast; find the main channel of the Mississippi in its delta; sail up river; pick a western tributary; follow it to its source; carve a few lines of badly written inscriptions into some rocks; and vanish? Oh, and, for most of the voyage, they were sailing against the current. It would have been far more likely for Southeastern Indians to follow the Gulf Current northeast and colonize Europe.

The AU crowd will say that's a strawman parody of their claims. Maybe the voyage took years with the colonists stopping every so often. Maybe it took over a generation with them actually settling for a time here and there. There are two problems with this. The best objection is your logical one: why keep going on? If they did find a place to settle for a few years, why would they pick up and keep wandering around the continent?

The second is the evidence problem. There is none. Grant them the Newport tower and that icehouse thingy and there still isn't remotely enough evidence. If we say the ancient Welsh made the voyage and took hundreds of years to get to Colorado, then there should be evidence along the whole route, not just two stone structures and some rune marks over a thousand miles away (as the crow flies). If these people took a long time to get to Colorado, there should be runes all over the place. Accept every questionable claim and there still isn't enough evidence for a slow migration. Why didn't they build more towers? If they were experienced stone masons, why aren't there remains of whole villages? It doesn't have to be stone buildings, but there should be some foundations. If the tower was important, shouldn't there be one everywhere they stopped? If the tower was not important, why did they waste the labor to build the first one? So much for the Welsh kings theory. The problem is even worse for the fast moving Templars theory. Once again, why did they keep going? Why did they only build one tower? Why isn't there evidence of a town there?

Finally, I have a problem with their food supply. Why did they go to Colorado, a high, dry climate where their familiar style of agriculture would have been impossible? Did they really sail off to the new world, pass dozens of good places to settle, and trek into the middle of the continent to a completely alien climate, with no idea of what they were going to eat when they got there? When the Norse moved to Iceland and Greenland, they brought farm animals and grain with them. When the English and French arrived in the sixteenth century, why didn't they find wild oats and feral dairy cows.

I love the idea of lost colonies and far traveling adventurers. The Roman lost legion arriving in China or the lost tribes of Israel riding elephants to Finland make wonderful stories, but, without evidence, they're just fun stories.

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RLewis
3/12/2013 10:18:31 am

Why Colorado? It's well known the Templars were avid skiers. Haven't you noticed that when you cross your skis they make an X?

Christopher Randolph
3/11/2013 04:16:02 pm

There aren't people in the center of Greenland to this day, not surprising owing to the glacial cover and general conditions. More to the point there are hardly any people at all living inland in Iceland to this day, 1000 years later. The overwhelming majority of central Iceland is as habitable as the rest of the island (there is a bit of glacial cover). The primary highway in Iceland is the "Ring Road," which as the name suggests makes a large circle around the perimeter of the island, where the Norse descendants actually live.

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The Other J.
3/11/2013 08:03:48 pm

Not that I buy into the theories, but I could see some adventurous Vikings sailing from the Atlantic up the St. Lawrence River to Lake Ontario, and from there finding their way over to Lake Huron, which links up with Lake Superior. I don't know why they would travel from the coast down into humid, mosquito-ridden, rocky northern Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota -- I guess that's for the Freemasons to explain, or the Cathars, or the Sons of Knut.

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RLewis
3/12/2013 05:30:36 am

Note that my original remark was meant more to question Settlers not Explorers. There are records of multiple explorations of the North America interior before permanent (European) settlements were established. I agree that an adventurous Viking would, eventually, want to explore further - but it seems reasonable that they would want/need to establish a base-camp of sorts to logistically support expansion

The Other J.
3/12/2013 10:09:42 am

Yep, no argument here. Just brainstorming how people with notoriously awesome seaworthy boats with a shallow draft for river excursions might actually make it to the interior in the first place. But no doubt, there would be encampments along the way leaving a trail of where they'd been. If they had gone into the interior, we should have found more L'Anse aux Meadows'.

John Milton
3/11/2013 04:04:10 pm

Jason, GREAT SITE. I can't stand Wolter's drivel. Because I'm new to your site I would like to thank you for your time and research. It is refreshing to find someone who looks for truth and knows what the scientific method is. Wolter rejects it - he just makes unfounded statements and if you don't agree with him, your are part of the conspiracy aginst him

Your site has knowledgable commenters and I'll leave you with a simple observation or two.

If the Newport Tower predates Columbus where are the notations or comments about it in the documents of that era???

I believe the "History Channel" should knock of the first two letters and become the "Story Channel". It would be closer to the truth.

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The Other J.
3/11/2013 08:06:53 pm

Loved your book, but wonder if it really needed a sequel.

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Jason Colavito link
3/12/2013 06:21:56 am

Thank you for the compliment!

>>If the Newport Tower predates Columbus where are the notations or comments about it in the documents of that era???

They're written in Ogham in Anubis Cave.

(Note: Yes, that's a joke.)

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John Milton
3/12/2013 08:47:08 am

We would have something if that was true. Perhaps I wasn't clear in the previous post. If the tower predates Columbus it was there when the early colonists arrived. Why was there no reference to it in the letters and documents of that time period prior to the governor's will. One would believe a structure of that size would warrant some mention or notation if for nothing else than the history of the area, from the earliest colonists documents. I may have some of the facts wrong but my impression was molded from the understanding that the will was the first mention of the structure in any documents. Which surely indicates the governor as its builder. Hope this is clear.

Jason Colavito link
3/12/2013 09:20:05 am

I was making a joke about the claims made for Anubis Cave in Oklahoma on an earlier episode of the show. You are correct that there is no earlier mention of the tower than Gov. Arnold's will, where he implicates himself as the builder.

C.C.
3/12/2013 02:28:30 am

Didn't I hear Wolter say that the Venus alignment would be at 22 degrees? When he put the compass up and looked at it he stated that the line of site was 25 or 26 degrees to the niche....so didn't this disprove the Venus alignment theory in and of its self? I couldn't believe they still put the lasers up to make the X....It's an obsession with the guy ,these so called mystic symbols,ironically they are all connected to some sexual fertility nonsense ,so maybe that's the real agenda to spread the ancient secret that mankind has been obsessed with sexuality for eons.....hee hee

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RLewis
3/12/2013 05:40:44 am

Jason, have you had a chance to personally meet Wolter (I know you have exchanged some e-mails)? Does he really, really believe all this stuff? I mean, is he delusional to where he believes his own lies, or is he simply playing to the crowd and twisting facts to spin a good yarn for entertainment sake (i.e. just to make a buck)?

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Jason Colavito link
3/12/2013 06:20:20 am

I have never spoken to him in person, but from everything I've heard from many people who have, he is apparently genuinely convinced that he has discovered the Templar secret behind ancient America.

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Cathleen Anderson
3/13/2013 11:39:18 am

Yep. He will find it in or near one of the masonic temples in either Minneapolis or St. Paul in Minnesota.

Dewayne Guthrie
3/14/2013 06:09:09 am

You are a typical QUACK-a-demic, you think you have it all figured out, but are just a paid lackey boy of a corrupted system. REAL diffusionist scholars like Barry Fell would piss on you from his grave.

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Christopher Randolph
3/21/2013 05:37:26 pm

I think one of the things academics have figured out is that bodily functions tend to taper off some in the grave.

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Oregon Coast Historian link
3/15/2013 05:50:18 pm

thank you for publishing this. While i'm intrigued by this America Unearthed program, it also kind'a makes me angry with its oh-so-obvious hype and exaggeration, and god only knows what it leaves out. It's like Ghost Hunters or Conspiracy Files for misguided historian-types. Thanks....

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Dan Richardson
3/15/2013 09:11:05 pm

Tilting At Windmills

I get a certain kick out of watching Mr. Wolter get all excited about the goofiest notions, then coming to web-sites like this to learn the real story as best as it is known. This "Oldest Secret" episode shows how far both Wolter and the History Channel have dipped into ignorance. I hope it's not too snarky but I usually feel that Wolter is a jackass. But in this episode it occurs to me he is riding a jackass, carrying a rusty sword and is Tilting At Windmills (the lame stream academics), instead of understanding them.

Fuzzy Dan

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Cathleen Anderson
3/15/2013 07:02:42 pm

There is an article from 1999 by a Dr. Manuel de Silva that can be found in the Newport Library.

http://www.dightonrock.com/portuguese_tower_of_newport.htm

If this guy is correct about the tower, Scott Wolter would still be wrong because the Portuguese order that followed after the Portuguese Templars aren't Wolters' Templars. Although this would still mean a connection, just not one Wolters would want.

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Jim Egan link
3/16/2013 03:26:28 pm


Dear Jason and all,

I've enjoyed reading your opinions about "America's Oldest Secret" and the Newport Tower. That show, for all its nonsensicalness and non-sequiturs has sparked an interest in this incredibly important structure.

This is a quote from Jason's introduction

“He [Wolter] meets with one such academic, Jim Egan, the curator of the Newport Tower Museum. Egan does not believe that the tower was a windmill; instead, he thinks it is the first English structure in Rhode Island, built just before 1600 and later converted into a windmill, based, again, on the fact that it simply doesn’t look like a windmill to him. He believes that Dr. John Dee planned a secret colony for Rhode Island, that the Tower was its first building, and that the colony failed, leaving behind, conveniently, no trace of its existence archaeologically or historically. In fact, Egan produced a video naming the tower the “John Dee Tower of 1583,” for which there is not the slightest hint of solid evidence.


I would respectfully like to disagree with several of the points you have made here.

First off, I am not an academic, I have been a professional photographer for 40 years. I've studied the Tower for over 25 years, written 12 books on the subject, produced 20 videos, and opened the Newport Tower Museum. Over the past three years I've explained my research to over 2000 people from practically every state in the country and most of the countries in Europe.

Secondly, you suggest that I think the tower was converted into a windmill. Let me be clear. I don’t think this tower was built as a windmill, or that it was ever converted into a windmill.

Thirdly, I think it's misleading to refer to John Dee as Dr. John Dee. He was not a medical doctor. He was an expert on Euclidean geometry, mathematics, astronomy, optics, navigation, cartography, history theology, and Vitruvian architecture. He wrote over 40 books and had a library of 4000 books, the largest in Elizabethan England

When you claim that there is "no trace of its existence archaeologically or historically" and that Jim Egan has "not the slightest hint of solid evidence" for naming the tower the "John Dee Tower 1583," I can only think that you haven't read my thesis, listened to my videos, or been to the Newport Tower Museum.

You are however absolutely correct that I do not provide any evidence of my thesis during that bizarre episode of "America's Oldest Secret."Most all of my erudite rebuttals to Scott Wolter’s absurd conjectures ended up on the cutting room floor.

As we sat on the park bench I explained to Scott that the drawing on the Mercator map of 1569 was a depiction of the (well known) mythical town of Norumbega, which is 90 miles up the Hudson. What is now Narragansett Bay is clearly marked on the Mercator map, just north of the triangular island of Claudia. Furthermore, both Norumbega and Claudia appear on John Dee’s 1580 map of North America. John Dee and Gerard Mercator were inseparable friends when they were both studying under the renowned astronomer Gemma Frisuis in the Louvain, Netherlands. That never made it in the show.

Much of my work is based on the pioneering research done by William Penhallow, Professor Emeritus in Astronomy and Physics from the University of Rhode Island. In the early 1990s, he found numerous astronomical alignments in the Tower, and as a professional photographer, I photo-documented what he had predicted in his published papers.
I was astounded by astronomy incorporated in the Tower. It's hard to appreciate if you haven't closely studied the architectural clues that can still be seen today.There are alignments with the North Star, the Moon at Lunar Minor, and the Sun at each of the Solstices and at the Equinoxes. The Tower is a "horologium," a building which keeps track of time. The interior of the tower acted like a camera-obscura solar-disc calendar-room. (I have replicated this kind of a room in my Museum, at 152 Mill Street just 50 steps northeast of the Tower.)

I showed Scott Wolter these alignments and not only did he “borrow” them to support his Templar Thesis, he botched a wonderful opportunity to share the depth of Penhallow’s amazing discoveries on National TV.

For example, in the winter of 2000, I was photographing Penhallow’s discovery that sunlight passes through two of the three windows in the Tower. This event only happens just after sunrise, on or around the Winter Solstice, and no other time of year. I got some great shots of the event, which only lasts about 20 minutes, and decided to hang around to observe if anything else happened. At around 9:00 AM, I noticed that "egg-shaped rock" being illuminated by a box of light shining through the South window.

Scott saw my photographs during a slide show I presented at the Newport Tower Symposium sponsored by the New England Antiquities Research Association at the Newport Art Museum. He asked

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Jason Colavito link
3/17/2013 12:33:54 am

Jim--thank you for writing. Your entire post did not make into the comments because of the word limit. If you would like to email me your thoughts, I will post them in their entirety.

A couple of thoughts spring to mind--First, I don't see how these alignments prove anything about John Dee; and you're right that I haven't read your thesis since I was reviewing this episode's claims, not yours. Can you point to any physical evidence for John Dee? So far as I can tell from reading your website, your only evidence is the assumption that the alignments you found at the Tower are intentional and that only John Dee could have planned them because only he knew of the camera obscura. Even on that level, I can't agree since Roger Bacon is known to have used a camera obscura in the 13th century, with knowledge of it in the West dating back to Aristotle.

Second--is there any actual significance to the sun hitting the egg rock at 9 AM? So far as I am aware 9 AM is not a significant time of day for any religious or cult group, most of whom cared more for sunrise, noon, and sunset. Absent significance, this looks like coincidence.

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Dick Anderson
3/21/2013 05:03:59 pm

While anyone can lay stones anyway they like, the stone pattern of the tower appears to be Saxon, which means it could have been built any time between 750CE and 1700CE. It does contain a keystone and a keystone symbol, which is a Masonic construct. But before we all go running off into the woods, let's remember that the Masons use the Abydos Passion Play in their rituals, but that doesn't mean Egyptians built the tower, either. What all of this may well mean, however, is that there is far more cross-culturalization than was previously thought. Isolation is a common misconception among many non-digger archaeologists.

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Marie Carter
4/1/2013 08:32:15 pm

Thank you Jason! You are a breath of fresh air. It is rather obvious that Wolter is just another hack trying to make a buck out of the worn out Templars and Mary Magdalene 'theory'. Note I have 'theory' in quotes, because it is nothing but pure fabrication, a modern invented fairytale, a hoax.

Considering the current direction his 'discoveries' are taking, I am sure, Wolter will have a segment in the future, that digs up old Leonardo da Vinci, one of the so-called primary 'sources' behind poor old Mary Magdalene and Templar theories.

To beat Wolter to the punch, let's review the painting: the grouping is in threes, a well known artistic composition device. The Last Supper had no wine cups on the table because a) Leonardo didn't get around to painting them yet, or b) because Leo was painting the Catholic mass showing the participants as Jesus and his apostles, and only priests drink the wine, so there are no wine cups (No, Jesus is not shown as the wine-drinking priest in this scenario, for a reason). Why is the Catholic Church so obsessed with the mass? Because Jesus 'last supper', symbolized the Jewish 'last banquet' which was/is to take place at the end of time.

Then there is the ceiling...which reinforces the connection to the end of time symbolism. But enough said.

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Dan
5/4/2013 11:17:32 am

A well thought out rebuttle to the History Channels lame attempt to allow some wacko wanna be Indiana Jones the opportunity to uneducate the people of America. Enough with the conspiracy theories, we all know that aliens built it!

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JAMDFH
7/13/2013 05:04:30 am

It's not a windmill! It's a 'well built' windmill exhibited by the fact that its still standing! Mystery solved!

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Jeff Samin
8/27/2013 01:05:36 pm

This Wolter guy has as much credibility as Mr. Peabody on the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show (Peabody's Improbable History) I am very disappointed in H2 for allowing this garbage to be aired. They would be much better served to hire people like you to de-bunk these myths, rather than creating them.

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Steve link
11/4/2015 08:01:32 pm

Don't even argue with the nongs.
What it is, is obvious by both documentary evidence, and as is directly implied to all but the dimwitted and terminally stupid, by its overt and pragmatic design.
It is obviously, judging by the lightness of materials and it aerodynamic virtues, the best surviving examples of man's early attempts at "lighter than air" travel, and powered space flight left to posterity.The exhilaration they must have felt strapping themselves into that obviously "designed for flight, speed and the obvious worship of arbitrary Venus rocks" baby must have filled them with the Pride only generations of inbreeding can instill . It only looks like a Windmill because once it had left the Earth's atmosphere, it had to be Flour propelled, employing powder explosions 240,000 miles, all the way to the Moon. They aspired to corner and monopolise the green cheese market, as it is written in the Historic document, Benjamin Franklin's "Everybody Wang Chun tonight", written shortly after he shorted circuited himself with 50,000,000 mega volts kite flying. This was backed up in Paul Reveres famous 1200 page book, Spoons and how to use them.
Sheeeek, am I the only logical guy here?
That location would not have been optimal for a Windmill much right :\...... (Oh Brother) not much wind there :\ dribble dribble.........SLAP!!! repeat after me WINDMILL......SLAPPPPPP!!!! repeat after me W....I...N...D....M...I....L....L. .
Now, all by yourselves WINDMILL. Very good.
How embarrassing for the children of those that cannot grasp the simple and plainly obvious, to then substitute this, with the "Kiffact principle" (Keep it far fetched and complicated twatbreath) and the greatest pile of Horse shit since Secretariat discovered "All Bran".
We as a species are in dire trouble.
Its really quite sad and frightening.

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Jeff Samin
12/30/2016 08:57:16 pm

It is still mind-boggling that History Channel continued to air the garbage spewed forth by this charlatan for three seasons. This is a true testament to the gullibility of the viewers. The only positive is that it does help to explain how Donald Trump got elected. Some Americans will believe anything that anybody tells them without any regard for the truth.

Brent
10/2/2013 07:20:52 am

Jason, you seem to have done a good job with historical research on this topic. I found your post to have about ten times more academic merit than the original show.

I'll admit that at first glance the shape seems too elaborate to be a simple mill. Why go to all the trouble of raising it up on arched columns? This is not really an architectural decision but one of aerodynamics. If you have a solid structure then the blade will pass into a zone where the wind is blocked by the building. This allows the blade to spring back towards the wind. Then the blade is flexed in the opposite direction as it again takes the force of the wind. At certain frequencies, this flexing will be harmonic and will cause the blades to fatigue and fail. To stop the flexing, you only need to allow wind to flow through about one third of the outer tip of the sail. The arches would do that.

Jim Egan, I do feel that you have more integrity than the producers of the show. However, I don't understand how the upper windows could be viewed as intentional, astronomical apertures. They are much too large and rectangular in shape. Apertures that I have seen are round and much smaller. Also, the illumination of an egg shaped stone during the Winter Solstice would be quite a blunder since it was the Vernal Equinox that was actually associated with Easter. If this was intended to keep time then why doesn't it have a domed roof? Where are the meridian lines? Where is the sundial? You can see items like this on the Strasbourg Cathedral all dating before 1400. These functions were neither rare nor mysterious.

If the building was intended as a mill then it makes sense that it did not have a domed roof since the top would need to rotate to make the blades face into the wind. This rotating section could not have been a permanent part of the building.

Reply
Charlie Devine
1/3/2014 03:47:48 am

Cumberlandite was actually found during the 2006 dig at the tower. It was tentatively ID 'd as a meteorite. However, the chemical analysis performed at Arizona State University indicated it was terrestrial with a Titanium content. That tells me the sample recovered was Cumberlandite, which is a Titanium ore, but economically unfeasable to mine and extract. Cumberlandite is already present in Newport, no need to look for it on Prudence a island. As a geologist, Wolter should know Cumberlandite is distributed as a glacial boulder train from it's source at Iron Mine Hill in Cumberland south to Martha's Vineyard. In addition, Wolter stated it is only formed in Cumberland, RI. Again, a geologist should know better. It only outcrops on the surface of the Earth at Iron Mine Hill. It is formed elsewhere and present in deep core samples from Canada. In addition, may we ask how a rock that only outcrops on one place on Earth, Cumberland, RI, ever became known as the Venus Stone by the Templars in the first place? There is a lack of logic in the reasoning there.

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Charlie Devine
1/3/2014 03:51:13 am

In other words, it was the New Age that applied the term "Venus Stone" to Cumberlandite. I think we can safely state the New Age movement significantly post dates the Knights Templar!

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Josey Wales
1/3/2014 03:53:05 pm

It doesn't make a lot of sense for people to come to Newport, Rhode Island and build a monument for making celestial observations during what weatherwise is the worst time of year. Also, there is absolutely no connection between cumberlandite and Venus. Wolter is a charlatan.

Reply
Joe
2/15/2014 12:55:16 pm

The guy is a geologist but seems to talk as if he's an expert on history and architecture. Besides the style of a structure is only useful in limiting how old it could be (known skills or techniques) but doesn't mean it couldn't have been built later. I could build a pyramid today but that won't make me an Egyptian.

Also he keeps referring to an ambulatory that would have surrounded the tower. But where's the ruins of that? If the rest of the tower is standing after 700 years then would stand to reason the rest would be intact if built from the same stone.

He's just reaching.

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Raphael link
4/14/2014 10:43:20 am

Clearly in all likelihood a windmill, for many reasons, archetypal and poetic, cosmic landmarks.

Read Hamlet's Mill by Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechen to understand why the windmill is the logical choice.

Reply
David Baeckelandt link
7/3/2014 02:43:57 am

Before you buy into the windmill theory you may wish to review the below: http://www.econ.ohio-state.edu/jhm/arch/vinland/newport.htm

Reply
Wisguy4
8/1/2014 09:42:21 am

Jason, you may want to proofread your review of this episode a bit better. You state that it has 8 arches, but I'm only counting 6. Also, you state that from the 1630s to the 1730s, no one doubted that this was a windmill. I don't think there is any evidence that this was built in the first two years of the colony and if the British colonists found it when they arrived in the Newport area in 1638, that would verify Wolter's claims that it was pre-colonial.



Reply
teedubya
10/9/2014 02:17:24 pm

This is a fantastic blog. I have enjoyed this discussion immensely! After catching this episode on amazon I just had to look into this. I didn't buy the hosts claims for a second but you all have convinced me. Everyone's got an opinion and as long as that's still allowed we will always debate mute points and unsolvable mysteries. Thank you all for entertaining me more than the show did. :)

Reply
Karl
12/27/2014 02:45:31 pm

I have to see this one just so can laugh at him funny how everything he goes looking for he always comes up short and most the time with the same stuff that was already know to any of us old enough to remembers the show In Search Of that said I have spent many a day and night at this place in many a form just pondering on it just about every Newporter has. I bet he didn't mention that at the time when this was built the waterfront was much closer then it is now at that it was built on a hill above a spring or that Newport is really swampy everywhere after it rains as for Gov. Benedict Arnold he didn't build it tho he did claim it as his because it sat just above his house which is where he is buried not there I know they didn't mention that and this stone that y'all talk about is it that one white one that faces the mouth of the bay you can see it in the pic above I have always said it was a light house of sorts

Reply
karl
1/3/2015 08:13:11 am

http://thenewportblast.com/whats-going-to-happen-to-the-newport-tower-on-january-4th/

Reply
Chris
2/25/2015 04:02:41 am

You make a good argument, the only point I would like to make is that the Templars were indeed both devout Catholics as well as Gnostic Christians and as such they practiced numerology and believed in other dimensions; Baphomet was the balanced one who could traverse the various dimensions as he pleased. One thing about America Unearthed that has perplexed me also is how they keep attributing the pentagram to movement of Venus in the stars, but that might very well be true and have something to do with the historical meaning behind the pentagram, but as you probably know it is most commonly associated with Baphomet and this idea of "balance"...it also represents spiritual knowledge. I think he tiptoes around the Templars deification of Baphomet to stay within the realm of chivalrous knights akin to King Arthur. I would like him to elaborate on the fact that the Templars were wool industrialists (which he has mentioned) and how they were only allowed to wear wool clothes, so you can imagine how bad they smelled escapading across the middle eastern deserts. Also you can think of the homosexuality that they were accused of in the same light as modern Catholic Priests. About 200 years after the Templars originated there were so many scandals of the philandering variety amongst their ranks, that the church said, "you guys keep each other warm!" You know? Similar to how they forbade Priests to fornicate or marry at one point. But the Templars actually did hold each other on those cold desert nights...You know kind of like in the same tradition as Spartans partook in man love while at war. The Templars simply told their guys to hold each other, but then that leaves people wondering just how far it went.

Reply
Johnnyhotcakes
12/19/2015 04:57:07 pm

A colonial date makes no sense. Colonials would have built a windmill using wood. Colonials would not have used arches. Colonials would have used English measurements to build the tower. We can agree that Arnold used it as a base for a windmill, but there is a lack of evidence that he built the tower. His will refers to his stone windmill but is there evidence of his building it? Indeed the evidence of attempts to strengthen the foundations belies the notion that the tower was built as a windmill as it is architecturally unsound as a base for a windmill. Is there a contract for the construction? Is there evidence of money paid for the many Mason's that were employed for the project? Why did Arnold build it and have it align with solar and lunar alignments? To incorporate such alignments would have to have been done for some purpose, what was Arnold's purpose? I don't know about Templars or the hooked X but I do know Colonial History and architecture. The Newport Tower does not fit with Colonial architecture. The Tower is a unique artifact, unlike anything constructed in Colonial America. Architecture tells me this was not built as a Colonial windmill.

Reply
Martin Courtenay-Blake
4/12/2016 03:24:43 pm

I'm from Scotland on the other side of the pond and have just wasted an hour of my valuable time watching the t.v documentary in question. I have to admit that I don't think I have seen such a complete load of garbage for a considerable period of time. As a supposed geologist I was amazed that he missed that Cumberlandite is only found on Rhode Island and then only at one location, with the exception of glacial erratics and odd lumps moved by locals over years. To me it looks like a late medieval / early colonial structure made of locally collected stones and lime mortar i.e. typical of so many utilitarian buildings found throughout Europe including here in the British Isles. If it was made by the Templars then it would have certainly been much grander and replete with mystical symbolism. For me it's a windmill, nothing more, nothing less. I don't think I'll subject myself to any more of this idiot's outlandish claims and his desperate attempt to 'prove' that the so called 'Holy Grail' is located somewhere in the US. I can only assume that he is on some kind of religious quest, in which case he won't let anything such as facts get in his way, or he's just trying to sell a load of rubbish books (although I can't imagine who would want to buy them).

Reply
Historian
4/13/2016 08:25:33 am

Amazingly, IMO, he asks that we accept his weathering studies seriously, claims other geologists support his testing method, yet his work appears in no peer review geological venue. At the same time, as a geologist he displays a complete lack of understanding of what Cumberlandite is, and it's distribution. His claim that the Templars knew Cumberlandite as "the Venus stone" is a product of his imagination alone. There is absolute zero historical evidence to support such a claim. None. I really am surprised he was willing to make a claim that is so easily dismissed as baseless.

Reply
John Marks
10/23/2016 11:20:14 am

I am 3 years late to the show, I am currently watching episodes on Netflix. So my apologies for the late posting.

I have read the various commentaries and blogs on what this structure can and cannot be. I personally have not been to see the structure at Newport nor have I read Scott Wolter's book. But what intrigues me is the audacity of the claims and conclusions drawn by the man that do not stand the test of common sense let alone scientific scrutiny.

1) He infers the Templars and Freemason laid out the foundation for a society that was the blue print used United States. This is drawn together by the shot of the Statue of Liberty holding the notched booked "for all to see". The fact remains that there was just as large, if not larger, contingent of Freemasons in the English Parliament and other seats of power that were opposed to the American rebellion (a rebellion from their view point) in 1776. So the assertion of the Freemason ideology was used by the Founding Fathers to form the US is ludicrous. It complete ignores the number of Freemasons who support Monarchies and other forms of government.

2) The notion that the notched keystone is unique is just as laughable. I am an engineer, albeit a telecommunication engineer. However, at my university all engineers had to take a two year common core of all engineering disciplines taught at the university. This gave me a good foundation in civil engineering. Arches of the type used in the Newport Tower all require a keystone. The basic idea is forces on the two curved sides balance one another out at the keystone. Additionally, the keystone also holds the whole arch in place. The keystone being held in place, in turn, by the load placed above it. The basic shape of a keystone must be a wedge with the narrow end pointed down. This can be seen in the basic shape of the "egg" stone and the "notched" stone. Ideally, a mason would chissel the keystone to make an exact fit to the stones on either side. However, where expertise in stone cutting is sparse or the rock particularly hard to cut, any wedge shape stone will do. Hence the "egg" stone". So there is nothing significant or profound about its shape; it is a wedge where a wedge was needed. The overall construction of the tower shows the builders were not particular about chiselling any of the rocks to fit perfectly together; mortar serving to fill the irregularities between the stones. The notched keystone may have or may not have been worked, but the important aspect is that it is a wedge shape not that it is notched. The book the Statue Of Liberty is holding is not wedged in any aspect. Any connection made solely on the notched appearance is an astronomical leap; the importance to any mason would be the wedge shape not the notches. Remember Freemasonry has in its foundations in actual masonry. The notches on the book do not even closely resemble ones on the stone.

3) Cumberlandite is found locally due to glacial movement from the nearby original source. Scott Wolter even states this. He asserts that Cumberlandite is placed in a significant location within the structure, It is located on one of the pillars. Unless his book reveals something else, it appears randomly placed along with any of the other rocks used. More so it would have covered over with plaster obscuring its location entirely. My question is this, If this stone was so significant and associated with Venus, why would it not be placed in one of the niches where the light of Venus would fall on it? Would this not be a more significant placement?

4) The X imagery supposedly formed by the crossing of the summer and winter solstice illuminations of Venus only occurs when viewed from a specific angle. This is supposed indicate that the tower was of Templar origin. When I was at the Mayan ruins of Tulum, Mexico, I was astounded how, to allow sun from the summer and winter solstices, to reach the appropriate temples, small holes were cut in all the buildings along the path and at the appropriate angle for the particular required time of day. I am sure if aligned myself just right within the city these too could form an X. Coincidence? I think not. It must have been time traveling Templars (sarcasm implied). Only the assertion the X was significant to the Templars would cause someone to see this as extraordinary; any two intersecting lines can be seen to form an X if viewed at the correct angle. Again another astronomical leap.

Reply
OldBackstop link
12/29/2017 11:13:15 am

I love this show for the comedic aspect, and how Scott doubles down on every piece of bad news. The point made above that any smartphone app could show the positioning of Venus had me yelling at my TV during the live airing. And after making this great fuss about Cumberlandite being in the Newport Tower when it was only found miles away, it is quietly muttered that it was spread around by glaciers and may have just been sitting at the site before construction began.

"You are a rock hound??" says Wolter to one guy after picking up a rock displayed in his living room. "This is cumberlandite !!!"

"Yeah, the guys says. "It's the state rock of Rhode Island."

I wish he had said Connecticut, which, as we all know, is an X or "Connect" marked with a hook or "cut" as it is know by Figi Islanders.

Reply
Historian
2/26/2023 08:01:39 am

As a geologist, Wolter probably(?) knew the Pleistocene involved continental glaciers, and the Tower was in a once glaciated landscape. He knew Cumberlandite outcropped only at Iron Mine Hill in Cumberland, RI. He might have inferred that glacial action resulted in Cumberlandite being found in Newport. He might even have learned about the glacially derived Cumberlandite boulder train. But no, why follow the path of least resistance where evidence is concerned? That, God forbid, resembles science. So, let’s put the Templars in Cumberland, RI, and let’s say they called Cumberlandite the Venus Stone. Uh huh….

Reply
Historian
2/26/2023 07:51:29 am

Mr. Smith: Kent is correct about cod: “ Atlantic cod reproduce through a behavior known as broadcast spawning, where females release eggs and males release sperm into the water column above the seafloor, at the same time.”. They do not mate for life…..

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        • Fictitious Discoveries in America
        • Against Diffusionism
        • Tunnels Under Peru
        • The Parahyba Inscription (Hoax)
        • Mound Builders
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      • Religious Conspiracies >
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        • Rosslyn Chapel and the 'Prentice's Pillar
        • The Many Wives of Jesus
        • Templar Infiltration of Labor
        • Louis Martin & the Holy Bloodline
        • The Life of St. Issa (Hoax)
        • On the Person of Jesus Christ
      • Giants in the Earth >
        • Fossil Origins of Myths >
          • Fossil Teeth and Bones of Elephants
          • Fossil Elephants
          • Fossil Bones of Teutobochus
          • Fossil Mammoths and Giants
          • Giants' Bones Dug Out of the Earth
          • Fossils and the Supernatural
          • Fossils, Myth, and Pseudo-History
          • Man During the Stone Age
          • Fossil Bones and Giants
          • American Elephant Myths
          • The Mammoth and the Flood
          • Fossils and Myth
          • Fossil Origin of the Cyclops
          • Mastodon, Mammoth, and Man
        • Fragments on Giants
        • Manichaean Book of Giants
        • Geoffrey on British Giants
        • Alfonso X's Hermetic History of Giants
        • Boccaccio and the Fossil 'Giant'
        • Book of Howth
        • Purchas His Pilgrimage
        • Edmond Temple's 1827 Giant Investigation
        • The Giants of Sardinia
        • Giants and the Sons of God
        • The Magnetism of Evil
        • Tertiary Giants
        • Smithsonian Giant Reports
        • Early American Giants
        • The Giant of Coahuila
        • Jewish Encyclopedia on Giants
        • Index of Giants
        • Newspaper Accounts of Giants
        • Lanier's A Book of Giants
      • Science and History >
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        • Crown Prince Rudolf on the Pyramids
        • Old Mythology in New Apparel
        • Blavatsky on Dinosaurs
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        • Devil Worship in France
        • Maspero's Review of Akhbar al-zaman
        • The Holy Grail as Lucifer's Crown Jewel
        • The Mutinous Sea
        • The Rock Wall of Rockwall
        • Fabulous Zoology
        • The Origins of Talos
        • Mexican Mythology
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        • Maqrizi's Names of the Pharaohs
      • Extreme History >
        • Roman Empire Hoax
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        • Historical Chronology of the Mexicans
        • Maspero on the Predynastic Sphinx
        • Vestiges of the Mayas
        • Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel
        • Origins of the Egyptian People
        • The Secret Doctrine >
          • Volume 1: Cosmogenesis
          • Volume 2: Anthropogenesis
        • Phoenicians in America
        • The Electric Ark
        • Traces of European Influence
        • Prince Henry Sinclair
        • Pyramid Prophecies
        • Templars of Ancient Mexico
        • Chronology and the "Riddle of the Sphinx"
        • The Faith of Ancient Egypt
        • Spirit of the Hour in Archaeology
        • Book of the Damned
        • Great Pyramid As Noah's Ark
        • Richard Shaver's Proofs
    • Alien Encounters >
      • US Government Ancient Astronaut Files >
        • Fortean Society and Columbus
        • Inquiry into Shaver and Palmer
        • The Skyfort Document
        • Whirling Wheels
        • Denver Ancient Astronaut Lecture
        • Soviet Search for Lemuria
        • Visitors from Outer Space
        • Unidentified Flying Objects (Abstract)
        • "Flying Saucers"? They're a Myth
        • UFO Hypothesis Survival Questions
        • Air Force Academy UFO Textbook
        • The Condon Report on Ancient Astronauts
        • Atlantis Discovery Telegrams
        • Ancient Astronaut Society Telegram
        • Noah's Ark Cables
        • The Von Daniken Letter
        • CIA Psychic Probe of Ancient Mars
        • Scott Wolter Lawsuit
        • UFOs in Ancient China
        • CIA Report on Noah's Ark
        • CIA Noah's Ark Memos
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      • Ancient Extraterrestrials >
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        • The Moon Hoax
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        • The Stanzas of Dzyan (Hoax)
        • Aerolites and Religion
        • What Is Theosophy?
        • Plane of Ether
        • The Adepts from Venus
      • A Message from Mars
      • Saucer Mystery Solved?
      • Orville Wright on UFOs
      • Interdimensional Flying Saucers
      • Flying Saucers Are Real
      • Report on UFOs
    • The Supernatural >
      • The Devils of Loudun
      • Sublime and Beautiful
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      • Religion and Evolution
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      • Defining a Zombie
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      • Science and Fairy Stories
      • The Cursed Car
    • Classic Fiction >
      • Lucian's True History
      • Some Words with a Mummy
      • The Coming Race
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      • An Inhabitant of Carcosa
      • The Xipéhuz
      • Lot No. 249
      • The Novel of the Black Seal
      • The Island of Doctor Moreau
      • Pharaoh's Curse
      • Edison's Conquest of Mars
      • The Lost Continent
      • Count Magnus
      • The Mysterious Stranger
      • The Wendigo
      • Sredni Vashtar
      • The Lost World
      • The Red One
      • H. P. Lovecraft >
        • Dagon
        • The Call of Cthulhu
        • History of the Necronomicon
        • At the Mountains of Madness
        • Lovecraft's Library in 1932
      • The Skeptical Poltergeist
      • The Corpse on the Grating
      • The Second Satellite
      • Queen of the Black Coast
      • A Martian Odyssey
    • Classic Genre Movies
    • Miscellaneous Documents >
      • The Balloon-Hoax
      • A Problem in Greek Ethics
      • The Migration of Symbols
      • The Gospel of Intensity
      • De Profundis
      • The Life and Death of Crown Prince Rudolf
      • The Bathtub Hoax
      • Crown Prince Rudolf's Letters
      • Position of Viking Women
      • Employment of Homosexuals
      • James Dean's Scrapbook
      • James Dean's Love Letters
      • The Amazing James Dean Hoax!
    • Free Classic Pseudohistory eBooks
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